Without Warning I was Dropped in a World of Genuine Faith

Forum Janitor Mon Jun 24, 2013 11:47 am

My father was the intelligent sort of atheist who took his unbelief from life and literature. My mother, on the other hand, was the practical sort of atheist who threw salt over her shoulder, read the stars and consulted mediums in a crisis. Once asked if God existed she replied: “Well, I suppose so dear; does it make any difference?”
My father’s work included a lot of travel and I had the bracing experience of going to 11 different schools. But, on the whole, education reinforced my parent’s position. Inside myself I felt that God existed, but I didn’t have arguments with which to confront my father – and I suppose I would have needed miracles to convince my mother.
This is an uncompromisingly grim way to bring up a child and, purely as an aside, my parents were not a very happy pair. By the time I was nine, in a godless and quarrelling universe, I had had enough; there really was so little to live for. So I wrote a kindly suicide note explaining to my parents (wrongly, as it happened) that it could not be their fault that there was no God and, leaving a lock of my hair, I headed for the 70ft drop at the top of the local clay pit and stood there crumbling the edge with my toes. From, as it seemed, nowhere, a completely new idea came into my mind: if I went on trying to be alive perhaps Somebody would love me. I had no idea who Somebody might be. I went home, quietly disposed of my suicide note and went on living – partially.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2013/06/18/without-warning-i-was-dropped-into-a-world-of-genuine-faith/