Blog: Entry #2

Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day

— “Morning has Broken” by Cat Stevens

I was born August 14, 1960, in Mordialloc, a beach town just south of Melbourne, Australia. As my mom told it, I was three weeks late and put her through 72 hours of intense labour, like the labour of childbirth is not always intense. In fact, the doctors had such a hard time with the delivery that I was extracted using a vacuum suction tool and came out with a conehead—see the Saturday Night Live sketches about the “Coneheads.” The extended pregnancy and difficult delivery were just the start of her trials with me. (side note – her next child was a breech birth, yet she still had a third – she was a strong woman). Mom always believed in God, believed God the best she knew how, and brought her sons up to believe. I was christened (christened = sprinkled, one of the 4 types of baptism: dipped = water poured over; dunked = fully submerged; dry cleaned = receiving the gift of holy spirit, no water necessary) at the local Presbyterian church, and so my walk with God began. I don’t remember, though, ever being in a church while I was in Australia. By the way, I have been sprinkled, dunked, and dry cleaned, but never dipped–more on that later.

Until recently, I had little to no recollection of my life before 12 years old. My wife always thought that it was strange and suggested that it was due to repressed trauma. At the age of 61 I finally started mental health therapy to deal with anger issues resulting from repressed trauma. One side effect of dealing with and overcoming my childhood traumas and retraining the responses of my inner child has been recalling events from that childhood.