This Was Christmas 4

Today marks a significant anniversary for me, an anniversary that is very difficult to talk about since not a lot of people would have a clue about how to relate to it.  This is probably one of the most important anniversaries of my life.  At this date forty-five years ago something happened that would change the course of my life, that would change me for my entire life and, dare I say, eternity?  The meaning, significance and solemnity of this date is such that I could not explain the impact it has had on my life to anyone in the Anglican Church, even though this is a decidedly Christian anniversary, if I should use this word.  Today marks the forty-fifth anniversary of my spiritual birthday.

That's right, Gentle Reader, I'm what is known in some circles as a "Born-Again Christian."

.... Are you done gnashing your teeth?.....

..... Here let me give you another few minutes for your blood pressure to normalize...... 

.....That's it, ....breath deeply....., slowly....., breath in...one...two...three...four...

.....now breathe out...one...two...three...four...

.....Are you feeling better?.....

  Yes, I did write that nasty offensive term, let me repeat.  Now be prepared, I don't want you getting all upset again.  Born-Again Christian.

On this day, Tuesday, of this date, December 29, forty-five years ago, I was walking in the cold rain from the bus stop to the split-level house where I lived with my recently divorced mother and my older by three years brother.  I didn't feel particularly different, but I was aware that something life changing had just occurred in my life, but one and a half hours ago.  I didn't feel different but on the bus home I found myself fascinated by the strange beauty of the glistening rain drops on the bus window.  I had never noticed something like this before.  I knew my mother would kill me if she knew where I had spent the evening, for which reason I phoned and lied to her.  What she heard me say was that I had been invited to stay for dinner by the mother of a friend from school.  I'm sure she guessed but one can never tell with mothers.

The truth is I had been invited to dinner in a communal house full of young male Christian fanatics, many but recently converted from lives of drugs, alcohol and crime and who knows what other dreadful acts.  I was but fourteen years old.  Bait for the child protection authorities if ever there was any.  It was never my intention to do something to horrify my dear mother.  When I was to break the news to her two days later she would be horrified.  I did have to work up the courage.

I was already proving to be a difficult and rebellious teen.  During the previous summer I had smoked my share of pot and gotten drunk with various older acquaintances in the local park.  In October I attended my first ever protest demonstration.  It was against the War Measures Act recently minted by our federal government to contain the national threat of the FLQ who had just kidnapped two government ministers and murdered one of them.  Some guys on the courthouse (now the art gallery) steps shared their cheap wine with me while regaling me with tales of their experience hitch-hiking from Montreal.  I got quite drunk and then back on the grounds a funny short little man in his early twenties stopped me. gave me a piece of paper with a religious message on it and tried to talk to me about God and Christianity.  I'll never forget this strange little story he told me with a riddle attached: "Say you had an attractive sister wearing a tight mini-dress and some guy made a rude remark about your sister.  Now you of course would be very angry and would want to do something to this guy in protection of your sister's honour.  If you had magic power to turn this guy into something that would stop bothering your sister what would you turn him into?"

I thought for a moment while I allowed this strange question to turn through the rolodex inside my drunken little head.  Then I replied, "A rock.  I would turn this guy into a rock."  The funny little geek seemed very perplexed by my answer and asked why I would want to turn this guy into a rock.  I replied that rocks are very harmless and they aren't able to do anything, good or bad so I thought this would be the kindest punishment for him, a punishment that would leave also him unhurt.

The following month downtown a guy in a suit tried to persuade me to visit his Pentecostal church.  He had seen me chatting with a Hari Krishna devotee.  I must say that I found neither option attractive.

Then it happened, this date, December 29 1970.  A long haired and bearded Jesus Freak asked me if I believed in Jesus and Bob's Yer Uncle.  Two hours later in a coffee shop we connected like long lost friends, then I was at his house for dinner, then a sense of something so beautiful and wonderful began to overpower me, like being stoned on very good pot but sweeter, stronger, purer and more beautiful.  They prayed with me and I agree with them.  Jesus came into my heart.  I was born again.

Even when I have tried to turn back on this beautiful reality there has been for me no turning back.  Christ has come to define every facet of my life.  Even though for years I have deferred from using the words "Born Again Christian" to describe my experience this is exactly what happened.  Early on the Jesus' People, my first Christian mentors, had gone south and were coopted by Bible Belt fundamentalism who then coopted this most wonderful and life-changing experience, or simply the words since they turned the reality into a farce and a travesty.  Born Again Christian soon became a byword and the beauty of these words has never recovered from its desecration.

I am not a fanatic.  I have a life, a profession, past-times, friends, a social life, political and social opinions (not even remotely right wing if you must know) and a sense of humour.  God fills everything but rather than robbing me of my humanity this perpetual experience renews, restores, affirms and exalts my and our humanity, for this being born again, this Christian rebirth is simply being born into love, into the universal core that sustains the planets and stars and maintains the order of every subatomic particle in the universe.

Don't ask me about other religions and faiths.  I don't know.  I respect and admire them but I walk with Jesus.  Should Muslims, Jews and Buddhists become Christians?  I don't know, but if they want to I'm not going to stop them.  Should Christians become Muslims, Jews and Buddhists?  We do have such a thing as freedom of religion.  But these are questions that are not mine to answer, perhaps to ask but that's as far as I will go.

Likewise about how we got here.  Don't ask me.  I wasn't there when it happened.  Neither were you.  I respect Darwin and I respect the accounts in the opening chapters of Genesis.  Do I understand them?  Hell no.  Simply the wonder of it all and the rapturous joy this wonder can raise me to is enough to tell me that I really don't need to know.  There is one who knows these things already and if I need to know all the minutiae of how we got here then I'm sure that he will eventually reveal it.  This doesn't stop me from reading about Darwin and evolution and muttering "You don't say!" any more than it keeps me from reading the Bible everyday and whispering "Thank you Lord Jesus!"

In the meantime I walk in the joy and beauty of my spiritual rebirth.  I am not perfect, I am a work in progress and I make many mistakes which really is the way we all learn.  Each of our lives is a story.  We are all novels writing ourselves and writing the world around us.

It is four days after Christmas, Gentle Reader, and still I haven't been hit by depression. 

There is a God.

Please pass this post on to any five people whom you think might be interested in reading these words.  But only if you're sure they'd be interested, Gentle Reader!