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Hungry Again
Brow creased, lips scowling, Isla stares through the glass pane of her white-latticed window, seething.
“Grey, grey, grey,” she spits, underneath her breath, as she surveys the drizzly mist-covered hills brooding outside.
“Sem colour ev’ry dae. Never a drop o’ sunshine,” she fumes. “An’ dae ye think I can ev’r keep warm? Never! Always chilled an’ frozen.”
A movement, down the lane, skirting the fog-shrouded loch, catches her eye. A ginger-bearded man, wearing a tartan scarf, scuffles up the byway.
“Ah,” Isla mutters, placing her chafed and reddened hands on her hips. “Here he cums. ‘At good fur nothin’ husband stumblin’ up the pathwae. He’d better still hev his pay cheque an’ a sack o’ tatties or he’ll be sorry.”
Momentarily, the door opens, and the wanderer from the lane, trips, then attempting to steady himself like a clumsy highland dancer, tumbles, landing on his behind at Isla’s bare and cyanosing feet.
Narrowing her eyes down to slits, Isla curls her lips up into a snarl, then shouts,
“Angus, ye cannae doo ‘is again. Ye, joos cannae.”
“Ah Isla,” Angus slurs, attempting to stand up but slipping again. “Stop ye skirlin’. Ye always skirlin’. Either ‘at or ye peepin’. Can ye never joos be quiet?”
Isla clenches her fist.
“An’ can ye blame ‘me, Angus?” she rouses. “Wi’ ye always comein’ home phished? Reekin’ of scotch whisky an’ women? Ye got six wee ones, Angus, but they’ll go to thir beds hungry an’ crying again tonight. An’ how? Because, Angus, ye spent all ye pay cheque on whisky an’ women…AGAIN. Ye cuid at least hev brought a dash o’ ‘at whiskey home, then I could hev made a tipsy laird puddin’, but nae. Now I can’t even mek Scottish cock-a-leekie soop, ye selfish, selfish man.”
A Shocking Statement
In grade five, although a government school, my class had weekly Bible study classes. Well, not every week. Sometimes other lessons took precedence and other times the volunteer Bible instructors cancelled, but I remember that one time our school teacher announced that our Christian tutors had arrived and told us we should put our books away and prepare ourselves for listening. As we packed our school books, pencils and rubbers away, I heard one of the boys in my class say,
“Oh, must we? I hate God.”
And that statement struck me because although I had noticed that non-Christians preferred cursing Jesus’s name, rather than praising it, I’d never heard anyone outright say that they hated God. And how could anyone hate God, I had thought, because although, still so young, God had given me so many reasons to not only love Him but also adore Him.
As I grew, I met other children who also stated that they hated God. It happened once while I distributed Christian literature in a poorer suburb when a group of primary-school aged children picked up one of the religious tracts, and on seeing that it taught about Jesus, they ripped it up into teeny tiny pieces and with evil looks on their faces talked of how much they loathed God. And, sadly, once it happened closer to home. In fact, it happened inside my very own home.
Where Does It Come From?
I once read a Christian article that stated our conscience is never more tender than when we are children, so where did this hatred come from, I wondered. Perhaps, these children heard an adult say something similar, I thought, and the kids simply repeated what they had heard adults say. Or perhaps these children had especially wicked hearts, and although at the age when their conscience and openness toward God is apparently strongest, because of an especially dark heart, they’re rejecting him younger, but then I read the autobiography of Jimmy Barnes, an Australian singer, and another possible answer revealed itself.
Jimmy Barnes immigrated to Australia from Scotland, as a child. He states his only memories of Scotland are that it was grey, cold and violent with drunkenness reigning and brawling and fist fights abounding every night. He states his dad and many other Scottish fathers worked hard all week, then blew their pay cheques on Scotch whiskey and syrupy Drambuie, leaving no money left over for feeding and clothing their wives and children. Domestic violence proliferated, and after his parents and siblings and other Scottish families migrated to Australia, hoping for a more prosperous life, they continued their old behaviours in the new land that they had hoped would enrich them.
He states that while his mum and Dad physically assaulted each other, he and his siblings would cry and seek refuge inside cupboards. They also spent hours with people children shouldn’t even know exist, because, while drunk, Jimmy’s parents lost the ability to show discernment around who could and couldn’t come inside their house. Consequently, Jimmy experienced a frightening sexual encounter with an adult male while he was still underage and says that although their neighbours heard his parents’ violent fights and saw the evidence of them on his mother’s face and lips in the morning, no one called the police, so the authorities never rescued him and his siblings from this dreadful and dangerous living situation. And that’s why, while growing up in these terrible conditions, Jimmy says that at the age of four, he became an atheist, deciding God did not exist and if he did, He was not a God of love.
Investigating Further
Jimmy’s childhood was so drenched with suffering, he has written two memoirs. One about his childhood and the other about his life after he left home as a young man. In his second book, Jimmy states that he still dislikes God and remains an atheist. What a sad situation. How awful that any child should go through such an agonising ordeal that they no longer believe in the existence of a loving God. If only authorities had intervened. If only they had placed Jimmy in a more homely living situation or, better yet, if only his parents, right from the start, had provided him with the living circumstances all children deserve, then perhaps his faith may have turned out differently.
Either way, I felt great sympathy for Jimmy as I read his memoir but, despite the feelings of sorrow, reading it did benefit me. Because although I’ve only heard a handful of children say that they hate God, now, if I ever hear such a statement again, I know that instead of remaining quiet and merely praying that God will change that child’s heart, I should investigate further. I must ask such children why they hate God. Have they suffered trauma? Are they suffering from hunger? What is their living situation like? I must also notify the authorities, if necessary, and do what I can to help make their lives better but, most of all, I must help them find out answers to why our loving God sometimes allows us to experience heartbreak, depression, disappointment and pain. Then, perhaps, they will find healing for their hurt and, one day, experience complete and eternal happiness, protection, provision and care within the golden gates of Heaven.
References:
Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes
Working Class Man by Jimmy Barnes
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