Journey into Faith

Chapter 1

In my youth there were many advantages to being a son of a king, no matter how small his realm. I was trained for war, as were all the men around me. My life was a time of wars, a time of invasions. We accepted that aspect of our lives because if we did not, we simply would not survive. Being a younger son, I experienced some disadvantages, but looking back now as an adult to the time when I was under ten years of age, those disadvantages seem quite distant. These were the memories that are not usually recalled, the ones I struggle to bring back. I wasn’t the youngest child, though I was the youngest in the house. I had many brothers and one sister who shared those experiences of youth. Eventually our family totaled seven children, but the last brother, Thomas, was born so late and grew up under such different circumstances that it did not affect the rest of us. And our sister was pushed away. A traveling preacher of the “new religion,” which really wasn’t new, had come wandering into our lands around the time of my eldest brother’s birth. The preacher talked about his beliefs, about the Son of God who was killed and then rose from the dead. We had heard that this religion was spreading quite rapidly, but it had not reached very far into our lands. We had many gods of the forests and lakes that were worshipped by the common people. The new preachers had a difficult time convincing and converting these people. There is a legend in our family about a time when the preacher was talking to the Father and the mother. The preacher mentioned the twelve disciples, and my father remarked, “Now there is a good size brood! Wife, we will have twelve sons just like the one you are having now. And we will name them after these twelve men this preacher is talking about. But we will not use Judas. Betrayers have no place around here.” “We will think of another good name should we need it, my lord,” was my mother’s only reply. And so they started naming their children after Jesus’ followers. I suppose it was as good a place to get names as any. But I am not sure how such names as Bartholomew or Thaddeus would have been received by my father’s people. Those names certainly did not sound like proper Celt, Saxon, or Anglo names. Neither did the others for that matter. But we managed to get away with it. Mine was—or rather is—Andrew. James and John were the first two names that Father used. He rather fancied the fact that these Hebrew men were called the “sons of thunder.” After John was born, Father even went so far as to get all of his sub-kings to call him “the Thunderer,” not that he didn’t deserve the appellation. He really did thunder, especially when he was angry. I did not like being anywhere near him when he was so upset. And his hands were lightning fast, especially when delivering a box to my ears when I got into mischief. After James and John came Matthew. In those days there was usually one son who was dedicated to administering the landholdings, the moneys, and all that was related to the actual running of the estates and land that Father ruled. This person was Matthew. Father thought that the name of a Jew who had sold out to the Romans and had been a tax collector would be appropriate. Sometimes Father only looked at one side of a man. He really did not understand the ways Matthew, or Levi as he was also called, changed after he became a follower of Jesus. Peter was next. When he was born, my mother said that he cried so much that he reminded my father of how Peter always spoke impulsively. It is interesting how one’s namesake might pattern one’s own behavior. Much of the time when my brother Peter opened his mouth, he got into trouble. He did seem to speak first and think later. And after Peter there was me, Andrew. There were now five of us. Each of us was about two years junior to the one previous. By the time I was born, James was not too far away from his formal warrior training with real weapons. He was very much aware of that fact. He was also keenly aware that he was the heir. In our society the eldest was the sole heir. Everything—lands, castle, crown, and prestige—went to the eldest son. Sometimes if there was some special reason, such as marrying into an alliance, a son or daughter would be granted a castle or some lands as part of the marriage agreement. But these, if they existed at all, were usually some of the very lesser holdings. Lands also came to a family as part of dowries from wives. As we grew older, we knew it was expected that we would marry, primarily to obtain land and produce more children. After I was born, the midwives told Father that it would be dangerous for mother to have any more children. They said that Father should be content with the five healthy, lusty sons he already had. “This should be enough to secure the succession,” they had told him. In our society and time one had to have several sons to ensure that there was at least one surviving heir. Disease and war were quite prevalent. The mortality rate was high. While we did number five sons, my parents knew that not all of us would survive to inherit their legacy. The warning from the midwives gave Mother a break from childbearing. However, four years after I came into this world, our sister, Martha, was born. The midwives really got after Father then. They said that another birth would kill Mother. They had a difficult time stopping my mother from bleeding after Martha’s birth. Of course, I did not know anything about childbearing. Not until I had a son of my own did I come to find out some of these great mysteries that the midwives keep to themselves. All that I knew at the time was that mother kept to her bed for many months after Martha was born.