William J. Murray - My Life Without God

MY LIFE WITHOUT GOD

HIS MOTHER HAD SCHOOL PRAYER BANNED AND RAISED HIM AS AN ATHEIST BUT GOD HAD OTHER PLANS

WILLIAM J. MURRAY

MY LIFE WITHOUT GOD

WND Books
Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2012
William J. Murray

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ISBN 13 Digit: 978-1-936488-34-6

Library of Congress information available

Printed in the United States of America

This book contains descriptions that may be considered graphic.
The names of certain individuals mentioned in this book have been changed to
protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations marked kjv are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version
(public domain). Scripture quotations marked nasb are taken from the New American
Standard Bible Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975,
1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved.

The battle in the kitchen was heating up, hotter already than the July dusk in Baltimore, Maryland. Supper was finished, and my mother and grandfather were slinging barbed insults at each other across the littered table. Having heard the same arguments hundreds of times in my eight years, I quietly left the room, while my grandmother and Uncle Irv remained, uneasy, at the battles edge.

I walked into the living room and settled into my favorite chair. The black-and-white television, which we had acquired only a year before, blasted me with sound. As usual there was a shoot-em-up western playing, and the gunshots and other noise helped block out the growing commotion in the kitchen.

Mine was not the typical American family, where a dad and a mom and the kids cuddled up on the couch with hot chocolate and popcorn to watch Father Knows Best. At my house we argued about the value of the American way, whether or not the workers should revolt, and why the pope, Christians, and Jewsanybody who believed in Godwere morons. We rarely did anything together as a family. The hatred between my grandfather and mother barred such wholesome scenes. So instead of talking and playing games, we cursed each other and screamed.

The roar of oaths and rapid-fire retorts in the kitchen rose, and I got up and twisted the TVs volume knob higher.

Ill kill you! my mother screamed.

My stomach tightened. I felt the violence in her words. I ran to the kitchen door, and as I looked on, a dish flew past my grandfathers head and smashed against the wall. It fell, in pieces, on the linoleum floor. Mother reached for another plate, her short, solid body flushed and rigid with rage. Grandfather, left speechless by the intensity of his daughters outburst, cowered uncertainly as she shredded him with her tongue.

Grasping the second dish firmly, Mother aimed, then flung it sidearm. The white plate flew through the air, this time obviously on a straighter course. An instant before impact, Uncle Irv blocked the dish in midair with his hand. The plate shattered, slicing his wrist. Blood began to spurt from the cut.

You ignorant jerk! Mother yelled at Irv, narrowing her eyes to reddened slits. Abruptly, she whirled around and opened a drawer behind her. Grabbing a ten-inch butcher knife, she turned, then stepped slowly toward the men. Grandmother shrieked, and my heart pounded. Grandfather and Uncle Irv jumped to their feet, rushed my mother, and wrestled the knife from her hand. She cursed angrily, sweat shining on her forehead. Now both Irv and Grandfather had deep cuts, and blood spots dotted the wall and table. Disarmed and beaten, Mother ran from the room, shouting at Grandfather as she fled, Ill see you dead. Ill get you yet. Ill walk on your grave!

It was 1954, just another day in my life without God.

I wasnt sure why my mother hated her father so much, but that night, his comments about the unborn child she was carrying had caused the outburst. It had been more than eight years since her first illegitimate childmebut Grandfathers disgust for his daughters loose morals had not changed. Not that Grandfather was a moralist, but he wanted his daughter to be pure even if he wasnt. This night he had been unable to resist a comment on her blossoming out-of-wedlock motherhood.

Maybe if I knew more about Mothers childhood and early years, I could better understand why she treated her father with such contempt. But when I was growing up, she seldom interrupted her tirades on politics and atheism to reminisce.

I do know she was born on Palm Sunday, April 13, 1919, an ironic twist of providence, I suppose. Her parents, John and Lena Mays, named her Madalyn Elizabeth. She was their second child. John Jr., always called Irv, had been born two and a half years earlier. The Mayses lived in Beechview, Pennsylvania, which is now a part of Pittsburgh.

It seems likely the Mayses were not well prepared to be effective parents. Each had come from families of more than a dozen children. Because of the poor circumstances at home, my grandfather ran away permanently at age twelve, wearing all of the clothing he ownedfive complete outfits. Grandmother was forced to leave her home as a teenager because there simply was not enough room. They met one night in 1912 and were married the next day.

Their lack of enthusiasm for children is clear from an incident that occurred in 1918, when Grandmother was several months pregnant with my mother. Hoping to abort the fetus, Grandmother jumped from a second-floor window of the family home in Pittsburgh. The hard landing must have not damaged either the baby or her, though, because Grandmother carried her child to full term. The fact that she later related this incident to her daughter reveals the calloused insensitivity so rampant in the family. Mother certainly must have been hurt by this story and other instances of early rejection by her parents.

Even my moms birth had a bizarre element. Grandmother swore years later that Mother had been born with an unusual, dark membrane covering her whole body. It resembled a black shroud, and the doctor had said it was very curious, though he offered no explanation. He gave a portion of the membrane to her, and Grandmother kept this odd keepsake for many years.

The Mayses never were enthusiastic churchgoers. However, they did arrange in 1923 the joint baptism of their son and daughter at a Presbyterian church. And sometime not long after my mom began to speak, Grandmother taught her a goodnight prayer in German, which Mother faithfully repeated night after night:

Ich bin klein,

Mein herz ist rein.

Soll niemand drin wohnen

Als Jesus allein.

This means roughly, I am little, my heart is pure. No one can live there, but Jesus alone. Grandmother also had her children pray at bedtime, not out of any significant devotion to Christianity but because of her deep interest in spiritual matters of any kind. For instance, she claimed to possess psychic powers. When World War I was ending and a neighbor was distressed by the lack of news from her son, an infantryman serving in France, Grandmother told the lady that her tarot cards showed the young man to be dead. Several months later, official word of the soldiers death reached the mother. This boosted Grandmothers confidence in her psychic powers, and while I was growing up, she often used cards to try to predict the future.