MY INITIAL FOOT STEPS HUNTING FOR GOD
Dumisani Hlophe
Here is the article I have always feared writing. I finally gathered enough strength and the courage to write it. My fear rests on the subject matter of this article - the impact of my upbringing to my relationship with God.
I was born to a priest. A hard-core priest for that matter. I grew up in a serious Christian family. We prayed daily: in the morning, and thanked God for seeing the light of day. Then we prayed every time we had to eat something. We prayed before we slept.
On Wednesdays, we had a Bible “study”. It was not so much a study, but a low-level preaching. We had no discussions, or question-and-answer session. My father, would pick a verse and speak on it. Even if I wanted to miss church activities, I could not. The church was in the family yard.
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| Photo Cred: Footsteps Podiatry (Facebook) |
In my late teens, I went to live with another Christian family. The praying intensity was not as much as it was in my formative years. But then the home Christian intensity was replaced by the school one. We prayed every day at school, and there was always a preacher to deliver a sermon for about five minutes or so on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
I am confident that I know most biblical scriptures. In fact, I know the Bible virtually far better than most preachers. This pleased my biological priest father since he had wanted one of his sons to take over from him, and all the other sons had failed to take the Christian preacher relay baton from him.
I was his last hope. It came to a point where he stopped using Christian arguments about why I should become a priest. He argued that “if it is money you are worried about, churches pay very well these days”. He was right. There is lots of money in churches. But then, after all, I never became a preacher. There are deeper issues why I could not become a preacher.
Growing up in Christian families, going to church and its related activities became mere routine. In government terms, it became a “compliance issue”. It just had to be done. Similarly, praying at various times was just mere recitation. At times, I even joined daddy dearest to pray that his dream that one of his sons become a priest could be realised. I never knew why the daughters, my sisters, were excluded from this prayer. Perhaps gender political correctness had not sunk into my old man.
Here is the main reason I never became a priest, despite being raised by two priests and growing up in two deep Christian families: I never connected with God! I never connected with the spirit.All I knew, is that these things of praying, singing, and reading the Bible needed to be done. My two father-dads never considered that they needed something extra to instil godliness in me Thus, for me, the more I did these Christian activities the more I felt compelled. When I left home to attend university, I did not join a church or student Christian organisations. I felt free from the praying routine. I felt liberated. I felt like some heavy load had been lifted off my shoulders.
I only joined the Student Christian Fellowship (SCF) after the Easter holidays because of a girl I fancied.
At some point, I started exploring other religions and spirituality beyond the Bible. I read books from other religions such as the Qur’an and Buddhism. I read several books that unpacked various elements of Christianity beyond the Bible. I went beyond the Western conceptions of God to the Eastern conceptions of spirituality. I started to realise that the Eastern world is far ahead of the West in understanding the ways of God and spirituality. This is when I started to unlearn a few things that I had internalised growing up. Since I grew up with a personified God, I could not feel the godly spirit, because it was also distant to me - away in some heaven. It occurred to me that there had to be another means of getting closer to and feeling God.
I thought perhaps He is a symbol of all that is positive, a manifestation of all that’s great, not out there, but inside of us. Each and every one of us has the ability to manifest that which is godly.
Thus, I realised, when in pray, we ought to be reaching to the deepest idealistic element within us, which in my humble opinion is soul-searching.
In our pursuit of God, we are aligning ourselves to the universe and nature which is so balanced; we seek that inside of us that allows us to remain positive in this challenging world. Now I have learnt that godliness is actually inside me, I easily connect with God. So rather than follow the flock like sheep, build your own relationship with your God. It is very fulfilling.
* Hlophe is Faculty Associate at the Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership, University of Pretoria. He is also the Executive Director: Kunjalo Centre for Development Research. Twitter: @KunjaloD