I attended church the other week. Neither David nor
myself are particularly fond of what has become of the Christian faith since
growing up in the 70s but I had been meaning to visit this particular group for
quite some time, ever since I learned that they had designed and built their
own place of worship in Watford, a church cum community centre.
Approximately 25 years ago I gave up organised religion when I was forced to
make a choice between my faith and my sexuality. The fact that people believed
that I had somehow "chosen" to be gay was pretty ridiculous in the
darkness of the 80s (and, truth be told, it is even more so in this day and
age). Now I was born and raised by a Lutheran mother and an Atheist
father. I believe this has helped me to become the deeply spiritual
person that I am today - that and a passionate amount of dedicated self study
on the subjects of comparative mythologies and belief systems throughout
history but back when I was growing up there was a sense that Jesus was real
and even if you did not actually believe the whole bit about him being the son
of God, you could at least accept that he was a good man.
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| Leaders at the Watford Community Church - why are Evangelical Christian's smiles always so white? |
When I was a child
there were two programs (The Goodies and Doctor Who) that we used to watch
religiously as a family whenever they were broadcast and prior to these being
shown on the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC), there was a regularly
repeated screening of a five minute musical video segment brought to us by a
Christian organisation (the name of this organisation completely evades me
today, even after I googled "Australian Christian Network", as all I
got back was multiple hits regarding the newly created cable channels - those
money grubbing intellectually backward televangelists that exploit the fears of
the insecure amongst us and coerce them into pledging their credit
cards).
The 5 minute slots in the 70s frequently used to broadcast the same music video, over and over, to the point of annoyance. One such transmission that actually didn't end up getting on my nerves was Francisco Henri's "Lord of the Dance" - if you don't know this song, you won't find it on you tube (although there is a version on Spotify, but not the joyous version I am familiar with). We all, as a family, quite liked this rendition of this hippy like story about Jesus and how he "danced" for us all - some of those he danced for would join him in the dance, others would shun him. It was wonderfully representative of how there will always be those in our society who will not allow themselves to be truly alive, to truly love. This was the kind of message that was being delivered during this decade - we even had a guitar playing nun who came to deliver religious education at Mitcham Primary School (for a while there I thought this was normal nun behaviour). Our family would regularly attend church every year on Christmas Eve (it was a special German language Lutheran Church in the city - again, I thought that every nationality in Australia had their own church.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that religion was meant to be anything more than a friendly reminder that in order to live well with one another it was always best to try to love one another as much as possible. It wasn't until my best friend Alex, a Roman Catholic, began preparations for his first holy communion that I began to ask questions, the main one being why it was that I was not expected to attend similar classes. In the end, I went along to his classes (again, it just didn't cross my mind that his religion was any different to my own). I'm sure if he had been a Muslim or Jewish that I would have happily gone attended with him his place of worship without even for one moment believing that there was any difference between his god and my own.
Shortly after it was published, I read the magnificent novel The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. In it, the main character as a young boy joins the three major religions of his country. When he is confronted about this by each respective leader and he asks them to explain why he cannot be a member of all three as he feels he ought to be able to, he is told that he is just too young to understand. I am now 43 years old and I still am not coming any closer to understanding why so many cannot comprehend the true nature of the universality of the concept that is the supreme deity of everything. Sometimes I think they deliberately choose not to comprehend - they can see it but then they simply refuse to embrace it, because it means losing the certainty that their religion is 100% perfect and correct.
The 5 minute slots in the 70s frequently used to broadcast the same music video, over and over, to the point of annoyance. One such transmission that actually didn't end up getting on my nerves was Francisco Henri's "Lord of the Dance" - if you don't know this song, you won't find it on you tube (although there is a version on Spotify, but not the joyous version I am familiar with). We all, as a family, quite liked this rendition of this hippy like story about Jesus and how he "danced" for us all - some of those he danced for would join him in the dance, others would shun him. It was wonderfully representative of how there will always be those in our society who will not allow themselves to be truly alive, to truly love. This was the kind of message that was being delivered during this decade - we even had a guitar playing nun who came to deliver religious education at Mitcham Primary School (for a while there I thought this was normal nun behaviour). Our family would regularly attend church every year on Christmas Eve (it was a special German language Lutheran Church in the city - again, I thought that every nationality in Australia had their own church.
Somehow, it never occurred to me that religion was meant to be anything more than a friendly reminder that in order to live well with one another it was always best to try to love one another as much as possible. It wasn't until my best friend Alex, a Roman Catholic, began preparations for his first holy communion that I began to ask questions, the main one being why it was that I was not expected to attend similar classes. In the end, I went along to his classes (again, it just didn't cross my mind that his religion was any different to my own). I'm sure if he had been a Muslim or Jewish that I would have happily gone attended with him his place of worship without even for one moment believing that there was any difference between his god and my own.
Shortly after it was published, I read the magnificent novel The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. In it, the main character as a young boy joins the three major religions of his country. When he is confronted about this by each respective leader and he asks them to explain why he cannot be a member of all three as he feels he ought to be able to, he is told that he is just too young to understand. I am now 43 years old and I still am not coming any closer to understanding why so many cannot comprehend the true nature of the universality of the concept that is the supreme deity of everything. Sometimes I think they deliberately choose not to comprehend - they can see it but then they simply refuse to embrace it, because it means losing the certainty that their religion is 100% perfect and correct.
Australia in the early 1980s was just like everywhere else in the Western world. The majority of people found homosexuality to be a vile and dreadful thing regardless of their religious beliefs (although it really does not take much effort to find evidence that the major religions of the world have strongly been influencing everyone on this subject for many years). I had a terrible time coming to terms with my own sexuality and certainly did not want to believe that I was any different from all the other boys as I was growing up (although in hindsight it has become clear that I was very different indeed).
My mother was always a little annoyed with my "difference" - she would sometimes declare, even very recently "You always wanted to be different" as if I had some choice over the matter. From a very young age I always had girls as my friends - I was naturally attracted to their games and to their sensitivity and of course I was equally repelled by boys rough and tumbles and their love of sport (my brother amusing himself for hours on end by throwing a tennis ball at my head did not help much either). My parties were always attended by all the girls in my class, and my only friend Alex. We later found another boy who was similarly considered an outcast and for many years afterwards there were three of us. One of the most dreadful things occurred when my best friend left Australia to go and live in Italy for a while.
I remember attending a Grade 6 camp and realising that I was dreadfully, dreadfully alone. Even the nerds did not really want me to be amongst their crowd. The girls were all moving on to real boys and I was on my own. It would take about 3 years of hell before I finally took up smoking and began to mix with the "cooler" crowd. I've only just managed to kick that habit, 30 years on. Needless to say I am no longer friends with any of that crowd (in fact I haven't even seen one of them for approximately 20 years!) but I'm still facebook friends with my oldest friend, Alex, although apart from our initial exchange after reconnecting after many years estranged, I haven't really reconnected at all. He's married now. Probably still a good Catholic. His wife, whom I'm contemplating befriending on Facebook (as she seems to the one in the relationship that wears the social media trousers) is holding a small child in a recent photo... maybe he's a daddy now?
I ended up at
Luther College in 1987. It was to become a very interesting year. I
may go into more detail of how I got there in a later blog, but needless to
say, I didn't get to stay there very long. In fact, before the year was
up I was expelled. The reason? Well ultimately the main reason was
that I wrote in a rather large graffiti paint pen on a shopping centre window
near the school that the principal, the vice principal and the head of my form
year were respectively, an "arse", a "cock" and a
"bitch".
The guy who's pen I had borrowed to make this rather public declaration ended up blaming me for everything, including all of his "tags". In the end I took the blame without question - after all, my foot high letters were a little impossible to deny and I did actually mean what I had written. As I was already on "suspension" for various "bad" behaviours" I was expelled without a moment's hesitation. Ultimately, I would never get on with the school and I really only even tried to because my parents had made it one of the conditions for my returning home (it was completely idiotic and totally unrealistic of them at the time to give me such an ultimatum but attending the school did give me some interesting life experiences).
My second cousin once asked me about the tag name – local school gossip still believed that I was "Astro". I'm here to clear that up. Astro was never my name, I don't do "tags" and I never did. That tag belongs to none other than Duncan McClean (perversely, I met Duncan many years later when he was an apprentice chef and I was a little surprised at how quickly he became the campest gay in the village…!)
The guy who's pen I had borrowed to make this rather public declaration ended up blaming me for everything, including all of his "tags". In the end I took the blame without question - after all, my foot high letters were a little impossible to deny and I did actually mean what I had written. As I was already on "suspension" for various "bad" behaviours" I was expelled without a moment's hesitation. Ultimately, I would never get on with the school and I really only even tried to because my parents had made it one of the conditions for my returning home (it was completely idiotic and totally unrealistic of them at the time to give me such an ultimatum but attending the school did give me some interesting life experiences).
My second cousin once asked me about the tag name – local school gossip still believed that I was "Astro". I'm here to clear that up. Astro was never my name, I don't do "tags" and I never did. That tag belongs to none other than Duncan McClean (perversely, I met Duncan many years later when he was an apprentice chef and I was a little surprised at how quickly he became the campest gay in the village…!)
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| A campaign that didn't exist during my high school years |
Throughout my high
school years I was called a faggot approximately every day of the year.
Clearly it wasn't actually once a day, there were days when nobody spoke
to me at all and then there were days when I was called a faggot or gay or
nancyboy so many times it seemed to make up for all the days when I
wasn't.
I have no idea just how the other kids knew about this, we didn't have social media back then or mobile phones and group texting, yet everyone seemed to know that this was the one thing that you could call me that would secretly enrage me. I certainly was not aware that I was ever different until much later, when it became really obvious that certain plumbing just did not work the way the other boys said it did. The difference, of course, between attending a state school that only vaguely tolerates religious belief and a school that is completely built around it is that at Luther College it became apparent fairly quickly that both the school principal and vice principal were amongst the most homophobic of them all. I really didn't stand a chance.
I remember when I first arrived at the school and the form co-ordinator made a short speech at our first assembly on what was acceptable dress for the students. On the subject of jewellery, she mentioned that girls could wear studs or small plain silver rings and of course the boys were not to wear any earrings at all. I wasn't at all surprised by these incredibly backward fashion statements coming from the "authority" but what totally floored me was that the whole chapel full of students had started to giggle and snicker at the mere mention made of boys wearing earrings - as if this was somehow effeminate and a therefore a laughable matter! With my already pierced ear (the left one! it wasn't "gay" if you had a piercing in your left ear!!) I knew then that my days at this school were well and truly numbered.
I have no idea just how the other kids knew about this, we didn't have social media back then or mobile phones and group texting, yet everyone seemed to know that this was the one thing that you could call me that would secretly enrage me. I certainly was not aware that I was ever different until much later, when it became really obvious that certain plumbing just did not work the way the other boys said it did. The difference, of course, between attending a state school that only vaguely tolerates religious belief and a school that is completely built around it is that at Luther College it became apparent fairly quickly that both the school principal and vice principal were amongst the most homophobic of them all. I really didn't stand a chance.
I remember when I first arrived at the school and the form co-ordinator made a short speech at our first assembly on what was acceptable dress for the students. On the subject of jewellery, she mentioned that girls could wear studs or small plain silver rings and of course the boys were not to wear any earrings at all. I wasn't at all surprised by these incredibly backward fashion statements coming from the "authority" but what totally floored me was that the whole chapel full of students had started to giggle and snicker at the mere mention made of boys wearing earrings - as if this was somehow effeminate and a therefore a laughable matter! With my already pierced ear (the left one! it wasn't "gay" if you had a piercing in your left ear!!) I knew then that my days at this school were well and truly numbered.
I'm actually
grateful for the experience at Luther, of course. It taught me to toughen up. It was unlikely to kill me (I'd already been
through that, hence the whole reason for why I needed to change schools in the
first place) and it taught me that most Christians are not only terribly flawed
but also that most will do everything in their power to show that it is others
who are much more flawed than they are.
The self righteous amongst us are truly the worst of the species – they
will bully and belittle and gossip and slander and never consider the consequences of their actions.
I have to end this mini rant by pointing out that the following year I did manage to attend the sister school (or perhaps it is best described as a distant cousin?) of Luther College which was located 4 hours away in Hamilton, sheep capital of Victoria. Good Shepherd College was run by the former Vice Principal of Luther College, Malcolm Wegner. Now there was a true Christian. He allowed me to complete my final year of school (without having completed year 11, and I attempted it twice) and he treated me like the adult that I then already was (I was 18 by the time I started this final year at his school). I have the utmost respect for him and even though the school Pastor had an ego the size of a house and tried to upstage me when he played Judas to my Jesus in our school production of Godspell, I can honestly say it was one of the most spiritual years and the closest I came to experiencing a true version of Christianity. Oddly enough, it was also the year that I was introduced to Evangelical Worship. Something I discovered was frowned upon by more the conservative Christians in the town.
I have to end this mini rant by pointing out that the following year I did manage to attend the sister school (or perhaps it is best described as a distant cousin?) of Luther College which was located 4 hours away in Hamilton, sheep capital of Victoria. Good Shepherd College was run by the former Vice Principal of Luther College, Malcolm Wegner. Now there was a true Christian. He allowed me to complete my final year of school (without having completed year 11, and I attempted it twice) and he treated me like the adult that I then already was (I was 18 by the time I started this final year at his school). I have the utmost respect for him and even though the school Pastor had an ego the size of a house and tried to upstage me when he played Judas to my Jesus in our school production of Godspell, I can honestly say it was one of the most spiritual years and the closest I came to experiencing a true version of Christianity. Oddly enough, it was also the year that I was introduced to Evangelical Worship. Something I discovered was frowned upon by more the conservative Christians in the town.
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| Our Clan back when they let us cuddle them.... ALL of them! |
Our kids don’t
practice any form of any religion. Jarra once attended a riding school
that was secretly run by an Evangelical Christian group. She came back
singing a song that completely freaked out my best friend Kymmers with the
sheer banality of its lyrics (something along the lines of: "I'm a sheep
[clap clap] I'm a sheep! [clap clap]). Kari & Khyan have already
sized up those that call themselves "religious" and put them in the
idiot basket, as most rebellious (read: intelligent) teenagers are prone to do
when they come across the judgemental amongst us. Radha is just a
gorgeous soul, full of love and light and it is unlikely that the darkness of
the religious will ever penetrate to her inner core. Sarah has had a
particularly hard time in her early years, although with her foster mother's
atheistic straightforward and practical love has come through this less damaged
than she might have been.
Sam, Zack and Brydie's mum died tragically a few years ago and I have heard Brydie say that she will see her again one day (and her mother's brother, Richard, who was a very close member of their family unit and who passed away a few years prior to their mother's passing). Ultimately these three are just way too intelligent to fall for the fear and nonsense that ensnares most kids into the fold if their parents are not practicing religidiots although Brydie has even made mention of looking forward to seeing her mother again, I imagine that this is more of a metaphorical approach to the subject of an afterlife and anyway, you don't need a religion to have a feeling that our ancestors are watching over us and awaiting for us to join them in the great beyond. I'm yet to have an in-depth conversation about spirituality with any of the kids but ultimately I think they will live their lives without the fears and anxieties that both David and I grew up with.
So back to last
weekend and my attendance at the Watford Community Church. I hadn't been to an Evangelical service for
literally, well, ages. I pretty soon
regretted my decision to go again. The
service mainly consisted of singing (which is fine, I love to sing) and
although I found the music very uplifting, the lyrics were just dire. I mean, I get that God is meant to be great
(we are talking about the most supreme being in the whole universe here) but to
constantly draw emphasis to the fact that this
god OUR GOD is the greatest…. I started to believe that maybe there were
other supreme beings in the universe jostling for the role of super deity
pretty quickly (which I'm certain is NOT the aim of the Christian belief
system). To describe it in a word, I
would have to use "vapid".Sam, Zack and Brydie's mum died tragically a few years ago and I have heard Brydie say that she will see her again one day (and her mother's brother, Richard, who was a very close member of their family unit and who passed away a few years prior to their mother's passing). Ultimately these three are just way too intelligent to fall for the fear and nonsense that ensnares most kids into the fold if their parents are not practicing religidiots although Brydie has even made mention of looking forward to seeing her mother again, I imagine that this is more of a metaphorical approach to the subject of an afterlife and anyway, you don't need a religion to have a feeling that our ancestors are watching over us and awaiting for us to join them in the great beyond. I'm yet to have an in-depth conversation about spirituality with any of the kids but ultimately I think they will live their lives without the fears and anxieties that both David and I grew up with.
I did not mind the guest speaker that they had speaking (in fact, I was grateful because the woman who led the worship was starting to get on my tits with her constant "and I am just feeling so excited about all this!" and the whole message that the guest speaker had to deliver was actually quite positive overall – basically that you are greater than you can ever imagine and only you will end up limiting what you can actually achieve. Basically, to quote a piece of juvenilia, as Richard O'Brien himself called it recently: "Don't dream it, be it!"
So why am I waxing
lyrical about religion anyway? Well,
oddly enough, I have a number of cook books that have a religious or spiritual
basis to them. That, and David found my
Christmas cake the other day and he and Zack ate it with custard. Anyone that has ever tried to wish David a
Happy Christmas will often get the standard reply "Do you believe that
Jesus is the only son of God?"
and woe betide anyone who does not and merely thinks that "it's
traditional" (so is stoning unbelievers…).
I have spent many a year attempting to find an alternative seasonal
greeting and the only one that David and I find truly acceptable and all
encompassing and inclusive is "Happy Solstice". Secretly, though, I'm with Nigella in
believing that all the good things
about Christmas, all the feasting, the gift giving – even that tree with its
colourful decorations – all of these date back to a time before Christianity
was even born – the Christian Church merely came along and supplanted their
traditions over an already existing celebration, and like the Green Men in the
churches of old, they could never quite
rub out these heathen traditions entirely.
So it is no surprise that the Christmas cake that he enjoyed so much came from Nigella Christmas (US readers, try here) – Nigella's very own heathen interpretation of the joy of cooking for this season. This book is a recent acquisition to my collection. I truly want ALL of her works – I truly believe no home should be without them. Ever since How to be a Domestic Goddess came out I wanted to own it (but perversely I still do not own a copy). My boss at work actually gave me my first Nigella cook book because she ended up receiving two for Christmas 2011 and the day after we were discussing the latest programme in the office and I mentioned how I had made the peanut butter caramel cheesecake that was broadcast the week before (it was delicious) she brought it in and gifted it to me.
So it is no surprise that the Christmas cake that he enjoyed so much came from Nigella Christmas (US readers, try here) – Nigella's very own heathen interpretation of the joy of cooking for this season. This book is a recent acquisition to my collection. I truly want ALL of her works – I truly believe no home should be without them. Ever since How to be a Domestic Goddess came out I wanted to own it (but perversely I still do not own a copy). My boss at work actually gave me my first Nigella cook book because she ended up receiving two for Christmas 2011 and the day after we were discussing the latest programme in the office and I mentioned how I had made the peanut butter caramel cheesecake that was broadcast the week before (it was delicious) she brought it in and gifted it to me.
Basically it is a
mash up of dried fruit (Nigella says use 350g pears, 250g apricots and 250g
golden sultanas – I just used 850g of whatever dried fruit I could find – and
this included mangos and pineapple. Chop
them into smaller pieces (obviously not the sultanas) and into a saucepan they
go along with 175g butter, 200g sugar, 125ml white rum and 200g marmalade
(actually the recipe calls for ginger jam… but yeah, you’re unlikely to find
this at your local supermarket). You
simmer this for about 10 mins, and then leave to stand for half an hour. Then you stir in ground almonds (225g),
sesame seeds (35g) the seeds from 3 cardamon pods and ¼ tsp ground
coriander.
After this, beat 3 eggs into the mix and then spoon everything into a 20cm high-sided tin lined with a double layer of baking parchment (it's important that the parchment extends about 10cm above the cake tin so you can completely cover the cake once it is baked). Nigella then studs her cake with blanched almonds (in concentric circles) and I highly recommend this, as it really does look fabulous. Bake it for 1 hour 40 minutes in a preheated oven (150 degrees Celsius / Gas mark 2). Then leave everything to cool in the tin. Wrap it in foil and then into a cake tin it goes (it must be airtight). You don't need to leave it for a couple of months in the larder, but if you forget that you made it, well, what a lovely surprise for your son and his dad to find and to devour with custard.
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| What's left of the cake..... |
After this, beat 3 eggs into the mix and then spoon everything into a 20cm high-sided tin lined with a double layer of baking parchment (it's important that the parchment extends about 10cm above the cake tin so you can completely cover the cake once it is baked). Nigella then studs her cake with blanched almonds (in concentric circles) and I highly recommend this, as it really does look fabulous. Bake it for 1 hour 40 minutes in a preheated oven (150 degrees Celsius / Gas mark 2). Then leave everything to cool in the tin. Wrap it in foil and then into a cake tin it goes (it must be airtight). You don't need to leave it for a couple of months in the larder, but if you forget that you made it, well, what a lovely surprise for your son and his dad to find and to devour with custard.
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