 
## Letting Go to Live with Christ

## By Berry Lee Canote

Cover Picture: Stained glass window at Monkland Church (near Leominster, Herefordshire) by Akoliasnikoff

Published by Berry Lee Canote at Smashwords 2018

Copyright © 2017 Berry Lee Canote

All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One: Some Background

Chapter Two: Judgement

Chapter Three: Repentance

Chapter Four: Atonement

Chapter Five Redemption

Chapter Six: Salvation

Lastword

# Foreword

Life is a journey, and some paths we often wish we had not gone down. Such is the case with my life. At age 26 I embarked on a journey I regret. It led me to a life of heartache, of sin, of problems that were ignored or even exasperated by a faith with no room for compassion or understanding. That path ended with me being a man that questioned everything he believed. Here I was a middle aged man, and all I had to show for it was a divorce, and a child I was not permitted to see. Nearly ten years before I had been diagnosed as having Bipolar II Disorder. It is a mental illness that consists of hypomanic phases, periods of extreme hyperactivity and elation that would cycle into deep dark periods of depression and back. Of late, they think the issue may be Asperger's Syndrome. Regardless of the issue that was not the root of my problem. The path I had taken had left me with a religion with no compassion towards others, especially those with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities. I therefore could find no relief for my problems. There was no one I could turn to that would have enough sympathy to help me. Instead I was reviled, chastised, ridiculed. I had for twenty years been a part of a religion with no room for compassion, understanding, or forgiveness.

I tried hard to make things work within that faith. I whittled down those within the religion I interacted to close friends. I started doing rites at home. I even wrote on final book. All to no avail, I found my faith in my religion slipping. I began to see flaws in its doctrine. I began to see that perhaps all that I had seen were its good points. Perhaps, I never bothered to look at the bad ones.

At the same time, I began to look elsewhere to answers. I found those answers in a faith I had left twenty years before. The answers were to be found in Christianity. It was a religion with room for compassion, understanding, or forgiveness. I doubled back to take the path I should have been on all along, a path I think would have given me a happier life. Going on a different path left me though wondering what I should do. On the previous path, I had been a researcher and writer of books, a scholar of sorts. I had been an important person in my former religion. I knew I did not want to be an important person again. But I did want to do my part helping and caring for others. I wanted to show compassion towards my fellow man. Most of all, I wanted to help spread the word of God. I spent nearly every Sunday in church praying for guidance. I prayed for God to show the way. This book is a result of those prayers.

I must stress here I am no theologian. Academically, my study into Christianity consisted of one class on comparative religion. All else I learned about Christianity I learned from Sunday School, and my own studies. This lack of formal education in Christianity has been complicated by spending twenty years away from the religion. Some of this book therefore may not jive with what you, the reader may have been taught. Many of the ideas expressed here are my own and not the part of any doctrine of any Christian denomination. As to my commentary on the religion I came from, I was one of its leaders. I wrote seven books on the religion, and was considered one of its foremost scholars. Therefore, what I have to say on it are not the ramblings of a bitter man that misunderstood its teachings. They are instead the observations of someone that was intimate with its beliefs and practices, of someone knowledgeable in its doctrines.

I hope you learn something from this book. I hope if nothing else you learn to choose the paths you take wisely. It is all too easy to set foot on the wrong path especially when life has thrown you unexpected hardships. I would ask when hardships are thrown your way that you turn to God. Do not go seeking answers elsewhere. As I said I spent many Sundays praying to God for guidance. This book I feel is the result of those prayers, and I hope you enjoy it.

Berry Canote

October, 2017 A. D. 

# Chapter One: Some Background

We all make mistakes in life. There are things we do that we regret, things that are not easily walked away from. One of my biggest mistakes was turning away from the Church. I was young when it happened. I was unhappy with what I saw as flaws in Christian theology. I was just unhappy in general. So at age nineteen I began to turn away from Christianity, to turn away from Christ. And thus began a journey I wish I had never taken.

I did not turn away all at once. It was a very gradual thing at first. I stopped attending church regularly at age nineteen. When I was twenty my father came down with cancer so I had no real time to think about religion. All that was on my mind was trying to get him well, work, and college. But during that time I drifted farther and farther from Christ at a time when many would have turned to their faith to draw strength from. Instead I had already began to turn away from the Church, and place my faith in other things.

This was not due to how I was raised. I was raised in a little rural Methodist Church. We attended church every Sunday. As a teen I even taught Sunday school. I grew up on a farm with country values. My parents taught me to work hard, love God, be honest and truthful, and to be kind to others. I did not want for anything, nor was I ever abused. I loved my parents. I loved my family. I loved my friends. There was nothing for me to run away from. Nothing bad I had to forget. In essence I had the perfect childhood. I had parents that loved me, and I have an older sister that is like a second mother. I have a twin brother so I always had a playmate as a child. I had cousins as playmates as well. In essence, I came from a happy Middle Class farm family. There was nothing in my childhood that should have made me want to turn away from Christ.

So why did I run? That is a question I cannot answer. I had a happy upbringing. Other folks would have given anything to have the life I had. I was well fed. I never wanted for clothes. When I was ill I was taken to the doctor. As I had bad teeth, my parents had crowns put on my teeth. If anything my parents were doting. The closest I can come to an answer is that I simply could not cope. You see I had one big strike against me. At age 42, I was diagnosed having Bipolar II Disorder. Now they think it may be Asperger's Syndrome instead. Regardless, I was not equipped with the coping skills most people naturally have. Many think mental illnesses or developmental problems are something you can control. They are not. Trying to control a mental illness or developmental problem is like trying to control the flu. All you can do is try as best you can to treat the symptoms. There is no cure. There is no trying to control yourself. Mental illness and developmental disabilities are not something that can be controlled.

Whether I have Bipolar Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome, it was not something that came on suddenly. And it was not something to suspect I had as a child. Mental illness and developmental disorders do not run in my family. No one else has a mental illness other than perhaps mild depression brought on by such things as the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job. So, there was never any reason to think that there was something wrong with me. Whatever is wrong it was not hereditary or my twin brother, being an identical twin would have it too. It came on slowly over time. My belief is that it was caused by a concussion sometime in childhood. At age four I fell off a horse and busted my lip. And while I got medical treatment, a concussion is not something that can be easily treated. If not that it was due to perhaps my mother's age of 46 when I was born. Older mothers are known to give birth to children with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses. It could have been either of those things or both or another concussion later in my childhood.

Like my twin brother I was a shy child. I was quiet and not prone to interacting with others. That is not to say I did not have friends in school. I was withdrawn though, and certainly not a social butterfly. Many situations scared me. I was prone to nervousness, and would actually have panic attacks over something as simple as going to the dentist. By the time I was in high school, dating was out of the question. I was too shy to talk to the girls I wanted to go out with. In many ways, for me high school was very lonely. I wanted desperately to be loved and admired. I wanted to be seen as someone special. Instead, I was the quiet, little guy that gets good grades, and never dates.

I graduated high school in 1981. I did not graduate with honors. I did not even have a 3.0 grade point average. That was a disappointment to me, but by that time my grades had slipped, not for lack of trying, but because I took the most difficult classes I could. That fall I went away for college. And while I did make friends, and actually had a social circle, I stopped attending classes. My major was in Chemistry, and I found the coursework too difficult. I flunked out and had to return home at the end of the session. Going to college was not exactly what I had planned to do anyhow.

You see I wanted to be a farmer. It was what I had wanted since I was a young child. I wanted to be a farmer like my father, and his father before him. I took all the agriculture classes I could in high school. I helped my father work the farm. I knew how to plow and plant the fields. I knew how to castrate calves. I knew how to mend fences. I knew what kind of chicken feed to buy. I knew how to milk a cow. I knew all I needed for my desired profession. My father taught me well.

My mother had different ideas. She had always wanted to live in town. Despite being a farm girl all her life, she had a strong dislike for living on a farm. She did not like the seclusion, the not having other people around. And she disliked the hardships that came with living on a farm. She decided she did not want that for her children. She looked at my cousins who had graduated college, and had good city jobs. And that is what she wanted for my brother and I. And while my father wanted to give the farm to us kids for us to work, she would have nothing of it. In her words, "You can't make a living at farming."

So I started classes at the local junior college. I found another set of friends, and enjoyed a fairly happy social life. I developed a crush on a girl in one of my classes. She was a pretty brunette with ivory white skin and brown eyes. She was quiet like me, and very sweet. I have met few girls nicer. As she had a boyfriend, and I had no car anyway, I never asked her out. But for the next two years my life was bliss. She dropped out of school, but I wrote her letters, and would visit her at her house. Occasionally, we would go out. That friendship ended when I made a remark about her boyfriend that got back to him, and she broke off our friendship. I was devastated. I cried that whole night she told me she could no longer see me. And I would spend the next three years pining over her. In that time I never dated. I did not even have a desire to look at another girl.

It was also that year that my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was my world. While my relationship with my mother after returning home from college was uneasy, my relationship with my father never was. That is not to say we didn't argue. We did, but he was the parent that was always there for me. So for the next three years, I watched as my father fought what would turn out to be a losing battle. At one point, we thought he had recovered. The doctors said he was cancer free. He had been taking radiation treatments. But then the cancer came back, and on October 16, 1987 he passed away. I was 24 and working fast food. I had no plans for my life. I had graduated the junior college the year before, and had no plans to continue my education. I was like a rudderless ship.

I still remember the night he died. We knew it was coming. We had known for months. His treatments had finished in the spring. When it was clear the treatments were not working, he was sent home from the hospital. He was basically sent home to die. He spent the next few months' bedridden. We had a nurse that would come to the farm to take care of him every couple days or so, and another lady that would come daily to sponge bathe him and change his clothes. We tried to make him as comfortable as possible. Family and friends would come and visit. I would get off work in the evening and come home to sit with him.

At the beginning of the second week of October he took a turn for the worse, and we entered him in the hospital. We knew the end was coming soon, and were wanting someplace comfortable he could pass on. The days leading up to his death were stressful. Upon his arriving to be admitted to the hospital, I had to fight with a doctor to have Dad admitted. Dad was a patient of Boone Regional Hospital, and we were trying to enter him into Moberly Regional Medical Center. The doctor on duty did not want to admit him as he was not their patient. I stood there in the ER arguing with him. Finally, another doctor asked who our doctor was? I told him Dr. Daly, and he said Dr. Daly was out of town, but he would call his partner. Dr. Conley arrived in a matter of minutes. I do not know how fast he drove across town, but he had to be breaking some speed laws. There he confronted the other doctor with the words, "This family has suffered enough. Mr. Canote is our patient now." They did blood tests and determined Dad was not getting enough oxygen. They wanted to do a blood transfusion. The decision was left by Mom to me. I said, "No." I knew father wanted to die, he had made his peace with his Maker, and a blood transfusion would only prolong his suffering. Still, for several years after this I asked myself, "If I had allowed the blood transfusion would he have recovered, and lived out his life to old age?" It was a question that plagued me. I felt guilt over it for years, and nearly lost it because of it.

It was now Friday night. Despite his health gradually declining, he was at himself. A mere hour before his death one of my cousins came to visit. Dad visited with him as if nothing was wrong. When my cousin was notified of his death, his response was, "That cannot be, I was just talking to him twenty minutes ago." My cousin left, and Dad began to fade. They gave him oxygen until he would not let them. Then they had me hold the oxygen mask for him. It was to no avail. So we sat and waited. Dad passed away with only me in the room. Mom had left to get something to drink. I just sat there until Mom came back. She noticed Dad had passed, and fetched a nurse. I was numb. I was exhausted.

The next day we went in to make the funeral arrangements. The whole family went, my Mom, my sister, my brother, and me. The process was not a cold one. The undertaker was a family friend. That evening a friend took my brother and I out for pizza. That Sunday evening was visitation. I never knew my father was so loved. The number that came to visitation must have been in the hundreds. Even the undertaker who saw death every day was shedding tears. I stood until my feet hurt and my hands were tired from shaking hands. Three days after my father's death we laid him to rest in the cemetery by my old church. That evening my brother and I visited a neighbor who was a member of our church in the hospital.

And once it was all over with I felt alone. Despite having my family there for me I felt alone. And after a while the anger came. Why was I, the youngest in the family left to make the important medical decisions for Dad at the end? Why was I the one that had to fight the ER doctor at Moberly Regional Medical Center to get him admitted? And finally, why did my father have to die? I was angry at my Mom for not being strong enough to make the medical decisions herself. I was also mad at her for not standing up to the ER doctor. Here I was 24 having my father's life thrust in my hands, and then he had to die anyway. I felt cheated. I was angry at my mother, and most of all I was angry at God.

After all, my father was a God fearing man, and an upstanding member of the community. Few had done as much to help his neighbors. As my cousin Kenny says my Dad did more work on neighbor's farms than they did themselves. He had built himself up from nothing. When he left home he had nothing, but his horse, saddle, and his clothes. By the end of his life he had owned two farms that he paid for with sweat, blood, and his own two hands. If anyone was a self-made man he was. He was a loving father, husband, brother, and son. And as far as I know he hated no one and no one hated him. If anyone deserved a happy end to life he did. And what he did he get instead, four years of pain, and a death unworthy of a man who had worked his entire life, and done nothing but good. If I sound angry, I still am. It is something I must work through the rest of my life. For now, I console myself by telling myself it was all a part of God's greater plan.

It was with Dad's death my life truly began to fall apart. As I said, my father was the world to me. It was difficult to lead life without him. I quit my job that January after the owners appointed a new manager. The day they had fired the old manager they had us clean the store without the proper respiratory equipment. My lungs hurt from fumes from oven cleaner, my head hurt, and upset over a friend losing his job, I felt I was in no shape to go back. I was coughing, my head ached, and I felt drained. The emotional exhaustion from my Dad's death did not help. We had spent four years trying to save my father, only to have God take him from us. During those years my high school classmates had been going to college and starting their lives, I had been helping in a losing battle to save my father's life.

I spent a long time unemployed, and then after I got work drifting from job to job. After three years I moved in with a friend in a Columbia, Missouri to try to find a job. It was during this time I picked up a neo-pagan book on runes in a used bookstore. I threw myself into the study of the runes. I thought maybe it would provide me with the answers I needed. Life was looking hopeful. I was happy. I was getting job interviews. But I developed a severe infection from an abscessed tooth, and had to move back home to the farm. My mouth was so swollen I could barely open it to eat. A week after I moved home I got a job offer, but was unable to work due to the infection. It was at that point I decided to go back to college

That summer while waiting to return to college, I picked up a book called A Book of Troth. It was written by the same author that wrote the book on runes I had picked up in the spring. I thought I had finally found something for me, it was called Heathenry. Followers of Heathenry worship the gods of Norse mythology. It is a pagan religion, and does not believe in God or Christ. By that fall, I considered myself a Norse pagan. I had not attended church in years. I had stopped considering myself Christian not long after my father's death. After all, why would a God that really cared take my Dad from me? Heathenry was a belief system that would work for me. I joined a Heathen organization called the Ring of Troth, and started writing for their journal, Idunna.

If one were to go back and read the first articles I had written for Idunna, you could see my anger at God. I picked apart Christian beliefs and theology raging over everything from the idea that God first wanted to keep knowledge from Man in the Garden of Eden to the concept that one could be saved by Grace alone. I questioned the idea of Original Sin. I stated in my opinion the Christian God was just an angry child that demanded attention at any cost. There seemed to be no end to the criticisms I had of Christianity. To me Christianity was a flawed religion responsible for all that was wrong with the world. And Idunna's readers ate it up. Many, like me, had turned to Heathenry because they hated God. They did not run to Heathenry because they loved it. They, like me, had run from Christianity because they hated it.

While back at school I did well at first. I found another set of friends. I enjoyed my classes. I had changed my major to Journalism, and as I loved writing I found my coursework easy. I learned how to run a video camera, and how to edit videotape. I made news stories, a music video, and wrote a few articles for the school paper. I worked at the university radio station as a dj. The first year was a breeze.

That summer I took summer classes, and met a girl I would become obsessed with. When she rejected my advances, I slowly slipped into depression, and by that spring I had stopped attending classes. Instead, I would spend my time in my apartment playing computer games. When my money ran out at the end of the semester, I moved back home. I only had fifteen hours left towards my degree. One semester and I would have had my bachelor's degree. Had I remained with the Church I would have had someone to turn to, a pastor I could talk to. I could have gotten the help I needed, and finished my studies. My new religion gave me no such resources to fall back on. I was left to deal with my depression on my own as there was no one there for me.

At the time I did not see that. I was supposed to be strong and self-reliant without need of any sort of help from anyone. The idea I could have turned to someone for help was alien to me. I therefore tried to struggle through on my own. Finally, in desperation, I went to the University of Missouri Medical Center for treatment of depression. I took a battery of tests to see if I had a mental illness. They found nothing and therefore assumed I just had depression. They gave me pills and sent me home. In a few months I was back to myself, almost giddy at times. I was back with my old friends, and things were returning to "normal."

Another year though, and I was very angry. I was unemployed and having trouble finding work. I hated being isolated on the farm after having spent time in college with folks around me all the time. I was still angry that my father had been taken from me. At about that time, I joined another Heathen group, and began writing booklets for them. I was developing a name for myself in the Heathen community as a scholar and a writer.

It was through my writing that I met another Heathen who had worked with a New Age Center. I started teaching classes at the New Age Center, and eventually moved into an apartment there. This began my descent into Hell. It was at this time, my illness really began to show its signs. I don't know what brought it on. While living at the New Age Center, I became paranoid. I thought there was a group spreading rumors about me, and that they had turned this rumor mill into sort of a game. They would drop clues as to who the person was that had indecently exposed himself on the college campus nearby a year or so back from when I had moved to the city. I got it in my head that they were trying to frame me for it. I thought there was also a group of people that were trying to swing the rumors away from me by playing the equivalent of the telephone game. They would take the rumors and spin them into something more harmless. I would go places, and after I left, I would imagine things had been said about me. They were not voices in my head, merely my own thoughts, but these thoughts would not stop. I kept them going through my head, changing them, making them fit the paranoia. I felt drained, and started trying desperately to hang on to reality. I became obsessed with another girl. She called the police after I made repeated phone calls to her. I just wanted to be accepted, and have someone special in my life. Most of all I wanted the paranoia to go away. I tried to tell myself it was not real to no avail.

Whether it was full-fledged paranoia of Bipolar Disorder or the overactive imagination due to Asperger's Syndrome I do not know. I never sought treatment then. I spent a lot of time alone. When I was not alone I was with close friends. My life mainly consisted of going to the bar one street over, and then spending the evenings on the computer. The thoughts in my head would not stop. I was constantly exhausted. I had lost weight. I was smoking more. I was drinking more. I was doing anything to drive my demons away.

That is not to say these were not happy times. In my lucid moments I enjoyed myself. I taught a class on Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey." I held rites in the basement. I occasionally spent evenings attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings despite never truly having been an addict. Like many kids, I had experimented with marijuana and other drugs, but I had never been an addict. But the meetings were a chance to spend time with other people, talking about problems in our lives.

This whole time I was a member of an Heathen organization called the Winland Rice. Winland is taken from an Old Icelandic name for the New England coast and Rice is an Old English word meaning "kingdom." The group believed in "sacral kingship," that is that the king of a land had special powers granted by the Anglo-Saxon gods. To enter the group one had to come in as a thrall. Thralls were not allowed to talk, were told what to do, and had to do manual labor. This whole time they were being taught the precepts of the religion. Once one was "free" that is to say a full member one could work his or herself up through the ranks of the group which were churl, thane, and lord. I was lucky. I did not have to go through thralldom.

The leader of the group, the "sacral leader" was a vindictive man. Oh he was very friendly with his own people, but with those in the greater religious community that he had a problem with he was unrelenting. He would heap ridicule upon ridicule at anyone who even had the slightest bit of criticism of his group. His assistant was as bad as not worse. They would publish articles on how such and such Heathen was a bad person in an attempt to ruin that person's name. And if any member of the group spoke out against such practices, they were outlawed. It all seems so silly and surreal now that I would have ever joined such a group. And it is a surprise thousands believe in such a religion or something similar. No doubt, being in such an environment made my illness worse.

Despite fighting with my illness, I managed to get a job as a legal secretary, and as time passed the paranoia went away, and was gone after I moved out of the New Age Center. I had left the Winland Rice in disgust with their behavior, and I had formed my own Heathen organization free of the ideas of thralls and ridiculing others.

And I met a girl at a pagan gathering. She lived in Indiana, but we began corresponding, and not long after we started dating. I would make weekly weekend getaways to Indiana to spend time with her. By that winter we would be engaged, and the next year living together. By then though the damage my illness had done with the paranoia had taken its toll. I was needy, and overly dependent on my fiancée, so after two years together we broke up. Like when I lost my friendship with my female friend I met at the junior college I was devastated. I took to drinking two bottles of honey wine every night. I would get off work, swing by the store and buy the two bottles. I would then drink them that night, and get up and go to work in the morning and repeat the process. My life continued like this for over a year.

My mother passed away a couple years after my ex-fiancée and I broke off our engagement. Her death was not expected. She had sold the farm several years before and moved into town. She enjoyed taking walks, visiting with friends, and playing cards. My brother lived with her, and looked after her. A year before she died, I moved back into the house. I would commute to work in Columbia. Those were actually fairly happy times. My mother and I had largely reconciled. I think to a degree she saw I would have been happier being a farmer, and I understood that she was merely looking out for my best interests no matter how misguided I think she was.

One Friday I woke to find her on her bedroom floor. She could not walk. I called the ambulance, and then called my sister. My sister met the ambulance at the ER, and they informed my sister Mom had had a heart attack. Mom held on for a couple of days. She passed early on Sunday morning. None of the family was there. The hospital had tried to call the wrong number to tell us to come be by her side. I felt bad that we were not there when she died, but she had not been at herself for hours prior to her death, and probably would not have even known we were there. The hospital finally did get a hold of us, and in the wee hours of that Sunday we went to the hospital where we called the undertaker. The next day we filled out the death certificate, and made the funeral plans. She had a funeral straight from the United Methodist Book of Worship.

I missed Mom. In the final years of her life we had grown closer. When my ex-fiancée and I broke off our engagement, Mom sat and held my head on her shoulder as I cried, and she told me all would be okay. But while I missed her I was reconciled to the fact she had had a long life and her final years had been very happy ones. And now after thirteen years she was reunited with my father.

Her passing gave me time to reflect on all the anger I had had at her for many years. I had long ago let go of that anger, but her death allowed me to see it in a new light. I was wrong to ever have been angry at her. She left the decisions concerning Dad's final stay in the hospital to me because I was one of the men in the family, and in her generation such important life and death matters were decided by men, not women. It did not matter if those men were very young, and there was an older woman present better suited to make the decision. Women simply did not handle such matters period. In her mind, I was the man of the family present, and therefore the one who had to decide what had to be done concerning my father. In that light, I should feel proud that she entrusted my Dad's life to me, and not called an uncle to help make the decision. I should be happy she had faith that I would do what was right.

By the time of my mother's death, the Heathen organization I had started had grown. I was well known in the Heathen community. Three years after my ex-fiancée and I broke up I found myself in another relationship, this despite still being in love with my ex-fiancée. I had been conducting a long range relationship with a Heathen lady in Texas. At the same time I was having a non-sexual affair with the wife of a Heathen friend. This I broke off shortly after becoming engaged to the lady in Texas. I wound up moving to Texas and the lady that became my ex-wife and I began to build a life together. In 2002, we conceived a child, my son. We did not marry until the following June. Heavily pregnant my ex-wife passed out at the altar at the wedding right after the vows had been completed. Those first few years were good for the most part, but there were rocky points.

I can still remember the day my son was born. My wife had dropped me off at work. I was doing courtroom intelligence for a firm there in Dallas at the federal building. She then went on to her job. Court was just returning from recess, when a court clerk walked in and handed the judge a note. She looked up, and asked, "Is a Mister Berry Canote here." I said yes, and she asked me to step outside. I was wondering what it was I could have done. I was expecting to step out in the hallway to be arrested by federal marshals. Instead, there was a smiling law clerk that handed me a note, and said, "Congratulations." My wife had gone into labor, and the business manager at where she worked was coming to pick me up. We had only taken the one car that day. Once at my ex-wife's place of work I loaded her in the car, and we made the nearly thirty mile drive to our hospital in Denton. I must have been going ninety to one hundred down the I-35. For once I was actually hoping to be pulled over by a public safety officer. I was not however. We reached the hospital, and her water broke as we reached the hospital doors. It was a long labor, and nine hours later I held my son. It was one of the happiest days of my life.

As I said though, when I got together with my ex-wife I was still in love with my ex-fiancée. This did not allow me to truly love my ex-wife. I used to say that I loved one woman that did not truly love me too much and the other that did truly love me not enough. Because of this lack of love on my part I always had a roving eye. For my ex-wife this was ever the irritant, and as a result not a few fights were had. I could not even glance at another woman without being the target of her ire. It slowly built a wall between us.

In 2004, the Heathen organization I had founded had become one of the larger Heathen organizations. I had just published my first book, and was enjoying a great deal of fame within the Heathen community. I began competing with other Heathen leaders in an attempt to gain more followers. Exchanges online often got heated, and I made not a few enemies.

My illness was once again beginning to affect my judgement. I was not paranoid like before, but I was acting out. I would go through periods of high energy where I felt on top of the world. I could get a lot done during these periods, but I ignored those around me, and would get irate if whatever I was working on was interrupted. These periods of high energy were basically good for me, but no one else. At the same time I would not sleep as often as I should, and while I got a lot done over the short run, my body would eventually fatigue. And with the fatigue my fuse would become short, and I would strike out in anger. I made life difficult for a lot of people.

In 2005, I met a lady at a pagan gathering in Tennessee. I began conducting an internet affair with her. My wife found out, and this led to several fights. After finding out I still had contact with the lady, my wife began what would be a three hour argument. Well calling it an argument is a bit of a misnomer as it consisted primarily of her berating me over and over, yelling at me, and hitting me. For the most part, I just paced the floor and took it as I felt I deserved it. I had after all done my ex-wife wrong.

Finally, she accused me of making long distance phone calls to the girl. I told her I had not, and went to dig the phone bills out from under the bed. At this point, she said, "I can make it so you never see Oswin alive again," Oswin being my son's name. I snapped. I was on my feet in a moment and grabbed her by the throat. She fell backwards, and realizing what I had done I let go. I took what she had said as a threat against my son's life. And I reacted as many fathers would when their child was threatened with murder; I lashed out at the person I felt had threatened him. I often think back to that night and wonder what I could have done differently. I have never figured out what I could have done differently. I am very protective of children, especially my own. I take after my father in that. And after three hours of being subjected to my ex-wife's anger, my mind was such that even the hint of a threat to my son's life was enough to make me lash out. It remains the only time I have laid hands on a woman in violence, and I strongly suspect it will remain the only time. I moved out that night.

A month or two later, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II, and put on medication. I later learned my doctor had not put me on a strong enough dosage. I had begged him to put me on a higher dosage as I knew something was not right, but he would not. He did not want to turn me into a "zombie." I moved back into the house a couple months later to take care of my ex-wife while she had the flu, and then moved out again. After one final fight that May, I checked myself into a mental ward of a hospital, got myself somewhat stabilized, and then moved back to my hometown of Huntsville, Missouri.

During the next three years, the time it took to find the right treatment for me, I would find myself divorced, and living two states away from my son. Eventually, my ex-wife (whom is not a nice person it turns out), would break all contact between my son and I. I have not seen Oswin in years. The only contact I have had is when he would get to a computer to send me a message on social media, or an email, all of it being very clandestine so his mother would not find out.

I did at long last find the treatment I needed, and have been stable for many years now. But for nearly twenty years my illness controlled my life. This also corresponded with the time I was Heathen. I am not blaming my illness on my former religion. It works for many people, and there are qualities about it such as encouraging a sense of honor and a sense of community that are admirable. Its adherents however are not forgiving of mental illness. They are not forgiving of anything. Forgiveness plays no role in their religion.

Instead, they are very hardcore about accepting the consequences of one's actions. This is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to mental illness it is something that can make things worse. The problems in my marriage, and my behavior after my marriage was over they did not see as a result of my mental illness or developmental problem, but as some sort of character flaw. Had I just been another Heathen, this may not have been a problem. But as a Heathen leader and writer many thought it was a reason to take me down. They launched numerous attacks against my character, making it widely known for example that I had assaulted my ex-wife, that I had had an affair on her, and so forth, Thankfully, they did not know I had entered myself into the mental ward of a hospital, or they would have used that as an excuse to attack me to. Many of these folks wanted to get even for things I had done to them, but most I had never done a thing to.

And this character assassination did not end after I stepped down as the leader of the organization I founded, nor even after I withdrew into my local group. Instead, it continues to this day, even after I returned to Christianity with people making commentary on how I did not live up to the virtues I wrote about. They like to talk about how I wrote on ethics, but was not ethical. And there was nothing I could say or do to redeem myself. You see, redemption does not play a role in Heathenry either. No one can save you from your sins. There is nothing you can do in the eyes of many Heathens to make up for wrongs done. They feel it is their right to judge you, and treat you anyway they feel is fit based on how they judged you.

And so after a few years of trying to redeem myself with no success I began to pull away from Heathenry. I began to see flaws with its belief system. I did not want to believe in a religion that did not allow people to redeem themselves. Many of its followers were hateful people, and so much of the religious community was tied up in religious politics, each group trying to gain more influence than the other. I watched as even friends I admired engaged in this dog eat dog behavior. The groups I was a part of were known for their scholarship so they would be quick to ridicule anyone who clearly had not done their research.

So one night, while writing it struck me like a bolt from the blue, the Golden Rule was something that should be lived by. And this began my road back to Christianity. You see, Christianity allows for redemption. Christianity allows for forgiveness. Christianity tells people not to judge others. Christianity allows for a life wracked by mental illness or developmental disabilities. Christianity allows for Salvation.

And so I began letting go of what I had been. Even so before I returned to the Church I wavered. At first I thought I wanted to be a Christian Deist. Then I would go back to being Heathen. Then I would flirt with Christianity again, only to return to Heathenry. Finally, I returned to the Church, and have remained ever since. I will never, short of some advance in medicine be cured of my mental illness or developmental disorder or whatever the problem is. I can however be a part of a Church that is willing to try to help heal me. I can follow a religion that tells people not to judge others that instead tells people to love everyone, to forgive everyone. I wish I had never walked away from the Church. It was a mistake, and one I deeply regret. I wish I had never gone on that journey. Now, all I can do is try to redeem myself. All I can do is use my gift of being a writer to try to spread the word of God. I am thankful my journey led me back to Christ.

# Chapter Two: Judgement

In the particular sect I was a part of, Heathenry was seen as focusing on the community. The individual was secondary to the "tribe." Christianity was looked down upon as its adherents sought personal salvation. To the members of the Heathen organizations I had been a part of Christianity produced self-centered individuals so concerned with their personal spiritual fulfillment, that they had forgotten what it meant to look out for the good of a community as a whole. They felt Heathenry was superior in that it encouraged folks to make themselves secondary to the community. Everything one did was to be of benefit in some way to the community.

This of course was flawed thinking. With Christianity you have the Church, that is, the body of all Believers taken as a whole. In ancient Christianity this concept was even stronger. It was the Ecclesia, the "assembly," all who followed the teachings of Christ. To quote Saint Irenaeus of Lyons writing in 175-185 A.D.:

As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.( Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter X)

The ancient Christian Church was united by common rites, common doctrines, a core of beliefs that was the same in Rome as it was in Greece as it was in Germany. To a degree, Christianity is still united by a core of beliefs and doctrines. There is no such unifying concept within Heathenry. Not all Heathens are seen as forming the same body of believers. Instead, you have "tribes." The term used from group to group varies. Some use the word "kindred," Others use such terms as "assembly," "fellowship," or "theod." The point is that regardless of the term used, a Heathen group sees itself as having no relation to any other Heathen group. They do not feel they are the same people. And doctrines vary a great deal among the various Heathen groups. About the only thing many groups have in common is the idea that the "tribe" comes first, and not all ascribe to that.

It is important to remember that Heathen groups sometimes do not have much in common. If you know your Church history, you know of the many fights that were had in the Church, even when there was only the Roman Catholic Church. There would be arguments about doctrine, power plays by Popes, fights over who held power over the bishops. The history of the Medieval church was in many ways one of strife. And that was within a religion whose churches shared a great deal of beliefs, and had a shared governing body.

Now imagine what if the Church had instead been dozens of little sects, each with its own belief system. Imagine that the only thing churches had in common had been the same deities, similarities in rites, and a few very basic beliefs. Now imagine that each group felt community came first, but only their community. I think you will quickly realize the amount of fighting that would take place. And fight Heathens do. It is perhaps what they are best at. Name calling, ridicule, rumor mongering are all tools of the trade. The only redeeming quality many seem to have is the idea community comes first.

In some ways, this viewpoint that the community comes first makes sense. By focusing on the community, one is not focusing on oneself, and ideally people would be doing good for others. It was hoped Heathenry would produce individuals that were not self-centered. There is a flaw with this. The community one focused on was merely the members of the organization one was a part of. Members of other organizations were outsiders, unworthy of notice. Thus, one did not have to treat members of other Heathen organizations with respect. One did not have to love those of other organizations. One did not have to treat folks of other organizations as one would oneself. Whatever virtues one had simply were not used for the good of outsiders. And there are no tenets that say one has to in Heathenry. Heathens are not told not to judge others. Heathens are not told to love their enemies. Hate was and still is within Heathenry an accepted emotion.

In some ways, Heathens' criticism of Christianity was justified. Under Pauline theology the focus is to some degree on personal salvation. The Apostle Paul does not talk as much on good works in his writings as he does on faith. This is what Heathens see in Christianity that they do not like. To them, Christianity was all about one's personal salvation. There was no room for the community. What is worse in Heathens' opinions is that once saved, a Christian could go on thinking about his or herself and no one else and still make it into Heaven.

It is a very slanted view of Christianity. What the Heathen theologians are missing is that there are tenets within Christianity that do encourage good works, that do encourage one love his or her neighbors, that one even love his or her enemies. Most important perhaps is that Heathenry lacks the tenet that one not judge others. Judging others in my opinion gets in the way of being able to love. To be plain spoken Heathenry lacks compassion.

Thus, when my illness began to have an impact on my life, and I began to act out, I was judged. This was not the judgment of some tribunal. I never had to go before a court of my fellow Heathens to be judged for my "crimes." I was never given the benefit of a hearing. I was never given the opportunity to give testimony about my actions. Instead, each and every Heathen judged me based on his or her own opinions of me. Generally, this was based on hearsay. Such and such said that such and such heard that.... And there was never any way to verify whether someone's accusations were true or not. Heathen opinion is in many ways very subjective. This was complicated by the focus on one's own community. A Heathen simply did not have to give someone not of his or her tribe the benefit of the doubt.

To me this is the major flaw of Heathenry, and why it will never have a lasting impact on the world as a whole. And it all comes down to one thing, and that is that Heathens are allowed to judge others, and in doing so they lack compassion. One can easily ignore the beam in one's own eye and point out the mote in another's. It is perfectly acceptable to do so in Heathenry. And it does not matter however much good someone does for Heathenry as a whole. It does not matter if on the scales of good and evil there is more weight to the good. All that matters to many Heathens is a person's own personal opinions of someone. And in the eyes of many, one or two bad deeds, even if in reality may not be that bad are enough to make someone a bad person.

And while in my particular sect of Heathenry, and the ones closely related to it one was to put community first, there was also the idea that one should have great renown, or a good gefrain. Having great renown or a good gefrain meant one was well known for their accomplishments. Ideally, this was accomplished through good deeds. However, since Heathenry lacks such ideas as the Golden Rule or the Great Commandment, the way one might achieve a name of renown was quite arbitrary, and one might achieve it through less than honest means. One could achieve a name of renown by being an accomplished leader of men, and one showed this by having the most folk under their wing. Many, including myself accomplished this not just by doing deeds to attract people to them, but also by undermining people's faith in other leaders. This lead to all sorts of fights and quarrels that in the end merely made both leaders look bad. But it was a gamble many were willing to take. It also meant that a rival leader and his or her followers were quick to leap on even the least indiscretion committed by someone.

This was complicated by the fact many in Heathenry expect folks to be perfect while ignoring their own imperfections. I do not think this makes Heathens bad people, but I do think they are very misguided. I must point out that I am not truly bitter about my experiences in Heathenry. I am merely trying to see Heathenry for what it is. It is a religion that lacks compassion. This is a flaw that will always exist without changes in the attitudes of its adherents. And that change in attitudes is unlikely to happen. Many Heathens do not see the lack of compassion as a problem.

It took me being brought low by my own detractors, and then seeing others have the same thing happen to them to realize many things. In the final year of my marriage, my life had taken a tailspin. My ex-wife and I were fighting. I had had an internet affair with another woman I had met at pagan gathering, and naturally my ex-wife was quite unhappy with me. In addition, I had made verbal attacks on other Heathen leaders as we jockeyed for influence within the greater Heathen community. My particular sect was a part of a group of sects that all derived from one group, a group that had splintered. That being so there was always a lot of activity dedicated to each group trying to one up the other, trying to gain more influence, trying to gain more followers. Having once been a high ranking member of the original group, I packed a lot of influence and was trying to use it. Things would only get worse. Being the author of books and the leader of a Heathen organization folks expected better of me.

After my last fight with my ex-wife I decided to put a stop to it, at least for me. With my behavior out of control due to my mental illness, and stress from dealing with issues in my marriage, I entered the mental ward of a hospital. It was a pleasant experience actually. The others in the ward I was with were people that had Bipolar Disorder or developmental disabilities like Asperger's Syndrome, or had addiction issues, depression, or some other mild mental illness. They like me were people that could achieve some sense of stability given the right treatment. I like to compare it to a week-long vacation.

The doctors there got me somewhat stabilized, and when I got out, my marriage being over, I drove the twelve hours home. I had already taken a leave of absence from work, and arranged to take a job elsewhere with the same company. My old car would not even shift into first gear. To start from a stop I had to ease up on the clutch while pressing down on the gas in second gear.

The first few years following were spent dealing with repeated attacks on my character by other Heathens. I joined the group of a distant cousin in the position of what would be called in Christian monastery orders, a novice. My plan was to start over from scratch. It was rough. I was not yet quite stable, and acted out for the next two years. Finally, in desperation I sought out one of the top doctors in the area, and got myself stabilized. As time passed I withdrew more and more from the greater Heathen community. Heathens were not taught to forgive and forget. They had no concept of compassion. Gradually, things quieted down though, and I was left along to rebuild my name. I wrote more books, and bided my time.

By 2011, I was a happy Heathen. The worst was over for me. Oh I still had my detractors, but I had many more folks that admired me. Then I began to notice it was not just me that was treated badly. Others were treated poorly too. They were being judged without the benefit of being heard out. They too were being accused of things they may or may not have done. Most of all, I began to realize Heathenry is a religion very much filled with hate with very little room for compassion.

It is not that the religious texts teach hate. They do not. However, they do not teach compassion either. And those that do teach peaceful resolutions to problems are largely ignored. And thus, not being told to have compassion, and seeing no reasons to love those outside one's "tribe," complicated by wanting to build a name of renown, Heathens are prone to petty jealousies, to every form of envy imaginable. This I began to see was even true of folks I admired. They were quick to make fun of folks that were not as knowledgeable as they were. They regularly ridiculed those whose ideologies in Heathenry they did not agree with. Not everyone was this way, but the few bad apples made Heathenry a religion I wanted no part of.

At first, my thought was to try to change this kind of behavior. I wrote a series of blog posts on how to treat others, to try to fill in what the religious texts lacked. While well received by many, the posts did little good. You see nowhere in the ancient texts on Heathenry is compassion mentioned. And Heathens based their practices and beliefs only on what was evident of ancient Heathen practice. There was little room for innovation, or for new ideas. To make matters worse, they saw compassion as a component of a religion many of them hated. Compassion was a facet of Christianity. It was a part of an alien religion intended to protect the weak. Compassion for them was not something to be admired

I became convinced that Heathenry would always be a religion filled with hateful people. My first reaction was to isolate myself from most other Heathens, to only interact with my Heathen friends. I removed many Heathens from my friends list on Facebook. I left Heathen groups on social media. The turning point came when I attended a local community organization meeting. I was struck at how the people, all Christians of different denominations interacted. They were friendly towards each other. That began me on my path out of Heathenry. Several months later I had my epiphany about the Golden Rule. I would like to say that lead me straight back to Christianity. It did not. It was merely another step on the path out of Heathenry.

I spent the next few months drifting, sometimes thinking of myself as a Christian, sometimes a Christo-Pagan, or sometimes still a Heathen. Eventually, I decided I was a Christian Deist. Gradually though, I came to realize my ideas were more in keeping with Christianity. I thought people should treat others as they wanted to be treated. I felt people should not judge others. Why judge others when I may not have the whole story? I thought one should give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Over time I figured out that Christianity, and not Heathenry had it right. While Heathenry may place the community above all else, it did not teach compassion. Not having been taught compassion, Heathen individuals resorted to human nature which is to be selfish and self-serving.

You see Christianity is about more than personal salvation. That is a part of it, but it is also a religion of love, of loving God, of loving one's fellow man. It is a religion that encourages healthy interactions between individuals. There is no room for envies or jealousies within Christianity. One is expected to do good for others, to help the needy, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and heal the sick.

In a sense, Christianity does put the community above the individual. It is how one treats others that truly matters. Personal salvation is a part of Christianity, but part of personal salvation is loving God, and to love God, one has to love others. As Christ says in Matthew 25:40: 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' Compassion was something I came to admire about Christianity, even as I fought to remain Heathen. While Christianity had had its fair share of schisms, of fights, or persecutions in its history, most of its followers had compassion. The hungry were fed, the poor provided for, and there were attempts to heal the sick.

Something that is very important is that while there are many denominations of Christianity, many think of it as one Church, as one body of Believers. In modern America you do not see vicious battles between churches, not these days, and not in most areas. The Baptist church in Huntsville does not preach that the members of the Methodist church are misguided fools doomed for Hellfire, and vice versa. Christians of two separate denominations can sit down and discuss religion without much problem. You do not see hate filled fights over doctrine online. Folks accept that there will be differences, and underneath it all they all have the same Savior, the same Messiah. There is a sense of unity.

This can be seen in attitudes like those of my grandmother. She did not hold to one denomination. In her mind, you attended whatever church was in your rural neighborhood. She began life as a Baptist, then became a Presbyterian, and ended life as a Methodist. These changes in denominations corresponded with each time she moved to a new rural neighborhood. She attended whatever church was closest. The differences in doctrine and services did not bother her as they were all Christian denominations. What she wanted was to worship with her friends and neighbors. Fellowship trumped doctrine in her mind.

And as I got out more in my small town I saw this sense of unity in action. Christians interacted. They did not isolate themselves in their churches. Community services are held at Thanksgiving and Easter. They all donate goods to the same food pantry. The pastors are all a part of a ministerial alliance that does what it can to help members of the community. The members of the various churches interact with each other. This was quite unlike what I had seen in Heathenry, where groups in the same city did not interact. Indeed, instead they might be highly critical of the other group seeing it as competition for followers. Thus I saw something I very much liked about Christianity. Not only did congregations have compassion for each other, but for everyone. It did not matter who you were, what church you went to, what creed you followed.

This sense of unity amongst Christians was important to me after having spent years in Heathen organizations, each with their own quirks that they thought were special, each group thinking they were somehow superior to the others. It was nice for a change to discuss religion online without it turning into a fire fight. And I knew I could walk into the services of any church out there and be welcome. There would be no one barring the door saying this service is for members only. I could attend mass at Saint Pius Catholic Church in Moberly, or take Communion at the little Baptist Church down the street from me. I could kneel beside Presbyterians, or pray with Lutherans the next town over. There would never be anyone saying I was not welcome in the church. This was quite a contrast to the closed communities of Heathen groups, where often, only members are welcome.

Thus, it came time for me to judge. I did not judge individuals however. I judged an ideology. I judged a culture I had watched develop over twenty years, a culture which had devolved into a bunch of groups and people always bickering about whether the ancient Anglo-Saxons performed their rites the same way the ancient Norse did or some such. I judged Heathenry, and I found it extremely lacking at meeting my needs as someone with a mental illness or developmental disorder. A person with a mental illness or developmental disability needs to be treated with compassion and understanding. It is hard enough dealing with one's demons, but to have no one there to stand beside you, to have no one there to hold your hand is quite lonely. It leaves one without the strength to carry on. It is easy for someone with a mental illness or developmental disability to find his or herself falling into a deep pit of despair. I cannot tell you the number of times; even recently I have considered ending it all. Having judged Heathenry, I felt I had no choice, but to leave.

Leaving Heathenry was not an easy task as my Heathen friends did not want to let me go. Several of them are good people. They are not hateful, they are kind. They too see the problems within Heathenry. We have had long talks about issues. Some of them like me have been subject to persecution, and they have done nothing wrong, other than expressing a viewpoint on some point of lore no one agrees with. It is my hope that perhaps someday, they too will see the light. In the meantime, they could not understand how someone who had been the leader of a Heathen organization, how someone that had written not one, but seven books on the religion would want to leave Heathenry. Even today, many question my choice to leave, and keep on hoping I will return.

In addition to people not wanting me to leave, or understanding why I would want to, I had my own attachments to Heathenry to deal with. For nearly twenty years I had been in the limelight in modern Heathenry. I had written seven books. I had lead Heathen organizations. I had organized Heathen gatherings. I had been ordained at one of the highest levels of priesthood in Heathenry. When folks had questions about rites or some facet of the mythology, they turned to me. So for many, many years my sense of self-worth was tied up in my identity of who I was as a Heathen. It was not an easy thing to let go of. To do so meant I need to humble myself, which was not easy to do. It went against all I had believed for twenty wasted years.

All the attention, all the admiration of my accomplishments were a great boost to my self-esteem. For someone had grown up feeling not good enough, that was a very important thing. It was addictive. It was all too easy for me to become intoxicated on all the praise I received. Therefore, before leaving Heathenry, I tried to make it work. I went to rites with friends. I continued my rites at home. I continued to write on my blog. I was not quite ready to let go of being seen as someone special, as someone who was a gifted researcher and writer. But my heart was no longer in it. I had seen Heathenry for what it was. There was no turning back.

I decided to make as clean a break as I could. I removed many, many more people from my social media accounts. I told my Heathen friends and acquaintances I no longer considered myself Heathen, and told them why. I started reading up on Christian beliefs, on Christian doctrine, on Christian practices. I started attending church. I threw myself into the community group I was a part of. I removed the Thor's hammer from around my neck and started wearing a cross. I took to reading the Bible again. I returned to doing research into and writing about local history. I began spending more time with my family. I have a young grandniece I look after now, so I spent more time with her. I went back to many of the things I had enjoyed before I became Heathen like my medieval re-creation group. I started hanging out with my friends more. And I wrote another book, this time on the Q Document under a different pen name, as a way of jelling exactly what it was I believed. Gradually, piece by piece, I dismantled my Heathen life, and tried to rebuild the life I had before I went down the wrong path.

One problem I had with leaving Heathenry was that a good part of my income came from the Heathen books I had written. And I knew that once the word spread I had converted to Christianity my book sales would plummet. At the same time, I really did not want to encourage the spread of a false religion, especially one I found so hateful, and lacking in compassion. So I decided to put it in the hands of God. He would find a way to make up for that lost income. God smiled on me, and I found a way that I could make up for that income. It then just became a matter of undoing all the damage I had done. I prayed and prayed to God that I be able to use my gift of being a writer to spread his word, to do what I loved to do, but for his glory, not my own. This would allow me to put myself on the road to redemption. And of course being God, he answered my prayers. I saw God's plan for me.

His plan for me I believe is to continue to write books on history, and perhaps produce more books like this one. Gradually, with more non-Heathen books in my name, I will be able to discontinue the Heathen ones. They will go out of print and I will no longer be responsible for the spread of idolatry. I am hoping that day will come soon. It in the end will for me finally lead to redemption in my eyes.

The primary part of God's plan for me though is to be a good Christian, to love my neighbor, and not judge others. I think his plan for me is to be kind, generous, and extend the hand of friendship to all. The most important thing to me is not judging others. To me judging others violates the Golden Rule and the Great Commandment. You would not want others to judge you, so why judge them? This is what Heathens do not see. It is what I saw, and what made me realize I did not want to be Heathen, and it is what put me back on the road to Christ. It put me on the path to redemption.

# Chapter Three: Repentance

Before I could seek redemption though, I had to repent from my sins. I had already taken the first step. I had laid aside idolatry. The next step was to repent of my other sins. To repent is at its core to feel remorse or regret for having done something with the additional idea that one never do such again. In my case, I had many things I regretted, things which I have no intention of ever doing again.

However, to ensure I would never do such things again, I first had to change my attitudes about myself. In my twenty or so years as a Heathen I had developed many attitudes that are less than admirable. Throughout this book I have complained about Heathenry's lack of compassion. I was no different, I too as a Heathen lacked compassion. And there were other attitudes I had that looking back were quite wrong. I was too demanding of others. I felt they should be capable of doing what I was doing. I thought they should be dedicated as I was to Heathenry. I felt they should devote the amount of time I had, whether they had families or other commitments or not. To me, one's character was to be judged by what they had done for Heathenry, for what they had done for the community they were a part of. And I set myself as a standard for people to be judged by. I expected people to accomplish as much as I had, to do as much as I had done. When those that had done less received recognition, although they had made contributions to the community in a different way, I felt slighted. I felt they should try to achieve "fame" in the same way I had.

For all that Heathenry's emphasis is on community, there is a lot of emphasis also placed on having a name of renown. A Heathen is to strive to be known to a great many people for whatever deeds he or she had done. Within Heathenry I was well known for several things. First off, I was recognized as a Heathen scholar. Heathenry did not survive as a religion. All its adherents were converted to Christianity in the years from 400-1200 A.D, Therefore, in order for Heathenry to be practiced, it had to be reconstructed from a variety of sources, a process which began in the 1970s.

Those sources included ancient accounts by the Romans, texts by the Anglo-Saxons and other peoples, as well as the obvious texts like the Norse sagas and the Eddas from the Middle Ages. Also taken into account are archaeological findings as well as such things as the origins of words. I became known for my research into what exactly were the beliefs, rites, and practices of the ancient Heathens. In a way, it was like piecing together a huge jigsaw puzzle. In addition, I was a writer. I composed books on how to practice Heathenry based on the research I had done. Finally, I was a leader of a Heathen organization which in and of itself gave me a great deal of prestige.

This probably all seems silly to the non-Heathen. Why would anyone go about trying to bring back a religion that has been dead for some 800 years? I have no answer to that other than to say that Heathenry made sense, or did to me at the time. Others were already practicing it when I converted to it, and I just went with the flow.

As a religion it is not far different from Hinduism, a religion practiced by over a billion people today. In fact, Hinduism and Heathenry evolved from the same religion practiced thousands of years ago. Also related were the old pagan Roman religion, the Greek religion, and the Celtic one too. In the 1970s, people fascinated with Norse mythology and unhappy with Christianity sought to go back to worshipping the Old Norse gods, and it took off from there. I came along at the beginning of the nineties, just when folks were becoming well known as Heathen scholars, and I built on their work.

Due to my position within Heathenry, a religion that was rapidly growing throughout the eighties, nineties, and naughts, I enjoyed a great deal of privilege. I would go to pagan gatherings for free, eat for free, and drink for free. I never would have to pay a dime. People would praise my works. I met both my ex-fiancée and my ex-wife through Heathenry. They like I were Heathens at one time.

With all the praise heaped upon me it was easy for me to become very arrogant and self-serving. I began to expect to be treated a certain way. While I did not exactly demand respect, I did expect it to be given to me. Of the Seven Deadly Sins, my worst was pride. Again like the idea of reconstructing a dead religion, this may all seem silly. Why would being admired and respected in a religion of a few thousand people matter? For someone who had led his life in the background, who had self-esteem problems, never being noticed it was very important. For me it was everything. I based my self-esteem on my accomplishments in Heathenry. Each new book was another feather in my hat. I loved it when people would speak of my accomplishments. I was boastful of what I had done, often reminding people of the things I had accomplished. Often, I had the final word in debates as I could throw out some piece of knowledge that answered everyone's questions.

So it was all a very hard thing to give up. I enjoyed the attention. I enjoyed being known for my books and my research. It made me feel like I had a purpose. It made me feel like I was actually doing something. All the attention boosted my self-esteem. Luckily, it was not something I gave up all at once.

When I first left the leadership of the Heathen organization I founded, it cut me down to size. This was especially so when I became a novice in another organization. It was a very humbling experience to go from the very top to the very bottom. At that point all I had to take pride in were my books and my research. And as I disappeared more and more from the Heathen scene, I got less attention for those. Oh people would seek me out to ask questions, or tell me how much they liked one of my books, but I made myself hard to find. And so over time the attention given me slowly disappeared. I weaned myself over the twenty year power trip I had been on.

That is not to say when I came back home to Christianity I had nothing to repent from. I still had a great deal of pride. I still do to a degree. I still have to check myself when someone praises the research I have done into Randolph County history. I still in many ways crave attention. But now I try to take joy in the fact I have shared something with others that they will enjoy, and not in the fact that I did the research, and did or did not do it well. I try to take joy in simply sharing knowledge with others without the expectation of any reward. Still, I do struggle with pride, and probably will the rest of my life.

The other issue I had to repent from was the feeling of resentment I felt towards those that I felt had wronged me including God. This was very hard to do. Even as a child I was prone to hold grudges. I simply did not let go of things easily. My first thought when someone hurt me in some way was to get even. As I grew older through grade school I outgrew that attitude. But now as an adult in a religion that did not teach forgiveness there was nothing to hold me back. And I was in a position where I could easily harm someone's reputation in Heathenry. Even after stepping down as the leader of my organization I still as a Heathen scholar and writer held a great deal of influence. Power corrupts as they say. And in Heathenry as they do not believe in forgiveness, you had to do something to even the score. Otherwise you were seen as weak.

And before I had left Heathenry and returned to Christianity I still had quite a bit of anger towards God for taking my father, and thus setting me on a path of self-destruction. I felt had my father not been taken at a relatively young age perhaps I would have taken a different path. I would have been more emotionally stable in my mind. Therefore, while I may have still become Heathen, I may not have lost my ex-fiancée. Perhaps I might even be married to her today. Had God not taken my father maybe I would have completed college and be working at a descent job, and not having to struggle to make ends meet. Even now, as seen about what I had to say about my father's death in Chapter One there is some repressed anger towards God.

I therefore had at least two deadly sins I had to repent from, pride and wrath. Both were difficult to let go of. What helped me though was getting a red letter edition of the Bible. I read everything Jesus said about how to treat others. It made me realize I had to give up my sense of self-importance and I had to let go of any feelings of resentment. I had to become humble, and I also had to forgive those I felt had wronged me.

In the long run, while difficult, it was not as hard as I had thought it would be. A lot of groundwork had been laid by my epiphany. I can only attribute that to divine inspiration. God chose at that moment to put those thoughts about the Golden Rule and the Great Commandment into my head. Ironically, it was on a blog post trying to convince Heathens to show compassion towards each other. But without that moment I may still have returned to Christ, but repentance would have been much more difficult. It would have been a much harder thing to do. I owe the ease of my repentance of my sins to God.

Buying a red letter edition of the Holy Bible is one of the best things I have done in recent years. Many will go on about the letters of Paul, but to me the heart of Christianity is in the very words of our Savior. He teaches how to love one another, how to do for the hungry, sick, and the poor. He teaches how to live humbly, and how to avoid sins such as greed. In essence, he teaches how to think about others and not ourselves. If we do all that Jesus says we should in the Holy Bible there is no room for sin I feel. Had I never strayed from the Church, had I never turned from God, I may have continued to grow as a Christian, and had very little to repent from.

Of course, once I had repented I had to put what I had learned into action. First, since pride was one of my sins, I had to learn to be humble. That meant while I could be happy I had shared a piece of history with people, I could not take pride in the fact I did. Indeed, all I do with my material on Randolph County history is uncover work done by someone else years and years before. I am not the creator of it, but merely the purveyor of the information someone else recorded decades ago on a map, in a newspaper story, in a historic account. Essentially, I had to become humble and admit that all I did was uncover whatever it was I learned and shared it with others.

This naturally applied to other aspects of my life. When I help organize local festivals I cannot take credit for it, but point out all that is owed to all the others that had worked so hard on it. I cannot even accept admiration for taking care of my grandniece. That is only my duty as a great granduncle. I think perhaps pride will always be the one sin I have the hardest to deal with. For someone with low self-esteem, pride is like a Band-Aid. The key I think is in learning not to expect praise, not to expect compliments, but to merely do what one does for the sheer pleasure of it, to do for others because it makes them feel better about themselves.

The second thing I had to do was to forgive people, and forgive God. Whether they had truly wronged me, or whether I simply thought they had, it had to be done. One cannot expect forgiveness from God unless one forgives others. Now it was not like I had a long list of enemies, nor was I prone to hate. However, there were several whom I resented. And I had to let go of that resentment. To a large degree this was made easier by the fact that I told myself that it does not matter what they think of me. It is for God to judge me and God alone. No mortal man or woman is my judge. I will see my reckoning at the Resurrection. With that in mind, I forgave those that I felt had wronged me, and put their actions out of my mind. In many ways, it was far easier to deal with than pride. I had long ago let go of expectations that everyone would love me.

As for forgiving God, there was nothing to forgive. I think God, as strange as it may seem took my father in part to make me become Heathen. He did this I believe so that I could give others a word of warning not to stray from the path of righteousness, not to turn one's back on Christ, not to walk away from the Church. In essence, I think God took my father so that I could accomplish things I could not have had he lived.

I am convinced that repentance is a lifelong thing. I will always have to fight becoming prideful about my writing. It is something I enjoy doing and I like the recognition I get for it. And even now I am sensitive at times to what people think of me, and that being so, it would be all too easily for me to become resentful towards them if they say things that are hurtful. However, I feel that for now, I have repented of my sins, at least the ones I am aware of. There are others I have not named here that I have also repented of. Having repented, I could move on to redemption. But first I had to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. A step easier said than done.

# Chapter Four: Atonement

It may seem odd to speak of atonement in a book that is one's personal testimony about his return to Christianity. After all did not Jesus Christ atone for our sins with his death on the cross? Isn't that end all and be all of atonement. What more is there to say? There is a bit I can say on atonement, at least from my own personal perspective. You see while Christ may have atoned for my sins, I had to first accept him as my Savior. I did that as a child. I was baptized into the United Methodist Church at age nine. I had gone through the classes, shown that I understood what it meant to be a Christian, and then was baptized.

However, in the intervening years, I had strayed from God. I fell from Grace, and took up idolatry. Therefore, I had to once again accept Christ as my Savior. This was not as easy as it would seem. Yes, I had an epiphany about the Golden Rule and the Great Commandment, but it is possible one can accept those things without ever accepting Jesus as his or her Savior. Even pagan religions such as Hinduism accept the Golden Rule, and as for loving God, no doubt many Jews love God as well. Even loving one's fellow man is not limited to Christianity. It too has been taught in Judaism.

Thus accepting Jesus as my Savior turned out to be a difficult thing. It was all too easy to accept Jesus as a mortal man, a very wise man, but just a man nonetheless. His lessons on love, on being good to the sick and poor were quite appealing. Especially, for one coming from a religion that did not teach compassion. But other religions had teachers that taught many of the same things. What was there that made Jesus special? My background as a researcher of history told me I had to document everything. How did I document that Jesus was indeed my Savior?

It was something I had to struggle with. You see my epiphany only concerned God and Man, not Jesus. There was no thunderbolt that went off in my head that told me Jesus was my Savior. This was something, well; I would have to accept on faith. And faith was something that even in my previous life as a Christian I had a problem with. You see, I was always critical of the Protestant sects that felt one could be saved by faith alone. I liked to think of the idea that faith alone was not enough. Indeed, I felt that good works were what got one into Heaven. I was taught in my small country church to be Christlike. Why be Christlike if faith alone could get me into Heaven?

This was complicated by what I taught as a Heathen leader. See in Heathenry there is a concept called Wyrd. It is very much like the Eastern concept of karma, almost identical in some aspects. Good actions have good results; bad actions bring about bad results. At the end of one one's life the good was weighed against the bad, and if the good was more, one went on to a good afterlife. If the bad outweighed the good, one would suffer an afterlife of eternal punishment.

It was not an ideology widely accepted by many Heathens. Not many others taught it. I was the primary researcher into the idea. While everyone believed in Wyrd, not everyone thought it worked the same way. Nonetheless, this is what I believed, and coupled with the idea from my previous life as a Christian that the most important thing was to be Christlike; the idea that I would do something based on faith alone was quite alien.

I was raised Methodist, and Methodism's views on good works are what shaped my ideas on faith. You see unlike other Protestant denominations, Grace is not overly emphasized in Methodism. It is felt that good works are what are important and that faith if anything can be a diversion from doing good for one's fellow man. My own view was that faith and Grace were the easy ways out. They were a way of getting out of doing good works. I had this warped idea that sects such as the Baptists thought receiving God's Grace consisted of simply believing one's way into Heaven. Have faith in God, and all will be alright. Accept Jesus as one's Savior, and it did not matter what one did.

I saw Calvinists as lazy. I felt that for all their railing against sin, for all their Hellfire and brimstone sermons, at their hearts was this idea that all one had to do was confess their sins, and accept Jesus as their Savior. Once that was done they were protected by Grace. They could steal, rape, murder, and as long as they had faith in God they would be saved. It was appalling to me that someone could do good works all their lives, but because they did not confess faith in God they would be damned. Meanwhile, the worst lifelong child molester could on his deathbed confess a belief in God and be saved.

It was thoughts such as these that turned me against Christianity to begin with. I felt people should be held accountable for their actions. I thought they should be judged on what they did, not what they thought, or what they believed. I did not believe people should be given an easy out for sins. I looked at people that preached that faith alone could get one into Heaven that had done wrong such as Jimmy Swaggart. I was young and had not really committed any grievous sins myself. At that point, I had no concept of mental illness or developmental disability, and no understandings that yes, people make mistakes. In many ways, it was what I saw as hypocrisy that made me want to leave the Church. I was self-righteous and somehow I did not get the memo not to judge others. And all of this concern with what I saw as hypocrites revolved around the idea faith alone could get one into Heaven.

Faith therefore for me was a very difficult thing. It was what in part had turned me against Christianity to begin with. It was not so much that I did not believe in faith. I did. I had faith that the Sun would rise in the morning. I had faith that spring would turn to summer which would turn to autumn which in turn would turn to winter. I had faith in things I had experienced, and I had not had experience with Christ since I was a teenager. My life had consisted of being thrown as at age twenty into helping care for a dying father, followed by several years of trying to handle his death, followed by a life of idolatry. In all that time, I had had no experience with Jesus.

Based on what I could see, he was a mortal man, gifted by God to be an amazing teacher, a rabbi that had brought the truth to the world. This was a far cry however from accepting that he died on the cross for my sins. How could I have faith that Jesus had died for my sins when I had not experienced any feeling about that death? I just could not accept the reason could be, "Because the Bible told me so."

Yet, if I did not have faith, Jesus' atonement for my sins meant nothing. His death on the cross was a meaningless gesture, if indeed it even took place. As I had had no epiphany concerning Jesus dying on the cross for me, I would have to find some way to reconcile my feelings towards faith, and my need to have faith. It took going back to my Methodist roots and reading the works of John Wesley to achieve some sort of faith in faith. What John Wesley taught on good works and faith did not agree with many of the Methodists of the last two centuries. You see, John Wesley saw good works, faith, and Grace as all being tied together. It was not good works and Grace, or faith and Grace. It was good works, faith, and Grace. One could not have one without the others. Wesley's view was that good works were the result of faith. And of course if one has faith in God, one receives his Grace.

Therefore it made sense to me. One did good works because of his or her faith in God. After all, even if one thought good deeds alone got one into Heaven, one still had to have faith that God would allow that to happen. Thus, it was that I found I indeed have faith. If I had faith in God to be a fair judge of my deeds then I could have faith that Jesus was my Savior and Messiah. That allowed me to believe that, yes, Jesus did die on the cross for my sins. That yes, he did atone for my sins, and in doing so won me redemption.

One may find it odd that I used deductive reasoning to accept that Jesus was my Savior. After all, aren't you supposed to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and experience some sort of epiphany? Well, that did indeed happen. It happened at my first Communion upon returning to the Church. However, before it could happen, at least for me, I had to rationally accept that I could act on faith alone. Until then I was not open to the Holy Ghost such was my disbelief in faith. My heart was closed to the Holy Ghost as my mind could not accept the concept of faith. It was not that I did not believe in the Holy Ghost, I did, even as a Heathen. But until I believed Christ was my Savior I was closed to the Holy Ghost once again entering me.

Not all have the sort of experience that Saul did on the road to Damascus. For many like me it is a more gradual change, one that finally ends with a realization that yes, Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior. Not everyone is going to experience such things the same way. I seriously doubt that there are two people on Earth living or dead that have had the same experience in their acceptance of Christ as their Savior. Once I had accepted that Christ was indeed my Savior. I could finally move on to redemption..

# Chapter Five Redemption

Redemption... as Protestants my fellow church goers do not think about it much. Instead, we believe in Grace. That is God loves and forgives us regardless of what we have done to deserve it. All we have to do is have faith in God and we will be saved. That is what many Protestants believe. In a broader sense Redemption is the part of Salvation that delivers one from sin. It was achieved, like Atonement when Christ died on the cross. Some believe Redemption and Atonement are one and the same. Myself, however, I believe in personal redemption. While Christ may have redeemed me from my sins, I feel that I too must redeem myself. Personal redemption is not a condition for Salvation. Whether we take action to redeem ourselves does not matter. We are redeemed when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. However, I feel personal redemption is a vital step in one's growth as a Christian. One of my favorite Bible passages is James 2:14 - 2:17:

14 What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit?

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

It would take a wiser man than me to determine whether God requires good works. I for one believe he does. This is not at all at odds with my Methodist upbringing. In fact, it is very much in keeping with it. The focus of Methodism for more than a century has been on good works, and not faith. It is one of those things that divide Methodism from the Calvinists. It is also plays a key in what I consider personal redemption. Wesley believed it was possible to fall from Grace. He felt one could not go on sinning and remain in Grace, but that one had to participate in the means of Grace. I personally feel that if one can fall from Grace and that if one must participate in the means of Grace, then personal redemption is not only possible for anyone that is a Believer, but required for one who has fallen from Grace. And as faith alone cannot save someone in such a case, then good works must be the path to personal redemption.

So what is one, like I to do, that has fallen from Grace? I wanted redemption. I wanted a way to redeem myself, not just in the eyes of God, but also my fellow man. I wanted a way to atone for my sins. I realized that my former coreligionists would never understand. They would see my conversion back to Christianity as a betrayal. But those in my hometown, a hometown I had returned to several years ago it would be seen as a good thing. And those in my hometown were the people that mattered to me now. I had always managed to hide my religion. If someone from my hometown had fallen upon my name on a Heathen website, and it would not have been hard to, nothing was ever said to me about it. Likewise, as I had lived two states away they would never have known I destroyed my marriage. Still, I felt I needed to do something to show I had changed.

The first thing I feel one must do when seeking personal redemption is to forgive oneself. John Wesley had this to say on Redemption:

The voluntary passion of our Lord appeased the Father's wrath, obtained pardon and acceptance for us, and, consequently, dissolved the dominion and power which Satan had over us through our sins. So that forgiveness is the beginning of redemption, as the resurrection is the completion of it. (John Wesley in "Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament")

If forgiveness by God is the beginning of Redemption, where better for us to begin than with forgiving ourselves when trying to achieve personal redemption? Forgiving oneself amounts to letting go of the past, and putting oneself in the hands of God. I had a lot to forgive myself for. I had forsaken God, and in the time I had removed myself from the Church I had done things of which I am not proud. In the time away from the Church I had conceived a child outside of wedlock, had an internet affair on my wife, had an affair with a friend's wife while they were separated, fought and argued with others, and lied to family and friends, among other things. Perhaps the worst of these sins was while in an argument with my ex-wife as a result of the internet affair I had grabbed her by the throat. She had said something to the effect that she could make it so I could never see my son again. In the state I was in, I thought she had threatened my son's life, and reacted before I had a chance to stop myself. Instead, she had meant she could divorce me and prevent me from seeing him.

Heathenry had made me not a very nice person. Why should it? There was no doctrine of love. There was no tenet saying that I had to forgive others. While there was a code of honor, it was all based on how one conducted oneself. You were told what to do, but not told what not to do. Sure, the obvious things such as: murder, rape, stealing were all considered wrong. But things such as lying were a grey area. There is even a line in one of Heathenry's sacred texts that goes, "give lies for lies." The problem there is that one person's lie may be another person's truth. There were other ideas expressed in the religious texts of Heathenry that made for making people not very nice. One such passage tells people to speak out about evil when one knew of it. Again, the problem was that it did not allow for such things as discretion or privacy. What might have been a matter best kept among family members might be put out in the open by some outsider. Something that might be a minor matter could easily blow up out of proportion for a Heathen, and end in a witch hunt. Those with influence often used the idea of exposing evil to derail the lives of others. Wrongs that had been done perhaps a decade or more before were often brought up again despite someone having long ago atoned for the wrong. And I had done all these things. I had lied to others as I felt they had lied to me. I had spoken up about people I felt had done wrong in an attempt to make evil known. And that was on top of all the obvious things I had done that were wrong. So I had a lot to forgive myself for.

I do feel that in addition to forgiving others, we need do to forgive ourselves. By forgiving oneself, and putting oneself in God's hands, one can allow his Grace to achieve personal redemption. For me, not forgiving myself led to a lot of guilt. And that guilt led to low self-esteem. In Christianity this is not a problem. Other Christians will generally forgive you, and you can atone for the wrong in some way. Once you have atoned in some way, the wrong will never be mentioned again, or if it is, it will be with some explanation. But in Heathenry despite there being ways of atonement, forgiveness is rarely given. And thus someone that has done a wrong such as have an affair may be constantly reminded of that fact long after having worked things out with the other people involved.

The lack of being able to redeem oneself in Heathenry does not aid one in one's spiritual growth, and leads to one feeling they are a bad person despite having done everything to change. This is even worse for someone with a mental illness or developmental disability. You are left feeling you are a bad person simply for having a mental illness or developmental disability. A few days in a hypomanic state is made out by other Heathens as someone not being able to control his or herself. A month spent in depression, and suddenly one is considered lazy and without drive. Being socially inept may get one tagged as rude. It is therefore far too easy for those in Heathenry to believe those with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities are bad people. And I do not know anyone that wants to be a bad person. Most I think want to be thought of as good people. But with Heathenry it is easy to convince oneself that because one has led a life of sin, one will always be held accountable for those sins no matter what will be remembered, and one will never find redemption.

While redemption is not possible in Heathenry, it is in Christianity. Part of Salvation is being freed from sin, being washed in the Blood of Christ. One therefore cannot allow his or herself to believe they are unworthy of God's love, that they are unworthy of his forgiveness. So we are redeemed when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. There is really nothing else we need to do. For a person like me however, one who likes to do something for themselves though, there had to be something more. I wanted a way to redeem myself in my own mind. Sure I had been redeemed of my sins with the Redemption, but I wanted a way to truly make myself worthy of God's love. And that led me to the idea of personal redemption.

The first step with personal redemption is to forgive oneself, to make oneself strong enough to accept God's love, and not reject it. One has to forgive oneself in order to be able to forgive others. To love God, to love others, I feel one must love oneself. One must have good self-esteem. I think I cannot stress it enough; without good self-esteem one cannot love oneself, and if one does not love oneself, one cannot love others. The first step in having good self-esteem, in loving oneself, is to forgive oneself.

Many of us have gone throughout our lives with low self-esteem. We do not think ourselves worthy of love from someone else. I was no different. A lot of my problems throughout high school were due to finding myself unworthy of attention from the opposite sex. I was short and slight of build. The girls I was interested in were not interested in me. A couple of times of being turned down for dates, and my self-esteem slipped even more. Being quiet did not help matters. There was nothing about me that marked me out as exceptional to anyone.

I think that is in part why I strayed from God. My self-esteem was such that while I desperately wanted to be loved, I felt myself unworthy of love, even the love of God. I never realized that for others to love me, I first had to love myself. Heathenry provided me with a way to increase my self-esteem. As a Heathen scholar, writer, and leader I enjoyed a grade deal of attention. As that attention grew I became arrogant and prideful. Once I left my position of leadership in Heathenry, and began to isolate myself, the feelings of low self-worth returned. As I grew older, and remembered things that I was not proud of, my self-esteem slipped even more.

This was complicated by my mental illness. Often times I did not intend to do something wrong, it just happened. And oft times I had not done anything wrong. I just thought I had. In truth, it may have been something I felt self-conscious about, and therefore interpreted as being wrong. Regardless, my self-esteem slipped as I felt I was a bad person unworthy of having love, even the love of God. In Heathenry, there was no remedy for feeling bad about myself. I was sent into a downward spiral, never able to forgive myself, just as others would not forgive me.

The first step for me in my personal redemption therefore was forgiveness. It was not until I forgave myself that my self-esteem was high enough to allow me to love God, and to accept that God loves me. In this case, I had to forgive myself for things I had done wrong such as harsh words I had said to my mother, or the way I had treated my ex-fiancée. I had to forgive myself for straying from God most of all.

By straying from God, I had led myself into a life of heartache. Had I remained with the Church I would have had a pastor to talk to, someone to help me through the rough times. I would have had a church family to turn to when times get rough. I would have had a God to pray to, one that loved me. Most of all, I would have had a religion whose precepts were clear, where the beliefs were clearly outlined with love at the core of its values. Once I had forgiven myself, I was strong enough to forgive those that had wronged me.

This was a hard step for me. I was coming from a religion that did not believe in forgiveness, not without a price at least. The idea of forgiving someone simply because it is the right thing to do was alien to me after twenty years of not following Christ's word. And I was one prone to hold grudges to begin with making forgiving others even harder. Yet without forgiving others redemption would not be possible. Personal redemption is basically becoming square with God, and one cannot become square with God without following the lines in the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." If I did not forgive others, God would not forgive me.

Once one has forgiven his or herself as well as others, one can then begin the process of personal redemption. The path to personal redemption can be found in the Bible. At its core is the Great Commandment as given in Matthew 22: 34-40:

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

These two commandments along with the Golden Rule are I feel at the core of personal redemption. The Golden Rule according to Matthew 7:12 is:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do. to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

One can redeem his or herself through his or her love of God, and his or her love of his or her fellow man. However, love is an active, not a passive emotion. It is difficult for someone to love someone, and not show it in some way. It may be in grandiose displays such as gifts of flowers, or small things like a smile, or even a small act of kindness, but even the most stoic of us is likely to show others we love them in some way. It therefore makes sense that good works, those that help out one's fellow man are at the core of personal redemption. Good works are the way we show our love for God and Man. Throughout, the Gospels Christ guides us as to what we should be doing. One passage to always to keep to one's heart is Luke 6:27-31:

27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

Love is the basis for personal redemption. Unless one can love God, and love one's fellow Man, one cannot redeem oneself in one's own eyes in my opinion. God gave his only begotten son to die on the cross for our Redemption out of love. Therefore in my personal redemption, love would have to play a role as well.

I was lucky. My epiphany was about the Golden Rule, followed by one about the Great Commandment. I was sitting there working on a blog post, trying to outline how one should conduct his or herself as a Heathen. I was having trouble with the post, and then it struck me like a bolt out of the blue, the answer was not to be found in Heathenry...the answer was in the Bible. The Golden Rule was the key to life. This was followed by another bolt from the blue... that the Golden Rule coupled with the Great Commandment, and the Second was all one needed to know about how to conduct his or herself. So with my first steps back to Christianity, I understood love was the answer to the problem of redemption.

It took me a while though to return to Christ. At first I toyed with being a Deist, one that believes there is a God, but he is no longer active in the world. That is, he created the world, and then walked away. I even wrote a book on the topic under a pen name. That did not work for me though as I saw signs of God being active in the world. How else could I explain my epiphany? I therefore turned to the Church for the answers. I started attending services. And suddenly, I felt at home again. It was like I had never left the Church.

Prior to that, I had become active with a local community organization in an effort to do good works. I think that it is essential one do good works in a real world way. Being redeemed is more than just being kind and opening the door for someone, or writing a check to a charity. One has to get his or her hands dirty. One has to actively work to do good works. Good works, science has found can actually improve one's health. I believe this is proof that God wants us to good works. By doing good for others, we are rewarded, not just in the next world, but this one as well.. A pamphlet called The Health Benefits of Volunteering by the Corporation for National and Community Service emphasizes the benefits of volunteering. According to it, people that volunteer have:

•A lower rate of mortality.

•Less instances of depression.

•Higher self-esteem.

•Less chances of suffering from illness.

•Less pain for chronic pain sufferers.

•Less chance of heart disease.

Doing good deeds therefore has its benefits in this world as well as the next.

I feel if one wishes to truly redeem oneself that he or she has to go beyond simply believing in God and having faith. One has to actively go out and try to do good in the world. To me good works are a key part of personal redemption. Following my epiphany, I felt as though I was trying to navigate a ship without the use of a compass. Okay, so I was supposed to treat others as I was supposed to be treated, and I was supposed to love everyone, so what was next? Did I just go to church and express my love for God there?

In Heathenry, a good part of religious practice dealt with performing rites. Christianity though does not use rites a great deal. There is the worship service and Holy Communion. There is baptism. There is the wedding ceremony. There are funerals. And finally there is prayer. Once you take out the rites for a person that should happen only once (one's baptism, one's marriage, and one's funeral) you are left with Communion, the worship service, and prayer. Of these, two could only be done with a group. Prayer alone, while effective did not seem to be the answer. Sure I could pray for guidance, but I would have to take action on whatever God guided me to do. It did not take me long to realize I had to do good works. Good works are the way one shows his or her love for God, and therefore a path to personal redemption.

As I stated I volunteer for a community organization. We do not do anything noble like feed the poor or heal the sick. Instead, we sponsor events for folks to come together as a town. To the outside world it may seem like we are just gathering to have fun. But in reality it is so much more. You see a family that plays together, stays together. The same is true of towns. We get the town folk together for festivals, picnics, and such so they can bond, and become one big family. That allows us to do more noble things as a community such as help out the family whose home has burned, return the lost dog to its owners, to donate food to the food pantry. We give the town something very important; a sense of togetherness.

In addition to volunteering for this community organization, I also try to be mindful of how I treat others. I am very self-conscious about what I say and what I do, and how what I say and do may impact others. I do not want to hurt anyone. Instead, I am very mindful of others' feelings. I think this is what is intended with the Golden Rule. We have to treat others as we want to be treated. That means giving others respect. That means being considerate of their feelings. That means lending a helping hand when needed. That means being a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen. I think everyone wants to be respected. I think everyone wants someone there for them. If we are to follow the Golden Rule we are to be that person.

And thus, this is how I am trying to achieve personal redemption. I am trying to be the person that folks can rely on, the person that is there for them. Between that and my helping organize town get togethers, I feel I am redeeming myself. I have a lot to make up for. It will take much to undo the sins I committed, the wrongs I have done. But with time, and hard work, I hope to achieve redemption. One good thing that did come of Heathenry for me was the sense of community. I still do believe one should put one's community above his or herself. But one cannot lose sight of other communities, of other people. There truly are no outsiders when one is Christian. We are all God's children.

# Chapter Six: Salvation

If one has noticed, throughout this book. I have put a lot of emphasis on what I have done, and not what Christ has done for me. This is in a large part because I was taught, "God only helps those that help themselves." I do not see such things as Repentance, Atonement, and Redemption as something that happen while one sits idly by. Sure our sins were atoned for and we were redeemed when Jesus died for us on the cross, but does that mean we should sit by, and do nothing, but have faith? I do not think so. That does not work for me personally. I am sure for millions of people it does. There are many, many people that think "once saved, always saved." Myself, I feel I have to be doing something. I need to take an active part in my spiritual growth. But while I feel I can atone for my sins and while I can try to redeem myself, saving myself is one thing I know I cannot do on my own. That is an act only Jesus can do.

So just what is Salvation? Many think of it and Redemption as the same thing. That is the orthodox view that many denominations hold to. I see them as separate. Redemption freed us from sin and especially original sin when Jesus died on the cross in my opinion. Salvation I feel comes when we accept Jesus as the Messiah, our Lord and Savior. Salvation is something God does for us, and with which we cooperate. God starts the process of Salvation, only he can do so. However, we continue the process with our love of God, love of our fellow man, and the performance of good works, alongside prayer.

This is close in line with John Wesley's ideas on salvation. Wesley felt that Salvation is, "the entire work of God from the first dawning of Grace in the soul, till it is consummated in glory"(The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M.: Sermons) For Wesley Salvation consists of two parts; justification and sanctification. Justification is brought about by faith. It is the forgiveness of sins when one professes their faith, and confesses their sins. According to Wesley. the "immediate effects of justification are the peace of God." (ibid). Justification is the removal of sins from our lives, sins of our past. It consists of the change from sinner to someone that is Christlike. Sanctification on the other hand is the ongoing process that follows. It is the fight against the desire to sin, to remain pure of sin. This fight is conducted with prayer and the doing of good works. It is an ongoing battle not to fall back into a life of sin. In Wesley's opinion sanctification does not end until one goes to meet one's Maker. It is an ongoing process, one that strives toward Christian perfection.

Christian perfection, for Wesley was of the heart and will, and not the mind and the body. Thus, one who achieves Christian perfection is not free from diseases or infirmities of the body, or free from problems with the mind. Such a person acts with love in their heart. They will make mistakes that go against divine law, but these are mistakes made out of love, and not a desire to commit sin. The difference being that a mistake is an involuntary transgression of God's divine will, while sin is willful disobedience of God's law. Wesley felt this way because he thought the body and mind weak and prone to disease, illness, and injury. The heart and will however were much stronger. Achieving Christian perfection however, in Wesley's mind does not make one free of temptation as even Christ was tempted. He also believed it was possible for someone that had achieved Christian perfection to fall from Grace. However, he felt Christian perfection could be regained.

I agree with Wesley, Salvation is an ongoing process. While we may have our slate wiped clean when we profess our love of God, we can easily fall back into a life of sinfulness. We probably all know people that go to church, confess their sins, and are saved, only (sometimes years down the road) to lapse back into a life of sin. I am an example of that. I was baptized into the Methodist Church, and yet I left Christianity for a life of idolatry. And while during that time I acknowledged Jesus as a great teacher, I never denied his existence, I was far from a practicing Christian. Salvation therefore is not granted all at once, but is instead an ongoing process, one that goes on until we die. That process consists of trying to be Christlike, doing good works, taking part in worship services, and spending hours in prayer.

That Salvation is an ongoing process stresses to me the importance of attending regular church services. It is in church that we are allowed to sing the glories of God and Christ, profess our belief in God, and say our prayers unto him. A general church service has many of the things we need in furthering the process of Salvation. With the recitation of the creeds we are professing our beliefs. With the singing of hymns we are expressing the glory of God. With our own prayers during the silent prayer, and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer we are communicating with God. These things are not only actions we need to be doing, but also reminders as to what we need to be doing on days other than Sundays. Likewise doing good works is a part of Salvation. By doing good works we are demonstrating our faith, and expressing out love of God and Man. By doing for our fellow man we are showing that not only do we love them, but that we also love God.

This idea of Salvation as a process is appealing to me. For one thing as discussed in the previous chapter I had always had a disdain for the idea that faith alone can save someone. For another, I am not a passive person. I always have to be doing something. It is rare that I am not doing something. I find it hard to just sit and watch TV. I rarely just sit and relax. If I do I am reading a book, or doing some other activity. When not working I spend my time doing research or writing. I am not one that can accept that I have been saved and now I need do nothing. I find it better that I have a goal I can work towards. And Christian perfection is a goal.

So just what is it I am doing to work towards Christian perfection? Well, I attend church regularly. I actually schedule my weekend around it, and try not to be out of town on Sunday morning. I also as discussed earlier. work with my local community organization. More importantly though, I am mindful of my words and deeds. There is a saying in Heathenry. It is one of the good things I took from it, and it goes, "You are your deeds." That is you are whatever it is you do. If you want to be a good person, then you must do good works. If you do bad things, well, you could easily wind up being a bad person. Therefore, I try to be mindful of what I say and do, and not say or do anything that hurts someone else. I am very careful in what I say, for fear people may take it the wrong way. I make it a point to try to make sure that whatever I say is not hurtful. And as for what I do, I try not to do things that may put others in danger. Thus I do not drink and drive, or drive at excessive speeds. I do not burn on days when there is a fire warning, and so on.

To me, making sure that all one says and does results in good things is among the things one needs to be doing in the quest to be Christlike. In all of the Gospels we only see Christ act out in anger once, and that was at the temple with the money changers. Otherwise, he was mild of manner, and rarely spoke in ways that were hurtful, unless he was being brutally honest. I strive to be the same way. I try to control my temper. I try not to become jealous and envious. I try not to covey things that are not mine. Basically, I try to obey, the Great Commandment, the Second Commandment, the Ten Commandments, and the Golden Rule. It is difficult to do as I am only human, but I feel it is my Christian duty to do so.

I once had a young man come to me and ask advice when I was teaching at the New Age center. He was a Christian. Why he ever sought out a pagan to ask advice about his faith I do not know. He was having problems in his life, and wanted to know what to do. I told him to sit down and read everything that was in red in a red letter Bible, and to meditate on the words. He seemed happy with that advice, and I like to think that perhaps it worked for him. He was in such a desperate state though, and I hope God showed him the way out of his turmoil. So I would have to include in the process of Salvation Bible study as well. There is much wisdom that can be found, especially in the pages of the New Testament. I do not know if I ever will achieve Salvation. It is an ongoing process that I need, and everyone else needs to work on the rest of their lives. Whether I fail or succeed I will not know until Judgment Day.

# Lastword

I hope you have enjoyed this book. I wish I could say there is a happy ending, but I think all I can hope for is contentment. I feel I have done so much wrong in my life, and I have suffered losses such as the death of my father, the death of my mother, and loss of my son that happiness is a bit too much to ask for. And there is the ongoing battle with my mental illness or developmental disability.

When I was first diagnosed I did not know what to think. I had survived for years without taking medication. I had had long periods of stability. I went from birth to age thirty-one with no signs of illness other than a brief bought of imagination gone wild when I was five. Even my bout of paranoia when I was 31 I could attribute to my imagination getting away with me. After all, I was not hearing voices in my head. I was merely letting my own thoughts run away with myself. But then there were the mood swings I had had most of my life. Those I could not deny. And whether I have Asperger's Syndrome or Bipolar II does not really matter. I would still have to deal with what I have been dealing with for years.

It took me years to accept that yes, I would have to be on medication the rest of my life. It also took me years to understand that the faith I had chosen for myself was exasperating my condition. Once I accepted that though, it put me back on the path to Christianity. What will the future bring for me? I do not know. I know I am content to be content. I am back at where I was just after my father's death. I have no goals, no long range plans. The best I think I can do is go where God guides me.

I often wondered what would have happen if I had never strayed. What would my life be like? Would I be happily married now with a good paying job? Would I be a bestselling author? There is no way of knowing. A friend of mine who I have discussed this with is of the opinion this is the path I had to take, that perhaps it was God's plan for me to leave his flock and return. I suppose that may be true as this way I can give an honest word of warning. Watch your friends and family carefully during times of crisis. Many turn to God at such times, but many turn away. In my case, I turned away because I was angry God had taken my father. After all, the family had gone through so much to try to save him, medical treatments, prayers, and more. And then God takes him anyway. Being young, and foolish I knew no better, and really had no one there to tell me better.

So I leave you with this, if you see a fellow Christian going through the early death of a loved one or a divorce or other such tragedy be there for them. Do not stand by and do nothing. Give words of comfort and support, offer to pray for them, allow them to talk it out. Do whatever you can to keep them on the right path. Allow them to let go to live with Christ.

I do not want to see anyone else make the mistakes I made. Heathenry, were compassion a component of it might be an admirable religion. There is a code of honor one must live by, and a strong sense of community, but without compassion it is severely lacking. And compassion was what I had needed all along, that is what I needed right after my father died. And had I turned to the Church, and not away from it, I would have found compassion. It is a sad truth though that we sometimes run away from what we need the most.

In closing, I request that you also be compassionate towards others, whether you are Christian or not. This world is cruel enough without it being compounded by a lack of compassion. Love other people, give to charities, open your homes to strangers, do all those things that makes one Christlike.

I have truly enjoyed writing this book, and I do hope you have learned something from it.

Finis

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