INVESTIGATOR READERS

Helen Wallis

Religion was never a big thing in our house, although as a child I was sometimes made to accompany Nan to the local chapel. I was never christened or baptised. I consider myself a practising Pagan, having a deep affinity with our Earth, and her gifts.

The fear that most major religions instil in people and the destruction wreaked in the name of God infuriate me. I have had battles with keeping Jehovah's Witnesses away from my door. They seem to have some entenna that homes in on divorced women — believing I suppose that we are either weak or vulnerable. At home I'd give them the courtesy of listening to them — they are after all, only doing what they feel is right — but they tried to tell me I would be reunited with my dead child (cot death) if I joined them, and I cannot abide emotional blackmail.

In my middle age, I am trying to do all the things I wanted to do as a teenager. I have taken up ten-pin bowling and karate. I bushwalk, have resumed photography, read copiously, and am currently a struggling author. I'd like to travel more, but the family is likely to keep me at home a while longer.
 

(From: Investigator 64, 1999 January)

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