Hello, I am new to this forum and excited to fellowship with people of similar beliefs. Life circumstances a few years ago coupled with my own personal tragedies had left me homeless on the streets of Colorado Springs for quite awhile with nowhere to turn. Speaking from experience, once homelessness and hopelessness sets in, it becomes extremely difficult to pull out of this sinkhole. Before the instinct to judge may set in, let me tell say that I once had a good life: successfully self-employed, 5 years in college, a nice apartment, cars, other material possessions that one would think induce happiness. In other words, I may not have been happy, but I wasn't born homeless. I had always been agnostic, however.
I loved my mother very much, and when she died 6 years ago, it hit me very hard and I began to unravel. I began drinking heavily and here the sob story becomes somewhat cliché - in a matter of about 6 months I had lost everything. I went to a "secular" month long rehab (a spin-dry clinic) and there met my wife-to-be. Again, please try not to judge. Logic will always suggest that 2 alcoholics pairing up is like setting a tinder box next to an oil lamp in a dry old house where an earthquake is about to happen. Maybe, but we loved each other. We went through our trials and tribulations, attempts at getting back on our feet for the next 4 years, laughter, shouting, triumphs and despair. We loved each other.
At some point we had become unemployable. The only jobs available to me were day labor, dishwashing, and call centers. My wife, who had at one time been successful, was 51 and applying for fast food jobs.
I suppose there was a turning point here. I was a bit younger than my wife, but we were both middle-aged people looking forward to a career in the fast food industry (if we could even get hired). We could have embraced and accepted our lot, and pressed forward, or we could have chosen to succumb to the overwhelming reality of our situation, i.e. "what the hell happened to our lives" and fall into an even worse spiraling cycle of despair. We chose the latter. We lived on the streets, slept behind buildings, under bridges, panhandled and struggled through rain and snow at night.
My wife died on the streets beside me last November. She was too young, and I loved her. But it happened. Many die out there in a slow form of suicide, and I was well on my way to follow. My only options to get off the streets without cost were two "Christian-based" organizations. To escape the familiarity and horror of the losses of my mother and my wife I chose to "turn to god" and enter Teen Challenge of Southern California - a year long Christian life school. A church paid for my plane ticket to San Diego and I spent 5 months there, and then another 3 months in Riverside for Phase 2 of the program. It has often been referred to as a "Jesus jail" or a Christian boot camp, and the Bible and Jesus are shoved down your throat daily. I honestly tried to swallow the Jesus pill as I called it, but as time progressed I found it increasingly difficult to accept the contradictions, judgmental attitudes, intolerance, and downright absurdities of the Bible. My agnosticism had turned into outright atheism. Isaac Asimov once said that "properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived," and I agree. While most, if not all the other "students" were falling under the spell of self delusion, speaking in tongues at me when I expressed doubt or unbelief, and telling me “Satan is drawing me away” I planned my escape from there and scrounged enough money to return to the town I know with a newfound passion for helping people without the Jesus factor.
My time spent at Teen Challenge (and it's not really for teens, by the way - I'm 43) has sparked a fascination in me about the dichotomy of non-religious people with church-going people. I feel like an alien half the time now. There are churches on every corner, and I now ask myself why do these institutions even exist in a rational society? And I feel guilty for accepting help from places that are funded by Christian donations. Because of my circumstances and what happened to my wife, I feel a pressing need to give back and help people, but don't know how without aligning myself with a belief system that I find absolutely absurd. The only thing I have right now is time and a passion for this.
Why is it that help in the form of meals and charity mostly come in the form of the bondage of having to listen to a sermon before the reward of a meal? Most homeless people I know begrudgingly listen to a sermon just so they can eat. It seems help for the homeless and addicted depend on accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Even AA with the higher power idea is ridiculous to me. When people are that low they will accept Santa Claus as their lord and savior if they are hungry, sad, or depressed enough. Some people are able to swallow the Jesus pill and live in a state of delusion, but being intellectually compromised and forcing the square peg of a fantasy world into the round hole of rationality and reason is simply silly and dangerous to me. Christians say they experience comfort and ”salvation” in their beliefs but I find nothing comforting in the belief of a judging, jealous, vengeful, invisible deity “big brother” watching your every move and thought. And the fear of an eternal lake of fire is not exactly soothing either.
I apologize for the length of this post and this somewhat embarrassing "testimony" but I actually have one hell of a story that has developed into an ardor to do something to open people’s eyes and help out without the prayers and supposed salvation. I “drank the kool-aid” for a long time but instead of its intended effect, it has really opened my eyes to something that I have developed an intense passion for, but don't know how to set in motion.
I loved my mother very much, and when she died 6 years ago, it hit me very hard and I began to unravel. I began drinking heavily and here the sob story becomes somewhat cliché - in a matter of about 6 months I had lost everything. I went to a "secular" month long rehab (a spin-dry clinic) and there met my wife-to-be. Again, please try not to judge. Logic will always suggest that 2 alcoholics pairing up is like setting a tinder box next to an oil lamp in a dry old house where an earthquake is about to happen. Maybe, but we loved each other. We went through our trials and tribulations, attempts at getting back on our feet for the next 4 years, laughter, shouting, triumphs and despair. We loved each other.
At some point we had become unemployable. The only jobs available to me were day labor, dishwashing, and call centers. My wife, who had at one time been successful, was 51 and applying for fast food jobs.
I suppose there was a turning point here. I was a bit younger than my wife, but we were both middle-aged people looking forward to a career in the fast food industry (if we could even get hired). We could have embraced and accepted our lot, and pressed forward, or we could have chosen to succumb to the overwhelming reality of our situation, i.e. "what the hell happened to our lives" and fall into an even worse spiraling cycle of despair. We chose the latter. We lived on the streets, slept behind buildings, under bridges, panhandled and struggled through rain and snow at night.
My wife died on the streets beside me last November. She was too young, and I loved her. But it happened. Many die out there in a slow form of suicide, and I was well on my way to follow. My only options to get off the streets without cost were two "Christian-based" organizations. To escape the familiarity and horror of the losses of my mother and my wife I chose to "turn to god" and enter Teen Challenge of Southern California - a year long Christian life school. A church paid for my plane ticket to San Diego and I spent 5 months there, and then another 3 months in Riverside for Phase 2 of the program. It has often been referred to as a "Jesus jail" or a Christian boot camp, and the Bible and Jesus are shoved down your throat daily. I honestly tried to swallow the Jesus pill as I called it, but as time progressed I found it increasingly difficult to accept the contradictions, judgmental attitudes, intolerance, and downright absurdities of the Bible. My agnosticism had turned into outright atheism. Isaac Asimov once said that "properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived," and I agree. While most, if not all the other "students" were falling under the spell of self delusion, speaking in tongues at me when I expressed doubt or unbelief, and telling me “Satan is drawing me away” I planned my escape from there and scrounged enough money to return to the town I know with a newfound passion for helping people without the Jesus factor.
My time spent at Teen Challenge (and it's not really for teens, by the way - I'm 43) has sparked a fascination in me about the dichotomy of non-religious people with church-going people. I feel like an alien half the time now. There are churches on every corner, and I now ask myself why do these institutions even exist in a rational society? And I feel guilty for accepting help from places that are funded by Christian donations. Because of my circumstances and what happened to my wife, I feel a pressing need to give back and help people, but don't know how without aligning myself with a belief system that I find absolutely absurd. The only thing I have right now is time and a passion for this.
Why is it that help in the form of meals and charity mostly come in the form of the bondage of having to listen to a sermon before the reward of a meal? Most homeless people I know begrudgingly listen to a sermon just so they can eat. It seems help for the homeless and addicted depend on accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Even AA with the higher power idea is ridiculous to me. When people are that low they will accept Santa Claus as their lord and savior if they are hungry, sad, or depressed enough. Some people are able to swallow the Jesus pill and live in a state of delusion, but being intellectually compromised and forcing the square peg of a fantasy world into the round hole of rationality and reason is simply silly and dangerous to me. Christians say they experience comfort and ”salvation” in their beliefs but I find nothing comforting in the belief of a judging, jealous, vengeful, invisible deity “big brother” watching your every move and thought. And the fear of an eternal lake of fire is not exactly soothing either.
I apologize for the length of this post and this somewhat embarrassing "testimony" but I actually have one hell of a story that has developed into an ardor to do something to open people’s eyes and help out without the prayers and supposed salvation. I “drank the kool-aid” for a long time but instead of its intended effect, it has really opened my eyes to something that I have developed an intense passion for, but don't know how to set in motion.
Glad you are picking yourself up.
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