My Journey of Faith: Part One

Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan spoke of conversion as a wholly unrestricted state or moment of being in love. To Lonergan, the convert, at the moment of conversion, is "a subject held, grasped, possessed, owned through a total and so an other-worldly love." Conversion experiences are not merely moments that dapple our lives, but even the processes of falling in love again and again.

Stories of conversion are the heavenly romances of our faith. The Old Testament speaks more to us of people answering God's call, the New Testament tells us of this, in addition to Paul's dramatic conversion. The stories of the saints, especially St. Augustine's conversion story, as well as more modern Christians, like John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, and numerous others, continue to share with us the power of love to surround and transform our very being. I'm going to begin my story at my very beginning. I hope that someone, if only in some small way, might be encouraged or helped by it, as I am encouraged reading the stories of others.

Before I was born, my mother prayed for the privelege of having a child. I'm not exactly sure of her exact words, but the story she tells is that she even prayed for my face to have certain characteristics... That the life in my grandmother's eyes would be in mine, that I would have a face like my granddad's, and so on. My mother, in these prayers, promised to dedicate me to God should she be so lucky that they be granted.

Whether by chance or providence, when I was born in the wee hours of a Late-May Saturday in 1983, the sparkle of my grandmother's eyes, and my granddad's nose and jawline were mine, just as my mother had prayed. And I was dedicated to God.

I was Christened at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Vandalia, Illinois, not long after I was born, but it was my mother who took the responsibility of attending church most seriously. My father, having grown up quite poor, felt uncomfortable in church, among people he viewed as cut from a different, wealthier cloth than he. My mother, however, despite not coming from much means herself, did not, and made certain that as I, and later my brothers, grew up, we were involved in the life of our small country church.

As far as raising me to be Christian, by the time I have memories of church and prayer, my parents had done an outstanding job - my prayers to God, as far back as I can remember praying, were conversational prayers. I didn't have a living great-grandpa, but I figured that God must be something like that, but stronger, and a whole lot older. When I imagined God it was always as the Father, alternately appearing as an elderly, bearded man (similar to Santa Claus), or as Michael Landon, after I had watched enough "Highway to Heaven." When my grandparents died, I asked God to care for them and to tell them I said "hi."

My creed, until age 9, written as I approximate I may have articulated it, were I that age:

I believe in God the Father, who made everything (even dinosaurs!).

I believe the stories in the Bible are true and that it is God's word, and God knows everything (he's smarter than Dad)!

I believe in Jesus, His Son, who loves everyone.

His mommy was Mary and her husband was Joseph

We celebrate his birthday at Christmas and give gifts like the three wise men did.

Jesus had twelve disciples and taught good things and did miracles.

Jesus died on a cross and came back to life three days later

So that good Christian people can go to Heaven,

We celebrate this on Easter.

He went back up to heaven but will come back again someday.

People should be baptized, and then they can take communion.

I believe in the Holy Ghost

I believe that the Devil and Sin are bad.

My parents divorced when I was nine. My grandfather had just passed a way a year earlier. We stopped going to church because my mom feared being shunned, judged, or treated with intolerance; perhaps she felt ashamed, or feared the gossip mill would smear her name in our small town. I realized that when my parents promised me that they'd love each other forever, it was a lie. I also knew by this time that Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were also lies. I didn't understand what was going on, I knew it wasn't my fault, but I at that point learned that my parents were fallible in ways that could hurt me.

It was a horrible couple of years that I came through alright, despite developing a keen suspicion of authority. Nevertheless, I kept praying. It surprises me that the existence God never crossed my mind as something that may have also been a lie. In retrospect, I'm not certain why I didn't doubt, except perhaps that God, to me, even at that time, was just as real as the ground beneath me or the sky above me - a fundamental fact of the universe that seemed silly to deny.

...It wasn't really until I was fourteen that I had to begin to ask questions of my faith.

More to come.