Where my father went or what he did on those Sunday mornings while we were in church I don't know.But I can say that he almost never came with us.Certainly some mornings he must have been very tired,having just got off the midnight shift and driven the eighty miles home.But I don't really know why,on those Sundays he wasn't working,he chose not to go to the church and worship with his family.It caused me to wonder from an early age what he thought about God,and why what he thought seemed outwardly so very different from what my mother thought.In fact,my father's beliefs remain largely a mystery to me,to this day,simply because so little in the way of belief was openly stated.And yet I'm certain he had beliefs.
My fathers religious behaviour also caused me some puzzlement when it came to my mother and her beliefs.If to her God and Jesus and being a Christian were so important,why had she married someone who,I could tell even then,did not seem to agree with her on matters of religion?I could hardly have put voice to this as a four year old,and yet there was something really unsettling about it.It was not nearly the same thing as disagreeing about painting the outside of the house blue as opposed to yellow,and I knew that even as a kid.Religion,what you believed about God was important in governing what sort of things you did,and who you would become.That's the message I got from one corner,while from the other corner ,I sensed that it didn't matter so much.
None of this is to say that my father was an unbeliever.Neither does it mean that my mother did not lead an exemplary Christian life.But interpreting how anyone believes is,by the nature of belief and how it is lived out,a very difficult if not impossible task.That may not be true where belief is openly and consistently stated,but such was not the case in our home.
My fathers religious behaviour also caused me some puzzlement when it came to my mother and her beliefs.If to her God and Jesus and being a Christian were so important,why had she married someone who,I could tell even then,did not seem to agree with her on matters of religion?I could hardly have put voice to this as a four year old,and yet there was something really unsettling about it.It was not nearly the same thing as disagreeing about painting the outside of the house blue as opposed to yellow,and I knew that even as a kid.Religion,what you believed about God was important in governing what sort of things you did,and who you would become.That's the message I got from one corner,while from the other corner ,I sensed that it didn't matter so much.
None of this is to say that my father was an unbeliever.Neither does it mean that my mother did not lead an exemplary Christian life.But interpreting how anyone believes is,by the nature of belief and how it is lived out,a very difficult if not impossible task.That may not be true where belief is openly and consistently stated,but such was not the case in our home.
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