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| Gods
gallery.The other half of the story... |
I have never really followed the crowd
or completely fitted in anywhere.
More importantly, this has never bothered me or made me
wish I could accept life as it is and just get on with
it.
This is probably because life has often thrown at me an
extraordinary set of circumstances and situations for
me to deal with, that other people did not seem to be
having to deal with.
Seriously, more things seem to happen to me in a Month
then most people in a Year.
I can’t easily explain this but facts speak for
themselves.
When I think about my childhood I shake my head, I must
check every box of the problem child profile checklist:
*One parent
*Alcoholic Parent
*Problem with authority |
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By the age of 15 I was living in Bed &
Breakfast accommodation and had been in trouble with the
police.
Instead of going to school I was going door to door “knocking”[selling
t-towels and sponges] and worst of all, I was at a school
that done very little to correct my behavior and they actually
told me “I need not return to school”.
I do not believe that I had a problem with authority, just
the blatant misuse of it.
Did then, still have.
What made me feel different was that no matter what happened,
I always found the strength to come back and fight.
The more stuff happened, the tighter I gritted my teeth
and I simply refused to be beat.
However, no matter how much negative energy flowed through
me and how much I blamed God, He never gave up on me.
For a time I returned to live at home. This was a very crazy
place to grow up.
The problem with growing up in a crazy environment is that
crazy becomes normal.
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Anyway, about this time, one evening, when
I needed the madness to stop, I drew a picture on the wall.
This was no ordinary picture of any ordinary size. For some
reason, even though I had never knowingly been inside a
church, I was compelled to draw a life sized Christ Crucified
on my chimney breast wall.
The image was stunning and seemed to fill the room. You
could not miss it.
I had always been interested in art and a keen drawer with
my work displayed all over my junior school. But I had not
drawn for years at this time.
I can only remember my Nan saying, “Jesus can here
you” every time I cursed or spoke out of turn. This
must have made me even more paranoid! |
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Jump forward a few years and I met my beautiful wife to
be Laura.
We have managed to settle down and have 5 kids of our own.
Laura was a non-practising Catholic and I don’t think
we had plans to start going to church.
However, one day we were at an incredibly dark place where
every exit door was firmly closed, when I prayed to Jesus
to help me.
Looking back, at the events that happened so swiftly at
that time, something divine had happened on so many different
levels for me to get the outcome that I wanted.
I promised Jesus that I would go to church if he helped
me and I was not about to break my promise after such Grace.
But I did not know where to go or when. I remembered there
was a church near the high street where me and my mates
had mocked the happy clappers and that was my first port
of call. I went there not knowing a soul or what time their
service was.
When it started people began clapping and shouting and randomly
declaring Amen.
I suddenly had a panic attack and I could barley breath
when a voice from the exorcist told me to GET
OUT!
Great I thought, I come to church to keep my end of the
bargain and you kick me out.
Then I met with my Brother [Br Francis] and even though
we were not in regular contact, amazingly, He had started
going to church.
I told him what had happened and He took me to His church
Saints Peter & Paul in Ilford.
This was more like it, I felt at peace and knew I was in
the right place.
Little did we know that my Brother, my 5 children and I
would be baptised there.
Incredibly, I was fortunate enough to be married there to.
Even though we have moved away from the parish now, we still
like to go to Saints Peter & Paul for Mass as it is
our special place.
Gods Gallery was my gift to my Brother. What do you give
a guy who has renounced all possessions and given up the
material world?
Looking at my Mortgage I think he made a shrewd move!
Seriously, He is a talented artist and his collection of
work by other extremely talented people deserves the platform.
Also, this site is a great resource for children. The kids
area took me ages and I am well pleased with it.
The problem with the original site was maintenance. Bringing
up 5 kids is not cheap and I was clocking up the over time.
This left precious little resources for the site.
Then I had an idea that would not go away. Why not put the
images from Gods gallery on t-shirts? There are 1 Billion
Catholics and if they all bought just one t-shirt I could
retire happily.
I did not have the spare cash to start the t-shirts as the
equipment and stock was going to cost a couple of thousand
pounds.
One day we transferred our balance on a credit card and
we were about to cut up the old card when we decided to
take a chance on godsgallery.co.uk.
That is how the new site came about and we only just launched
in January 2007.
It has not taken off through the roof yet but we have not
advertised either.
We have had over a thousand visitors though and many thanks
if you were one of them.
The plan is to have a Monthly edition and send out a Monthly
newsletter when the updates are completed, so please sign
up to the newsletter.
I am sure God has plans for this project, after all it is
his gallery.
God Bless +
Paul Edkins
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