Where rain would never fall?
Or did you listen to a lie
Did you radio to base?
I waited for your call
But you left without a trace
But I could stop your plane (stop your plane)
From drifting out of range (far away)"
Threshold-"Pilot In the Sky of Dreams"
A few years ago, I planned to write a book about a very important milestone in my life, but I never got around to it. So, I feel like sharing the condensed version of that story right now. I feel the time is right to do this, and I feel anyone who reads this, even if they don't share my views, will still find it worth a read to see where I am coming from.
It's my testimony. You might as well cue WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley saying "OHHHH TESTIFYYYY!"
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| D-Von Dudley as Reverend D-Von. TESTIFY! |
If you are not familiar with churchy or religious lingo, testimony is when someone tells the story about their faith journey and what led them to their relationship with Jesus Christ.
As for testimony, I have given chunks of the story over the years, but never the whole kittenkaboodle.
You are reading a "diet" kittenkaboodle.
Here we go...
I was born on July 24th, 1976 at Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill, PA, to Catherine and Anthony Bankes. My mother was raised by a strong Methodist household and my father was raised in a dysfunctional and down on their luck Catholic family. My mother's side of the family lived fairly comfortably in Wormleysburg, PA, while my father's side of the family lived in near poverty in Lower Paxton Township, PA, in a house that resembled a tenement. At the time I was born, my parents lived in Harrisburg, PA, near John Harris High School (now Harrisburg High School) in a two story apartment. Mom was employed by Dauphin Deposit Bank and dad worked for a roofing contractor, as well as part-time as a mechanic.
For years, I thought I was baptized as a baby into the Methodist church, but years later I found out from my mother that my parents never baptized me due to a small dispute over what faith I should be baptized in. My father wanted me baptized into the Catholic church and my mother wanted me baptized into the Methodist church. Because all of this happened when I was an infant, I obviously have no recollection of it, so it remained a mystery that I would not discover until 2007.
So, once my parents moved out of Harrisburg and into my grandmother's house in Wormleysburg, I was taken to church on Sundays to St. Paul's United Methodist Church on Front Street in Wormleysburg. My faith, or my first impressions of faith, were received in that old brick church. Those first impressions were not good ones. All I knew about church at that early age was that you could not have any fun there. My neighborhood friends went to that church too (other than the Church of God on 2nd. Street, St. Paul's was the only church in Wormleysburg, and it was the biggest), so I always wanted to play and horse around with them. Nope, not allowed. Just sit in Sunday School and learn about some guy named Jesus. Then, go upstairs and sit with your parents and listen to some guy talk about this Jesus guy, and stand up and sing the hokiest songs I ever heard. Even at that early age I decided that most church hymns were not my bag.
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| This book had some very lousy hymns in it. As a child, I hated seeing it. |
Good night nurse, I hated church hymns with a passion throughout my youth and singing those flaccid lyrics as a child made me dislike church even more. The church building itself also lent to my dislike of going to church. It's walls were white on the inside, and the carpet was a deep dark red. The pews were hard and uncomfortable. The stained glass windows were simple, and it was a very plain sanctuary. It felt like a school or a prison and not a house of worship where all were welcome. The people who went to the church also did not help the cause. Everyone seemed so uptight and strict. One church member went ballistic when a few Sunday school students and myself rang the church bell just to see what it sounded like. All we wanted to do was play, and the people who went there looked like they never had a day of fun in their lives.
Then, there was this Jesus fellow. At around the age of 8 or 9 I started to question whether he was real or not. Even at that age I was questioning everything. How did Jesus do all of these amazing things? Why is he only documented in this book called "The Bible"? If he died, how did he come back from the dead? Why did so many people follow his teachings so blindly? If he was someone who believed in love, why did the church goers seem so joyless and strict? Why was the church against anything that us kids would call fun? This Jesus dude just seemed like a major sourpuss to me, and just reminded me of a rigid authoritarian who loved to whip his children into shape. Follow his teachings? Forget it. I'd rather watch MTV.
My parents were not avid churchgoers, but my Mom always held a staunch belief in God and hoped that her son would believe in him too. I never talked to my dad about faith, because the subject never came up when I was growing up. It was always sports and other things with dad and I. In fact, religion was one thing I never talked about as a child, because I literally had no interest in it. However, in a conversation I had with my mom at the age of 11 or 12, I recall telling her I did not believe in God because science could not prove his existence. After that, it was no more Sunday church services for me.
Yet, there was an influence in my life who never gave up in trying to get me to be a good Christian. It was my aunt Esther. She was probably the most devout Christian I had ever known, but a woman who seemed like she never had a day of fun in her life. When I stayed with her, it was prayers before every meal, even though I did not care. She insisted I go to Vacation Bible School classes during the summer, and at that age when an adult tells you to do something, you don't have a choice. She never married and I don't think she ever even dated. If there was a Methodist version of a nun, she was it.
However, even she did not succeed in getting me to tow the Methodist line. So, my family wisely gave up on faith formation with me. I was overjoyed. Besides, faith was for old people who had nothing better to do in my mind. I had too many other fun things to do, like ride my bike, play football and baseball, and watch TV. I did not need church, and I did not need this Jesus dude in my life.
Around the age of 13, I met a friend who swore like a sailor, but was a good dude, and I started hanging out with him a lot. We became like brothers. Me, coming from a background where my dad could swear a blue streak, made me want to talk like my dad. However, my mom forbade me from swearing. So, I began cursing in conversations with my friends and I still do to this day, but I was really fond of saying "Jesus Christ" and "God Dammit". Now, when I would say those words around my friend, he would tell me not to say those phrases around him. That experience taught me not to say those particular curses at all, up to the point where even as an agnostic teenager I would tell people not to say those words around me. You could say that was the first time anyone "ministered" to me in a way I could understand, instead of telling me through some boring Bible story or a cheesy hymn.
I didn't really know anyone who was a strong, church going Christian in my age group. Most of the neighborhood kids were out causing trouble on Sunday mornings instead of darkening the doorstep of a church. It was a thing to me mocked, to be made fun of, because it was not fun and it was not cool. To me, I also think rebelling against church was a small way to be the rebellious and bad ass youth that I wanted to be but wasn't allowed to be.
Frankly, if all church was to offer was boredom and austerity, I did not want to be a part of it. While I had no open hostility towards Christians, I wondered how anyone could be so moronic and simple minded to believe in an invisible guy in the clouds watching over us. I felt bad for them. In my childhood, all things scientific were of interest to me, and there was no scientific proof of God, so he did not exist to me.
(Bear in mind, I am looking at past events with the gift of hindsight. Please do not be offended if you are a Christian at the strong language I use. That is me looking back at how I felt at that time.)
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| Don't be offended. This is how I felt at one time. I have to be honest. |
Until I started attending community college, religion was not even a thought to me. It simply did not hold a place in my life. It was unnecessary, it was just window dressing. Other than a use of the word "God" in a news article I wrote for our school paper before graduation (and I have no idea why I used the word to begin with as I was not spiritual in the least. Maybe it just felt right for what I was writing as I was trying to write something poignant), spirituality did not mean a thing. It was an alien world to me.
In community college, more specifically Harrisburg Area Community College, I started to morph into the person everyone nowadays is familiar with. I started to grow my hair, became more interested in the heavier side of music, got my first leather jacket, started smoking, and became friends with the most interesting people I could find. I was able to start to be that person I always wanted to be. The bad ass. The rebel. I did fine in my studies for the first two semesters, but then I became more interested in socializing, so I was basically wasting my parents money.
However, in college, I would meet a few people who would introduce Christianity to me. A couple were solid examples, a few were not. A seed was planted though, yet it was a seed that would take a long time to be watered and an even longer time to bloom.
...To Be Continued
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