I Have...
I have made many mistakes in life. Some minuscule, some small, some noticeable and others big enough to trip up an elephant... the latter were painful lessons still featuring blatantly in my memory. The mistakes I regret most are where I ignored my own intuition and went against my deepest self-integrity. Where I followed another's current and was swept away before I realised… And, those where I hurt the ones I loved most; sons, mother, sister.
But if I were weighed on the Scales of Life, there were also times where I hugely extended myself for the good of others. For the Love of others... especially for my sons and very few closest friends.
One such time was trying to give my sons the best education I could in very straightened circumstances. It was during that somewhat regrettable but not wholly for it taught me much, Period of Religiosity. When I was desperately searching for a father figure and that unconditional love which I maybe foolishly believed was still possible in the human race...
A new and small local private school opened nearby connected to a few church members I knew and respected at the time. The fees were beyond us as a family but I fervently negotiated and it was agreed I could clean the toilets daily after school in exchange for a reduction in fees for our eldest, George, who was the appropriate age for the school.
Looking back it was a very fundamentally religious education plan but incorporated many of the morals and ethos that I held dear for my family's health and well-being. Retrospectively, many of the morals I thought would exist within it were regrettably not upheld, poor George being horribly bullied by the Deputy Heads son.
From my own experience, a blindness seems to exist in many who are fundamentally religious. The often crucial issues they purport to uphold slide by unnoticed when concerning their own offspring or needs and the word of God often manipulated and cited to back up their equally fundamental errors.
No wonder my son's would not touch religion with the proverbial barge pole! For they saw the truth long before I did...
But I cannot regret much of that period for I learnt a lot - about myself and humanity. I still have a few open and honest friends whom I dearly cherish and respect who embrace Faith rather than religion. And, if nothing else, as George son once said, it did make me Seeker and that Gift I passed to my sons.
31/12/2025