Sins of the Father

When I was 16 years old I was angry. Frustrated, I had stepped onto a road of rage that would last some 20 or so years.

We used to cruise Shoney’s and McDonalds listening to loud rock, looking for a fight, excitement. “Burn down the mission,” was our mindset.

There was a Billy Graham revival at the coliseum. I despised religion. I had lived in violence and alcoholism all my young life while religious people wagged their condemning fingers and stood idly by on the premise that a man’s home was his castle and it was wrong to interfere.

Truth was (and I knew better) they were just afraid, just like I was. Just like we were.

I’d heard Billy Graham this and Billy Graham that until it popped the now bursting bubble of my resentment and I exploded under the bright light of that profane, circus colored Mc Donald’s.

“F—K BILLY GRAHAM. F—K Billy Graham," I screamed. He’s nothing but a bible thumping HYPOCRITE and you are ALL BLIND SHEEP running off a cliff,” until they snatched my skinny arms back between my shoulder blades, cuffed me and threw me into the back of a squad car.

I raged there, kicking and screaming until exhaustion set in. My voice began to break and crack and I lay down on my side still cuffed and wept in my sweat,  face against the filthy vinyl seat, the wet laboring breath of defeated youth roaring in my ears like a storm.

Many years later … another life and I went to a spiritual retreat in Montreat, NC. By then I had experienced real hypocrisy. Hell, I had been the biggest hypocrite of all.

Dr. Graham had spent many years just up the mountain. He was still living. Walking the shaded streets of the retreat center, I apologized to God and all his messengers and asked for forgiveness.

I still don’t agree with the finger wagging. I find traditional, Calvinist religion limited at best yet I have learned one fundamental thing.

There are many paths to the summit yet the goal is the same.

Whether it is Dr. Graham, Ghandi, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, seven red headed aunts or a wounded but devout father …  God sends his messengers in many forms.

What matters is that we are on a path to the summit and are aware of it because you see,  we are all headed there.

Turns out, we just have to listen. Maybe if we hang on, rather than sobs of defeat, we will hear the voice of God.