This is part 2 of my story about the Heathen Hippy Child. To read part one, please see my entry on the December blog.
Real People?
The people at my public school and my mother were the only people I knew who were not hippies. My older brothers and my sister were smack dab in the middle of the hippy revolution and our home was the hang out and crash pad for all the hippies in our area. We lived in an abandoned ghost town and my siblings would host huge parties that lasted for days where drugs, sex and rock and roll abounded. It was not the healthiest environment for a child to grow up in but they were my people and I loved them all. The hippies were looking for something beyond the American dream. Many of them were just looking for a good time but others were looking for something real.
One of my childhood aspirations was to be the coolest little hippy child alive! I dressed like a little hippy and even wore a head band while at home although my mother would not let me wear one to school. So to me, "real" people were hippies. There was no putting on of airs, no pretending to be something they were not.
A Sunday school bus once carried me off to Sunday school at around age 8. In the class, we were supposed to glue the heads of different Bible "characters" on the right bodies. One of them was John the baptist who was beheaded... (Holly is puzzled) I Didn't know any Bible characters and I didn't like school and I never went back! ~ Sigh~
I don't remember any sermons or seeing the pages of a Bible or hearing scripture quoted at that church. That's not to say that it wasn't, I just don't recall. One event I clearly remember about that place is looking at a new family that had been asked to stand, turn and greet the congregation and I thought, “Eeew! Plastic people!” The family was all dressed up and clean and had smiles on their faces and to me- they were not real people. It makes me aware to this day how I now look to others.
The Jesus People
As the hippy movement continued to grow a revival burst forth. The hippies discovered Jesus! Around age 10 or 11, I had a friend who attended gatherings called Jesus People Meetings. She was very excited and started carrying her Bible to school and she wanted me to go to one of the meetings with her, but my mom said, “No way.” I heard that these people were praying for one of my brothers and that they were reaching out to him... As far as I can recall this is my first memory of a little black book called a Bible, but I have no memories of what it may have contained. Maybe my friend read it to me, but I don't remember.
With this same friend, I did go to a Christian crusade put on by a famous American evangelist. Young people were going forward and putting their drugs on a heap and I wondered what power that man had to make them do that and I really wondered what they were gonna do with all that stuff! Then I remember crying and many other people were crying, too. I wonder if that man urged me to made a “decision” that night but I just don’t remember it? Again, I don't recall any scriptures being read but surely they must have been.
I also had a class mate who was obviously influenced by the Jesus movement- a boy who was called "Bible Boy" because he brought his Bible to school. He evidently wanted to help me and gave me a paper that was supposed to be a letter from Jesus. It talked about how much Jesus loved me and how He sent the breeze my way, made the flowers for me, etc. That letter must have made some type of impression on me but I forgot all about that paper until I read that same writing on the Internet just a few years ago.
All these child hood occurrences left a mark with me and to this day it makes me mindful of what impressions I might be leaving in the lives of others that I come in contact with. It was these impressions and witnesses that helped prepare the ground for the rocky years ahead- the teen age years...
To be continued...
Hello, January!
