Timbrels, Prophecies and Demons

I've not been able to catch up on blogs tonight as my scrollery thingamy is on super slow reaction for some reason, so it would've taken hours . . . I hope it gets better.

Last night I spent some time writing my "fixing the body" page . . . It will progress along with me, there are a few more things to be added, but I'm happy with it for now. It's not exactly an interesting page to "read", unless you would like to see how I intend to lose weight and get fitter . . . but we all know how that's done. No big mystery there. It's really for me to keep track of my progress, motivate and focus myself to make more progress and improve my self-discipline. So far it's working. O yes!

I went along to a city N/A on Sunday . . . Sometimes it seems like such a weird concept and experience, other times it seems like the most normal thing to be doing; which is down to my mood change, not the meetings.

I actually wish they didn't call it a meeting. That word has such "O Blimey, No!" connotations for me. My sister, Bluebell, reads this blog, she will know that feeling. Our childhood was a never ending stream of meetings . . . Sunday meetings, Bible meetings, Healing meetings, Prayer meetings, Mid-week meetings, Home-group meetings. I kid you not.
It was one thing when our parents were "Salvationists" in the Salvation Army which meant going twice on a Sunday, then twice again mid-week for "Timbrels" (tambourine group) and Singing Company rehearsals. But, we should've counted our blessings . . . When our parents left the SA to be Evangelists . . .  part of a large group of Evangelists, who had no "meeting place" . . . Yep, you guessed it, our house became the "meeting place" and boy did they like to "meet". At first I remember thinking, well at least we won't all be in uniform in public on a Sunday, little did I know what "The Charismatic Movement" Circa 1970 entailed.

They didn't sing hymns, they sang choruses . . .  small verses of eight or ten lines, with quite simple lyrics. Come back Charles Wesley.  One night Bluebell and I lay in bed listening, not that we had any choice, and counted them singing the same chorus 54 times! They played guitars, some danced like raving loonies whilst others floated about serenely (there's another word), they brought bongos, bashed tambourines, they had healing sessions where alleged demons were released (into our front room), exorcisms. They sang and howled prophecies in "tongues" No, I really am not joking here. They worked themselves up into frenzies of hysteria. All this in our two downstairs rooms, which had been knocked into one room. Yeah, no wonder.
And they hugged. A lot.
When my parents eventually split up, I was Thirteen I moved away with my Dad and younger Brother who was five, to live in a huge 10 bedroomed house in North Wales, full of this behaviour. 24/7. Lived there. They were all ex-somethings. Ex-addicts, ex-convicts, ex-paedos, ex-nut jobs who had been healed by the Lord and had their demons cast out by the elders  . . . O, that's OK then. Safe.

Consequently, I have a learnt aversion to "meetings, hugs and serenity". I might need to give a bit on this one.

I didn't intend to write about this, I was going to write about "Mr tooth surgeon's" assessment yesterday, but that can wait. It's been a long day.

In any case the Sunday night city N/A gathering was good. As we, yes that's me and Mr hard-core tough guy who gave me a lift there, pulled up in the car, they were mostly smoking outside; if I didn't know where we were, I would've said they were all waiting to score. But they weren't. It was all hugs (mostly the easy half-arsed sort of hugs - although one was a bit enthusiastic) and welcomes. All blokes, about fifteen of them. A very interesting gathering. A warm, friendly bunch of folk. Hey some with even less teeth than me ;-)

So my feet have gone wrinkled in a bowl of hot cold water here . . . Time to dry them and get some good sleep. Good sleep. Good dreams and all that. Waking up happy. Ready for life. Good stuff.
Thanks to everyone here and there.