Now and at the Hour

As a very young child I was intrigued with going to church: the stained glass windows; the smiling nuns and different language; the beatific statue of Mary; and the scary statue of Jesus.

One Christmas Eve, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the Star of Bethlehem, just as it is in the pictures, and felt peaceful with my born tradition. As much as I liked all the references to lambs and sheep and bread, my life as a bad Catholic began early, when I insisted that the three shepherds were actually sheep, and flunked my first-grade catechism class.

As I grew older, going to church quickly became distasteful. I was intrigued with an old priest who used to sneak outside once mass started, smoking cigarette after cigarette on the cement steps, stopping only to cuff the ears of the children who would disrupt mass and be taken outside to be watched by him.

As I grew older, going to church quickly became distasteful. I was intrigued with an old priest who used to sneak outside once mass started, smoking cigarette after cigarette on the cement steps, stopping only to cuff the ears of the children who would disrupt mass and be taken outside to be watched by him.

I developed games to help the time pass: my favorite, which I believe has helped me with the visualizations necessary as a practicing Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition, was to take my mom’s rosary and place it in a large square on the pew, and pretend I was at home watching TV. I would even change channels to find what I really wanted to watch.

My friend Rose, who received confirmation a few years earlier than I, had nosebleeds every Sunday and was escorted out of mass. Outside later, the red blood against her white handkerchief was hypnotizing.

Her nosebleeds didn’t stop us from running around downstairs after mass, eating sugar cubes from cups on the long tables filled with donuts. Within minutes we would be so amped on sugar that the anger of our parents erupted loudly, between bites of their maple bars and sips of Maxwell House.

Luckily, as I hit adolescence, our church got a new young priest who played guitar during mass. All my mom’s friends had crushes on him and found reasons to consult with him. He suggested that my mom deal with stress by replacing her cigarettes with marijuana. Around that time the teacher of my catechism class disclosed that his favorite way to study the Bible was by taking a bong hit first.

Seeing my way out, I used these two examples as arguments why I should not have to go to church OR catechism anymore. Though just a teenager, I had already taken up studying the Bhagavad-Gita and Taoism, and had discovered for myself the difference between spirituality and churchianity. Though at first, my parents rejected my pleas, my mother admitted to sharing this truth. For the first time in our family history, we quit going to mass.

I continued going into churches for different reasons. One of my friends, Fred, was a talented keyboard player. A group of us often snuck into our local church, clustering into the “sweet spot” of sound, while Fred went upstairs and played “In A Gadda Da Vida” on the organ. It was so cool. The church pews vibrated with sound.

One day I visited a small church in a tiny fishing town. As I stood in front of the statute of Mary, the afternoon light shifted through a high window, illuminating her alabaster form like a beacon. I felt my sense of self disintegrate, watched my hands lift and meet Mary’s fingertips; my whole body shook as if electrocuted.

This was the Mary

my mother took refuge in.

This was the light

Mary used to answer my

mother’s prayers for clarity

in times of deep discernment.

This was the Mary

that appeared to my mother

after her terminal diagnosis,

giving her the peace to die.

This was the light

that engulfed my mom’s own bald head

during the last conversation we had

before she died.

This is the light

that has led me back

to my Christian roots, now strengthened

by my own experiences of light and spirit,

and allowed those roots

to live and strengthen what has become

the fertile soil of Spirit

in all forms.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for us Sinners.

Now, and at the

Hour of our Death,

Amen.