The Book's Introduction

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had a problem with thinking too much. I still do. When I was a teenager my dad would get so frustrated with me because of it that he would tell me, “Do something, anything, even if it’s wrong, just do something!” One day back when I was in sixth grade I decided to conduct an experiment during recess. The kids had always separated into groups to play. There were the tough kids, the smart kids, the popular kids, the jocks, and the geeks. Well, I knew all the kids from each group and I even had friends in all of them, but I wasn’t sure which group I belonged to. The plan was to go around to each group and see which group wanted to include me. In my mind this experiment would give me my answer.

Very much to my surprise, no one from any of the groups even noticed my presence. I even participated in whatever they were playing and still nothing. Worse than that, when I left to go on to the next group, no one noticed I was gone. It was as if I was invisible. Mind you, I had friends in each of these groups. When I left the last group I decided to go back inside and sit at my desk for the rest of recess. Pondering the outcome of my experiment I deduced that I didn’t belong anywhere.

Unable really to face the ramifications of this realization I tried to just forget it, but it didn’t work. Later that same year I discovered hockey, which helped to distract me and eventually became my favorite sport, but the perspective of not fitting in lingered and continued to bother me. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. As time went on, it became harder and harder to deny this perspective. I found myself trying to fit in whenever it seemed that I might belong, but the closer I felt to belonging the more it would hurt to realize that I didn’t. I didn’t know how to resolve this. This perspective started to bother me so much that these failures ultimately led to a depression, some five years or so later, that was triggered by the rejection of a false friend.

My family situation didn’t help much. My parents had been divorced since I was five and my brother and I lived with our mom. It wasn’t so bad that I had to share my parents with outsiders once they were re-married, but my only brother became so close to one of our stepbrothers that I felt I lost him. This was the first time I actually realized that I valued my brother. My other stepbrother lived with his mother out of state, so there I was – the odd man out. It’s not that I wasn’t loved; I was, by my stepparents as well as both my parents. I just felt on the outside of things. The next thing I knew my mom was pregnant. I didn’t know what to think. It must have been too much for me, because from that point on I started to shut people out.

The only thing I felt I had was hockey. I hung all my hopes of social acceptance on my ability to play hockey. Unfortunately, the hockey team I played on was a travel team, so no one from my school even knew how good I was for that to make any difference for me socially. I was pretty good at denial by then so I would tell myself that it didn’t matter, but it did. From then on everything just seemed to compound and my depression led to experimenting with marijuana. About two years after my sister was born I decided to live with my dad and stepmother. This truly was a great opportunity for me, but I couldn’t resist my desire to just escape from everything.

I was sixteen years old and a junior in High School when I hit bottom. I didn’t even finish my junior year and nearly failed it because of that. Although my drug addiction was only to marijuana, my dependence on it was unusually extreme. Thanks to the drugs, I had alienated myself from my dad and stepmother. I had destroyed a 3.4 grade point average. I had no friends left, and just days before going into the hospital I had caused the end of my first love relationship. All I wanted at that point was to be left alone. About an hour after an argument with my mom about my smoking, I was up in my room getting high and in walked three plain-clothes police officers. Dread filled my heart and sunk to the pit of my stomach. I found out later that it was my stepfather who had called for them to “get him out of there.” How ironic when I had bought the marijuana from his son. They hand cuffed me and hauled me off as though I was a common criminal. I was, I just didn’t realize it at the time. I distinctly recall thinking I felt condemned. It seemed like the end. Since there was no room in the drug rehab unit at the local area hospital, they took me to the state mental institution where I was committed. All the people around me looked like they were straight out of the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and they acted like it too. It truly was surreal.

I ended up spending only one week at the State Mental Institution until they were able to get me a room in the drug rehab unit. It’s amazing how powerless you feel in a mental ward. The ward unit is locked and you’re under total supervision with surveillance cameras in the halls. If you do anything they don’t like they send in the orderlies who seem nothing more than bouncers in white suits. You do what they want you to do whether you want to or not. I couldn’t get over how accurate of a depiction the movie was.

My rehabilitation went better at the drug rehab unit because I was with people who were dealing with the same thing I was. After only two more weeks I was released from the hospital but not through any merit of my own. I was not what I would consider a good patient. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I didn’t do anything right either. I was too depressed to care about rules. I was sure of one thing however; that I never wanted to use marijuana ever again and with the exception of a couple minor relapses in that first year this is still true today.

When I was released from the rehab unit I was still struggling with withdrawal and dealing with the effect the medication I was taking had on me. I felt completely disconnected from everybody and everything. By the time I had fully come back to reality, my depression was there to greet me, and again I was back to feeling like I had nothing. I was seeing a doctor and doing everything I should, but I was just going through the motions of life. I half-heartedly worked through the summer that year as grounds crew and maintenance. All I really did was lay around the house dreading going back to school for my senior year. The senior year of high school was supposed to be the best year of a teenager’s life, but I was anticipating my worst year yet. It was all I could do to just go back to school.

Upon returning to school, my fear of what the other students were saying convinced me that they all thought I was crazy. Going back to school is still one of the hardest things I have ever done. My dad, the tough guy of tough guys, said later that he couldn’t have done it. He would have gone to a different school. Surprisingly, that never even crossed my mind. I don’t know what the other kids thought but I was able to determine what they felt. Judging by their avoidance, they wanted nothing to do with me. As a consequence, I rarely ate lunch that year for fear of eating alone. I just pocketed my lunch money and took a nap in the library during lunchtime.

By Christmas, my mom’s second marriage had ended and my mom, brother, half-sister, and I all took a trip to Florida over Christmas break. It was not a very enjoyable Christmas that year. We were away from home, I was having a miserable senior year, and my mom was getting a divorce. Adding to all this, it was cold that year in Florida so we couldn’t even swim. One day, despite the weather, I went to the beach anyway. While I was standing at the beach in the freezing cold, I looked up and wondered if there really was a God. Up to that point in my life I had always assumed I believed in His existence, but now I honestly didn’t know. I was baptized Lutheran but we rarely went to church, so I had no foundation in any religion.

In that moment of wondering I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover and start praying every day as soon as we got back from Florida in order to find out. I only made it through about two pages when I realized my goal for reading the Bible would need to be adjusted. I would ultimately read the whole Bible but it would take me about fifteen years to do so. I found the Bible to be very difficult reading. My goal for daily prayer was realized from the very beginning, however.

What ensued is what I now refer to as my conversion experience, or my conception in the Holy Spirit. This experience was so powerful that, at the time, I deduced I had experienced what is referred to as becoming “born again.” This label didn’t hold water for me though because, even though my faith was vehement with a passion for converting everyone to the belief in Jesus Christ I had just embraced, I still felt enslaved by sin. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed I couldn’t break free. Even though God was now real to me, I struggled disastrously against my sinfulness. I couldn’t have been reborn unto a new life when I was so unable to live the life. That’s why I now refer to this period as my conception in the Holy Spirit rather than being born again. In reality, though I truly became a believer, becoming so did not give me dispensation from responsibility for the effects my choices in life caused to the formation of my being prior to became so. Dealing with the circumstance of my present condition was part of those responsibilities. All that was truly different was I had the most essential tool for living even though receiving that tool brought even more responsibilities. That tool being… faith!

My assessment of myself was so poor by the time I finished high school that I decided I needed to resolve my internal conflicts before I could even begin to think about going to college. The only thing I possessed that I truly valued was faith and I wanted to apply that faith to resolve my interior struggle for a good sense of self. I didn’t judge education a worthy foundation for building a high self-esteem upon because I wanted my intellect to be reserved exclusively for serving faith. I also didn’t want an institution to tell me how to think, I wanted the Holy Spirit to teach me. Within a year I would realize the need for some educational structure for my faith, which would later develop into an interest that I would pursue after I got married.

By the end of the summer following my graduation, I had decided to move back in with my dad and stepmother and this time really give it a chance. There were a lot of serious but constructive conflicts that we three had to go through just for me to become able to get a basic handle on life. One of those conflicts, brought to my attention by my dad, was my limited knowledge of religion and the Bible. His words to me were “sometimes a little knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all.” By this time we were getting along well and unlike most eighteen year olds, I was listening.

His suggestion to me was to enroll in catechism classes at a Catholic Church. Due to the fact that his mother had left the Church and he wasn’t Catholic, I found this to be a little ironic. He then explained that he felt their instruction was the most complete and that was what he thought I needed. He assured me that I didn’t have to become Catholic if I didn’t want to and so did the priest when I registered for the classes.

It would turn out that the most important decision I have ever made in my faith life was to become Catholic. I certainly didn’t realize it at the time, however. Let me assure you, I wasn’t a very good Catholic from a ritual point of view for quite a few years. I rarely went to Church or confession, and didn’t know anyone from the parish. In the early stages, my practicing of Catholicism was only an internal one that involved integrating the theological truths I received through my catechism for my personal growth.

My decision to become Catholic was a very simple one. Catholicism was first, so the promises the Lord made were absolutely reliable for all Catholics. The most important promise for me at that the time was that the Holy Spirit was leading them to all truth and that’s what made their theology so trustworthy. That was very important to me because that provided me with all the structure I needed to confront the conflict that I had been struggling with for so long. I couldn’t be so sure about trusting the other Christian theologies when they either broke away from Catholicism or were an offshoot from one that did. It seemed too overwhelming for me to judge all of them to try and figure out which one of them was true.

On a personal level, the priests gave me a reliable support system that I could trust for all my concerns of faith. Throughout my faith life I have always maintained a counselor type relationship with at least one priest at my parish. I became very close friends with a couple of them. Being a priest, in my opinion, is the noblest of all professions if the priest can achieve the lowliness of a humble heart. I cannot express adequate gratitude to all the priests who have helped me, but especially my spiritual director. His example is the closest to what I imagine Christ would be.

In addition to the therapy I received for my drug rehabilitation, twice over the next five years or so I would seek therapy to help me manage various problems that would seem to overwhelm me. I never fell back into drug addiction, but I would get to points in my life where it would become nearly impossible for me to go on. These occasional periods of dysfunction contributed to my needing four years to complete a yearlong course in cosmetology to become a hairdresser. Eventually I gave up on therapists because it seemed they could only offer me coping techniques. By now I felt I knew just about all the coping techniques there were and so, needing more, I sought the guidance of a priest as my spiritual director. This is the decision that ultimately led to the breakthrough for me.

It wasn’t until I turned 33 that I finally got to the bottom of my problems and became able to build the life I now enjoy. I am married with five children and we are all very close; I own my own home and business and I am an active member of my parish. I have a good circle of friends, both close and distant. I have established a fair relationship with all my extended family members and enjoy an overall sense of succeeding in life. I am extremely grateful for all of this. There has been one constant for me throughout this whole journey: the faith I discovered in that moment of wondering on the beach, which now has grown to become everything that I am about. Nothing, not even my own life, is more precious to me than faith.

As I had set out to build this life I now enjoy, I realized this would involve some rebuilding for me as well. I would need to reclaim some of the talents I had put away, not realizing back then I would later discover I had unfinished business. Chief among them involved returning to the talent I loved most - dancing ballet, which I discovered shortly after my conversion experience. No part of my journey has been easy, but my faith has always been the foundation for all that I do and by it, everything is possible.

Even though I continued to make plenty of mistakes, my life began to take on a completely new shape. This perspective was so exciting to me that I decided to put in writing a consolidated understanding of my faith since it was, and still is, responsible for everything that was, and still is, becoming. To me this is a never ending progression or a continuous renewing.

Throughout my journey I couldn’t help but feel we Catholics were missing something integral to our experience of faith that we were intended to realize. It was difficult to determine what that was at first, but after a while it became clear. As “Holy Ones” we are intended to discover a quality of life that reflects the indwelling presence of God. As a result of His indwelling presence our relationship to the world really should be one of supremacy over its ways; marked by an uncommon communal love for one another that is truly holy in spirit. This all can be realized, but only after a complete and total detachment from the world. It’s questionable these days whether or not Christians in general have actually realized God’s closeness when they devote so much love to the things of the world. This also indicates the need to question whether they understand how necessary it is to become detached from the world.

In the Gospel of John, our Lord said: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (Jn 14:21) “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (Jn 14:23) “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” (Jn 14:16+17) “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name-he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.” (Jn 14:26) Clearly, the Lord desires for us to know God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with the intimate closeness of his indwelling presence, even in a recognizable way. That gives us everything we need to live a truly spiritual life irrelevant of the world and whatever assaults it may cause us to suffer.

Since God is not confined to, or limited by, any part of the world, by virtue of His indwelling presence, neither are we outside the confines of the laws that govern space and time. Consider what that means to us. If Jesus has overcome the world, we too, by his indwelling presence, can overcome the world. That means, though it is understandable for someone to want to retaliate when suffering an offense; by Christ’s spirit dwelling within us we become able to forgive that injustice and or sin, and forbear seeking our justifiable recompense. In short we are able to return the evils we are caused to suffer with good, and thereby show ourselves to be true children of God despite the world and its ways.

It’s bad enough that we holy ones are in constant conflict with the world for its values and standards that naturally contradict the Gospel message; but to allow the world to influence how we see ourselves as individuals accepts the imposition of limitations that may not really exist. Contrary to the worldly view, we are able to fulfill everything that pertains to the spiritual life that Jesus led by believing in his spirit dwelling within us. We can even abstain from sinfulness. In truth, we need to look to the indwelling presence of God to know what our real limitations are. Holiness is a realistic way of life. Worse than accepting these false limitations on us as individuals, is letting the world dictate to us how things are on the grand scale as if the world possesses authority over us. The truth is the Children of God have authority over the world and it will adhere to whatever standards we require. We are not subjects of the world; the world is subject to us.

We who are baptized have received a new nature that is capable of fulfilling all the Lord desires for us to be able to accomplish in order to fulfill his plan for the world. There are, however, many things we need to do in order to discover that potential. We must believe in this new nature, develop that new nature to full maturity, and convert ourselves to that new nature, all before we can consciously participate with the indwelling presence and subsequently discover our full potential in Christ. For any of this to occur for the baptized we must receive the Eucharist, because the body and blood of Christ is the food of life. Once these things do occur, by and through the indwelling presence, then one actualizes the rebirth described in scripture and joins those “who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” (Rom. 8: 4)

It isn’t that we don’t have the faith or the belief needed to realize this full potential in Christ; we do. What we seem to lack is a clear understanding of all that the Lord intends for us to experience through this profound intimacy with all three persons of the Trinity, as well as what he desires for us to achieve through it. The Lord said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.” (Jn 14:12-14) Our society has accomplished many great things, but whether or not they were sought “of the Lord, in his name” is uncertain. Judging by the way the world is, we can hardly credit our society as satisfying the Father’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.” We have a long way to go before our society could be considered as having accomplished that end. What more might the Lord desire for us to do, or be able to do, in His name to fulfill this part of his will? Just think of the possibilities!

When I started writing this I only wanted a summary for myself, but as it started to emerge it began to take on a different shape. It seemed to me that this might be applicable for other people as well. Not considering myself capable of writing a book, I sought guidance from two of my friends, to edit this book with a view to their respective areas of expertise, one in Catholic biblical theology, and the other in English literature. I am extremely grateful to each of them for their help. I would never attribute to either of them the views expressed herein, however. This book is, in totality, my understanding.

Being Catholic, it has been my intention to make this book consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, which was the purpose for seeking the guidance of the priest friend with the expertise in Catholic biblical theology. However, my priest friend informed me that since this book is based on my personal experience, there is no requirement for me to obtain Church approval. This means two things for the reader. One: Even if this book is consistent with Catholic teaching, it is not an official representation of Catholic teaching, and therefore does not carry the binding authority of universal application. Two: Therefore, if the readers don’t agree with what is said in this book that will have no bearing on their relationship to the Catholic Church.

To those who are inclined to trust my testimony but prudently need to scrutinize it, I give this assurance: It has been my utmost concern to seek, find and convey only the truth according to the measure in which the Holy Spirit enables me to comprehend. In the interest of verifying this understanding I have subjected it to an honest and objective comparison with relevant Vatican II documents, the ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church,’ and a thorough re-examination of New Testament scriptures. I have also compared this understanding with various books and texts on contemporary Catholic spirituality. The result of which comprises all the footnotes throughout the entire text. Prior to my re-examination there were no footnotes. They have been provided for the edification of the reader as an invitation to discern with me the principles expressed in this testimony. The footnotes include the actual quotes from the texts for the benefit of an immediate reference for the reader. I strongly encourage all readers to read all the footnotes as they too contain substantial information relevant to the document as a whole.

Even though this book is intentionally Catholic in subject matter, it is not intended to be exclusively for Catholics. Due to the fact that I am a convert to Catholicism, it is my sincerest desire that any true believer in Christ be considered welcome to read this book. If that person is at all like I was prior to my conversion to Catholicism, it is the truth he/she desires and nothing less, regardless of who speaks it or what affiliation that person has. Therefore, this book is written with the intention of making it accessible to anyone and everyone who might be interested. This is, however, how I understand the spirituality we encounter through the sacraments of the Catholic Church, thereby making it my personal testimonial to the Catholic Faith.

This book explains how I have come to know the indwelling presence of God and abide by it. I’ve titled its devotion “The Beloved’s Holy Slavery” (BHS) for a number of reasons. In my experience, to know the indwelling presence of God we must voluntarily become a slave to Christ, but this slavery isn’t a degrading or demeaning one that is enforced by fear. It is a holy one accomplished by, through, and for the love of God. It was common in New Testament times for Jesus’ followers to practice a devotion to Jesus in which they referred to themselves as slaves of Christ. It is by such a slavery devotion to Christ that one becomes able to abide by his indwelling presence. Coming to know the indwelling presence of God results from us allowing ourselves to be loved by God the way God in His perfect will desires to love us. This can only result in one thing; being in love with God. This state is the goal! From there, it is up to the individuals to discover and realize their own potential through his or her own participation with the indwelling presence of God.

I’ve separated this book into five sections. The first section titled The Inheritance of Faith is an overview of salvation from the perspective of what God has done for us. The second section titled The Development of Faith treats our initial response from the perspective of our responsibility in making a return. The third section titled The Conversion of Faith breaks everything down for a detailed explanation of our conversion process. The fourth section titled The Application of Faith is the prayer dimension for everything previously discussed. Its placement is indicative of its relationship to the remaining content of the book as the means for transitioning to them. Included with this is a Supplement, which contains a support for their practice such as a recommendation for Help. The fifth section titled A Journey of Faith applies the foundational principals to the circumstances of life utilizing my own for an example. The Conclusion applies all these principals to the layperson’s role in and to the world. I have grouped these sections into three categories. The first three sections I categorize as The Theory because the need being addressed is comprehension. The fourth section with its supplement I categorize as The Devotion because the need being addressed is meeting the prayerful dimension in preparation and support for applying this discipline to one’s life. The fifth section and the Conclusion I categorize as The Practice, because they explain the process associated with actualizing these principals as works in one’s life.

In order to illustrate for the reader where this book comes from, I have decided to share segments of my spiritual journey. I will give excerpts from my life for their relevance to my spiritual growth in hopes that the reader will be able to see where I have drawn the experiential dimension of this spirituality. These segments will be inserted throughout the book in the appropriate places for their relevance to the subject being discussed.

All in all, “A Layman’s Journey: In Search of Spirituality” is a personalized presentation for “The Beloved’s Holy Slavery” devotion, which is a method for converting to, and a discipline for living, the Gospel message. The Stations of the Cross for the BHS is a discipline of prayer designed to meet the needs of our response to the Lord by preparing us to apply the Gospel message to our lives on a daily basis.