Falling to My Knees

Wilderness: Empty of human influence; lacking shelter for protection; no guideposts to show the way. For thirty years I traveled in a spiritual wilderness without God’s grace, or so I thought.

I was baptized Episcopalian and raised in a non-doctrinal church in a rural area just north of Seattle. I decided when I was in high school that I wanted to be some sort of minister, but I realized that I had no idea what faith I belonged to. By the time I graduated, I no longer went to church on Sunday. I found myself in a spiritual wilderness—either agnostic or atheist, but unwilling to commit.

After college, I struggled to become an actor, but found little work on the West Coast. I decided to head east, and I took a cross-country bus to New York City. From Salt Lake City to Chicago, the only folks on the bus were a half dozen of us in our twenties. We rode through what looked like mostly empty land with few features, all journeying to new lives in new places. Upon arrival in New York four days later, a generous friend helped me get established by finding me a place to live and a job to pay the rent. I don’t know if I could have made the transition without her help.

My time in the spiritual wilderness was spent moving from place to place. I valued the people I met more than any of the few possessions I acquired. But then I found myself spending lunch hours just sitting in St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Manhattan. Not praying, not even quite realizing why I was there, just needing a break from the City buzz and finding comfort in the beautiful reredos filled with white figures stacked from the floor up and around the blue stained glass windows to the ceiling.

My life had been shaken by deaths and depression. I realized that I was trying to reestablish a relationship with God. But I didn’t know quite how to go about it. I needed guidance in leaving my spiritual wilderness.

My first source for help was Kathleen Norris’ Dakota, in which she suggested that people in search of a spiritual home should look to their roots. I decided my roots were in the Episcopal Church. I began attending noonday mass at St. Mary the Virgin, a couple of blocks from my office. But I was a stranger among strangers. I needed someone to talk to, to figure out if I was making some sort of progress or walking in circles through desert wastes.

A few years later I found that person—two persons actually. By this point I was working for a Catholic lay missionary organization (Maryknoll Lay Missioners), and I became good friends with two missioners who had returned from Mexico and were working on staff. They were a married couple named Jean and Joe. They had spent their lives in mission helping those in need and living in a way that reflected their Christian faith. They returned from Latin America after Joe had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Joe’s belief in spiritual wholeness led him to strive for wellness within his cancerous wilderness in a way consistent with his faith. His cancer was in remission for years.

When I wandered out of my spiritual wilderness, both Joe and Jean served as my guides, even if this relationship was never openly defined as such. Joe and I had lunch together about once a week, and our conversations covered all manner of spiritual and moral questions.

Jean was my companion on many excursions as I defined what my role as a newly reborn Christian was to be. I wanted to be more than a go-to-church-on-Sunday type of Christian. I wanted to live my faith every day in all my encounters with others. When I discovered the Episcopal Diocese of New York had a two-day anti-racism training for clergy and church leaders, Jean accompanied me, even though she was Catholic. We continued to share an interest in the work after I became involved with the Diocesan committee on anti-racism.

Even in small ways, they demonstrated Christian hospitality to me. I used to walk past their home every day up a steep hill on the way to work. One morning I was making my way through a snowy climb when I heard the voices of their daughters Hannah and Maria calling my name. They told me the office was closed because of the weather and invited me in. Jean was waiting for me with a cup of tea to warm me up for the trip back home.

When Joe’s cancer returned and he passed away, their wisdom and grace continued to inspire me. Jean spoke at the funeral ceremony of their wedding day. Joe pulled her aside and said, “Pay attention. This will all be over in the blink of an eye.” At the time, she thought he was speaking about the wedding; now she felt it was about their life together. I remembered a day when I saw him standing among trees whose leaves were blazing with fall color. He seemed so overwhelmed with awe; I thought he would fall to his knees.

Jean has since become a United Church of Christ minister. I was honored to be asked to her ordination, which was filled with testimonies to her spirituality and Christian behavior.

Although Jean no longer works with me and our interactions are fewer now than I would like, I still feel close to her, and she remains a guide to me even now. I still hear Joe’s voice giving me wise advice as I face moral choices. I have never known anyone whose lives were so marked by the joy of their beliefs. I have learned that I will remain in the wilderness until God calls me to his arms. Jean and Joe taught me that my job until then is to find the beauty hidden in the desolation.