I’ve dealt with the fundamental injustice of being teased and then bullied over things that were completely beyond my control, my ginger hair, Scottish surname and “posh” accent but there were times when I rather brought things on myself.
In the second year I was quietly reading in a corner of the library one morning when a couple of the chief bullies decided that I needed to be disturbed and demanded to know what I was reading. Without even deigning to speak I turned the cover of the book so they could see the title “The Problems of Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell and I hadn’t got it there for show I was genuinely interested in what Russell had to say particularly on the subject of religion. I’d consciously abandoned any semblance of faith 2 years previously even though I continued to sing in the church choir until I was 18, not attending church was simply not an option in my family and anyway I really loved the music and singing it, I especially enjoyed singing at the annual Founder’s Day service.
I don’t think those idiots would have minded if I’d been clearly out of my depth but with my usual lack of forethought I used the notes I’d made to start a very unpleasant argument with the RE Master and ended up being accused of trying to undermine the entire classes’ faith. I got a detention for that particular little heresy and had to walk 7 miles home because I missed the school bus and hadn’t got any money on me for a normal bus.
Not long after that my satchel got rifled and everything in it that wasn’t standard school material was held up to ridicule in front of the whole form. There was the Oxford Companion to Music (a book about the size of the OED) which was a personal gift from one of my music Masters, Crow by Ted Hughes which I’d bought the day after my second form English Master had read one of the poems to us, The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis which I was using as a devil’s advocate against Russell and most damming of all my personal manuscript book containing my first faltering efforts at composing music. There were no comics, no lightweight reading nothing that other boys my age apparently carried around with them.
For once I handled things quite well, didn’t lose my temper or swear at them, just put all my things back in my satchel and got on with the rest of the day. At home I said nothing, did all my prep, went upstairs and practiced my violin for an hour, had a bath then went down to give Mum a goodnight kiss and went to bed where I cried for a solid half hour before falling into a very poor sleep.
Love
Malcolm — very interesting post. I was brought up like you accepting faith, but it took me much longer to come to terms with what I believe. Brought up a Methodist, I loved the litury, the music, and the art that has resulted from Christianity. I remained faithful and active in the church until my 50′s, but about 10 years ago, I began to doubt. Though I still believe is some supreme force and spirituality, I no longer can take the rest on faith. No longer do I believe there is a god that takes care of us, loves us, or the opposite of hellfire and damnation. And so now I don’t really think there is any kind of afterlife — either heaven or hell. In my opinion, organized religions of all kinds have been much more negative than positive when you consider the dogma, wars, intolerance, etc. Christopher Hitchens finally put the nail in the coffin of faith for me with his book: god is not great.
But I will admit that I still take comfort in music written for the church, especially the Bach chorales and many requiems (Verdi, Berlioz, Faure, etc.). Also some very great art has either been commissioned or inspired by the church, e.g. Michelangelo and Rembrandt.
So now I choose to accept the “gifts” of the church especially in the forms of music and art, but reject the “faith” part.
There’s so much good that the Church has given me. As a musician my self I have a great passion for sacred music and have played and sung so much if it over the years. Sadly the faith issue was a stark choice that I made when I was 10 but even without that aspect of the church there was still a great sense of comfort to be had, and an angry 14 year old let loose on a church organ is a sound to behold. I think the faith issue is worth explaining in a post of it’s own as it seems like an unlikely decision for a boy to make in 1963 society.
And I do like your follow-up post today explaining what happened back then. But most of all, I would love to have heard that angry 14 year old boy let loose on the church organ.
For that matter, I would love to hear you play a pipe organ today! So what are your favorite organ pieces? Surely you have recorded some and put them on YouTube, no?
The angry 14 year old was quite a sound to hear, discovering the sheer power of a pipe organ is a revelation itself and I really made the most of it! As for my favourite pieces I’m very much a lover of J.S.Bach, as a classically trained musician I couldn’t really not love the perfection of his musical form but having said that I have heard and played so much great music that it’s almost bewildering, Sadly most of my best work will never be heard, even by me, as it was pure extemporisation and I had no way of recording it back then. I think I may well write a post on that time including the organ recital I organised featuring my teacher who was FRCO and unvelievably good. Yes, that will be my next post and will make a pleasant side trip for everyone I hope. I don’t want people to think my life was an unremitting hell, there were wonderful bits, it was just the bad bits were very bad.