Although my mother was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she tried not to pass on the prejudice toward Catholics she was taught, though she did have it. So did my father, whose father had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for marrying a divorced woman, my father’s mother. [NOTE: My cousin says this is wrong. I need to get more information.] There was a private, mystical sort of encouragement for me to become Catholic when I was very young, that is described in the book “Making Love With Spirit,” located elsewhere on this Website. I did ask my parents to let me become Catholic when I was very young, and they refused, though they suggested I go ask my older, Catholic neighbor about what she learned, and I did that.

When I was in the fourth grade, my father explained salvation and I got saved. He had planned to be a Salvation Army officer himself, but my mother went to Salvation Army training college just to get away from her overbearing mother. When my mom and dad got together there, she talked him out of becoming a Salvation Army officer so their children wouldn't be selling "The War Cry" newspaper in taverns like she had had to as a teenager.

My mother’s mother taught her that God was all fire and brimstone, but Mom taught my brother and I that God was loving. One of my most beloved memories of my father was on a night when I was sick and the night-light was on, and I woke to see him kneeling at my bedside, his head bent over his folded, praying hands. I didn't appreciate my parents for it at the time -- they died without really knowing what their goodness and holiness would mean to me now. But I trust that God is taking care of them.

I fell away from God as a teen, but once I had my daughter, I relied on God to keep her safe and to keep me alive until she reached 18. I went on my own spiritual journey and became a panentheist (someone who believes God is in all things, as a pantheist does, but that you can still petition God, as a theist does) after a really awesome experience I had on pot with hash oil at 19. (I only experimented with drugs a few (mostly unsatisfying) times -- I certainly don’t take them now.)

In that experience, I felt God was in everything and we have to respond to everyone as part of God. That was a graced time. But age and a loss of interest in the spiritual, plus an empty nest in my mid-late thirties, extreme anger about the murders in Waco and, gradually, everything that didn't go to suit me -- turned me into a bitter, hate-filled person. I was horrible to people. One hot summer day the bells of the church down the next street were keeping me awake, and I called the church and screamed at the poor woman who answered. She tried to start a dialog, but I slammed down the phone. Soon after that, I went to the grocery store and bought more than I could manage on the bus. When I asked the checker to call a cab for me, the box boy offered to drive me home. It was a Saturday night, and he was a nice looking boy with a cool car -- and he was delaying his evening to cart this old cow home. I was very surprised. On the way to my apartment, he pointed down the side street and said that his church was down there. Guess which one?

I wrote the church a letter and said I was sorry and I wasn't going to report them to the city and how nice one of their parishioners had been to me. And I thought that was the end of it. I went on for about another year being despicable and hating that I was like that. Finally I just knew that I couldn't change myself -- that only God could change me. And I asked him to fix me, and he did. Right then and there. And I knew I needed to be in a faith community so I wouldn't get so lost again. Of course I chose the one where someone had behaved the way God wants us to behave. I went through the RCIA program and was confirmed. I just heard from my Godmother that they were telling the RCIA class two years behind mine about "The Bell Lady."

My own nature is still here, and it flares up when I’m not tuned to God. But the instant I pray, I can respond to the world with something infinitely better than what I had in me an instant before. And when I focus on God, as I'm learning to do more and more (the right music and movies and going to Mass help when I get too far adrift), I have joy and peace that can’t be taken away no matter what happens to me -- unless I turn away from the source of that joy and peace.

I’m not saying God wants everyone to be Catholic, but he probably knew he would have less trouble getting me there than some other churches. I remember my favorite, late priest, Father Andy, saying that God might not be calling us (in the RCIA class) to be Catholics. When I got home, I asked God to let me know with a game of computer solitaire (Vegas rules), a win being a confirmation, literally. I won. I also remember dropping into the RCIA class the year after mine -- maybe the last session Father Andy would speak at before his sudden death. He said he knew why all of us were there -- because God had called us. Again, maybe not to be Catholics. But God was calling each and every one of us to him.