I Am A CHILD

Staying positive is not as difficult as it once was...I was always a skeptic, still am really...it was common for me to question everything. It was just natural for me to question things that were always taken for granted by everyone else. I figured every human being was born with a brain. I figured that alone was a fairly STRONG indication that we were actually supposed to use the darn thing. I never had any trouble thinking for myself. I did however have trouble listening to OTHERS tell me what they thought...Mostly  because I was too arrogant, to sure that I was always right to listen to anyone else.


I think one of the reasons that I am most surprised by my becoming a Christian was this tenancy on my part to question everything and not be very open to being told the way things should or "ought to be"...I had a very angry and accusatory opinion about organized religion...mainly because I always focused on the negative episodes involving religion: The Crusades, The TROUBLES (violence in Northern Ireland), Using the Church to promote the Genocide of Native Peoples around the world, particularly hurtful to me was how they stripped the Native Americans of all their culture and sense of belonging by pounding "religious teaching into the "for their own good'.


I grew up HATING that and for some odd reason I was aware of that kind of thing at a very young age. I thought Churches and church people hypocritical not realizing it was HUMAN BEINGS as a whole who have a marked tendency toward hypocritical. it's a HUMAN Flaw!


So this natural skepticism, this questioning that I believe started out as a healthy, intelligent approach to life was not accepted by the powers to be. Over time that questioning, that skepticism developed a harder edge....and after I dealt with my own rape, the natural violence of life and addiction...well it turn       it turned HARD and accusatory almost violent in tone. If you would disagree I would pummel you with evidence, belittle your lack of intelligence and do my to humiliate you into submission. i was an basically  a**hole...negative all the time.


It isn't pleasant to feel that way inside all the time. When you start to add my anger, resentment, fear and eventually the HATRED that i began to feel toward myself into that mix combined by the fact that I was a practicing alcoholic/addict...well the combination was explosive and nobody really wanted anything to do with this total "loose cannon" of a human being and I often spent most of my time alone after that. 


So I had gone from a guy who simply asked a lot of questions to a rage filled anti-social maniac who wanted nothing to people, religion society or eventually even myself. By the force of my OWN WILL I created a monster...namely me. And the process of reversing that whole thing began the day I failed to kill myself in late May 2006.


It has been a process of being open minded and accentuating the positive plus not really forcing anything. Slowly time and therapy with the help of God has begun to heal the wounds but it will be a life long process...this I am sure of. It is a step by step process and right now it really does feel like I am but a child...just starting out on this life's journey.


(PHOTO Kathy Tomson)