By the Grace of God

I was raised in the United Methodist Church. It was where I spent the first 24 years of my life. I was baptized at age nine, taught Sunday School as a teenager, and at one point thought about becoming a minister. Then the worst thing that could happen to a young man that deeply admired his father happened. My Dad came down with lung cancer when I was 19. And he passed away when I was 24. I had been slowly drifting away from the church. Oh, I still believed, but it no longer played the role it once did. With my Dad's death though, I very wrongly blamed God. Here are all these people living the good life that prey on others, and then there was my father, a good man, made to suffer four years of slowly dying. He did not deserve that. How could a loving God do that to an honest, hard working man? What's more, what difference did being a good person make if it just ended in sorrow and suffering? Being one of those people that needed a higher power, I went looking elsewhere. I went looking for gods that would not make me be a good person just to suffer.

Two years later I found it in the form of the religion Asatru which believes in the old Norse gods

Odin, Thor, Frigga, Frey, among others. I devoted many years of my life to it, wrote seven books under the pen name Swain Wodening. It was not however, a very loving religion. People were prone to petty rivalries. I got accused of many things I did not do as were others. And as a result of that and my father's death I drifted in and out of depression, and turned to alcohol and drugs. Life after my father died was hard. Most of the time I was barely getting by. At one point I was homeless and living on bagels (long story). It was a far cry from the fairly privileged life I had known as a child.

Slowly, I made something of myself, got a job at a law office, got engaged, then got married to someone else. I moved to Texas. I was not happy though.  Asatru lacks compassion. There are no commandments telling people not to judge others, or commandments telling people to be kind. It very much encouraged sociopaths looking out for themselves. Don't like someone? Make up convincing lies about them and spread them everywhere you can. Don't want to take the blame for something you did? Blame someone else. Jealous of someone else's achievements? Do everything you can to bring them down. Many if not most Asatruar that are well known are falsely accused of something once in their life. Tricks included forged confessions to bad deeds supposedly written by the target of a smear campaign, false accusations, rumor mongering,  harassment, among other things. And having written seven books, been the leader of one of the several organizations, I was forever the target. In my time as a Heathen I was accused of beating my ex-wife, being schizophrenic, being a sex addict, abusing my position, among many other things. Now I must point out most Asatruar are good people. They are not mean to others, and like to lend a helping hand, but there are those few that use the lack of commandments for compassion to their advantage. Being prone to depression I made an easy target. They knew if they poked me enough they could get a reaction. As a result, I did things in anger, said things I am not very proud of.  In essence, I fought back. That combined with the alcohol led very much to a life of sin.

Around 2012, I had had enough, and decided to try to change Asatru. I had always written about

honor and the consequences of one's actions, that was enough to get people mad at me, but then I started throwing in bits about compassion. It was not received well. People said I had gone soft, that I had sold out, or was carrying Christian baggage. Disgusted at Asatru by 2014 I went looking elsewhere. Then one night while working on a blog post, it struck me, the Golden Rule was the answer. And everything changed. And thus began the journey back to Christ. I toyed with Christian Deism for a while, but then once I began attending church again, I began to realize Christ was my Savior. And with my first Communion since returning to the church it came to me Christ was indeed my Savior. And this is where God's Grace came in.

One of the things I was dealing with was the shame of having ever become Heathen, not to mention things I had done to hurt others. But with the Blood of Christ all that was washed away. All my sins were gone, and I was born again with a clean slate. It gave me the strength to begin to rebuild my life. I joined a community organization and organized the local fall festival. I began to be active in church. I began to interact with my friends more. I wrote my first books about something other than Heathenry. And I continue to build on that. I got a new job, and am preparing to move to a new place. It was the Grace of God, the gift of Salvation that has allowed me to do this. And Salvation is there for everyone. All you have to do is believe in Jesus the Son, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. It took me decades to realize that. I had to follow false gods to do so. But now I am so glad I am saved.