A Strange Awakening

By the time I finished for the second time the nearly five hundred pages of "The Seven Storey Mountain," the spiritual autobiography of Thomas Merton, I felt like I might have climbed a few mountains.  There were times when it seemed he was plodding, and I along with him, in Bunyan's Slough of Despond and then there were times when the gates of of heaven's glory were opened for those traveling with him to see.  

When I closed the book and put it back in its place on the shelf, I wondered what I might write if I were to write such a story of my spiritual journey.  A second thought caused me to wonder who would be interested in reading it.  Perhaps, those who love me the most might undertake such a daunting task, but certainly, it would be no best seller that passed the time test such as was the case with Merton.  While I can remember some of the significant dates and some of the places where the bush burned, most of my remembrance are lost in the obscurity of the mundane and ordinary things which fill the lives of most of us.  

What I do remember as the first awareness of God came in what has to be defined as one of the worst moments of my life.  When my father was killed in a military training exercise over the Florida panhandle, I was marked forever by an experience I would not choose for anyone, but what the seven year old boy that I was back then knew was that if my father was gone, he had to be in heaven.  If he had to be in heaven, there had to be a God.  Maybe it was not the theological logic of my seminary professors, but it made sense to me then and, in fact, still does.  It was a strange awakening to a life of faith.  I was on a journey then to now though I did not know that the journey would bring me here where I am today and on beyond to whatever the God who loves and cares for us has planned.