Where to Go From Here

I'd like to talk about my faith. I'm not usually one to talk about religion, I'd have made a lousy Missionary, so it's probably a good thing I didn't grow up Mormon. I grew up with a mom who had embraced Lutheranism, after growing up in a Catholic home. It made sense, the first time I attended a Catholic Mass; Lutheran was Catholic without the Latin. My dad never went to church, he called himself "a member of the Mattress Chapel." He never interfered in Mom's dragging me to church on Sundays, nor in my Confirmation classes; he simply deferred to Mom's wishes for my sisters and my religious upbringing.
I've always loved to sing, fortunately, had a voice that was pleasant, and could carry a tune. In my adulthood, it was a low-Baratone with range in both directions. As a child, however, I sang Soprano for a youth choir. As I headed into puberty, singing the high-notes got more difficult, but our choir director, a man named Kyte, refused to let me move to alto, so I quit. It wasn't long before I got invited to join the adult choir, where I croaked out tenor lines, until my voice finally deepened. Today, my voice is mostly gone. I really do croak out hymns, in church.
To be honest, I went to church, sang in the choirs, became an "Acolyte" (the guy who lights the candels, and puts them out), and even went throught the Confirmation classes, just because Mom would take me to IHOP, afterwards. Well, that and Pastor John Zeltin.
Pastor Zeltin was a Russian-refugee, who left the Mother Country as a child. I don't know much else about him, but his voice, his accent, was the neatest thing I'd ever heard. I attended his 100th birthday, some years ago, now, and have no idea about what happened to him. He was frail, but he remembered me, and shed a tear for me as we embraced. As a child/youth, I loved him because he was a faithful man of God. He taught me a great deal about Christianity, albeit with a Lutheran perspective, and, quite frankly, scared the bejeebers out of me when he talked of God being "vengeful" and "merciless". You see, at a young age, I had a concept of a Heavenly Father (God), who would be forgiving, and understand. When we left Vallejo, and Pastor Zeltin, I fell into the "Mattress Chapel" fellowship, not setting foot in a church for a couple of years.
It's funny, thinking back, the first church I went to, after moving to Vacaville, was a Mormon church. I didn't realize, at the time, what an influence the LDS Church would have in my life. I was, merly, a member of a singing group, called "A Small Cyrcle of Friends" (there were 9 or 10 of us), who were all Mormons, except for me. We sang at a thing called Mutual, an evening for LDS Young Men and Young Women to meet in a more social setting. It was fun, I got to know a girl named Mary Gardner (who had piqued my interest in Home Room), we sang, people clapped, we left. I was 16, it was 1967, I had my license, and a sports car. Religion didn't mean much to me, I preferred to let people believe whatever they wanted. I had also found pot, and "bennies," and mescaline, and LSD.
I look back on that time of depravity, and it's hard to not remember all of the great times we had, compared to the damage we were doing to our minds, and our souls. Some of my best memorys from those days involve some form of drug or alcohol abuse, which to most of my Mormon friends, is a totally alien way of thinking. I had a great time, drinking and doing drugs. There, I said it. I mean, unless you count the time I was seriously considering suicide, because the drinking and drugs weren't working anymore.
In 1972, I was on USS INDEPENDENCE, in the midst of a 13-month overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyards in Virginia. For those of you not familiar with life on-board a Naval vessel in a shipyard, imagine living inside a big bell. Every time someone strikes the hull, deck, bulkhead, the sound reverberates throughout the ship. The yard goes 24/7, so those unfortunates who actually live on the ship, do so in a loud, stressful environment. Try going without a full nights sleep for weeks at a time, see what happens, it isn't pretty.
As the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays approached, I started thinking about home, got depressed, and contemplated ending my life. One evening, while on a Roving Patrol for the 03-level and above, I happened out to an area that accessed the ship's mast. I climbed for a bit, until I got to a radar platform that was empty, and had a rail. I got lost in how quickly all of my problems would end if I jumped into the empty drydock (a few hundred feet to solid concrete). Apparently, I spent quite a bit of time there, as my relief had to come looking for me, and asked what the Hell I was doing. I had a hard time explaining. Fortunately, for me, my relief was in my Division, and I knew him pretty well. He told our LPO, PT1 Gibson, that I was acting kind of strange, and "Gibby" and I spent an entire night playing cribbage, and talking.
Right before Christmas, my Division Head, LCDR Art Grayson, came to me and told me that I would have the next ten days off. He said he didn't care what I did, but I was to get away from the ship, hopefully to go home. He said he knew that air tickets were expensive, and he couldn't help me, there, but he let me call my dad from his office. I protested that I didn't have the time "on the books," and he said that this wasn't annual leave. Dad bought the tickets in Sacramento, keeping it secret from the rest of the family. That turned out to be fortuitous, as I caught the flu on the plane out of Norfolk, and spent the first three days of my "vacation" sick.
As I began to feel better, I started thinking of people I wanted to see, and had a short list of people to call, but I dialed Mary Gardner's number from memory. We had dated, for a time, and I had no idea what she might be doing, but it turned out that she was home. We spent a great deal of time together, and she saw me off at the airport. I realized, during this time, that I still cared a lot about her, and we wrote lots of letters after I went back. Because of her, I looked into the LDS Church, and found a religion I had been unconsciously yearning for.
Instead of "vengance" and "wrath," I found forgiveness, and mercy. In the process of my conversion, which continues to this day, I have discovered a Heavenly Father who loves me in ways that shame my love for my own children. He sent His Son, my brother, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of Man, my sins. I have found great comfort, after losing a child, in the concept of Eternal Families, that will be together beyond this life. I have found an amazing woman, yeah, Mary Gardner, who for the past 36 years has been Mary Martin, to whom I have pledged my devotion to "for time and all eternity." I have gained, somewhat, an Eternal Perspective, understanding more and more about how precious our time on Earth is, and what I need to do to be worthy of living in His presence once again. I believe, with all my heart, that those who refuse the Gospel in this life, will be given a chance to hear it in the next. I believe, since my father was never baptized (to my knowledge), that I may be baptized for him in death, to satisfy the requirement that only those who repent and are baptized may enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. I believe that a Prophet of God sits at the head of the Church, and that person is Thomas S. Monson, currently. I believe that Scripture does not end with the Bible. I believe that God has, and continues to speak to Man concerning His will for us. I believe that through the Holy Spirit, which is my constant companion when I am doing what I should, that I can have a personal relationship with God, and receive his guidance regarding my family, and my callings.
In short, I'm a Mormon. I'm not weird, well, not that weird, and I don't have multiple wives, or secretly worship Satan, or any other urban legend about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm a guy, struggling with life, with lots of flaws. I go to Church, not because I'm a righteous person, but because I'm not. I am a Spiritual person, and have felt God's influence in my life many times. Those, however, will have to wait.