Spiritual Autobiography 2

Events unfolded with numbing rapidity following my conversion to the Christian faith. My mother learned about it two days later and she was quite wroth and forbade me to have anything to do with those long-haired fanatics. I told her I couldn't promise compliance and I continued with them. My next foray was to visit them New Years Eve at a watchnight service they were holding in a modest old church in the Strathcona area. I had never been there before, but tried to find my way from Richmond. I got lost, walked over the Cambie Bridge instead of the Georgia Viaduct. It was dark and I wasn't sure where I was going. Did I also mention that I was still just fourteen? Somehow I found my way to the House of David, the name of the old wood frame communal house where I received Christ just two nights ago. No one was home. I sat on a chair on the verandah, waiting for the next thing to happen. I didn't have to wait long. A French-Canadian, named Michel, came to pick up some extra food for the dinner following the service and he invited me to come along in the van with him. Everything seemed kind of preordained, and for me, it was like I had entered into some bizarre adventure story where I was the protagonist. It was like living in a state of magic realism, I suppose. So I found my way to the Fountain Chapel, in a sanctuary full of Jesus freaks, singing, praying, rejoicing, speaking in tongues, embracing one another. I had never seen anything so bizarre yet so welcoming. The sermon was delivered by an earnest Pentecostal preacher wearing a blue suit. then we were all on our knees, praying as midnight struck and we transitioned to 1971. It was very emotional. Many, including me, were weeping. It felt could. I was feeling cleansed. At 1 am or so Richard Hitchcock and one of his friends, Lorne, drove me home to Richmond, a distance of ten miles or so. Lorne, who drove the tuck, was from Richmond, and knew my brother and his peers. I already knew that Mom was away for the night, working at a catering affair for her boyfriend and would be spending the night with him. My brother, on the cusp of eighteen, came in the house with one of his friends. We all chatted for a while. His reception of my new friends was derisory and they were a little too earnest to win a couple of new converts. Knowing how much my brother hated me, and still feeling the trauma from his most recent beating five days ago, I didn't really expect better from him. My friends left, my brother seemed a little nonplussed and mentioned that there was this beautiful fragrance in the house since my friends left, like perfume. I knew then, as I am still certain, that my brother was experiencing a physical manifestation of God's presence, and I myself did not smell the perfume. I also knew he would shrug it off, and carry on with his selfish and dissolute way of life. The following day, New Year's Day, I went to English bay in the west End, to attend a baptism. I wasn't baptised myself, because I feared the cold water, and also felt a need to prepare for a few weeks. I knew this was a momentous decision. In the afternoon Rick and Lorne drove me home. They came inside the house where they faced my mother's wrath. curiously, she rather liked Richard. Again, she forbade me to have anything to do with those fanatics and I said, "Try and make me." A little bit of history here about my relationship with my mother. I had become so sick of her beatings and her control that I was finally rising against her. She had not reckoned that her beaten down little weakling could show such force of will or strength of character. Say what you will about the obligation of children to obey their parents. But when the parents become abusive that becomes the deal-breaker and their kids owe them nothing. For me, my spiritual, psychological and moral survival would partly consist in rising against and defying that violent angry woman. I was finally taking back what was mine. She didn't like it and now she knew she would have to live with it.