Chapter Four: A Turning Point……Page

CHAPTER FOUR: A Turning Point

Monday morning I went to work but my thoughts were not on the job I was doing. I was wondering if there were any charges on me, and if I would lose my license again. God I have to do something with my life was the words from within all day. At seven thirty that evening I pulled in front of the Church where they said they would meet me. They pulled up at the same time as I did. I was scared but I went with them. We went to the back of the church and went down stairs to the meeting room. I was in the basement of a Protestant Church. You know, the ones we were told were evil work of Satan in my youth. Not only had I hit bottom with my drinking but also now I was in a sacrilegious place of evil. I didn’t want to stay but I did and they got me a cup of coffee and introduced me to some of the regulars. My hands were sweaty when I shook theirs. They welcomed me. They were my friends. At least in time I would know that. If I can just get my boss and my wife and the police off my case I would be okay. My mind was made up. I would stay with AA until things cooled off a little. That was my plan. The meeting was called to order and they read the preamble of AA, and the steps, and the members picked to do so also read the traditions. The words Higher Power were heard for the first time. Interesting, I thought. God as I understand Him was also used. A different twist for sure. The speaker told his story and I remember very little other than he was in the Army

and he used to get drunk on trains. He would cross the country in the lounge cars of the passenger trains that were very much used then.

The meeting was over about nine-thirty. There was a one-year cake and a celebration at the man’s house. I went with them. What a party, there were sandwiches and all kinds of goodies, with coffee and soft drinks but not any beer or alcohol that I could see. It was very nice and I drove home about 1:00 p.m. I told Margie about this meeting and the party that followed. She listened to me and after the meetings this became a pattern. I would always tell her about the speakers. After the meetings there was always some gathering either at the coffee shop or at someone’s home. Meetings were every night and three on Sunday. For five years this happened and a new pattern was set. Alcohol became a memory, both good and bad. But the memories were always in my mind. Sobriety and Higher Power now were new words for me. The pressure eased. I had no charges on my driving record. My boss was a little more reasonable I thought. Margie was also changing to that wonderful person that I met years ago. I admitted that I was powerless over alcohol and that my WIFE had become unmanageable, but the real word was LIFE. So many times the first step of AA was altered to bring us a laugh. Religion and I were a little mixed up. I was mixed up because of a religion that was mixed up. My relationship now with God had turned into my Higher Power. God as I understand Him made so much sense to me.

God now was not that white wafer that is kept in the tabernacle in the Catholic Church. That was the little place that always had a curtain in front and a lit candle to tell us if Jesus was alive or dead. That would tell us if the Eucharist had been blessed or not.

I went to meetings and I started to take Margie with me. There was always somebody that would baby sit the kids for the meeting, usually another member’s wife. AA now was so meaningful another pattern formed the pattern that broke me from the grip of alcohol. The pattern was a meeting all the time. One day I told one of my friends that I didn’t think that I could get to the meeting because it was freezing rain. He replied to me “Did you ever get drunk in bad weather?” I went to the meeting. The old God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost now were put on the sidelines and my Higher Power ruled. I now frequented the church a lot, but it was the meetings in the basement where I was. The basement of the church was where the good they were preaching about upstairs was being done in the basement. The groups of alcoholics were in the basement of the church because it usually cost very little to have our meetings. We always contributed to that church from the collection money. AA is a self-supporting organization from our own contributions. The members were down there practicing the words that streamed from the pulpits above. Yes, we practiced what they preached because this is how it worked. We learned that we could keep our sobriety a little easier if we helped others to get sober. We received this wonderful gift by giving of our time to those that needed help. May God bless Alcoholics

Somehow things turned for the better and I became at last the father that I always wanted to be. I spent time with my wife and my children. The first couple of years my time was spent at the meetings in the evenings but weekends in the summer were spent with the kids and picnics and fishing. Many great weekends were spent together. Along about this time Margie found that she was with child again. We were to be blessed again with another child. And grateful we are to this day for all of our children as they have fulfilled our marriage and brought us so much happiness. Those days family planning was a new development and only recently was the cause found. If you were a Catholic then the family planning had been done for you. You just kept having children until the factory shut down. Birth control was a mortal sin in the eyes of the church. I guess that having all those kids was a way to gain numbers for the Church. Well, there was no way in the world that I ever would go into the drug store and purchase a condom. It just was beyond me. And it certainly was not Margie’s place to do this task either. Now birth control was not impossible, because we knew that if I withdrew before a complete ejaculation, then there could be no conception. The birth control pill at that time was not reliable and was also dangerous for some women. So here we go again with that bungee cord sex life that was short of torture to me. Sex was not talked about very much, it just happened. There was a built in guilt trip with every erection. I was controlled by the church through my sex life and to the grave and

beyond that with the possibility of Hell fire always lurking somewhere around the next corner.

It was Halloween and my next little girl entered the world. It took about three attempts at birth to get her born. I guess it was her that was undecided or that doctor had had this magic pill that would stop the labor and could resume at a more convenient time for him and the hospital. Well, at least it seemed that way to me. But the third trip my youngest little girl entered the world. I took courses and improved my skills in my fork truck trade. There would be success. I was sure of that. As long as I had my higher power and my sobriety there would be no stopping success. I learned about the spiritual part of my life through the AA program. Religion now was in the background for me. I learned to meditate.

“We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him” Those words became so important to me. My life had now turned around and I was close to my God and my family and I was sober. We moved to Ottawa and I changed jobs. I studied the lift truck business and I became unsatisfied with the job that I was holding. Margie and I became close again and of course, in the passing of time, she became pregnant again. My world was being filled with love. Our interests came into the Occult and I bought some books on different topics about it. One night we watched a movie about vampires and how having garlic hanging in the house could

ward them off. In fun I got out three big ones and I hung them over the door of the front porch and promptly forgot about it.

There was a knock at the door a couple of weeks later and a policeman came. He asked us some questions about a previous tenant that lived here. We told him that we didn’t know very much about him but he had a lot of people coming as though he lived here. Every minute or so the cop would look up at the ceiling. He seemed to be getting edgy and I thought that he needed a leak or something. Anyway he looked behind us one more time and said. “Never mind, no further questions” then quickly ran down the front steps to the cruiser. We looked up behind our heads and there they were. The three garlic bulbs hanging down on that string that I put had put there a month before for a joke. Needless to say we laughed ourselves silly about this incident. There would be quite a few more funny happenings in the future for us.

The Occult was a fascinating adventure and we learned a lot by delving into its walls. We bought books and we read what we could. We had a ghost on the stairs at the first landing. Many times I would go up or down stairs and get this kind of a chill. All I can think of is that it felt creepy. I said nothing until one day Margie felt the same thing and asked me about it. The answer was plain when we learned that the original owner died and his body had been found on the landing. Ghosts, but not the Holy Ghost, now were kind of interesting and we learned about ghosts and witches and banshees and so many more interesting

things. Occult I think has a similar meaning to something that is forbidden, at least, by all the religions. Yes. The Occult scared the true Christians because it was such a threat to Christianity. We were tapping into the strange and the uncanny and it was such an interesting subject that I think it should be on everyone’s bookshelf. I don’t believe for one minute that Satanism is much different than that daily obligatory sacrifice of the Mass. A Jesus that is bloodied and eaten before people is nothing short of devil worship and is a disgrace before mankind and it should be stopped. It is fear tactics that has been used for two thousand years that are the chief cause of the wars today. It is a bloody sacrifice enacted each day and falls within some of the satanic rituals that we read about.

The candles were flickering off to one side of the altar and Margie and our eldest son went where the big stand of offering candles were. My little boy wanted to light a candle but he only had seven cents. The priest came by and said that it cost a dime and wouldn’t let him light one. My son was disappointed so much and so was Margie. Boy was she mad. She kept saying that the purpose of the candles were for a prayer. They just blow them out as soon as the people leave so what did a few pennies matter. Wasn’t it the thought that counts? You would think that I was the one, not the priest who wouldn’t let him light one. I had some thoughts about this a few times and I always wondered why these deep thoughts made their presence known mainly during the winter months. I finally figured it out that with about two hundred candles that would burn

for about twenty hours or so there would be enough heat to take the chill off the big church. Our offering candles and prayers were used to heat the church as well as provide some false hope for devout parishioners. But that didn’t matter because it did give some comfort to those people that used these candles. Flickering candles and incense, combined with organ music, was a setting that would put anyone to sleep. If that didn’t then for sure the sermon of some old sex starved priest would. A few times, while in that kind of relaxed atmosphere, I would find that I was drifting out over the people. I think it must have been some kind of a hypnotic condition that came over me. But it was either this or watch the dress get caught in the big lady’s bum crack each time she stood up from kneeling in front of me. I went to church, by times, on special occasions but my heart was not in it anymore. Something just didn’t jell about the whole Christian and Catholic Church. Yet within me there was a strong connection forming with my Higher Power. This was something that I could accept. A God as I understood Him.

We stayed in Ottawa for another year and the children were in a Catholic school and had made their first communions and confirmations. I attended church only on essential occasions. An opportunity to move to British Columbia was taken that would more than double my salary. Somehow we just wanted to do something different. A move to BC is not a simple task and there was a lot of planning that had to be done. A trailer was bought from Sears and I built a box on it so we could take

just what could be fit in the trailer, including my tool box which was a couple of hundred pounds. My mother was so upset that we were moving away. First she lost me to Margie, (which is an entire story in itself. She made Margie pay dearly for that) and now Margie has enticed me to move away all together. We sold all our furniture and kept just the family treasures that we could not be without.

The trailer was prepared and my notice at work was given. Arrangements were made for me to start work as soon as I arrived in BC. We said our good byes and we had some money put aside for the trip. The three children were about five, four and the baby about one. The car was packed and the trailer loaded and away we went. It was out west at last. We stopped in London to say our goodbyes to Margie’s mom and dad and headed through the state of Michigan to Sault St Marie, Ontario. The old car that I had was on its last legs but I knew that it would get me to BC. The motor sounded good and it used little oil. My intentions were to buy a new car after I worked for a while in my new job. Passing from Ontario into Manitoba seemed to take forever. The land was flat and we could see Winnipeg for hours before we got there. The gas gauge showed over half full. Surely there was enough to make the next gas station. We drove and the horizon showed Winnipeg for another couple of hours. I was near out of gas when we came to a service station. It was getting late and we were tired so we started to look for a motel. We found one just before Winnipeg.

We registered in the room and it was starting to get dark. We were completely exhausted, hungry and tired. There was a little puddle of oil on the fresh snow under my car and I looked at the engine and found a bad valve cover gasket. Not too serious, I thought, and we were off to get our supper from the restaurant out front. We left the kids in the room, after telling them not to open the door for anyone and to keep it locked. We told them that we wouldn’t be long and would bring back supper. We went over to the restaurant and ordered. We were gone no longer than ten minutes. The children were safely in the room so no need to worry. When we got back to the room, they were gone. My heart sank and that lump came in my throat. We were both totally devastated. We thought that the three children had been kidnapped. There was not a car around and ours was the only one there. Looking out the front we saw a pair of footsteps on the fresh snow. We run along the tracks and it led to the restaurant. There they were, all three of them, the baby in my boy’s arms. He had rolled her up in a blanket to keep her warm. She had come down with Red Measles on the trip and had been quite sick. Thank God was uttered aloud and within from the two of us. The reason that they went out was the baby was crying and they knew we were in the restaurant so they thought they would come along.

Traveling took us four days to get to BC. It was an adventure. We were young; the car’s oil leak had the new gasket installed in it and was running well. The view was magnificent driving through Crow’s Nest

Pass. It is something I will do again sometime I hope. We pulled into Fernie, BC. The little mining town was just full of people. We barely got a room. The condition imposed on us was that we had to be out at the first of the month because the room was reserved for the unemployment man. The next day I started my job. It was working on big equipment and I mean really big. There were Unit Riggs, Euclid’s and P&H shovels. The job was a challenge as it was new equipment for me. The work site was up the mountain at sixty one hundred feet above sea level. It took forty-five minutes to drive up the hill by bus. When I arrived up there, I was exhausted because of the rather thin air. After the first few days I went to the office and asked them about the trailer that was supposed to have been waiting for us. They said that there were trailers but that we would be put on the list. There were forty nine ahead of us. They suggested we purchase a new house. Well, this was just out of the question for us and we were rapidly running out of money staying in the motel. I came home on Thursday and Margie was crying. She said that she was told we had to be out of the room the very next morning. The employment man was arriving. Everything was tumbling down on us, three children and literally having to live out of our car. I needed to get to a meeting. I was three years sober now and my world was crashing.

Decisions had to be made, as I was not going to have Margie go through any more hell. We packed our belongings on Friday and I called my mom and told her the sad story and I asked if we could stay with her and dad until I got a job. There was just enough money left to get us

back if we were careful with it. I never returned to the job. My tools were left there and we drove to Calgary. Yes. We drove back with the same old car that was just supposed to get us there. It was snowing and the roads were icy in places and snow-covered in others. We had to drive a little longer now each day to drive the necessary miles to fit in our budget. Mixed emotions were the feeling of the day. I was happy to be with my family and I was terribly disappointed about my job. When we got into Calgary, I called AA and found the location for a meeting that evening. Oh God, did I need a meeting. I went to it and it gave the boost that a meeting always does. I called the office from Calgary and told them to forward my tools and my paycheck to my address in Cornwall. Three days of driving and we were in London, Ontario, with Margie’s parents.

It was a little breather for us for sure. Finally, we could get the baby to a doctor as her fever had gotten quite high. Margie’s dad and I got along quite well and he greeted us with “Stay here a while and cool your heels while you decide just what you are going to do.” I thought that was just fine as I needed a few days to recover from everything. The next morning as we were feeding the baby and having our breakfast Margie’s mom placed the newspaper before me with about six places to look for jobs, all circled with a red pencil. Boy, there was no “just cool your heels for a few days” from her mum. I could just feel her thinking, no sponging here. Get to work. Well, mixed emotions hit me again and I did look around and put in a few applications. After several days there, we just

had to decide on something. One evening after the children were in bed, Margie and I want to the donut shop. It was called County Style Doughnuts. To this day it is there at the same intersection. That evening we grew up. We decided that we would go back to Cornwall and stay with my folks until I got started in my own business. It was a time that started a new adventure for us. We were going to be successful and there would be no stopping us -- period! All my thinking now was about the welfare of my family. This was a responsibility that I would take to do the very best that I possibly could, for I loved them all and things were mostly happy.

I went to a store that made rubber stamps and I ordered one. I had one made with the words “Sturgeon Lift Truck Service. Repairs to all makes of lift trucks”, followed by my mom and dad’s phone number. We bought some cardboard and an inkpad and we cut out business cards and that took us quite a while but they were quite nice looking. We were in business but I had no tools. I had left them all up on the mountain in Fernie, B.C., but I had a brother in-law that loaned me his full toolbox and that got me started. A friend and a relative, he was indeed the one that took me home from the jail on more than one occasion, and now he loaned me his tools. The old car now was my service truck and was running quite well for its age. I had the borrowed toolbox in the trunk and some business cards in my shirt pocket. I went knocking on the doors of the businesses in the Cornwall area. A business takes some time to establish and there was just no big rush to get my services. I did

go to one customer in the west end and I landed a job. It was to change some parts on their fork truck. The parts came in and the next day the job was complete. That was my first billing. The next week there were two calls for me, and more bills to make up. The business, after a couple of months, was producing enough money for us to leave mom’s and find a place of our own.

We found a house that was furnished with a garage and a basement. It was on the outskirts of Cornwall on Toll Gate Road. It was a nice but small bungalow. It had some weeping willow trees there and a nice yard for the kids. Somehow, at this time, I felt that I was a successful businessman. Margie was at home and she took any service calls. Soon there were several regular customers that I was doing work for, and there was just enough money come in to pay the rent and buy groceries. I was happy and so was Margie. Before a year went by we had enough money to buy a small mini-van as a service van as well as our personal vehicle. That old car now was traded in. It had served me well. The salesman took me to the garage area where they were removing a sign from the van that had been put on by the previous owner. It would be painted and I would have it tomorrow, he said.

The next morning I drove into the driveway with my new minivan. Well, it was like new to me. We put some lawn chairs in the back and went for a drive. A proud man I was, with my wife and three children, driving around the town. Soon the van was filled with tools. Stock of lift truck

parts filled the shelves that I built. Business was good and increasing as there was just no competition for me in Cornwall. Margie told me that she was pregnant, but she didn’t know just how far she was along in her pregnancy. For me it was the end result that really mattered and another child would be at my table to be fed several times a day. We were at the point of wanting to own our own home. Shortly after that we were approved for a mortgage thus we owned a new, small threebedroom bungalow. It was in the north end of Cornwall. We were getting to be known in the community. This is where the Catholic Church once again came into our lives. Margie and I had always been what you might call good people or “do-gooders” as we were sometimes called. We knew that it was important to help those less fortunate, and we did what good we could. We did become more active in the church because of the children.

My heart was not in the Catholic Religion anymore. The main reason was because it was so phony and money hungry. One day I got home from work and we had a visit from one of the pillars of the church. We were told straight out that we had a responsibility to contribute to the church each Sunday. If not, then we shouldn’t take part in the church at all. I knew that they were on to me and that they were aware that I had a successful repair business going. They were on to many others, me included, because the church was running out of money. The baby finally appeared at the hospital one October morning. As the nurse handed him to me, all I could think about was another baby that looked

at me and said to hang on dad, with that look in his eyes. He came home but there was something about him that Margie thought was not right. It was the mother instinct that told us to get him to the doctor.

The very next day we were in the hospital. I thought that he was going to die. His head had been shaved and a needle was inserted into a vein on his head. They had to operate on him because there was no stomach opening formed in him. This operation provided a passage into the stomach that food would stay for the digestion and then on to the intestines. God help me I cried, “Please let my little man live.” Margie and I were devastated. We had to leave him in the hospital and we were sure that his tiny life was over, and we prayed each in our own way. We prayed for God to help us. Our prayers were answered because in a couple of days he was home again and able to digest a couple of ounces of milk from his bottle every couple of hours or so. We were young and had four children now. It was a big responsibility but the woman to manage this family was a strong woman. Margie was the one to get it all together.

Margie was a multi-tasking person who also ran the office part of my business, took the service calls and raised the children in a wonderful manner. I was a very proud and a very lucky man to have such a wife. When the kids were in school or we had a babysitter, she would go and visit with the old people in the Convalodge. She just would go visit and chat with them. Sometimes she would read the mail for them, and

sometimes she would rub their feet with a lotion. She organized entertainment for them. The nurses always welcomed her. Many of them would wait for Margie’s visit each day. They were not all old people, because there were many young men and women that were handicapped with many kinds of illnesses. There was a priest that held a Mass service each day for any of the Catholic residents. Margie was aware of this and she would take many of them down in the elevator to the service. Every day she would have an extra person wanting to attend Mass. One day she had eight residents attending Mass. It was quite a chore to get all of them down by the elevator and sit in the Chapel for the Mass. At the communion part of the Mass Margie would push the wheel chairs to the communion rail and the priest would dispense the Eucharist. It seemed that someone told the priest that some of them were Protestant and wondered why they would receive communion with the Catholics. Well Margie was questioned severely about this as a Catholic ritual had been violated. They found out that only one of the old men was a Catholic. What a disgrace it was.

In the priest’s brainwashed religious mind, a Sacrilege a sacrilege definitely had been committed. Margie was asked why she would do such a thing. Margie replied, “Is the communion service not a good thing?” Are some old men not as worthy as others to receive the Body of Christ? They’re all old and ready to die.”

When I got home from work she told me the tale of woe and the terrible

thing that happened today. And to top it off she said, “I’ve been doing this for two months. All I was trying to do was to be nice to people and let them have communion. I didn’t think that it was wrong, she said a little teary eyed by now. I held her in my arms and said not to cry. The fault lie with the religion because it put a wonderful woman in tears and that was the sin; that was the Sacrilege. She visited with them every day but she didn’t take any of them to Mass anymore. I can visualize the little priest looking from the chapel with his robes on and the chalice in hand, and wondering where in hell his little flock went. It was soon found out by the Church that Margie was doing such wonderful work. She was a Saint someone said, like the Mother Teresa of the Convalodge. She was their hero and mine, too. Many other Catholic women then soon started to show up to visit and get the “Catholics Only” group to Mass. Soon the place was overrun with do-gooders. Margie laughed with me about this event; the crime that shook the very foundations of the Catholic Church. We laughed ourselves silly many times about the times she took all the Protestants to Holy Communion in a Catholic Mass.

When our youngest boy was a few weeks old we were asking about Baptism. Since we were not active anymore with the Church, the priest refused to baptize him. Now thismade me mad. I was furious about this. I was clinging on to that old trick of the Church, which if you were not baptized it would be hell, purgatory or limbo for that person. It was a disgrace they wouldn’t baptize the little fellow; however, Margie was a

smart and clever person and she checked around and located a priest that was more than willing to baptize him. Apparently that priest called the one that had refused. A bit later she got a call from him asking why, oh why would she have told me about what he had said instead of talking it over with him and why, in heaven’s name, would she call another parish to have the baby baptized? He would have done it, he said. My Aunt Fanny would have done it. My smart wife just put one over on him. That’s what embarrassed him. Anyway, the water got poured over his head and the service was done and I was somewhat satisfied with the baptism. I was satisfied but somehow it didn’t make much sense to me when I reasoned it through. What was this original sin? And why would God inflict a baby with this terrible burden? Why was a child born with sin? It just did not make sense to me. I was beginning to see that we were being sold a bill of goods that was not real. It was a big lie, I thought, but the power of that religion gripped me. But it was losing its grip and fast.

That little church on Toll Gate Road was in deep financial trouble and a new priest was commissioned to it. He knew how to raise money and that he did. It would have been easier to raise Lazarus from the dead again but this priest did it. The winter carnival took place and in the evening was a big dance. It was Saturday. I worked the night before and early on Saturday I was finishing up a job in the old cotton mill. I was tired and I got careless. I got myself into a lot of problems that Saturday. I could feel that my finger was caught and badly cut. I was working

alone and trying to fit a hydraulic pin into a cylinder and the truck was running. Slowly I felt the piston move into place and I felt the hole with my finger; then pop, the air had pushed the piston out and my finger was crushed.

I was trapped. “Help!” I yelled, “Help! Help me! Oh God, help me.”

I was able to reach around with my right hand and slowly pull the lever to retract that piston rod. Slowly I felt the pressure lessen and grabbed a clean wiper rag to wrap my finger and hand with. Just then there was a man that came by and took me to the hospital. My finger was just about cut completely off but was hanging by a small piece of skin. After sewing it back on the doctor said I think there is a reasonable chance that it may be okay but to keep it bandaged for a few days. Go home now and rest and get these pills for pain.

I went home and told the long story but my wife was getting ready to go to the winter carnival. She had to go because she was active now with the Catholic Women’s League. My finger was throbbing and although bandaged up, it truly stuck straight out like a sore thumb. I got dressed and soon we were in the church basement. The music had just started and they had a local singing group. The bar now was a busy spot and the stream of people bringing the drinks back to the table. Yes, and I am an alcoholic complete with a broken finger and a church resentment so large it was terrifying. I just got a few ginger ales for me and a few

drinks for Margie. She needed to have this night out. She needed it out because she deserved it. She worked hard to organize this dance and I was not going to let her down.

The music was Blue Spanish Eyes and we started to waltz and my hand now had no feeling and the dance floor was packed and we waltzed to the music. It was a bit blurry because the painkillers were kicking in now. Somehow my big-bandaged finger, with no feeling, would poke into some of the ladies bums that were close to my hand. The finger was not choosy about whether it was a man’s bum or a woman’s but I was starting to get a lot of looks. Kind of like “you just goosed me” type of look. As the evening went on the music got louder. A steady stream of people was going and coming from the bar. I danced with Margie a few times but I was feeling some throbbing in my hand now. I sat down for most of the balance of the evening. I wonder how much it weighed, I thought. The altar was just above the basement where this festival was taking place. It was marble and I thought, probably solid marble. I knew that in the center there was a place that some relics were inserted. Yes, all the altars in the world had some relics under the altar stone. That center part in front of the tabernacle. Someone once told me that the relics were from the Saints belongings. It was the Apostles of old that had some of their stuff in each altar. They must have had an awful lot of belongings I mused.

A priest told me that it was some slivers off the original cross of Christ

that was buried under that little marble slab. I thought then that the original cross must have been getting kind of spindly. Thinking what would happen if the altar came crashing down into the basement was on my mind. It was getting rowdy. If that happened how many would be pinned under that massive altar? Would it hit the bar and squash fifty people? Did God really know just how wild the church basement could get? If it did crash through, would I be lucky enough to save Margie and pick up the relics that would be strewn about? If there really was a God, then how come He depended on this new priest to resurrect the finances of the Church? So many questions ran through my mind. Was God invisible like the Holy Ghost? Was Jesus here with the water jugs just in case the bar ran short? I think I had taken too many pain pills. You have to take it on faith the priest said when I asked him about it. And take the Bible with a grain of salt was his answer. Margie asked a question. (It was shortly after her father died and her mother was paying to have all these masses said for his soul.) She asked “If two men, identical in every way except one had money for masses to be said for him and the other was very poor. Both had the exact same sins on their souls. Now, if God said, every man is the same unto the Lord and it was harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle because of his wealth, who got to heaven first? The poor man or the rich man, whose widow was spending thousands of dollars for the church to have many, many masses said for him?” Absolutely no answer came from the priest.

Finally, he said “Well, you just have to take it on faith, aye?” Margie just smiled and walked away. She really didn’t have to say another word.

He told me one day, “What else can I do? I’m not trained for anything else.” I felt sad for him. He was preaching a lie and he had to live with it. This faith thing was another kind of an invisible tool the Church used. Moses had faith that if he struck the rock just the right way, and in the right spot, water would flow forth. So I was, at this time, lacking in faith; but had faith that any of my own reasoning was taken away. The old “Faith can move mountains” should have added also “It can also remove any kind of reason.”

The Bible now was part of our reading and it fit in nicely with the occult. But when I read the Bible for the first time, there was some kind of a connection made with Jesus. When I heard the story, and not filtered through the Vatican, it was somewhat different. The part that Jesus played, to my way of thinking, was a man that came to have people look into the law. His words were “I have not come to abolish the law but to magnify the Law.” Soon it was obvious that he wanted people to look closely and see the sheer fallacy of some of the laws. He said, “You strain at a Nat and swallow a camel.”

Margie had an inner moving compulsion to help people, and that we did. If there was some need for a family, and she knew about it. She would

get some groceries to that home so at least there would be food. We both tried in so many ways to be the people that God would be proud of. It was Saturday and I was having a snooze in the afternoon. Margie came into the bedroom and said that there were two men there to see me. She said she thought they were Mormons and should she get rid of them. Part of me said yes, but another part said lets find out about these Mormon people. They read some scripture and told us about the Holy Spirit and that He was not called the Holy Ghost any more. They said if you want to know the truth then just pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance while reading the Book of Mormon and the truth would be revealed to you. I looked into their religion because I was looking for something solid and that I could trust. Margie and I had made arrangements to take out some underprivileged children for an overnight stay on an island in the river.