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Posted: September 10th, 2007 at 12:54am By: Rev. Kristi Denham
Living with my father didn't remove me from the adolescent temptations that my mother had condemned. It was more an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" kind of experience. My new school was El Camino High School, a sprawling suburban campus where all my childhood friends were now in their senior year with me.
Sacramento's suburbs were homogeneous. In those days it was white and middle class for as far as the eye could see. We had a Greek family and a handful of Jews; otherwise you were either WASP or Catholic. It was easy to be a rebel, with or without a cause. I wore purple tennis shoes. This was a social statement. My friends were all the artists and nerds on campus.
LSD had just been introduced to the subculture. Everyone I knew was using marijuana. My best friend had been in and out of the mental hospital after a series of suicide attempts. I fell madly in love with a Jim Morrison lookalike who was brilliant and troubled and eventually introduced me to psychedelics. I was a mess.
I kept trying to practice my newfound faith in God and to follow the teachings of Jesus, but this seemed to be a futile attempt to work my will in the face of the 1960s social upheaval. I wanted to be a part of the flower-power generation. I wanted to see an end to the Vietnam War that every night was beamed into our living rooms on the evening news. I was listening to Bob Dylan and singing Beatles songs. I tried LSD and found myself plunged into a schizophrenic chaos that I almost didn't survive. I walked a tightrope of almost crazy almost sane and managed to get good grades and to graduate from high school with honors.
My father tried to rein me in with curfews and chores. I wasn't allowed to leave the house except to go to school or to my summer job. I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone. I was lonelier than I had ever been, but I made it through.
No one in my family was speaking to me. I wanted to go to college, so I called an old friend of my mother's to ask for a ride to the junior college to enroll.
Not only did she give me that ride, she called my mom and lectured her on the importance of providing for my education. (Another angel in my life!) Mother called me. We reconciled. My mother's friend suggested that I might be able to get into a local private school, Dominican College of San Rafael. We sent them my transcripts.
I went to meet Sister Patrick, the president. I had never met a nun before. (Does one curtsy or bow?) I was accepted and received a work scholarship and moved onto the campus of an all-girls school to begin my academic studies.
The resident hippie amid a bevy of sheltered Catholic girls, I quickly found new challenges to test and strengthen my faith.
(To be continued ... )
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.
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Living with my father didn't remove me from the adolescent temptations that my mother had condemned. It was more an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" kind of experience. My new school was El Camino High School, a sprawling suburban campus where all my childhood friends were now in their senior year with me.
Sacramento's suburbs were homogeneous. In those days it was white and middle class for as far as the eye could see. We had a Greek family and a handful of Jews; otherwise you were either WASP or Catholic. It was easy to be a rebel, with or without a cause. I wore purple tennis shoes. This was a social statement. My friends were all the artists and nerds on campus.
LSD had just been introduced to the subculture. Everyone I knew was using marijuana. My best friend had been in and out of the mental hospital after a series of suicide attempts. I fell madly in love with a Jim Morrison lookalike who was brilliant and troubled and eventually introduced me to psychedelics. I was a mess.
I kept trying to practice my newfound faith in God and to follow the teachings of Jesus, but this seemed to be a futile attempt to work my will in the face of the 1960s social upheaval. I wanted to be a part of the flower-power generation. I wanted to see an end to the Vietnam War that every night was beamed into our living rooms on the evening news. I was listening to Bob Dylan and singing Beatles songs. I tried LSD and found myself plunged into a schizophrenic chaos that I almost didn't survive. I walked a tightrope of almost crazy almost sane and managed to get good grades and to graduate from high school with honors.
My father tried to rein me in with curfews and chores. I wasn't allowed to leave the house except to go to school or to my summer job. I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone. I was lonelier than I had ever been, but I made it through.
No one in my family was speaking to me. I wanted to go to college, so I called an old friend of my mother's to ask for a ride to the junior college to enroll.
Not only did she give me that ride, she called my mom and lectured her on the importance of providing for my education. (Another angel in my life!) Mother called me. We reconciled. My mother's friend suggested that I might be able to get into a local private school, Dominican College of San Rafael. We sent them my transcripts.
I went to meet Sister Patrick, the president. I had never met a nun before. (Does one curtsy or bow?) I was accepted and received a work scholarship and moved onto the campus of an all-girls school to begin my academic studies.
The resident hippie amid a bevy of sheltered Catholic girls, I quickly found new challenges to test and strengthen my faith.
(To be continued ... )
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.
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