You know something? A lot of what my parents did was try and teach me the truth. To know the difference between real and not real at a early age. The difference between fiction and non. I never actually believed in Santa or other such things* despite having something of a healthy imagination. But one of the things I recall was when I was very young telling my mother that of course I knew witches didn't exist.

"Oh actually yes they do," she replied in her usual sweet tone. She has one of those very sweet voices that can sound very nice even when talking about the most horrible of things. She was a nurse in the navy and has retained a deep interest in health care, remedies, all manner of illness and other such things. She often tells us things we really don't want to know about, and always in the sweetest of voices.

Like the symptoms of the various forms of leprosy, I truly did not want to know this. In fact, I'd rather have heard her tell me that in all probably my many allergies were indicators of a early onset of that particular aliment than that there were actually real witches. Of course, to me witches consisted entirely of what I had absorbed through fairy tales, Disney movies and Narnia. If my mother had only explained to me that witches tend to be slightly silly people who believe in the threefold law, and are not really into that whole eating of children or turning them in to stone thing, I probably would have been a much happier child. Well, probably not happier. We cannot blame all on parents. But I might have been a lot better rested than I was.

As I stood thinking back on this I realized the interesting thing about Christianity is that it is rather like that. Christianity goes about telling us that all these other things are untrue. They are most decidedly pagan and not real. Then they tell you that all this other stuff is true. The monsters are real. Those things you imagined under your bed? Just pale imaginings of what is really out there. And do you know what else? They hate you. Everything about you. Utterly. Anything you have ever felt pales when contrasted to their hatred. If there is anything pure about them it is how much they hate you. There is nothing they want for you more than to see you destroyed body and soul.

It was at this time I realized how long a climb it is up the dark stairs. And how very long that hallway is to to my very dark room.

I am now further resolved to only think of theology when the sun is shining bright.










*Fairies were another matter. I believed in fairy's (even though my parents might call them lightning bugs).