Author’s note: This post is taken from a manuscript in progress that more fully outlines my journey as a Recovering Bapticostal. Although the storm of life that affected me as a nearly three-year old boy was the beginning of my path toward Spiritual sensitivity, an experience later in life (the untimely death of my first wife in 1989) actually spurred me to more critically examine my belief system. I will share more about that later on. For now, please enjoy this installment.
When the heart of an evangelist meets the demands of family, often a fierce struggle ensues! That was the case with my father. Having been on the road “preaching the Gospel” since the age of 15, the road was in his blood! If Willie’s song On the Road Again had been out between 1953 and 1956, I am sure that it would have held a prominent place in his heart! He absolutely loved the adventure of the road! My mother, on the other hand was not completely sold on the nomadic existence that truly energized my father; however, (at least from my perspective) they did work to create some semblance of compromise. Occasionally, he sought to express deference to her need for stability by periodically setting down temporary roots in a single location and putting on the hat of pastor of a local congregation. I have more to say on that subject down the road.
The first place that I remember staying put for a period of time was when I was around 2.5 to 3 years old. We found ourselves in Lubbock, TX. I shared some of those memories a couple of days ago. Please feel free to scroll back and look at that post. The two most impactful memories are of the tornadoes that threatened our existence from time to time and the emptiness of a home that should have been full.
I recall actually seeing a tornado one Sunday evening. A man off the street came right in the church building, interrupted the service, announced that a tornado was literally knocking on our door! My dad evacuated the building immediately! Numerous hours spent in the neighborhood cellar in the middle of the night also punctuated those memories. I guess I learned very quickly that the forces of Nature demand respect and often serve to provide learning opportunities for us. I know that I certainly learned a lot.
The other impactful memory was that of our home. You see, when I was about 3, I was to have welcomed a baby brother into the world! Everyone said so – EVERYONE! Although doctors were unable to determine the sex of the yet-to-be-born back then, I just knew in my heart I would have a baby brother and I was excited! Imagine my confusion when instead of a baby brother gracing the arms of my mother when she came home from the hospital, she returned empty-handed! Anticipation turned to disappointment! Joy gave way to sadness! Happiness morphed into depression! I didn’t understand that Sydney Edward, my baby brother who never was, had been stillborn. I just knew that our house seemed empty and so did our spirits – sucked dry of the hope and happiness that accompany new life!
Although I couldn’t do anything to “fix” our problems, as a three year-old, I did the only thing I knew to do – pray!
I instinctively prayed to “God” because that’s who my dad and mom always prayed to. In my limited ability to understand, I poured out my heart asking for mommy to be happy again and for daddy to not be so mad. I prayed for a new baby to come home to us. I prayed . . .
Within two years, we shifted locations down the road a bit to Plainview, TX – a new town, a new church, a new start! My mother tells me that prior to our departure from Lubbock to Plainview, every Sunday she would find me on my knees praying. “What are you praying for, Mark?” I always responded by saying, “I am praying for a new baby sister.”
Just before our move, I made an announcement to my parents that when we moved to Planiview, we would have a new pink car, a new pink house and a new pink baby girl. Interestingly enough, we bought a new Buick – pink, gray and white; settled in a parsonage that was constructed of pink brick; and shortly thereafter, my mother gave birth to our new pink baby girl – my sister!
I guess what I am saying here is that my spiritual sensitivity began very early on. At about the same time we arrived in Planiview, I recall a stirring inside my soul that I could not explain. I remember one particularly warm Sunday afternoon feeling especially drawn to a power much greater than I. In my own quiet way, I responded to that Power by opening myself to it. My parents helped to put words to my experience as they explained that I needed to go ahead and “Ask Jesus into your heart.” I dutifully obeyed by reciting a prayer they led me through only to be told afterward that I was “saved!”
Strangely, looking back on that day (and I have often throughout the years) I recall that in my five-year-old simplicity, I hadn’t a need to recite that rote prayer. I had already responded in my heart. I went through the ritual out of respect and deference to my parents. Although I am not sure, I think that my parents were a bit skeptical of the sincerity of my “confession” because I was not “baptized into the faith” until I was age ten. By that time, my spiritual life had taken on dimensions that I am only now beginning to place into a larger context.
As we develop spiritually, we are more often than not, dependent on our parents or family to help create context for our spiritual experiences. That is true whether we are born into Evangelical Christianity; Catholicism; Mainstream Protestant Christianity; Buddhism; Hinduism; Islam; Shintoism; Agnosticism; Atheism or any other “ism” or “anity” that might exist! That responsibility is huge! Unfortunately, throughout my years on this rock, I have seen that responsibility of “context building” become a platform for rigidity in thinking, feeling, and acting that often plays out in “theological and ideological wars” between seekers where atrocities are committed in the name of “God!”
Oh how often I have longed for that pure, simple, profound sense that I was in the grip of a Presence so much more powerful than I – so much more immense than I – so much more benevolent than I – so much more knowing than I! I have longed to recapture that aura of connectedness that I experienced back so many years ago on a hot Sunday afternoon in Plainview, TX. For the past twenty plus years now, I have worked to analyze and shed the robes of institutionalized religiosity that often spring from the indoctrination and acculturation of the “religion into which we are born” and tap the true spirituality that I experienced as a child through my pure and innocent sensitivity.
Perhaps as adults, we periodically need the violence of life’s tornadoes and the emptiness of shattered dreams to open the door for us to explore our spirituality with the unadulterated simplicity of the sensitivity of childhood.
I am hopeful that you will be touched and challenged in the process of my sharing – perhaps even inspired to cast aside untested assumptions about the Presence that gives us Purpose and explore your spirituality with the childlike sensitivity with which we were all gifted when we entered this world.
Peace!
Mark E, Hundley
