There's a Seeker Born Every Minute
"All I wanted, in the world, was to be a catholic priest.
Live in a monastery, pray, serve God."
Joe Peshi-JFK
Those words, spoken as a
line in a movie, left me sitting in the theatre with tears welling up in my eyes. Whoa..."where
is this coming from?" I asked myself. While I was not interested in
being a Catholic Priest or living in a monastery, I knew what he meant so thus
the tears. I sat there thinking , "Yeah, that's all I wanted when I
came into the Worldwide Church of God." I as a weird kid and
theology and all things God had a hold on me way back. I used to listen
to The Back to the Bible Hour on my transistor radio lying in bed at
night. I remember getting a little offended in college when some WCG
Evangelist cracked that it was called that because they had their backs to the
Bible. I have since learned that even the Bible has its back to itself at
times...
I was 14 when I heard my
first Sabbath sermon in Boise, Idaho and it was on astronomy. Whoa..a
church that knew about astronomy. My Presbyterian one didn't so
much. I was hooked and I devoured everything WCG had from age 14 to 18
and then went to College. The rest is history as they say...
I was and always will be
a "seeker."
Sometimes I get asked
why I stayed so long in WCG. First of all transitions are messy in my
experience. Secondly...I thought that was where I was supposed to
be. After all, I had prayed my heart out to end up where I could best be
what I wanted to be, a pastor, and nothing stopped me from going to
WCG/AC. I snuck my college application out under my parka so my parents
wouldn't catch me applying. I had to be there and, while I wish someone
had talked me out of it, I was not going to be talked out of it.
One other pressure, at least subconsciously was from something my dad said when
I called him to tell him I was going into the ministry and being sent to
Minneapolis after graduation. He got kinda quiet on the phone and I asked
him if he was alright? He said, I'll send you a letter. In that
letter he told me he had forgotten all about a prayer he made before I was born
and it hit him when I called. He said he prayed that if I was to be a
son (I was on the way) , and healthy, "You can have him
God." You see my older brother and first born son to my dad
was and is blind, deaf and cannot speak. He has been institutionalized
all his life. So dad made a Diehl, I mean a deal with God and when I called it
kinda got to him. Then it kinda got to me and staying in WCG even when
painful and chaotic still seemed a God thing until it didn't. I'm not
sure if I let any Deity down, but I didn't want to let my dad down.
But I, as most I knew in
both the ministry and among the membership were seekers and it seemed more correct
and Biblical and that was what we were seeking. I have found that the
most sincere become your worst enemy when they feel betrayed or hurt. It
is the most sincere, who feel betrayed and hurt, who probably rail the
most on this blog. If I had to choose, I'd still choose a church more
like the old WCG, more Jewish in background than gentile but I would not allow
the writings of Paul to get in. Paul took the early Jewish Christian
Church , turned it inside out , including it's own scriptures, and made Abraham
the father of uncircumcision if you can imagine that. Nice trick but it
evidently didn't fool the Peter, James and John characters in the NT. I
don't think it fooled the Ephesian Church either in Revelation, but I
spare you.
I miss church but I
don't miss sermons. I don't feel all that safe these days but I can't un
ring the bells I have rung. You really can't go home again it
seems. I am still touched by the story of the Prodigal Son but I don't
know anyone like the dad in that parable and I really don't even know where
home is to go home to.
But I, like many of you
reading this, are seekers. I want to know how spirituality works and how
religion gets in the way. I want to know the good science of archaeology,
paleontology, astronomy and quantum physics. Very amazing stuff. I
see where some feel the whole ball game is just a hologram and some force or
creator seems to have put us in the game to learn. It's like we actually
are the SIMS. I finally figured out that has to stand for
simulations. I like the implications of "If a tree falls in the
forest and there is no one there to see it, does it make a sound?" I
always thought that was a cute joke of some kind I did not get. Now I
know the answer is literally "NO! It does not make a sound. It
makes vibrations which if not heard by a brain do not translate into
sound." Excellent! This means the world outside our
heads is totally silent! Ask me about light and photons someday....
:)
But again...we're all
seekers and it's not nice to sucker a sincere seeker, which of course we
have all experienced with the Armstrong/Tkach phenomenon. While in hind
site, I had shit for brains...back then I knew I had found something more true
than the box into which I was born. And then, I got pushed out of that
one too. I had to be pushed because historically I tend to stick around
way too long anyway.
Lots of changes and
change and I have never gotten along. My dear mom of 95 is slipping away
and doesn't know me anymore much and my dad is not far behind. He's 97
and a man few men could ever be like . I will miss them both as is
normal I suspect when that time comes in life to move along.
Buddhism hits it on the head with impermanence and the suffering that clinging
and grasping can cause a person. Letting things be as they are is just
good mental health for humans. Others hit the nail on the head with
"all negativity is just some form of non-acceptance."
But I, as I expect of
most of you as well, will always be a seeker. There is one born every
minute!
"All I wanted, in the world, was to be a catholic priest.
Live in a monastery, pray, serve God."
Joe Peshi-JFK
Joe! You Seeker punched me!
Thanks for listening...
