Testimony, Part I

On my favorite message board, one of the folks suggested we write out our "stories." Not testimonies, per se, but the story of our spiritual walk. (I think there's some distinction between that and a testimony, but I'm having a hard time coming up with it right now). I tried to keep it short, but it's now running to ten pages and I haven't even gotten to the Franciscan University years. So, I scribbled a shorter version and posted that, but I wanted to come back to the original because it's been dredging up some interesting stuff. I wrote the first ten pages in about two hours, non-stop, which is unusual for me to do these days.

This is natural blog material, so I hereby kick of the "Testimony" series of Life as a Catholic. It's about where I'm from and how I got here, wherever here is. I'll be posting it in bits and pieces, presented mostly in a vignette format because this is just how I remember things--images, scenes, all seen through a glass darkly. Hopefully it makes sense.

Part I Sketches of the Early Years.

My earliest religious/spiritual memory is of sitting by myself in a pew to the left of the altar of a Catholic church in Portland, Ore. My grandfather, a former priest, now served as a deacon, I think. He was a round-faced man with thick, black-rimmed glasses – a little like an aged Charlie Brown.

I didn’t know anything about priests, deacons or hierarchies at this time. I was maybe five years old.

I only remember one thing about that moment: The chi rho symbol adorning the front of the altar. I didn’t know much about that, either, but by then Grampa had probably been reading me the Chronicles of Narnia – I knew about swords and battles. Grampa had given me his big Boy Scout knife (unsharpened, but still…) In my tiny hand that knife looked like a sword, and to me, the chi rho looked nothing so much like a sword on a downward arc striking something hard – perhaps the scales of a dragon, or the armor of one of the evil Calormen. The X was sparks, or lightning, or magic, and as the sunlight from the open church door illuminated it, some battle was joined.

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Oh, I remember one more thing about that church. I remember thin columns stretching up, Up and UP to an intricate ceiling. I remember the weight of all that space up there. It felt bigger inside than outside.

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