A Faith Journey

I would like to share with you my faith journey. I remember as a little kid in Sunday school how someone once described God as the ruler of the universe, commanding on high and watching all. I imagined God like the King of England, sitting on a huge thrown with bright lights and angels and clouds and stuff. Why should such an important king want to help little ole me. I was a peon compared to the grand scheme of the universe. God as a king wouldn’t have time to deal with my petty little problems. I was never baptized. No one ever taught me how to pray, and I never bothered to learn.

About my junior or senior year in high school, I found comfort in the scientific method. Science offered an explanation on how the universe and human kind were created. Philosophy and logic provided a set of ethics to live by. Without my knowing it, I built a mask of intellectualism between God and me. I don’t think I ever really denied God. I placed Him in the deep background of my world. I saw Him as the creator of the universe. He set up everything to work like it does, like the laws of physics, evolution, and such, and then let the universe go on its merry way. Maybe He watched from afar, but He never interfered with things. Or if He did interfere, we would never know it. He would just cover it up in such a way that science would find a reasonable explanation. The best word to described me at that time is agnostic.

In the summer after my sophomore year in college, my best friend at the time was Tim. He was a devote Christian. We took this long, three-week trip through the west. We drove up Pike’s Peak and around the mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park. We headed up to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. We also went backpacking and fishing for about a week in central Wyoming. It was a cool trip. The weather was great, and we saw a lot of the landmarks and natural wonders of the old west. Well, as you could imagine, we had a lot of time on our hands. And among the many things that Tim and I talked about was religion. He told me about his belief in Christ, how Christ was his Savior, and how he tried to live a Christian life. Tim saw the world in a completely different way than I did. He had something that came so easy to him. But I didn’t understand it. He had faith, and I envied him. I was still searching for it. My mind, routed in science and intellectualism, didn’t even know how to go about finding it. Faith was beyond my grasp.

Tim also taught me how to pray. And I tried prayer on that trip. I wasn’t sure if the “King” was going to hear me, but I tried. I prayed for God to help me find my faith. I also tried another prayer that got me caught in my own trap. I imagine most people probably try this at one point or another—I prayed for a sign. I tested God. I needed some kind of proof that He was really listening and involved in this world. And at the time, I didn’t hear Him. I now know that He responded to my prayer, but I didn’t hear it then. I didn’t know how to listen. I was hiding behind my mask of intellectualism, and it blocked any kind of communication.

Well, after that, I fell in love and got married. My wife Roberta is catholic. So we had a catholic wedding. Shortly afterwards, I tried those RCIA classes to join the church. But they didn’t work. I wasn’t ready yet. I still had not found my faith. I dropped out of the classes. Life went on.

Two years ago (February, 2000), I reached a crisis point in my life. There I was. I had a good job. I was working in a good school, teaching most of the subjects that I wanted. My career was going well. I had a wonderful wife and three great kids. (Our fourth child was born later.) Life was comfortable. But I wasn’t happy. Deep down, I knew something was wrong. Something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was. I became depressed. I mean really depressed. I had some really strange thoughts running around in my head. It got so bad one day that tried to reach out for help. I called one of those help hotlines; and damn it, they put me on hold. I think a psychologist would have diagnosed me as clinically depressed.

Well, the next sequence of events that occurred is just too weird of a coincidence, even for a skeptic like me. Looking back, it was God giving me my sign I had asked for so many years ago. To start, it just so happened that the new science teacher hired that year into the classroom two doors down from me was the former vice principal of Mount Saint Mary High School. She had reached her crisis point the previous year and needed a change back into teaching. A couple of days after my mini-panic attack, I strolled into her classroom after school. I confided in her that I was having a rough time, and that I was thinking of getting out of education. She looked me in the eye and said, “Mark, maybe all you need is a change. I know for a fact that they will need a physics teacher next year at the Mount. Would you be interested in teaching in a small, catholic school?” The thought had never occurred to me before. It might just be what I needed. I went home and discussed it with my wife. It also turned out that my oldest daughter was going to be a freshman that coming year. My wife had always wanted to send our kids to a catholic school, but we never could afford it. I got an interview with the principal.

As luck would have it, the principal did not offer me the physics position. Instead, she offered me a position teaching geometry. To be honest, that was not what I was looking for, but I knew I needed the change. Teaching geometry wasn’t that bad. In fact, geometry is a fun course to teach, and in such a small school, I would eventually have had every student sit in my classroom. I accepted her offer. But, when I came back to sign my contract, the principal instead offered me all of the honor math classes, including calculus. My dream as a math teacher had always been to teach calculus. I signed up without hesitation.

It was hard to leave my friends at the old school, but the staff and students at the Mount quickly accepted me into the family. I felt at home. I was re-energized. I had my smile back, but something was still missing. I had walked smack into the middle of a faith community, and I didn’t have any.

Later in the school year, I remember a few of my female students going on this retreat called “Kairos.” I had no idea what it was about. When they came back, all of them had smiles on their faces, but they wouldn’t say a word about what happened. Then one morning, one of these Kairos girls came into my classroom, sat down and confided in me what her life was like before Kairos, and how it was different afterwards. She didn’t tell me any details about the retreat, except that it had changed her life for the better. And then, she basically told me that I needed to go. I was hesitant. And then a soon to be special friend came to me. David, another teacher at the Mount, said that Kairos would be so good for me. Maybe I would find what I was looking for there. How can you refuse an invitation like that?

Well, David was right. In fact, it was during the very talk he gave at the retreat is when I discovered another Friend. A Friend that had always been there, I just didn’t know it. God had set me up. He had found a way for me to step outside of my doubt, and let myself be found. I had found a friend in God. I had found my faith. And now I see the whole world in a different Light.

Since that retreat, I went back to the RCIA classes to join the church. This Easter vigil (April, 2003), I will be baptized, confirmed, and partake of the Holy Eucharist.

I have discovered that God’s friendship is a gift. We are free to do with it what we want. Our acceptance is faith.

The journey continues...