How Mom Became a Prophet

Autobiography.

First draft. A work in progress

My mother who had me at 18 and Aaron 2 years later was a very young mother. She was also a very shy overdeveloped insecure woman who was married the day before her graduation and was announced as Mrs Ronald James Backer when it was time to get her diploma. Things moved very quickly for her and I was born 6 months after her graduation and 3 days after that my Dad went to Vietnam.
My mother was very shy and loved to read. To this day I would bet anything she has read more books then 90% of the human race.

One of the first memories of my mom was her teaching me to read so I was able to read before I hit kindergarten. My mom taught us about how spiritually important reading was. How it would take you to places you couldn't imagine and feed your mind and soul. We were hooked.
As I got older, she would talk about how important George Orwell's 1984 was. She not only recommended 1984 and also Donald Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun before I was 10. Then there was Lord of the Flies, even Black Like Me. I read them all with a passion. 

My mother also introduced us to the poets that played music. The Doors, Cat Stevens,The Beatles, The Who, Jimi, Janis and Jagger. Now remember, my mom was and still is extremely shy and insecure. She wasn't a rager. Never drank or did drugs or screamed, "Rock in Roll!" She was then and is now a gentile soul.

I remember the time when I was around 7 yrs old, she was playing Three Dog Night and there was a lyric that went, "If there's a man, who is down and needs a helping hand, all it takes is for you to understand and pull him through." And she put her book down and asked me what those words meant to me. In my 7 year old way I said something about being kind to everyone.
Where books and film and the arts and conversation was the higher power at our house, religion, well, it wasn't. We were never "religious". It was never talked about in our home, good or bad. I think my parents were too busy trying to make ends meet. It was like there just wasn't time for it. Compassionately absent, if you will.

In my lifetime, I have explored all religions. It's a hobby I guess.I still look for that ZAP! people talk about and devote their lives to with all their hearts.

But I believe my mom, without even knowing it, instead pushed moral values through the Arts. Teaching injustice through George Orwell. Preaching to love your neighbor by walking us through a Three Dog Night song or Cat Stevens . Peace train sounding louder, Child.
Explaining how that committing murder was inhuman through the words of Donald Trumbo. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory with Gene Wilder explained the 7 deadly sins. Jimi Hendrix could walk on water with a talent that still cannot be explained. Three Dog Night taught me to do unto other as I would have done unto me. Instead of telling us this bloody, beaten man on a cross had been slaughtered    for our sins, she explained that John Lennon's life was cut short because sometimes beauty is just to bright for this world so they rise like a Phoenix leaving a powerful message for the rest of us to appreciate. Yet his music lives on. Beautiful, powerful music .

To be honest, my first experience with Christianity was when, as a 1st grader, I watched Jesus Christ Super Star with my mom for the music. After the movie ended I was crying bad. As I got into my bed, I asked my mom through sobs, "Why did they have to kill that  man?"
She said, "Sweetie, that's just an actor, he really didn't die. It's not real." She then  put on Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall and his words made me understand the universe a little bit better and I fell carelessly asleep.
I know my mom stayed there in my room listening to 45's way into the night probably a scared kid herself wondering if she was raising us the best she could.She doesn't even realize that she always had a talent for the astounding.