Called
How can I write a book in a Coffee Shop? Noise of people
laughing and talking, dishes, cutlery, loud music… At least now they don't
bother me so much with "do you wish to have anything else?". I still have
to wait 3 hours before I can go back home, I'm not complaining because I have
been learning a lot with these delays.
I would like to write non-stop. After all I've got so much to
say. I'm not a man of many words and I keep a lot to myself, but that doesn't
mean I don't like to make myself heard. I'm in the third stage of my life (but
it’s not the last, pay attention!) then comes the fourth, the fifth, and so on.
After all, there are still wonderful things about to happen in the future (near
and far).
In my youth, what happened to me is that I was too churchy, amazingly
so! Very self-righteous, I could be cruel and vindictive. However I loved Jesus
and I loved God, I said many times that He was my best friend. My daily prayer
was, “Your will be done.” And He always answered my prayers, except I didn't
know that His will was to get me out of that churchy Babylon I was into, God
hates that spirit. He replied indeed to this prayer but in way that I had never
imagined.
I woke up one day and felt very weird, worse than lost. It
was as if I had fallen from great heights and found myself on the ground,
unable to get up. I felt the most despicable thing in the world, rejected even
by God. My "faith" was gone, my religiosity was missing, my
superiority over all fell down to the ground, I found myself naked, blind and
miserable, with that awful sensation that I didn't believe in God. I had the
feeling of having lost everything I had before – and it happened literally
overnight. I could never figure out what had happen to me.
From then on I wanted to forcibly regain the favour of God. I
made a vow to pray 3 rosaries a day (each rosary consists of 5 Lord Prayers, and 50 Hail Marys), hidden from view of others and even my parents and
brothers. What would they think of me? And this I did for 2 years – from 15 to
17. Towards the end I also started to read the Gospels, and for some reason
when I opened the Bible at random it just happened to read the parts where
Jesus was angry against the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, deception, falsehood
and horrible spiritual sins. In all those things I was reading, I knew he was
talking to me but I couldn't accept it very well.
 |
| In my Hippy Days |
I finally saw that this whole religiosity was taken me nowhere
and I tried another way. I let my hair grow, I stopped studying seriously, and
I got into all sorts of trouble. First was the stage of political claims at the
time of Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal but I got in trouble with the secret
police. So I gave it up and decided to embrace the hippie philosophy. I started
smoking marijuana and once again did nothing… the life of a punk. My patient
parents had to put up with me. I made several attempts to study and devote myself
to my engineering degree, but in 6 years of college I could only reach half of
the 2nd degree. Shame on me!
Finally, I felt again the need to read the Bible, I read the
prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, I didn't understand a thing, but I loved
it. I was attracted by religious movements that were sincere and had a real
free spirit. As a matter of fact there weren’t many of those. I was especially
in love with The Jesus Revolution * http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19710621,00.html
born in California amongst the Hippies in 1968. When I read about them in the
Paris Match (French magazine) I was fascinated. Little did I know that about 7
years later I would find them in Portugal without knowing that they were the
same that I had read about before, and once again they fascinated me, their free
spirit, and the light in their eyes... I felt irresistibly attracted to them. I
kind of spied on them and tried to decipher what they had that was so special. Finally I could not resist and I approached them.
And that was it, a couple of hours later I had joined their ranks and never
regretted having done so. What I received that day was fabulous, filled all my needs.
I felt very light and almost as if I was walking on the water. Wonderful!
I can tell you what happened to me that day as soon as I
found them at a coffee shop near the University. I prayed to receive Jesus as
my Saviour. That alone was incredible. Then I decided to become a missionary
with them. They explained me where they lived. Immediately I got on my way to
pack my belongings and join them in their house (it was called the community of
the Children of God). Going from the University to my home was a path I ran
every day that usually took me about 20 to 25 minutes – but prior to that it
looked like an "Eternity" so heavy hearted that I was. That day, however,
I remember leaving the Coffee Shop and the next thing I knew I was entering the
gate of my house. I don't know if I flew, or if I was transported, or if I was so
full of joy that time just flew. I had finally found what I was looking for, a
way to follow and live with the true living God with full freedom.
After having explained my parents and siblings what had
happened to me and to refuse to change my mind despite many entreaties and
supplications of all, begging me not to get into it, I left an hour later
toward the community. With the confusion generated at home, I left the piece of
paper where they had written the address of the community. I realized that when
I was already on the bus on the way there. I could remember the name of the
street but not the number. I went on anyway. I exited the bus on the area they
had explained to me and I looked for their home in the middle of a hundred
other houses. I knew I couldn't go back to my parents ' house to fetch the
piece of paper and I knew that God would have to reveal it to me. It was 10 p.m.
in winter and the lights inside houses were still on. It came to me that that I
should look for a light that somehow would be different from all the others.
And sure enough, a different light on a second floor called my attention. Confident
I rang the bell and the Children of God came to the door. They were waiting for
me to start dinner.
Today it's been almost 40 years since then, I've learned a
lot but I don't consider myself better or worse than everyone else. I tried the
best way I could to share with many people the truth and joy that I had found,
and now I'm in a waiting stage.
As the metamorphosis of the butterfly, there comes a time
when the caterpillar stops eating and simply builds a cocoon around itself and
waits. A lot of transformation is happening inside that cocoon, the caterpillar
is apparently "dead", but far from it. The best is yet to come. Only
then does the butterfly fulfil its destiny.
I decided to publish this. If God made me get
this far He will take me to the end. A warm hug to you and see you in the next
chapter.
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