The Book of Daniel Thomas Andrew Daly - Chapter 23

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Chapter Twenty-Three

It's only been a few days since my last entry, but I thought I would write about a period in my life when it was the hardest, and the lessons learned. At 16 years of age, I left the Catholic Church. It wasn't a faith crisis. There wasn't any real faith to speak of. Sort of, over the next few months, I guess I lost whatever faith I had in God, and didn't really not so much believe any more, but just didn't care anymore. I had hardly cared anyway, quite frankly, for most of the days of my Catholicism, because it was a religion foisted upon me by my parents, and I never really wanted to go to church very much at all anyway. It was just a holy day of obligation mum and dad taught me, and we kids had to go. Mum went off to England when I was 15, and I stopped going then, so that when she got back it was kind of official. I didn't go to church anymore. I did, though, promise God that if the Bulldogs won the Grand Final (1988) I would go to church, and they won, and I did go to church. But that was the end of it, and I think I just left it after that. I sort of lost my way, really. Ultimately, that time I went to church because the Bulldogs won the Grand Final I probably did believe in God, but afterwards, over the next while, I sort of lost my way more than losing my faith. It wasn't me giving up on my faith – I stopped going to church and after a while the faith just wasn't really there. I wasn't trying to deny my religion, you know. I just sort of lost it through going astray in hindsight. Well, in year 11 at Monaro High (1989) I was spending most of the time with my gang of friends built up from the Cooma Arcade. Damien Asanovsci, Peter Dradrach and the rest. We won the B Grade indoor cricket comp that year, just up near the Infants school for St Pats, next to the Cooma Basketball stadium. I used to walk up via the bush near the water tower to get there. Damien lived just behind me, and we also played outdoor cricket for the cops team ironically enough. I wasn't really much cop at the outdoor version (forgive the pun) but was competent at the indoor style, and we developed a quick hit and run method for scoring runs indoor cricket style, which helped us win the comp. I think a lot of those ideas developed from myself in memory, in all honesty. Throughout that year at Monaro High (because we moved to Canberra the following year) I only attended half the lessons (well probably more, but I bludged quite a bit, and didn't do any schoolwork properly that much anyway), but there was a girl in my year, Jenny Cheetham, who I had a huge crush on. I have written her into the Chronicles of the Children of Destiny as Jenna (Jesus' twin) for a bit of fun. She said to me in discussion 'I know there's a God'. It affected me. Month's later in Canberra I was asking her hypothetically (not talking to her, just theoretically her) 'How can you know there is a God?'. I was agnostic. The case had been closed, because nobody could actually know for sure. Sure, there might have been, but there was no proof. And over the next few years, while I bordered on atheism from time to time, that was still the ultimate official position. Nobody could know.

I got depressed from then on. A heck of a lot. All the way through 1990 and 1991 at Lake Tuggeranong, all the way through the 6 months of bludge after year 12 (which was never completed properly), all the way through the 6 months of TAFE which became CIT for my office skills certificate, and then the 6 months waiting to start my associate diploma in CIT in office admin, again followed by nearly 2 full years of the course – all that time the depression hit me hard, and it was bloody horrible. I know, now, what it was. I didn't have depression in my church days. When I left the church, the depression came gradually in because I dismissed God but, then, had no spiritual organisation to be part of. BUT because I had not worked out how to live life on my own without this giant support network I had taken for granted, the troubles of this world were too much for my spirit. Depression was inevitable. It is for everyone without a strong support network. Then I got my philosophy book which I stole from the library, worked out the argument from design, and believed in a creator. But the depression was still there, even though I was starting to repent to the deistic sort of God I believed in. I was witnessed to by Ariel Cheng on her faith – the depression hit its peak – I went along to visit her, and felt the darkness all day. Then I bought a bible on the way home, had my first schizo episode the following day, but the depression dropped in half. 6 months later visiting Potters house and praying a sinners prayer, the depression disappeared totally. Schizoprhenia ran rampant since then, but the depression left.

In 1999 I left the church, and had to start spiritually again. No depression this time, but no real spiritual strength either. Now, today, I have a lot of prayers in my Karaite Noahide faith for the movement itself. This means everything God tells me. The prayers I have for my movement – absolutely fundamental to everything for the religion. So, I keep on praying these days (since late 2012 a tremendous amount of prayer has been done) and reading scripture. This will go on for the rest of my days. My movement of 7DF needs all the prayers it can get. But I'm getting there. Growth will happen slowly. I just need to persevere, and give it some time. The faith will be established gradually.

All that hell I went through, ultimately, made me stronger. It was a big part of my life, but it taught me the lessons I so much needed to learn, and has given me invaluable experience – eternally.

Dan again

18 June 6178sc