Spiritual Autobiography 6

By June of 1971, my identity as a Jesus Freak was already set. I hung out with the Jesus People in Vancouver, went out witnessing with them in parks and on the streets downtown. I would have dinner with everyone at the Shepherd's call. I remember one particular beautiful day, just as school was finishing for the summer, a Friday, being lifted by kind stranger, and the dinner of enchilada's that had been so beautifully made and were so delicious, my first ever. To this day, I simply love enchiladas. so beautifully We prayed and sang together, and I felt welcome and part of this beautiful community. There was so far no talk about my living there. I was fifteen, and considered too young. I also felt uneasy about the idea for two other reasons, along with the illegality: I sensed that my mother really needed me with her, at least as much as I was still needing to stay with her. I also was already aware of the kind of group-think that occurred with the Jesus people, and I really wasn't about to barter my mind for the comfort of doctrinal and religious consensus. Somehow it didn't feel quite safe. I would hitch-hike back and forth, to my mother's horror, and continued telling the kind drivers about Jesus, and sometimes making some very interesting new friends, other times getting into very narrow scrapes with randy men with a particular taste for pubescent boys. I always escaped. I also began witnessing in the mall in Richmond, much to the scandal and horror of my hyper-cool brother and his hyper-cool friends. I didn't care, and I actually experienced a certain schadenfreud over his embarrassment. And people were interested in talking to me. In fact, telling strangers about the love of Jesus was becoming for me a lovely excuse for connecting with strangers, learning about their lives and, should I say, coming to appreciate them, whether they wanted to convert or not, which rather concerned some of the elders in the Jesus People. But even then, I was in some ways beginning to question. Soon there was word about a group in California, the Children of God, being invited to Vancouver to live with us there and to help us become more effective Christians. Everyone looked forward to this event, we were like children anticipating Christmas. The evangelism was becoming more aggressive. They were becoming increasingly puritanical and dogmatic. I was getting nervous. At that time I was attending summer school two afternoons a week in Richmond, then walking the long rural distance to mom's, the Dutch lady who's place had become for us a second home. I rather preferred her expression of the Christian message, especially her emphasis, and her life, of unconditional love, and I think that she helped provide me with a bulwark that kept me from getting swept into the increasingly dangerous vortex that the |Jesus People were turning into. I was also really enjoying the developing fri9endships with other Christians, near my age and a bit older, at Mom's. This was an alternate community, and my preference was definitely moving in that direction. We could relax together, wonder out in the field to pick and eat blueberries, stuff ourselves with blueberry pie, pray and sing and chat and read together. For young vulnerable Christians, this place was idyllic. To this day, I still feel that I owe that kind, maternal Christian woman an enormous debt. And then, at the Shepherd's Call, the horror was unleashed.