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I just remembered another one...

I grew up in a Mormon household, and one of my earliest memories was sitting in church, when an elder was praying, he ended his prayer, as all Mormons do in meetings, “We ask this in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, amen.”

Well, I’d never heard the word “thy” used in conversation...so somehow, my brain chose to hear it as “in the name of MY son, Jesus Christ”... which caused me to turn and look at his son, sitting there in church, with a totally new found respect!

But then my father, who is also in the priesthood, as are all male Mormons, was called to give a benediction, and I also heard him pray, “in the name of MY son Jesus Christ”. I was shocked...what was I supposed to do now? I was Jesus Christ too! But then when another man in church prayed, I was suddenly discovering that all the boys in church were Jesus Christ!... The Mormon Church beliefs were already pretty weird, I understood none of it at that young age... but believe me, I was getting religious ideas in my head that were more convoluted then Joseph Smith ever dreamed up!

To top it all off, not long after I discovered that I was Jesus Christ, my dad was driving us home from church in his new 67 Lincoln, it was a bright sunny day, I was sitting in the front seat, and staring into the sun trying to make that afterimage that appears when you stare into too bright a light. Now, I heard in church about the Holy Ghost, but I was confused exactly what the Holy Ghost was. I mean, I knew that I was Jesus Christ, and I knew that God lived with Joseph Smith on some planet far away, but I couldn’t conceive what the Holy Ghost was, or what it did. Then I wondered if maybe the Holy Ghost was what it was that was making the sunshine that was coming from the sun.

So I turned, and asked my father, “Dad, does the Holy Ghost live in the sun?” Well, my father was suitably impressed, and proud that is boy had such deep theological thoughts, to be asking if “the Holy Ghost lived in the SON”, and so my father replied, “Well, yes He does”. And after that I kept my eye on the Holy Ghost in the sky, a lot. The colored after images from staring into the sun sometimes formed strange images, and as I stared into the light I could sometimes imagine I saw a little bright man inside the sun waving to me, like he was saying “Hello, Jesus Christ!” and I’d wave back, “Hello, Holy Ghost! Say hi to God for me!”

Being raised in a family where for the most part I was expected to be seen and not heard, no one corrected me of my theological confusion for a couple years... and when they did, it was to tell me the Mormon party line, which was also crazy, plus I was resistant to accepting it because it would mean I was no longer Jesus Christ and I could no longer talk to the Holy Ghost in the sky...so I just nodded my head and decided that God was God, but I had my doubts about church...

Follow that up with growing up in an abusive household and forcefed LDS doctrine, it’s a miracle I’m not on heavy medications for the rest of my life. I do occasionally smoke a joint, and when someone says, “how can you be conservative or Christian and smoke that?” I say “shut the hell up! I’m 52 years old and it’s been a rough road downhill from being Jesus Christ, so give me a freakin’ break!” ;^)

(Forgive me, Lord, but You made me this way!!)