Childhood

Speaking in Tongues: Toward Salvation

In Childhood, Creative Nonficiton, Family, Narrative on 22 December 2009 with 4 comments

My mother was a deeply reli­gious woman. She was what most peo­ple would call a fun­da­men­tal­ist Christian. She believed in God, the Father Almighty, cre­ator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord.
And how.
But she espe­cially believed in Hell, and she even more espe­cially believed that my brother and I were […]

The Egypt Game: Descent into Heathenry

In Childhood, Creative Nonficiton, Family, Narrative on 9 December 2009 with no comments

When I was in ele­men­tary school, I read a won­der­ful novel called The Egypt Game. It was about five chil­dren who decided to recre­ate ancient Egypt on a piece of aban­doned prop­erty, and how the gods of the game inte­grated them­selves into the children’s every­day lives in spooky and enter­tain­ing ways.
I fell in love with the […]

The Left Hand of the Father: Kindergarten

In Childhood, Creative Nonficiton, Family, Narrative on 30 November 2009 with 2 comments

Most adults were amused and bewil­dered by my pre­co­cious ways at only four years old, but by September 1st, 1981, my mother had enough of my con­stant ques­tions and demands for expla­na­tions and decided it was high time I went to kinder­garten so she could have a break. Trouble was, most schools required that children […]