Aaron. That was excellent. I get that you're putting forward art, and so perhaps asking a practical question diminishes the intangible...zing? But here I go. I'm raising two little girls in the church and in the word. What did you need as a young boy that would have allowed the two sides of the house to talk (as you say), that would have rescued you from crippling fear and dread?
Gorgeous. Much resonates as a child raised in a Pentecostal household, a late bloomer, and one who early felt the depths of eternity in his attempts to ward off sin and live purely before God. Beautiful that your Grandmother still recognised your gifting and blessed it.
This is eeriely similar to my childhood years. So similar except perhaps on a slightly less grand scale. A fiery Pentecostal parents who were both highschool teachers, dad of chemistry and mom of biology. As children we started joining in marathon water-only fasting as early as age 7.
I started teaching Sunday school at around age 12 and proper sermon at about age 17 but only at my local church. But I had always been an intellectually curious type with insatiable hunger for empirical or logical answers to questions that my church experience did not even come any close to answering. Everything started changing when I discovered classic European literature, especially French and Russian authors, especially Dostoyevsky. The last thread of guilt and fear of betraying my faith would eventually come loose. I never quite become an atheist but more of an agnostic who's sympathetic to the religious instinct in most humans but which I no longer feel.
I recently published a short dialogue from 10 years ago I had with one of the countless people who interrogated me in good faith about my new state of apostasy.
Aaron. That was excellent. I get that you're putting forward art, and so perhaps asking a practical question diminishes the intangible...zing? But here I go. I'm raising two little girls in the church and in the word. What did you need as a young boy that would have allowed the two sides of the house to talk (as you say), that would have rescued you from crippling fear and dread?
Thank you. If I’d had parents, I believe that would’ve helped.
Gorgeous. Much resonates as a child raised in a Pentecostal household, a late bloomer, and one who early felt the depths of eternity in his attempts to ward off sin and live purely before God. Beautiful that your Grandmother still recognised your gifting and blessed it.
Thanks, brother!
This is eeriely similar to my childhood years. So similar except perhaps on a slightly less grand scale. A fiery Pentecostal parents who were both highschool teachers, dad of chemistry and mom of biology. As children we started joining in marathon water-only fasting as early as age 7.
I started teaching Sunday school at around age 12 and proper sermon at about age 17 but only at my local church. But I had always been an intellectually curious type with insatiable hunger for empirical or logical answers to questions that my church experience did not even come any close to answering. Everything started changing when I discovered classic European literature, especially French and Russian authors, especially Dostoyevsky. The last thread of guilt and fear of betraying my faith would eventually come loose. I never quite become an atheist but more of an agnostic who's sympathetic to the religious instinct in most humans but which I no longer feel.
I recently published a short dialogue from 10 years ago I had with one of the countless people who interrogated me in good faith about my new state of apostasy.
https://isoe.substack.com/p/a-brief-dialogue-about-faith?r=1gxdk6
Wow!
Fantastic stuff
Thank you!