My Religious Upbringing I was born in 1954, the first child of my parents, who later had five more child

ren, four of whom were still alive into adulthood. My parents seldom went out to gether: my father worked and my mother took care of us all and the home. When I was six, seven or eight, my Dad used to take me to church with him on a Friday n ight, probably to give my mother a bit of a rest. I went alone with Dad for a while and later my next brother came with us. We did not know where we were and we were not told that it was a church. While the con gregation sang hymns and my father's mother co-ordinated the service from the ro strum, my brother and I played some sort of games under the table at the back of the hall. When the singing and talking was done, some people, my Dad and his mother includ ed would heal people with their hands. We took this for granted and did not real ize that other kids did not go through the same experience. I remember very clearly having a headache after we sang 'Standing By The River'. I was about 12 and a woman came over to me without me saying anything. She said : 'You have a headache". Dad came over and reassured me. The woman placed two fi ngers on either temple and a minute later my headache was gone. That was my first experience of spiritual healing, although I knew that my famil y were healers. I just had not realised what healers did. Healing did not appear obvious to me at that time. I still did not take anything spiritual seriously for a couple of years, althoug h my Mum's aunty used to take me to a Catholic Church if I stayed with her; the scouts took me to Methodist and Baptist Churches and the school was Church of Wa les (Church of England). I saw my father doing yoga and I still have his Teach Yourself Yoga book. I saw books on Tibetan Buddhism on my mother's bookshelf and I read them all avidly. I loved to visit my father's mother, who had set up the church and I was never ev er frightened when she began talking to people that I could not see. I knew about auras and karma and although I could only see my own electrical cha rge (not aura), I thoroughly believed in karma and still do. Nothing else makes sense to me. I used to talk to my friends of it when I was a teenager, but my father asked me not to when he heard of it from his friends. 'Don't cast your pearls before swi ne,' he would say, 'they are not ready to understand. I was always taught that 'when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear' and I believe this euphemism for what it is. I 'see' things for the first time each week and relish the experience. My mother and my father gave me a fantastic rel igious upbringing. They led by example and never forced. If you want to read more on this subject go to my blogs at: <a href="http://behi nd-the-smile.org">Behind The Smile</a> and <a href="http://owencerijones.com/wor dpress>Owen's Blog</a>