The Catholic Parish of
Saint John Henry Newman

 Covering most of East Leeds

The Stranger In Our Home.

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The following is a little boy’s story all about his life in the early 1960’s and how his life was changed by the arrival of a “stranger” into his
home.

“When the stranger first arrived he was quickly accepted by the whole family and taught us an awful lot. My mum had always taught me to love the word of God and my dad taught me to try and obey it at all times. However, the stranger turned out to be our real storyteller and he would weave the most fascinating tales about adventure, mysteries and comedy, which would leave the whole family spellbound for hours each evening. The pictures he showed were so lifelike that they often moved me to laugh or sometimes cry No matter what you wanted to know about politics, history or science, he knew it all. He was like a good friend to the whole family and once took me and dad to watch our first major football game.”

“Then as the years passed, things started to go wrong. My dad held certain moral convictions and any profanity was not allowed in our house either from us, our friends, or adults. Our long-time visitor however, started to use four letter words, which made my dad very unhappy, but he was never confronted about his bad language. The stranger now decided to tell us all about beer and other alcoholic beverages and how good they were for us. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly and pipes distinguished, then he started talking freely about sex and became generally embarrassing. As I look back upon this time, I feel that it was purely by the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. I noticed that time after time he opposed the very values that my parents held most dear, but he was never asked to leave our home. He spent all his time sitting in the corner of the living room and during all the time he spent with us never told us his full name, he was always only known by his initials which were.....T.V."


"There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; Being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear;"
Confucius



Published Sat 8th Aug 2015 20:35:12
Last Modified on Sat 8th Aug 2015 20:35:12

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