I have no memory of when I was introduced to God by my family. I was baptized at Grace Presbyterian Church as an infant, the third of four children, but I don't recall ever going back there again after my younger brother's baptism. God seemed to be more of an assumption or an idea in our house than an actual being to which I could be introduced. I remember being told to thank God, to say my prayers, and that God could answer my prayers. God seemed to be more present at my grandparents' house. He was in the conversation there like God was an additional person in the house. There was a cross on the wall, a picture of Jesus in the bedroom, and a devotional on the end table by Grandma's chair that fascinated me. It was called "The Upper Room." I had no idea of the meaning of the title until many years later.
So God just was. It seemed that I was left to my own devises to determine the role he was to play in my life. My prayer life was limited as a child. I learned the "Our Father" but I don't remember how. And it seemed that when you really wanted something and there was no other way to get it, you could ask God for it. And maybe it would happen. I remember have a warm feeling when I thought about God. It was reassuring to know that I wasn't alone in life.
Then an unimaginable event occurred that thrust our entire family into church and the consoling arms of God. A tragic accident happened. My younger brother drowned in a creek. Suddenly God was everywhere and surrounded everyone. I heard his name coming from everyone I met. People talked about God having taken Davey, and that God needed him more than we did. So now I was more confused than ever. I began to live in fear. If God had taken my younger brother, then I must be next.
Just before this event, we had joined a wonderful country church where everybody knew everybody. It is a mystery as to how Hardin Presbyterian Church entered our lives. I've asked my parents and my aunt and uncle and no one can seem to recall how we started attending services there. But it was closely aligned with Davey's death. In my child's mind these two things are connected. Church and God came into my life with the most awful grief a child can imagine. This was juxtaposed with the infinite consolation of friends and family and became the only thing that allowed me to continue growing in my relationship with God. So here was the beginning of my spiritual education. We attended church and Sunday School every Sunday. I learned to read , memorize, and interpret the Bible, I went to summer camp. However, I still wasn't spiritually connected to God; I definitely held a grudge about losing my brother and somehow He was to blame. There was a picture of Jesus in the church that held my attention every week. He was sitting on a tree stump surrounded by a wooded area and he had the most loving eyes. Jesus became my friend and confidant; my favorite song was "Jesus Loves Me" and my favorite Christmas carol was "Away in a Manger." Jesus made sense to me. I knew that God was his father so for many years, God was the old bearded man in a long robe that lived in heaven. According to my calculations heaven was located just above the clouds. I didn't really have a place for the Holy Spirit. I knew its first earthly appearance was at the first Pentecost and Paul wrote a lot about it but in my mind it would just come around when needed.
My beliefs as taught by the Presbyterian church stayed very concrete for many years. As I aged into my teen years I struggled with the idea of predestination but I also did not completely understand it. Confirmand me wondered, what was the use? If my life was preordained by God, what was the purpose of me simply following the plan? This would be a conundrum for my entire life. How do I know what is God's plan and what is my plan? This was the beginning of my curiosity about faith and organized religion and the difficulty of finding its intersection. It was also about this time that a junior high English teacher saw something in me that no one else had. He started recommending books to me and meeting with me to discuss them afterwards. Move fast forward to a conversation that we found ourselves in about evolution/creationism. This was my first introduction to a different translation of the Bible. I don't blame the Presbyterian belief system but my own concretism for this missing piece. I began looking at authors of the books of the Bible in a completely different light. And it changed everything. Now it all became a slurry of who was writing, who was the audience, what was the intention? This was added to my interpretation of a story written 2 thousand years ago and how it might be helpful to a teenager in the 1960s.
Although my faith often confused me, it was something that I never wanted to be without. There was never a time that I rebelled against it or felt the urge to set it aside. I went to church weekly with my family until high school graduation and continued the practice when I went off to college. While I didn't become an active member of a church community at that time, I enjoyed dipping my toe into other religions and coming back home to the local Presbyterian church. The Bible also continued to be a close companion. I loved returning to the old memorized passages from my childhood. It brought comfort during difficult times.
After marriage, my commitment to my identification of being a Protestant was deeply challenged by marrying a devout Catholic. We were married in the Catholic church which included a promise on my part to raise any children in the Catholic faith. We talked for hours about this topic. We both agreed that we had the advantage of being able to expose our children to both faiths and they would be so much the better for it. But that never happened. I attempted to find a Presbyterian home in Santa Clara but to no avail. We started attending the Mission in Santa Clara and I was swallowed up, hook, line, and sinker. The more I learned about Catholicism, the more I realized the differences were few. I began taking classes from Fr. Phelan and he had the skill of making those differences disappear. We worked our way through The Confessions of St. Augustine and before I knew it, I was being confirmed and was a born again Catholic. I could not have been more content in my spiritual life. We were a family in the most real sense of the word; praying together, everyone on the same page with the spiritual development of our children as our focus. I was finding time to learn more about the saints, and icons and rites and rituals of the Catholic church. I loved them all. Before you knew it, I was finding peace and grace in daily mass. It was just me and the old people but I was at peace with my God, my brother Jesus, and Mother Mary.
As time went on, I went back to school to get my credential and I had my first face to face introduction to the Jesuits at Santa Clara University. I didn't know it at the time but this was another fork in my spiritual development road. I learned to see God in all things and began to contemplate in action. I got my credential and went to work in the Diocese. Now I was truly living and breathing my faith in the every day world. My faith grew through everyone I was associated with; principals, teachers, parents, religion coordinators, Directors of Religious Education. I was in constant communication with my God throughout the day. This became a prayer structure that would stay with me the rest of my life. God, help this child, Oh God, look at that beautiful flower, God help me understand. School became my church home 5 days a week and then as a family we worshipped at the actual church on Sundays. Life would take me away from Diocesan education for a while but I was destined to return bigger and better than ever. As the kids got older, we struggled to keep everyone content at the diocesan church and returned once again to The Mission. It was there that we would all come to understand how everyone fits under the umbrella of love and acceptance of christianity. It wasn't every week but when I was there, it was very good. This is the church that would forever be home to me. Later, when I would move away and was searching for a church home, this was the thing for which I was yearning - the rites and rituals along with a broader way of thinking of what it means to be Catholic, to be human. Even after my divorce when I grappled with the church's teaching on divorce I hung onto the icons and symbols of Catholicism. But that didn't keep me from doubting; was I still welcome? During those darker days, I sat in the back of the Mission Church, clearly ashamed of being a divorced Catholic, but still I was there, waiting to be fed and loved and accepted. Gradually, the loving took hold and I came to understand that I would always be a child of God and that whether the teaching of the church accepted me or not, God did. And God wanted me right there.
Eventually, I found my way back to Jesuit education. But this time I was the educator and later the administrator. Now, once again, I was living my faith in the everyday, the every minute of the day. I discovered El Retiro Retreat Center and the joy of meeting God face to face in silent retreats and bringing that feeling of peace, love, and grace back with me to the real world. Forever, I will remember God coming to me in the silence of prayer in my cell and calling me his beloved. I was filled with a deep warmth from my head to my toes and could feel his love consume me. I was his beloved. From that day forward, I would carry God with me in a new and deeper way.
The next fork in the road was my retirement and moving away from The Santa Clara Mission. After my move to Vancouver, Washington, I searched and searched for something close to that but my arbitrary rules got in the way. As I look back there actually were a couple Jesuit churches that I had toyed around with but I wasn't willing to commit to the weekly drive to find what I needed. In my search, I found my way back to the church of my birth. I once again became a member of the Presbyterian church and was worshiping with my sister. That brought many other gifts of which I am deeply aware but I always felt a tad out of sync. One of those gifts was connecting with a spiritual director and her leading me to the writings of Richard Rohr. This was a missing piece, quiet contemplation to spend time with my God. I took on this habit with joy. This also led me to another spiritual practice (in my mind) of the Morning Pages. I wrote every morning and it was prayer being spewed out on the page. I felt glorious. But so often my practices begin glorious and then suddenly life gets in the way and the habit is lost, restarted and lost again. I still miss finding the time for the Morning Pages.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay in Vancouver as this was followed by a move to Florida to support my parents. I am now three years into life in the south and there is nothing close to Jesuit spirituality here. I tried out the Presbyterian church again, I have also tried the local Catholic church. But what has filled me on this leg of my journey is reading and podcasts- Richard Rohr and others from the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, Barbara Brown Taylor - she gave me permission to leave church and find God in the woods, and others who can fill my head, heart and spirit with a new way of thinking about God, about Jesus, and finally about the Holy Spirit. I finally understand that the Holy Spirit is in me. It is God's core that resides in my core. It is my soul.
I live 100 miles away from my mother and my recently departed father as they requested, and know only a few people in the neighborhood. I am becoming more and more protective of my quiet time. I am alone most of the time and have ample opportunity for my running monologue with God that continues to ground me while lifting me up. Look God, what a beautiful cardinal, Please, God, help my mom stay strong, God, what is next? I am finding my place volunteering at the food pantry and seeing Jesus at every turn. My contemplative prayer is back strong, I am praying the examen, and am now looking forward to once again discovering God as my beloved in the Ignatian Exercises Adventure. I can't wait to begin. I can't wait to feel God's loving embrace.
