Hi All,

When The United Church of Canada came into being in 1925 and everyone was wondering where we would line up theologically on a whole host of doctrinal possibilities we brought forward 20 articles of faith.

Every article but two begins with the phrase "We Believe."  Those two artivcles that deviate begin with "We acknowledge." which is hardly equivalent to statements of unbelief.

I will not be voting in the poll regarding the probability of God.  Quite frankly I think the response to the Atheist campaign is a major fumble on our part.  So this posting is my determined scrambling to get control of the ball again.

I believe that there is a God and I do not let worry about said God interfere with my enjoying my life.

Can I prove to you that there is a God?  Not likely.

Can I persuade you to believe that there is a God?  That remains to be seen.  If I fail the failure is mine and not proof that there is no God to be believed in.  What follows is my rationale for my belief.

I grew up in a nominally Christian home.  We were not particularly devout or pious and like many families we had our problems.  My dad was an alcoholic who left home when I was five and my mom became a single working parent who, desperate to be loved opened our home to another alcoholic who was verbally abusive even when sober.

We had belonged to my father's church (Presbyterian) but social norms at the time laid the fault of marital discord firmly on the wife's shoulders which meant our ongoing relationship with that congregation was strained out of existence.

I was invited to a local United Church by its minister who, through the years became a mentor to me and a very good friend whom I respect and admire.

At no point in my life did I ever consider that the difficulties and the problems I encountered were the machinations of a vengeful God determined to bind me to him in perpetual servictude with cords of ignorance and fear.

I made many plans in my youth.  I freely admit a vocation as clergy was never, ever considered.  Those plans came to naught and, for the first time in my life carefully laid plans were being stymied and I was experiencing failure.

Never having drifted away from Church as a teen I was open to a summer position at a local summer camp belonging to The United Church of Canada.  I applied, was hired and walked into the midst of a group of people I had never met before and experienced life in a way that I had never known it before.

It was a full summer of service, not simply babysitting somebody else's children but being present for them.  Helping them to deal with mundane things like a fear of the dark or wetting the bed or an inability to swim.  It was encountering children who had also had their childhoods ripped apart by people they thought they could trust.

That service was built on a foundation of trust.  We believed that we could render that service because we believed that our source of strength came from God via the Son of God, Jesus Christ and, the Spirit of God.

Having come from a nominal Christian family and having done quite well at meeting all the Sunday School goals and sitting through sermons which never appeared to be aimed in my particular direction it was something different.

I understood the language but there appeared to be some new meaning or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that the meaning wasn't new it was just more real.  Loving others as you love yourself which is a fine idea becomes different when that other is a young girl, so tiny and frail and probably malnourished and mistreated, who clings to your neck and buries her filthy, snotty face into your cheek and will not let go.

A child who needs to know that she is safe.  That she is loved.

You'd have to be a monster to shove such a child away or want to hurt a child like this.  I did not initially enjoy this attention but something fought through the revulsion and the discomfort (I am not a touchy feely guy right out of the gate) and I realized the very least I could ever give this one child was this moment.  A moment where she was the centre of a universe, where she was loved.

25 years later I wish I knew what became of her.

Did I need to be a Christian  or a person of faith to have that experience?  No.  Yet, because I was a Christian and because I had access to that camp I gained that experience.

I believe God had a purpose and that encounter advanced God's agenda for me that much further.

I had other experiences like that, which chipped away at the walls I had built and the self-defences I had erected to keep others out.  One particularly beautiful woman made me dismantle many walls so that I could meet her without resistance.  I didn't need to be a Christian to experience that either.  Had it not been for my Christianity I would not have likely met this first love.

I believe God had a purpose and that this encounter advanced God's agenda for me that much further.

What was perhaps the most mind-boggling encounter was my brush with the spiritual dimension of life.  A dimension I had never experienced before nor imagined.

Angels and demons I had heard of.  I believed there was reality to both and I was quite happy that neither were a part of my reality.

That changed.

For the first time in my life I came into the presence of evil.  I knew what it was like to be bullied.  I knew what it was like to be tormented, taunted and teased.  I knew what it was like to be threatened.  What I experienced was so real and so vivid and so visceral that nothing in my life (save two future encounters) ever prepared me for the fear I would feel.

I was 19.  I weighed 180 lbs.  I was quick, I was strong, and thanks to my high-school wrestling career I knew that there was very little I had to fear from anyone not armed with a weapon or several friends.

That night there was something.  I couldn't see it.  I couldn't touch it.  I couldn't hear it.  I couldn't smell it.  I did feel it.  Something I couldn't see or touch or hear or smell was scaring the life out of me.  I was not in control of my faculties.  I sweated and I trembled.  For no apparent reason.

Everything made me jump and my friends noticed a very real difference in my personality.

I believe that I was being attacked and I believe that attack was demonic in nature.

Can I prove it to you?  No.  I can't.  Nor do I feel any need to.  It was 25 years ago what you believe of it now cannot change how I percieved it then.

Wrestling doesn't teach you how to quit.  It teaches you how to continue to fight and to continue to move until you can counter what is being done to you.  It becomes a very efficient melding of what one is thinking and what one is doing.

Physically there was no pressure for me to react against.  Emotionally/spiritually I was in deep and this was territory and tactic I was unfamiliar with.

When I wrestled I had a coach in my corner who would shout instructions.  Most of the time you are so engaged in your match that you don't have time to pay very close attention.  Your opponent is not going to let you concentrate on listening to instruction that could defeat him.  You hear in snippets.  You learn to isolate your coach's voice and from that isolate what is most needful.  If you are lucky.

That evening, with my heart pounding and the icy grip of fear tightening about me I looked around for something which might help and the weapon closest to me was my Bible.  It probably weighed two pounds max and would not be much use to fling at what I couldn't see.  Still I reached for it.

Then I started to hear/percieve a coach in my corner.  Through everything that was rocketting about in my mind I began to discern instructions.  "Read."  That was very clear.  Read what?  So I let the book fall open in my hands.  Psalms.  Swell, I'll read Hebrew poetry translated into English at it.  Again I discerned the instruction "read" so I read.

Some 20 Psalms later I was getting the feeling that this wasn't helping.  The 23rd Psalm, Christianities Uber psalm, didn't turn the tide so I kept plowing on  It was at Psalm 27 verse 10 when I felt something change and instead of an all pervasive fear I noticed hope beneath me and I was able to get a footing and stand my ground.

I didn't plow on.  I went back to the beginning and I read psalm 27 over and over and over again feeling hope solidify and feeling fear panic and slip away.

I was transformed.

I believe it was God who is responsible.

Can I duplicate that event to prove it was God?  Nope.

I have tasted that fear again though.  On two occasions and with each encounter I was better prepared to confront it and withstand it.  It has been 15 years since the last confrontation.

I believe that fear is a presence.  A decidedly malevolent presence and I do not believe that presence finds me that great of a playmate anymore.

Alongside of that fear I felt hope.  A hope that differed from dreams and plans.  A hope which is also a presence.  Can I repeat that feeling?  Nope.  It comes upon me as swiftly and as suddenly as the fear.  It surrounds me holds me ever so briefly and then is gone.  I wish I could control that feeling.

I'm quite prepared for any and all to slot it into what they believe makes the most sense for themselves.  If it is more of a comfort to you that it is all in my head go for it.  If it is all the proof that you need about how conditioned or brainwashed I am let that be your own spin cycle.

I will continue to believe about that and other events what I have always believed of them and I will use that belief to move ahead and do what ministry is given to me to do.

Probably no God?  It wasn't a probability that lifted me up.

Probably a God?  It wasn't a probability that gave me hope to stand.

Something, someone, was there for me.

I believe it was God.

I never spent a lot of time worrying about things before.  I spend less time worrying about things now.

I believe in God.

Does my belief prove that God exists?  By no means.

Does my belief offend you?

Ask me if I care.

I believe because I experienced what I could not understand and in the midst of that confusion a meaning was given.  You can believe what you want about where that meaning came from.  I believe it came from God.

I believe that there is a God.  I don't worry about it and I will continue to enjoy my life.

Grace and peace to you.

John