Spiritual Autobiography 8

St. Margaret's was a huge blessing. It was crammed to the rafters with worshippers and the sense of God's spirit and love were often overwhelming. In some ways similar to the Jesus freaks, but more diverse and more grounded in reality and also gentler and more loving people. I was welcomed and quickly made new friends there. in November the House of Prayer opened, started by a missionary family with seven kids that had recently escaped from the Children of God. One of their kids, a boy my age, and a daughter, who was twenty, became particularly good friends to me and that's where I spent my Sundays after church. Things were rather structured like the Jesus' People, but things felt more centred, family oriented and all kinds of people were made welcome. I made many good friends with other regular visitors there and we often went out Sunday afternoons downtown to witness, or to parks or on long drives together. The Children of God were meanwhile devouring themselves alive and we were often welcoming refugees that escaped from that cult. I hung out regularly in two Christian coffee houses: at St. Margaret's and a place in the Downtown Eastside called the Hut, on the premises of the then salvation Army Temple on the corner of Hastings and Gore. I remained active in ministry, though just sixteen, with various people dealing with drugs and alcoholism and general sadness and depression. I had no idea how this would be preparing me for what would eventually turn into my life-work. St. Margaret's was already beginning to tilt towards the right and selfishness when a highly regarded woman tearfully denounced this move in a prophetic message, of God commanding us to welcome the outcasts and the hurting, the lonely and if we failed to do this he would remove from us his blessing. The memory of this prophetic utterance remains with me even now, forty-six years later, as though I heard it only yesterday. But the pastor, an elderly man set in his thinking, invited Christian Zionists and others to speak and worship among us, and we were influenced to believe that there were no Palestinians and that only Jews had the right to live in Israel. It took me a couple of years before I really began to question this thinking. Still, the focus did remain on love, community and openly loving and serving God. There was still a general sense of celebration in the air. At school, other kids were turning to Jesus, more or less and my reputation as an evangelistic terror in the local mall was already making me a local legend and, to some, a byword. I still hitch-hiked everywhere. As well as being an easy way to get around, for witnessing it was like shooting fish in a barrel, also a handy excuse for making new friends and remaining up to date that there was such a thing as life outside of my Christian bubble, though I would never admit this openly. My mother was at least coming around. She could see all these positive changes in my life: I was no longer interested in drugs or alcohol, I was joyful, kind, and showing a lot of responsibility. Unfortunately I was still doing badly in school and I think this was because with all these sudden changes and stresses in my life it was really difficult for me to focus on schoolwork. I know that had I gone to an alternative school I would likely have done a lot better. But my mother was very conservative, and as much as she was getting swept up in the sexual revolution, her thinking was still very backward in other things.