Arrows of Desire

Arrows of Desire

Why I Became a Christian

by Mark Butterworth © 1997

When I was a boy and I was particularly unhappy, I would talk to my grandfather and find comfort and direction from him, for I had very little comfort or direction from my parents.

The only problem was that my grandfather was dead. The only reason I talked to him was because my mother told me that when I was a toddler and a little further on, I was my grandfather's favorite between my older brother and myself (my younger brother having yet to be born), until my grandfather died.

I didn't remember my grandfather very well at all, but the thought that I was somebody's favorite was important; and so I would go off by myself, and have conversations with my grandfather who was in heaven.

The beautiful thing about these conversations was that my grandfather would answer, and talk back to me very audibly (interiorly) and directly. I never had the sense that I was merely talking to myself. Our conversations were warm, consoling, and also instructive, for my grandfather would instruct me as to conscience.

If I was upset because I was being punished for something I had done, and felt it was really someone else's fault, my grandfather would ask me simple questions that caused me to admit that I had done something wrong, like hit my brother. I learned to say I was sorry about it, and that I would try not to let myself become so angry and be more patient, or else get away from my brothers or others.

My grandfather would listen to my tearful complaints and laments with pure sympathy and total attention; then he would probe gently about my own responsibility in any matter. I always went home feeling relieved and better. I felt refreshed enough to bear future troubles and situations of anger and conflict with a greater resolve not to be overcome by them, nor react violently or with bad words and meanness. I learned how to absorb perceived injustices without fighting as much.

I never told anyone that I talked to my grandfather because I knew that they would tell me that you can't talk to dead people. Not really. And if I listened to them, then I would lose my only pure source of comfort, for I would have felt stupid about trying to talk to someone who was dead.

We had no religion in our house, although my mother had been raised a Roman Catholic because of her Irish mother, and she had also been influenced by her father's Jewishness although he did not practice Judaism.

When I asked questions about God, I was told he was invisible, everywhere, and could see everything we did. This fascinated and scared me. Can He really see everything I do? When I go to the bathroom? When I'm just by myself? Whatever I think?

I learned the Lord's Prayer as a boy, but that was not because I was taught by my parents who never went to church, but because we had to recite it at lunchtime in public school in my first or second grade. Then the U. S. Supreme Court decided that was unconstitutional and we didn't do it anymore. But that was where I learned it, and it always stuck with me.

My mother was very happy about the Supreme Court ruling because of her liberal priniciples in politics, and professed atheism. (And so what she had told me about God was a simple salve to answer my questions in the same way parents don't want to ruin children's delight in Santa Claus. They demur in what they think is a harmless hoax.)

Even though I asked about God, I got no instruction about Him or what He is like. And so I had no idea that the conversations I had with my grandfather were truly talks with God. That he was pretending to be my grandfather all that time, and was speaking to me directly whenever I wished or needed him.

I realize now that if I had had someone to ask about my conversations who knew about God, they would have told me that I was communicating with God in a marvelous way of grace; and then God would have been exposed, and He would not have talked to me so openly because I would have been proud and thought myself special.

I also recall that at Easter, television used to show the movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told, every year at that time. I was watching it at our house one year and was fascinated, and deeply in love with Jesus as I watched what he did and said, and how he was with his friends and other people, and I can remember thinking to myself, "I wish he was my father instead of my dad."

But then somebody decided that a religious movie was boring. They changed the channel. I didn't say anything because everyone would have thought I was goofy for wanting to watch it and know more.

The story of Christ thrilled me. Miracles, healings, love, the horror of such goodness being murdered, and the surprise of the resurrection. It was a dream come true. It answered all my fears. The only problem was that to my mother and others, it was just a fairy tale.

I wanted Jesus to be my father because I thought he would love and treat me better than my own father who often hurt us deeply, broke promises, and was hardly there. Nor did he seem to care much about us.

I developed a theory that I belonged to the wrong family: that I had been adopted by my parents; that one day, my real father would show up to reclaim me. He was very rich, had a vast mansion and estates, and all the money in the world like Daddy Warbucks in the comics.

I made this claim to my mother but she tried to disabuse me of this notion. Even when I persisted, she insisted that she had given me birth beyond any doubt in the matter. I believed her and knew it was true, and yet, I always felt I had been misplaced into this family like Moses somehow.

And so on the one hand, I grew up knowing nothing about God, and yet having the most intimate conversations about all kinds of things with Him.

I asked my brothers once if they ever talked to God when they were young, but they said, no; and I have been amazed to learn that most other people, too, have had little continuous or intimate acquaintance with Him when they were children. I could not have survived childhood without this acquaintance because I seemed to be a naturally melancholy person, sensitive to being slighted, neglected, and unloved which would lead me into sorrow. Only God ever seemed to show pity and sympathize with my troubles.

*
I developed a skin disease in my childhood, psoriasis, which afflicted me both physically and emotionally. I became very self-conscious of it. My parents did almost nothing to get me serious treatment for it. They didn't think it was a big deal or that I should let it bother me; and they would force me to expose my bare, diseased skin to the world because the doctor said that sunshine would help.

When I was sorrowful and complained about my disease, my mother would rebuke me for feeling sorry for myself and sermonize, "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."

This aphorism gave me no comfort and made me feel worse. Not only did I have a skin disease, but I had the character flaw of self-pity - a great sin in my mother's eyes. Of course, I had no idea at the time how desperately unhappy my mother was with my father; how taken to alcohol my father was; although the conflict, tension, and violence in our house began to increase at that time. Fights between them would leave my brothers and I trembling in our beds with fear; and I had a feeling of cowardice in not doing something to defend our mother from the drunken rages of my father.

Fortunately, my father was often away from home. He took jobs in other places and would come home on weekends or monthly.

Another interesting feature of my childhood and adolescence was that we were poor. We always lived in a middle class neighborhood, and had the trappings of a middle class life, but my father squandered money on drinking, and so we had very little other than enough to maintain a facade that we lived just like our neighbors. I grew up identifying myself with and of the middle class, and yet never really was materially middle class nor shared entirely in the experience of the middle class as far as our lifestyle went. My family lived a lie. Many lies.

When I entered puberty and afterward, I lost my ability to communicate with my 'grandfather'. When I would try and talk to him, it merely seemed as though I were talking to myself. I no longer believed that I could talk to my grandfather in Heaven. I began to think it was all a childish experience, and lost forever. I missed it terribly. When I was troubled, I no longer had a certain friend to talk to who would listen and help me; who loved me no matter what I was or did. I had no guidance in my life from my father except rage towards me when he was home. My mother was consumed with her own troubles, and in taking care of my sister who had arrived as an 'accident' when I was fourteen.

But this child gave me and my brothers much joy. We were proud of being able to take care of her, change her diapers, feed her, and help in any way we could. My sister became my connection to innocent love and tenderness which seemed to be fast fading in my life as I began to discover sin in the world.

I also participated in the Civil Rights movement at that time which I am proud to recall, which was dangerous, even in Milwaukee at that time, when we marched, protested, and paraded. (A house which was our Center was set on fire while I was in it. I and others escaped. The police were firing round after round of bullets at it while I crouched behind a tree outside of it.)

Social justice was a great cause with me as it was with my mother. She had fine Judeo-Christian ethics and morality, for she had been raised with it, strongly identifying with the poor and oppressed, for her parents were Irish and Jewish in America at a time of discrimination against both groups.

My mother was very firm and certain of things right and wrong. The only problem with that was it began to seem arbitrary to me. What justified anything being right or wrong if there were no absolute truths? And the Sixties in America did everything possible to make those of us who were young (and unguided) call everything falsehood. We believed in love, but I knew nothing of its Source. I tried to learn to meditate, explore friendship and spirituality, but nothing worked.

Drugs worked though. For a while, and then just made everything worse. Music worked for awhile, and then became a sham, too, as youthful millionaires proclaimed revolution and hatred of materialism, but never gave their paychecks to the poor.

*
I was seventeen, the war in Viet Nam loomed on the horizon for me (although later I would be disqualified from the Draft for my skin disease.) I had been homosexually molested at fifteen and told no one because I thought it was my own fault, my own lack of street-smarts and presence of mind. (And was often propositioned as a teenager by homosexuals when I used to hitchhike from a job I had at night. I was able to fend that off, though, but it always hurt when I found a man taking an interest in talking with me, taking me seriously, for I was starved for attention; and then, of course, the proposition for sex came and ruined any hope of friendship.

Their interest was a sham, a game of seduction. They were predators, not helpless victims of biology, and it made me fear that I might somehow be like them if they were drawn to me; the idea of like attracting like.)

My own sins of impurity, and attraction to pornography made me ashamed but also comforted me that my own inclinations were clearly heterosexual.

My family life was Hell. My father offered no guidance in anything except to call me lazy and worthless, my mother watched a lot of TV, smoked cigarettes, and suffered in her own Hell.

Yet, I loved. I loved life. I was excited about possibilities and hope for a better world. The nation had changed over Civil Rights to the better, maybe it could change in other ways, too. I wanted to be a part of it, in a great cause again.

I took up playing guitar because even as a child I was drawn to music and to composing it. I loved to sing. I thought I might like to be a writer because I loved reading, and wanted to tell everybody what I thought about everything.

One night, I stood in my room at my desk in the dark, looking out the window. I knew I had to make a decision. I felt a demand pressing upon me to choose what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted out of life. I had the strongest sensation of someone telling me -"Ask."

I thought about it very carefully. Very seriously.

Finally I said out loud, "I want to know the Truth! I want to know everything! I want to be great!"

I thought the Truth was the answer of a riddle, a kind of perfect knowledge and summation of all ideas. I thought 'everything' had to do with human experiences of life in every way. I thought greatness was being like Einstein: a genius.

And so I began my adventure of wanting to be able to say like the Roman playwrite, Terence, that nothing human is alien to me.

In looking back on my life, I see that God allowed me to fall into sin of every kind, delusion of every kind, folly of every kind, emotion and experience of every kind, and intellectual ideas and discovery of every kind. I would fall into all manner of things and God would let it go on for so long, and then He would draw me back from it before I committed myself to it permanently or fatally. When using drugs became a dead end, I gave them up. Later when alcohol became a dead end, I gave up drinking. When various forms of suffering and anxiety became more and more destructive to me, I gave them up.

He saved me time and again from myself except in two areas. Tobacco and sensuality. I could never seem to free myself of their entanglement.

Tobacco gave me consolation and peace, stimulation and pleasure, an ever trusty and reliable friend. Poetical, mystical joy in being, love of life led me into believing that the flesh was our greatest of earthly joys. I tried to transform shame into proud assertion. I followed the spirit of people like Henry Miller, William Shakespeare, D. H. Lawrence, John Updike, and numerous others. William Blake and Shakespeare became my guides and teachers, and they were men who dearly loved and hated the flesh, loved and hated life and being with awesome intensity, insight, and immortal art.

*
When I was twenty and lived in California. I visited Point Lobos near Monterrey on the coast with some other people and my girlfriend. I had been there before, and so I didn't wish to roam and explore its wonders. I sat in the shade under a tree at the lip of a cove. The day was beautifully blue with bright, white, puffy clouds. The sea was blue in the cove with red, undulating beds of kelp. It was peaceful, relaxing, and the rise and fall of the kelp beds was hypnotic.

As I sat, I became relaxed and dreamy. Or rather a dreamlike state began to slowly creep into me until it was no longer dreamy at all. Suddenly I was aware that I was seeing everything differently. Freshly, purely. Everything was more alive. More vibrant as if I could see all the particles of air I was breathing and they were in a beautiful dance. The waves of the ocean seemed to rise up in their own breathing and aliveness. The rocks seemed to sing, and the sunshine penetrated me with an unbelievable warmth and love. The trees were a joy of motion and stillness, like speaking and listening beings.

All I felt was: Love. All I knew was: Love. All there was in the universe was: Love. It was absolute reality and I knew it. The universe was alive, every particle of it, including me; and all was loved and of Love, including me. I did not feel particularly loved in, for, and of myself, but a love of being a part of everything, one with Creation; a natural part of it all. It was the All. I knew it but could not say it. It felt it and yet could not begin to express it or think of it discursively. It was One and it penetrated me entirely. It was pure joy! Inexpressible Beauty and Truth! It was Love, endless, incorruptible, laughing, dancing, singing Love. It was bliss. I had never been so happy in my life: so thoughtless and unself-concious yet awesomely aware. And I was glad. The oil of gladness had been poured upon me and I was safe and certain that all is good.

The sensation began to ebb and my girlfriend touched me on the shoulder to say it was time to go. I had no idea how long I had been there. As I walked away I had sense enough to ask, "what should I do?"

A voice clearly came to me - "only what's necessary."

Perfect, I thought. That's it! Of course. Only what's necessary. That's the answer to human life, human actions. Of course!

It took me awhile to realize that trying to discern among all our choices what is "only necessary" is quite a chore. It took me twenty years to learn the answer to the riddle of - just what exactly is "only necessary" in this life? Is Necessity and what is necessary the same thing? Simonides, the ancient Greek poet, wrote - "Against Necessity, even the gods cannot escape."

*
And so my work began afresh. What did my experience mean? Was it real? Yes. Mystical or self-delusion? I didn't know. Was it a flashback of psychedelic drugs? No. Was it merely biological, of the flesh, the brain? No. Was it historical? Did others experience such? Yes, I thought so, but I wasn't sure. Buddha, maybe? Was it enlightenment? How could it be, since I wasn't particularly enlightened but a twenty year old boy very much attached to the things of this world? Was it religious? A Calling? A mission? How could I know? When I talked to 'spiritual' people, I could see that they knew nothing of it and had not experienced it themselves for all their spacey talk and spiritual aloofness.

When I talked to Christians, they talked about the Holy Spirit coming into them in a whoosh and whirl of ecstasy, and they didn't seem to know what they were talking about, and hadn't experienced what I had, for I had not experienced God in a personal way. I could not say that my experience of Absolute reality was like theirs or that it had Personality as they seemed to mean. Buddhism came closest to what I had known, but that would mean I achieved enlightenment, satori, and that plainly wasn't possible because I knew myself to be a very small, fallible, weak, little boy. Not a saint or bodhisatva: I wanted to sleep with women, smoke cigarettes, drink fine wine, eat rich food and fine delicacies, write books, get rich and famous, have dozens of children, live to a thousand, found cities, build empires, conquer evil nations at war, liberate humanity from cruelty, meanness, fear, and death.

In brief, I was a fool.

But I found help in the person of William Blake, the artist and poet. He seemed to see things as I did. Understand as I did. Love life, the flesh, and God as I did; and cry about all the woes of life as I did. Nor was the Bible entirely strange to me. The Prophets and the Gospel were important. They seemed to know something that I did too, if only I could put my finger on it.

I studied philosophy, religions, poetry, art, music, language, science - everything I could. I read thousands of books and thought about them deeply. I devoured knowledge and learning. I wrote. I played guitar and composed. I studied. I worked at lots of different jobs. I chased women and sometimes caught them.

I believed in myself. I believed in my destiny. I believed in my art. I believed no matter how I suffered and how life broke my heart again and again, I would prevail. I fell in love again and again, and suffered heartbreak after heartbreak.

Finally, a love affair broke my heart and I could bear no more. I could see no purpose to life. It was futile and a sham. Nothing really mattered. I resolved to die. No one could reach me or help me, and no one really tried or saw how deeply in despair I was.

A voice came to me. I was in the deepest pit of darkness and a thought came to mind - "if life is meaningless, then so is death, isn't it? You can kill yourself anytime you like so why bother with it now? It would be as meaningless to die as it would be to go on living, so go on living anyway."

And I did. But I never completely crawled out of that pit, and often fell back inside it though never as deeply as before. Nearly so, but not so. I was about twenty-seven at the time. Gradually I emerged from the pit and resumed my life. I decided to leave the small, northern, mountain town I lived in and to go to college in San Francisco to see if I couldn't improve my chances of success in art, and in meeting a woman. I wanted to marry.

I went to San Francisco when I was thirty to study Classics. I was disease ridden, poor, and had two part-time jobs to try and support myself. I starved. Literally and figuratively, yet I survived. I met my wife who cared for me despite all the obvious handicaps and disadvantages I possessed.

I failed to graduate from college, and any success in playwriting and poetry I had hoped for never came about. I did receive some encouragement from a music teacher that lasted me a long time. God bless him!

I had grace after grace poured out upon me by incredible crowds of people at the college and elsewhere, but I did not know it all came from God, for I was very sick much of the time; depressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, and needy. I suffered unbearable agonies, and received awesome gifts of compassion and sustenance from many. I was not ungrateful, but I was confused. I was failing in life, and had no idea how to succeed. All my ambitions got crushed. Every initiative I took was smashed. My art, my experience, my learning, my ideas all went nowhere, and accomplished nothing.

Yet, I loved life deeply. I took joy deeply. I flew from extremes of sorrow and doubt to clouds of certainty and excitement; and in between, I tried to plod along and keep going. I had no idea of the wars and battles being waged over my soul in the air above me; of the angels coming to my rescue time and again, of the ministering of God to all my needs, for I wanted more than merely my needs fulfilled, I wanted all ambitions and grandiosities fulfilled, too.

I was aware of the goodness of others, and was often thankful, but I was intensely arrogant and angry too. I was an egotist, yet also a lover.

I had given up calling God - God. I referred to the Universe as if it were inanimate and malicious, for it seemed malicious and cruel in all things.

Yet, the dialogue never really ended. Prayer never ended. I still consulted my conscience. I still tried to talk to myself as if my grandfather might come back and talk to me again. I cried, moaned, wept, lamented all my pains. I wrote and sang it all out, picked myself up, and tried again. I sang about joy, heaven, happiness, hope, and desire. I sang about darkness, despair, death, and futility. I examined all human ideas and institutions, and discovered all their lies, deceptions, falsehoods. I studied Man, his psychology, biology, history, motives, feelings, and behavoir. I studied myself and all my selfishness. I studied Love and the meaning of Love, and the use and good of Love.

*
I got married when I was almost thirty-three.

I was filled with grace and felt a great desire for Church, for people, a community. We went to a Jewish synagogue. It was wonderful, and yet, I could not say I could assent to their Creed. I did not believe it intellectually, and so I did not continue. I was stupid. The people there were good, and welcoming. Another time I took my family to church - a Unitarian Universalist church - but after a few weeks of that, I decided that they really didn't believe in anything real or obligatory, and the music was poor, and so we stopped going there.

We had a baby a year later to the day of our marriage. My mother died that same year. I had no job. No prospects. No career. No trade or college degree. I tried to start my own business and failed.

I was a bad husband. I was a jerk. I didn't want to be, but I was.

I wrote books and I composed music. No one cared for the books I wrote or the music I made. I began to drink more heavily. My skin was worse and crippling at times. I loved our daughter dotingly, and I loved my wife devotedly, but also unhappily at times. I often found fault with her, and tried to mold her into someone else. Snares of impurity remained in me, leading me into greater despair and mental depravity. It seemed like there was no evil that I was not capable of in my anger at God, at life; in my frustrations.

In the course of my life, there was not a single commandment of God that I not merely broken, but that I shattered. I begged for redemption. I pleaded for salvation and could not find any way to it. I thought I could save the world if I had the chance, but I could not save myself.

My wife had wise ambitions. She went back to school. She became a teacher. She went to work. Her mother died, and we had a little leeway and slack for the money that was left to her. I didn't need to work. I could not have done it much longer anyway. I was at the end of that tether.

Our daughter grew, we loved her well and dearly, but she could not save the marriage for me. I was becoming more frustrated with my wife, my helplessness and hopelessness.

But I had one great ambition left.

I had been waiting for twenty years to write my masterpiece, for the complete fruition of all my desires in art to be accomplished in one great work that would stand the test of time, and place me alongside all the great poets. This book would be wonderful and irresistable to people.

That time came in 1992 when I was about to turn forty.

*
Toward the end of winter, I began to write a simple story. A novel about the future, about a perfect world, and what it must be like if it were truly good. I wrote with an astonishing ease. It simply poured out, perfectly formed without premeditation.

When it was half completed and I was thinking about the rest to come, the shape and perfect whole of the story came into mind in a vision. It was artistic bliss and a glorious thing of wonder. As soon as that joy began to fade, I suddenly realized that no matter how good this book was, it was never going to be published while I was living.

I was certain that this work would suffer the same as all my other work. No one would publish it. The goodness and beauty of it didn't matter. No one would recognize it. It was doomed and I knew it. I knew it with complete certainty. I would have written my masterpiece, and not even that would matter to the world. What was life worth when my lifework was ultimately useless?

All the effort, application, and suffering to produce something great was reduced to nothing! I had no place in the world. I was more a hindrance than a help to my wife, and my daughter was old enough not to need me anymore, I thought.

I looked for help and found none. I tried to talk to people but they wouldn't listen. Every door I knocked on was closed. I felt the walls closing in on me, and every effort I made to tell others was rejected. I called to some and said, "I need you." They fed me bromides, and ignored me. I was drowning, and no one would cast me a line.

I didn't know then that the Hound of Heaven was closing in and cutting off every angle of escape.

I could not eat. Not because I wasn't hungry, but because I hated the food of this world. It sickened me. At last, I now hated life in every degree. I began to give away what few possessions I could claim for myself. I gave away hundreds of copies of a record album (cassettes) I had made to the poor and homeless. I thought they might be able to sell them instead of having to beg on the streets with nothing to offer other people in exchange.

I knew it was impossible for me to live, yet I didn't want to die meaninglessly. I thought I would fast and perhaps I could bring attention to the situation of the poor and homeless people in our nation. A fast to the death.

I hardly ate at all for a week or so and then I stopped eating entirely. My brain seemed to be filled with a strange energy. I tried to read to pass the time, but all I could read was the Bible, and some poetry of William Blake. It was all I could focus any concentration on. I was committed to death at this point. There was nothing and no one who could've called me back from it.

My wife was worried, but not so much that it made any difference to me. We were truly estranged by that time. My daughter may have been afraid, but she seemed more upset that I had spoiled her birthday than anything else.

On the third day of my fast, in the afternoon, I was alone in our house, and amidst the buzz of strange energy in my head and body I suddenly became aware of an enormous and blinding Presence within me (or without me - hard to tell - but it must have been within). I was face to face with a Presence, a Person. I was afraid, and my first thought was - "Who are you?"

It's sounds corny and biblical, but that is exactly what happens when God reveals himself directly in His glory to a human being. Having only known the King James Bible in my life, the answer that came from Him was - "I Am that I Am."

"God," I thought. "You are God!"

The sense of Light is indescribable. Waves of burnished, golden Light pouring forth as if I stood in the center of the Sun, but without heat or harm. Awesome Love. Awesome Presence. In my heart, I fell upon my knees and loved Him. Simply loved Him. I felt puny and worthless, contaminated with sickness and evil, but, oh so glad! Perfect happiness. I had never felt so satisfied and at home at last. Father, Abba, I cried. I suddenly knew who I was!

Then God said to me, "You are my beloved son. Today I have begotten you."

And waves of love and blessings poured upon me. An anointing of holiness and joy beyond human conception. Just as in the parable of the Prodigal Son. I could not even call it forgiveness. It transcended anything I had known or needed to know, yet fulfilled all. And it seemed like I could hear all the angels and saints in Heaven erupting in joyful applause and song - for me. For worthless, wretched me. God loved me with a love beyond time and place, but which went to the soul of my being and creation. Fire! Glorious Fire! Consuming Fire! Heavenly Fires of Delight!

In my heart I wept oceans of tears, I cried out an ocean of response in love, praise, and thanksgiving. I could not think. Not as we usually do. I saw, felt, knew, was everything at once. I saw as God saw me.

And then I suddenly saw as God sees the entire Universe and Creation. He unfolded a vision to me of the creation of the universe, formation of the galaxies and planets, then the Earth, and then the whole history of the Earth, and all the poeple who have ever been on it unfolded in a way that was also seen all at once. God showed me every war, murder, rape, brutality, mutilation, horror, and evil. I saw people slaughtered, and every crime ever committed. I saw every sin humanity had ever done. I saw the faces of people, millions individually, all in a second, tormented in pain, shock, horror, fear, and agony.

And it was all loved. It was all felt and seen through God's eyes of love. An incomprehensible Love which, yet, I was able to comprehend. It was an oceanic love of mercy. Infinite, endless, all enveloping mercy. I saw everything. All I felt was that it was all good, all to the good, all for good.

I know this seems paradoxical to faith, but I can't explain how it is so.

Again, I had no idea how long I stood there in this state. Gradually God began to ebb away from me. He did so, and I did not sorrow for my thoughts returned to me in amazement, astonishment, and marvel at His glory and grace.

"How obvious," I thought. "How perfectly obvious God is. He's been hiding all this time in plain sight. In plain sight of everyone. He's right in front of our faces. He's completely present in every way all the time throughout creation."

"People need to know this!" I thought. "People need to know how wonderful God is. They need to know that God is! They need to be told! God loves us! He really does. Perfectly. Always and all the time. He knows us and loves us. He is the only thing that's truly real out of all this life."

I thought to ask Him as His Presence began to fade, "What should I do!"

"Talk to people." That was all He said and He was gone.

I wanted to run out to the streets and announce Him to the world. I realized that was foolish, though. Who would listen? Who would care? They'd lock me up.

I wanted to tell my wife but she wasn't interested in me.

What could I do? I felt like Moses. I had met the burning bush. Is this is how Muhammed had felt? I didn't want to go crazy and off on my own. What did this mean! What was I supposed to do? Talk to people!? Nobody would listen!

I didn't want to stay here in this terrible place where nobody loved me. Not truly loved me. I wanted to go home to God, to endless happiness, perfection, purity, and goodness. He is Good! Taste and see, the Lord! Allah Akbar! God is Great!

I wanted to go home to Heaven where I belonged, where I was free, where all happiness is.

So my plans didn't change. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live! Fully live at last, and the only place where I could do that was with God in Heaven.

The next day, I rented a motel room that I might kill myself, and go to God. I wrote a note. I lay down on the bed, and prepared myself, and then decided. I was about to proceed when a voice clearly came into my ears. "Get up, and return home to your family."

This was His command and I obeyed. I went home. My wife wondered where I had been when she met me at the door. What could I say? I couldn't say anything. I was so unhappy. God didn't want me to come to Heaven. He wanted me to stay here with these people.

Yet, at the same time, I felt enormous pity for my wife and daughter. Enormous sorrow for them, and what they had had to put up with - me. All the harm I had meant to do to them, and I repented of it: my selfishness and folly.

I knew I had to put my own house in order. That was what God wanted.

In the months that followed, I was incredibly confused. I knew I had to change my life, but I didn't know how. I knew I had to practice religion; worship and show God that I loved Him, but how? What religion?

I made a study of the world's religions again, including some I hadn't looked at before like Ba' Hai'ism. In my confusion, I caused more confusion in my house. I wanted a divorce, and then I didn't. I wanted to make more music, and then I didn't. I read Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. It made some sense. I thought I knew more than I did. I read Merton again. He kept saying that the mystic needs spiritual guidance. I had none. Where was I to get this guidance? I didn't know. I read the Koran. No good. Who needs more rules in the world? Just what we don't need. I read the Buddhist scriptures. So close and yet, where is God like I know Him to be in them? I read the New Testament again. Could Jesus really be what he claims to be?

For, after returning home, I had a great sense that God had accepted the offering of my life, and had said, in a way, that He didn't need me to sacrifice my life for the world. It had already been done. It was not for me, and my life could not have saved the world. It was not great enough for that; nor had been created for that purpose.

I also noted that my experience of the fast, and my 'resurrection', so to speak, took place over a period of three days. How odd, I thought. How very biblical.

But I was disturbed by what God had said to me. How could I be His beloved son whom he had just begotten? He had said that to Jesus. How could He say that to me? These are things that I realized are enough to turn the head of anyone, and make a person crazy. These are the experiences in which new religions begin like Islam, or crazy cults. This is incredibly dangerous stuff, and I was alone without guidance. I desperately needed help.

Yet, in this period I worked on a new record album, and did good work. I finished my novel, and thought it good. But sadly, it was flawed because I still did not understand the positive good, joy, and value of chastity, and so I overtly tainted my masterpiece with a celebration of human sensuality. Just as Michealangelo flawed the Sistine Chapel with an awesome work of art, but distorted the human figure, altered the shapes of women; twisted bodies, pulled out of true proportions. Or as William Blake embedded his dilemma of sensuality and revolt into his Prophecies. I did a great secular work, and it was flawed. And no one would publish it, even as good as it was in the eyes of the secular world, and its standards.

Finally, I had to have guidance. Who would understand what I have gone through? Everything I knew about Protestant and Evangelical churches told me that mysticism was not a central and strong part of their understanding. Only the Catholic Church seemed to me to have the tradition of two thousand years of saints and mystics. The Catholic Church might understand me. So I went to it.

I called and was sent to St. Mary's as my nearest church. I called there and spoke to a priest. I said I wasn't a Catholic, but that I needed to talk to a priest. He was very nice, and invited me to come over.

I went over and told him my story just as I have told it here (though more briefly). He was the first human being who didn't make me think that I was crazy. He seemed to know about such things as I had experienced, and it didn't bother or excite him. He gave me advice. He told me to calm down. He told me what God's will in this time was, and how God was working on me. He encouraged me to come to the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) as an Inquirer.

I said I didn't think I could swallow the Creed, and be a Catholic. He told me to simply come and see. What harm would it do? And I might find some answers to my doubts, but to let God do His job. Come and see.

It occurred to me that, yes. I would. That was reasonable. I would do it!

As I drove away, I had an errand to take care of so I was on the road thinking about what had just happened. I was pleased that I wasn't crazy, that someone seemed to understand me very well. I was happy and calm. As I drove, I suddenly began to weep because it came to me that I was going to become a Catholic no matter what. That my reservations were meaningless. That I was going to come home to the Church. I was going home at last, and it felt so good that I had to cry.

As I drove home, all my doubts about the Creed evaporated. God, three persons? Mary, virginal conception? All of a sudden I was flooded with the grace to 'see' the Trinity, its reality. I understood it perfectly. I knew what it was. Its Truth! Mary? No problem. God can do anything. It's His universe.

(I forgot to mention that during this period of fasting, in a matter of three days, I suddenly lost twenty pounds of flesh, and my health was suddenly superb. I thought it was a result of the fast, but later people told me that humans can't lose weight that quickly and naturally. I don't know. My mind was abuzz that whole time, and eating up energy at prodigious amounts, so it may not be miraculous, but what difference does it make?)

Anyway, I came home and began writing down all that I could make sense out of the Trinity. It was pure mystical theology.

I told my wife I was going to start going to church. I talked to the RCIA people, and joined the group of Inquirers starting up in a few weeks. I began going to Mass on Sunday by myself, and then to Monday evening classes at the church.

I continued to go and see the priest, and talk to him about what I was going through, for there were things happening which were greatly upsetting - fears, dreams, panics, and all sorts of odd occurances. He kept me calm and rational. I learned to become calm and trust in calmness.

I read books. I emptied libraries of their books on Christianity, mysticism, Church history, Apologetics, and so on. I read the Bible. Cover to cover. I read books about the Bible, and read the Bible some more.

I learned to pray. Or learned what it was that I had done in the past that had been prayer, and what prayer could become. I learned to control my thoughts. I hadn't known before that it was possible to learn how to dismiss bad thoughts from the mind. How to notice them as they appeared, and to brush them away like flies. To get out of the habits of vile, indulgent thinking, and fantasizing.

For instance, my difficulties with the flesh, sensuality, all but disappeared through God's grace. Thoughts and temptations quickly came under my control and began to disappear altogether from my life. I learned that it is possible to resist evil, to control anger, and to grow in hope, love, faith, joy, peace, and humility.

Family life began to improve. My wife and I began to be able to talk to each other, to work things out. To hear each other's heart speaking to a heart. I stopped finding so much fault in her and others. My daughter became interested in God, and I enrolled her in classes for Sunday, and Tuesdays after school for preparation to join the Church.

My wife became curious, too. She wanted to see what I was doing and why. Our daughter suddenly seemed to understand things about God, and explain them to her mother which made my wife feel left out, uncomprehending faith. She wanted to join the classes I went to, but I didn't want her to. I needed to do it by myself, with my new friends, and without someone who might cause me to censor what I said.

She decided to take the classes in a new group that followed after the one I went to.

At that time, my priest was the only one I had told my story of meeting God, the Father. I hadn't even told my wife. How could I when she wouldn't understand? So I left all that for later.

The Inquiry class ended and we had to decide whether to continue as Catechumens in the Church, or leave off joining. There was no doubt what I wanted to do. Go on!

Our Church has a Rite of Welcome for people becoming Catechumens. We each have a sponsor, and before the Mass, we are outside the church. As we waited outside, I realized that I didn't have to go through this. I could leave. It would be alright. I doubted what I was doing there. "No. In for a penny, in for a pound," I told myself. I've come this far, I might as well go on.

The priest said some words and then we were led in to stand in pairs in the center aisle of the church. From the sanctuary, the priest asked us what we came there for?

"Eternal Life!"

What do we want?

"Faith!"

More things are said and then in a step by step process, our sponsors make the sign of the cross on our forehead, our eyes, ears, shoulders, chest, hands. When we came to that sequence, I began to realize that my sponsor was also going to touch my feet, just as Jesus had washed the feet of the disciples. I began to tremble, and wanted to weep for the humility of it. As my sponsor began to kneel to reach my feet, I saw that he was no longer the man I had come in with. He was Jesus Christ. I plainly saw that the man who knelt to touch my feet was Jesus Christ himself, in person. There was no doubt of it. I wanted to cry, and call out to him, "don't touch me, Jesus. You're too good to touch me! I'm dirty. I'm a sinner. Don't soil your hands because of me!" I wanted to run. I wanted to say as Peter did, "depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."

The sweetness of his Presence, the glory of his tender kindness and mercy overwhelmed me. How could He do this? Didn't he know what I was? He knew, and that is what made it all the more unbearably poignant and overwhelming. He knew. He knew me perfectly. He knew every ounce of my evil. All that I had ever done. All that I would ever do. All that I had in me at that moment.

He knew, and it didn't matter to him. Even though it was people like me who had murdered him, I was why he had come and let me crucify him.

He anointed my feet, and I melted. I was murdered and destroyed. My villiany was all for nought. My rebellion was over. I was God's child, Christ's little one, his little brother, his work and his sacrifice, his open embrace and true meaning for all his love. The Lord of Life and Love, of Creation, of my being and self - he dared and condescended for me! To kneel at my feet? It boggles the mind. God stooping to touch an ugly and repulsive thing such as I?

I never expected such a thing. I never knew such a thing was possible! As he arose, he became my sponsor who had no idea of what had just occurred. How wonderful is God. How miraculous. There is nothing He cannot do except sin and hate. Oh, how good is God.

Later, I wondered - how do I rate? Why do these things happen to me? I'm the worst of sinners. I'm a stupid, stupid man. I've done so many terrible things. Seriously terrible. Crimes and sins. Murder, rape, theft, adultery, arson, envy, fighting, cursing, and insults to my neighbors of all kind. And worst of all, I'm proud! A sickeningly, proud person! Full of self-love and egotism. This must be a mistake. I must be deluded. God cannot have touched such a thing of slime like me. But He did. All is forgiven and all is past.

It is too good to believe were it not all true.

Even then, a year later at Easter, I had to persuade myself to be baptized. I was reluctant. I didn't know if I wanted to commit the rest of my life, every Sunday to come, to doing this. But I went through with it anyway when I realized - did I have something better to do? No! Of course not. How could I? What's better than God?

Since then there is too much to relate. My marriage is secure, tremendously secure in faith and love. Our daughter grows, and we learn how to help her best in hope, faith, and love. My work as a writer and composer has yet to bear any fruit, and I don't know if that's always meant to be or not.

Miracles and blessings, trials and difficulties happen to us. Our family circle grows because of the love of others who share in our faith, who know and believe in Jesus Christ, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. The Body of Christ is a living thing, and it is joy to be a part of it no matter how small our part may be in it. And blessings to all who know and love God as Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Islamic people - whoever has found the grace to seek Love first in all things.

I could go on forever about the beauty of God and grace, the happiness of a heart broken and contrite coming before Him, and being healed. And the joys of Heaven for those who love God before all others and things.

May you all find Him in faith, hope, and charity. He is Risen and He is blessed. Amen.