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The textual material on this particular page is drawn directly from my published work
The Spiritual Pilgrim © 2021, pages 89-108.
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I don't think I had any sense of great purpose behind these
developments – except to get away from having to live with a sense of
great purpose! Indeed, at that time my only thought was to devote
myself more fully to the mindless life of party, party, party. A slow social comeback
As I stepped into this new world, I ended up making a new set of friends, because most of my former friends found good cause to draw away from me. My behavior was erratic. Then too, I was no longer a professor, but only a clerk working in an import-export firm and I no longer lived in the historic Garden District, but in a condo apartment. Friendship with me was less profitable than it used to be. But I was not critical. I understood the logic, and would have reacted the same way. In fact I really did – holding myself in some contempt. But actually, I enjoyed not having to measure up anymore! It offered a great sense of freedom. I no longer felt it necessary to play to other people's expectations of me. I guess I was hoping that I would find something significant for myself "out there" in that wild and crazy world. Certainly this was what I got as a major message from our popular culture. But I knew better – just as I had understood in Nepal watching the very sorry looking heroin addicts. Indeed, I rather quickly discovered that this wild and crazy existence was as troubled and as sad as the polite but heavily burdened world I had left behind. If anything, this new world was inhabited by even more desperate people, looking for something that continued to elude them. Most of them in fact were looking for the professional world I had just left behind! That first year after the divorce I lived a rather reckless life. Though I broke no laws, I found myself largely uninterested in society's well-being, or anyone else's for that matter. I read no newspapers, watched no evening news. There could have been a major war going on – and it would have meant nothing to me. The first rays of Light: deeper friendships
But not all of my former friends deserted me. A handful of people stayed the course with me. For reasons I could not at first understand, they did not seem horrified (well, maybe) by my wild behavior. They were not put off by me; just concerned about me. Both Cecil and Susan, caught in the middle of the growing split between Martha and me, nonetheless remained very sensitive to both our feelings as we struggled to understand what was happening to us. And it was Cecil who as a lawyer offered his services gratis in drawing up the uncontested divorce. There were also our friends, Terri and Erv, who, as an act of monumental charity, bought the largest of our housing debts from us (the house next door) as a "tax write-off," and who moved Martha's half of our furnishings into their house when we broke up housekeeping. Martha spent a good deal of time with them as well. But Erv would frequently go out to breakfast with me – and just listen. He was (is) a very kindly person – a religious Jew, a lawyer who took on a lot of charity cases for free (pro bono), who would later become for me some kind of representation in my mind of what Jesus – as the Jew he was indeed – must surely have been like. And there was Stephanie and her husband Skeeter. We used to be jogging partners in the good old days. They had watched from quite close up my growing stress and sleeplessness over the financial crisis and my emotional withdrawal from life. Then when the break occurred between Martha and me, they reached out to both of us. I myself was soon invited to attend prayer meetings with them (they were charismatic Catholics) – though it probably was all a bit too early for me to connect with. It was Stephanie who used to drop off cards and biblical quotes to try to cheer me up – and who one morning (that fall of 1982, when Martha and I were simply separated) dropped by with an urgent message: "Miles, promise me you won't laugh when I tell you this."A stunned silence, followed by a huge grin that was as good an effort as I could make not to laugh! I was touched by her earnestness – though not greatly impressed at the time by her prophetic powers! [Hmmm! ...would you believe it!] Then there was Martelle, (her husband John in the meantime had died, and had one of the largest-attended funeral services I was ever to witness). Martelle was a great listener. And it was she who first brought me back to the church (sort of anyway – through an invitation to attend a special seminar hosted at her Government Street Presbyterian Church on "crisis," led by a well-known Christian theologian, Walter Brueggemann. I found much of what he had to say on the matter make deep sense, something I had not been experiencing at that point in a long time. Also, all of this "unconditional concern" which these friends showed me during this time of personal crisis was not something I was used to. In my world everything had its worth, its "price." But their deep concern, which became priceless to me, came without a price. What I also at this point began to see ever more clearly about these people was that they did not go at life the way most everyone else I knew did. They had a deep sense of "beingness," of who they were and what their lives were about, something that did not depend on how they played the "game" of life. Of course, I had noticed elements of that character in them some time ago … but had not at that time any interest in giving the matter much thought. But now I was intrigued – very intrigued – about what it was that made them so different from the world around me. They came to represent to me a vision of personhood that I hungered for. Thus contact with these spiritual giants – plus those very mysterious "interventions" in my life from the strange world of God – began to draw me forward. I was increasingly curious to know more about this strange new world that was just beginning to reveal itself to me. |
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A special note: my friend Irv
It was 1981, and Martha and I hosted a birthday party for Irv, a long-standing Mobile friend.    The picture above is also of Irv's wife,
Terri
I mention them in particular because of their deep support for us in our time of
troubles.
Irv (a prosperous lawyer, who did a lot of pro bono or free public defending) finally bought our house next door from us ... as a "tax write-off." However, I knew it to be in fact simply an act of charity. Later when Martha and I separated, they would take her in for a while ... and her half of the furniture. Martha would later move down the bay to live with Cecil and Susan ... and strangely enough begin reading her Bible ... or so I am told. In short, Martha, because of the crisis, started down that spiritual trail well before I did. Meanwhile, in those times of my deep spiritual confusion, Irv would join me for breakfast ... and just discuss things ... or just listen. He was Jewish ... and in his kindness, I began to see in him something that would begin to appear to me as a very Jewish Jesus ... spiritually very much so! Irv was the picture for me of undeserved compassion! |
Two people who supported me from the very start-up of my enormous spiritual crisis:
Martelle and Stephanie
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Very early on, Martelle
suggested that I might
want to attend a seminar they were holding at her church on "crisis"
… led by a well-known Christian theologian, Walter
Brueggemann.
Something about that seminar reached deeply into my soul … and I found myself coming back to the church almost weekly after that for more of "something" … I was not sure exactly what that was, except that I knew it somehow was there. I could feel it. |
Also at about that same time, Stephanie gave me this picture,
with a quote from Psalm 81 she had written on the back.
"But my people heard not my voice, and they obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
they walked according to their own counsels."
I would keep it on my desk for years.
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God, are you real?
Behind my new townhouse apartment was a huge undeveloped portion of Mobile, almost like some kind of combination of grassland, swamp and woodland. I used to spend a lot of time on the patio just quietly staring off into that uninhabited space, collecting my thoughts and just relaxing my troubled soul. Then one evening (I'm not exactly sure of the timing of the event,1 but am very clear about the particulars of the event itself) I felt drawn to throw out into that peaceful setting a very strong challenge: "God, if you are real, I need to know, and I need to know right away!" And almost immediately things began to happen …in much the same way that Fortuna once acted on my behalf. It's hard to explain, but I began to notice things, often just little things, that I previously would probably have taken no note of, except perhaps to have credited them to small doses of good luck. Things just started to show up, and not just coincidentally. So yes, Fortuna was back. But I now began to understand (gradually) what I should have known all along, that Fortuna always was God, the one that was intimately connected, intimately supportive, intimately protective of my doings, doings by someone (me!) however who by no means deserved such "otherworldly" support. But I now took this opening world very seriously. And though I really understood very little about it, I was interested – very interested – to learn more, to discover what all this ultimately meant. 1Certainly some time that spring of 1983. |
Once asked, the answer came quickly … in a rush of signs and wonders that I knew could come only from God. |
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Early steps toward the recovery of a sense of "soul":
the journey actually begins in London (summer of 1983) With my regular duties at the university over, I still had one more commitment to academic life. I was contracted to direct a semester-length university seminar in London on political risk analysis. But once I found myself in London, I found that my mind was drawn as much to the richness of the English Christian religious tradition as it was to the matter of the country's politics and economics. And – oddly enough – I seemed to find myself every Sunday morning at the nearby St. Pancras Church – not certain what was "there" for me. Something was. I kept coming back. It seemed weird to me that there were always more, many more, people on a Sunday morning simply touring the church – there to admire its structure and windows – than there were people there actually to worship (sometimes only one or two others than myself). I felt sad, though I could not yet understand why anything like that should trouble me. But I sensed that this church ought to be treated as being something more than a mere museum. |
| In the meantime, I finished out the school year strong … and headed to London that summer to meet one last teaching obligation, to lead a course on political risk analysis. It was fun … and I enjoyed working with my new students. But I expected it to be the last college course I would ever teach. |
| While there, I found myself on Sundays going to the nearby St. Pancras Church … I was not exactly sure why – except that I knew I was searching for something missing in my life and was hoping I might find it there. What I actually found was that it was nearly completely empty – except for the visitors who came there just to look at its historical character … not to worship. I felt such sadness that the church should have come to such a point of insignificance. But maybe so had I. |
| In the meantime I had started up a relationship back in Mobile with Betsey (we would date over the next four years) – a wonderful girl – and no doubt ready to settle down and get married. But I had just come off a marriage ... and the thought of heading down that path again any time soon simply terrified me. |
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soon moved out of the apartment and into a house with some
interesting character (plus some rental income from a carriage house
behind it) … that needed a little fixing up. |
And of course I had some upgrading I wanted to do!
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From simple clerk to computer programmer
I returned at the end of that summer of 1983 to Mobile, not to the university – but at this point to take up a job in a friend's import-export company, where I worked simply as a freight forwarder. No one except my friend, whose import-export business it was, knew anything about me. And I intended to keep matters that way. But as I basically did nothing but fill out import-export documents all day, I could not help but notice that the process could be speeded up (with fewer potential mistakes) if the process were computerized. So eventually I brought the matter up to my friend, and more importantly, his dad, the actual owner of the business. They thought the matter over and agreed that purchasing a computer (newer, smaller computers were just coming out) was a wise idea. And would I be willing to do the programming involved (they knew of my own experience as a former IBM programmer/analyst)? "Off-the-shelf" or commercial programs were not yet available, so all of this programming was going to have to be a process of step-by-step creativity! Well of course. It sounded like a wonderful challenge, and I definitely needed challenges at that time, ones that I was fairly certain I could handle! And soon I had not only programmed the process of import/export documentation, but also their container shipping and freight forwarding business. I loved it, and started making a decent wage in the process! And when I did indeed return to the university after that year's leave of absence, I continued to do program consulting and writing for them, for the better part of the next year. My first personal computer
Then at the same time that this computerization began to develop extensively at work, in December of 1984 I bought my own computer as well, for $2500. This was a lot of money at the time, but money I figured was well spent. The computer was about the size of a suitcase (in fact came in some form like that, to make it portable), had a 9" black screen with bright green typescript and worked on the basis of programming and data storage found on two 5¼" "floppy" (plastic) disks. And I also bought myself a dot-matrix printer. And indeed, this investment would prove invaluable to me, on multitudes of occasions. |
| In December of 1984 I bought my first personal computer (two floppy 5¼" drives and a 9" black screen with bright green typescript) for $2500 – a lot of money – but better than typing! And I bought a dot-matrix printer to go with it. |
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A hesitant return to the Christian life
At the same time that I took up my new life in the export-import business (that fall of 1983), I also began attending Martelle's church on Sunday mornings, with her usually at my side – sitting way in the back, teary-eyed, feeling that every sermon was directed to me! However, I must confess that I did not immediately pull away from my wild and crazy life, nor fully embrace a new religious or spiritual life. Rather I played back and forth between them for the next couple of years – though admittedly the religious or spiritual life gained constant ground against the other life. By the way, I must state that Martha started down this road a bit earlier and more determinedly than I did. As she had a lot of time by herself down by the bay when we first separated, I came to find out that much of that was spent reading the Bible and praying. I don't know much about how that turned out once she went back to Texas2 – except that years later she went through the very lengthy and complicated process of having our marriage officially "annulled," so that she could join the Catholic Church. As 1983 turned into 1984, I now found myself in church every Sunday, normally the Government Street Presbyterian Church, but also rather frequently an Episcopal church where Betsey, a friend I was dating, attended. Both churches spoke strongly to my spiritual hunger – though my interest in the Presbyterian church was greater because it was the denomination I had grown up in. The Presbyterian church thus offered me a deeper sense of "rootedness," something I craved deeply. It felt like I was "coming home"! Then when, a year later, (the fall of 1984) I did indeed return to the university, I found myself at that point rather disinterested in academic politics, and more interested in the thought processes of my students and friends – and rather absorbed in some of the fast-unfolding thoughts of my own about life. And in late 1984 I officially joined the Presbyterian church (after a 20+ year absence) – though I cannot say that this marked a dramatic shift in my slowly evolving spiritual life. 2Although, in the spring of the next year (1984) I did hear from Susan that Martha was going to be marrying Mike in June. |
| That November (1984), at the urging of Pastor Joe Donahue (whom I knew socially long before I began attending his church), I joined the Government Street Presbyterian Church that I had been attending since the spring of 1983. |
The Government Street Presbyterian Church
| Slowly my life was reassembling itself around the Christian identity I had once held long ago. But what I did not realize at the time was that this was just the beginning of the journey. I had a long way yet to go … and things would be very different as I moved forward. |
Meanwhile … Betsey still hung in there with me.
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Cursillo
That was to come in late March of 1985 when I (very reluctantly) attended an Episcopal renewal seminar (Cursillo) which Betsey marched me off to. This three-day minicourse (thus cursillo)3 on Jesus Christ may not have offered me a great breakthrough in my understanding of Christianity – for I was well familiar with all of its doctrinal aspects, even having taught elements of it as part of my offering of cultural studies at the university. But it certainly opened my eyes wider to the importance of "relationship" as opposed to "personal self-sufficiency" as the heart of human life. This was my first encounter with the language of having a relationship with Jesus Christ – rather than just being familiar with his basic goodness and setting him up as a fine moral example for all right-minded people to follow (which is what I remembered about Jesus from my early Presbyterian teachings). I didn't do anything dramatic that weekend about having such a "relationship." Yet the idea intrigued me – and began to gnaw at me. 3The word is Spanish because the movement was started up in Spain in the 1940s … in an effort by the Spanish Catholic Church to stir spiritual renewal among its members, still benumbed by the violent Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s, plus World War Two. Non-Catholics would be so impressed by Cursillo, that other programs, the largely Episcopalian version of Cursillo, plus Tres Dias and Walk to Emmaus, would be created along very similar lines. Father Streeter
However, also during that Cursillo seminar, I became friends with an Episcopal priest, Father Streeter, who in an amazing way first mediated that sense of relationship with Jesus Christ for me. He was someone whom I would have carefully avoided in my previous Yuppie life: he was very overweight, rather sloppy in his grooming, a "recovering alcoholic" and a still very heavy smoker. In fact it was he that sought me out – to serve as my first Spiritual Director ever! His simple forthrightness intrigued me – as well as what I came to learn of his work among the drug addicts and runaway youth living under the boardwalks of nearby Pensacola Beach where he had a beach ministry. And I came to appreciate him also through the eyes of others, who I quickly learned had the very highest respect for everything he was as a man, as a truly great man – with the humblest of hearts. That friendship continued after that weekend. We got together often, when I would drive over to Pensacola to meet with him over an evening meal (he introduced me to Calamari, of which I am now something of an addict when I see it on a menu!). But unfortunately, this relationship lasted only a few months, when he suddenly died of massive heart failure. Both his life and his death had a profound effect on me – for I was deeply aware of how, during even our brief time together, he had succeeded in giving me something of a distinct picture of who or what Jesus Christ might surely have been like. That was a spiritual gift of incalculable worth. |
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| Events
in the late spring and early summer of 1985 now moved so fast for me
that I am not sure of the sequence of events. During the spring I was
teaching a contract course on the politics of international economics
and finance with a group of executives at the Continental Teledyne
Corporation. And I was very busy at the university laying the
groundwork for a major seminar which was intended next year to bring
together a large number of key political figures (including former
President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger)
on the subject of peace in Central America. Prison ministry
But my heart was turning more and more toward spiritual matters. I wanted to be as involved there as I was in the world of politics and economics. Finally the suggestion was made that I accompany a fellow Presbyterian on his monthly visits to the Mobile County Jail where he volunteered to go cell to cell quietly showing portions of a movie on the Gospel of Luke. In early June I finally had my opportunity. I was so moved by this experience that it became another one of those life-changing moments. As I looked through those bars at the fellows on the other side, the only thought that seemed to grip me was how very similar we probably were – except that they had fallen afoul of the law and I had not. I had abandoned a quite fine marriage, broken the heart of a very wonderful woman, which seemed a greater crime than what most of them had probably committed (the fact that I had heard that Martha was quite happy with her new life still did not exempt me from a deep sense of guilt for having brought on our divorce). Yet I was on the free side of those bars and they were not. I felt a deep sense of connectedness to these men – men whom under other circumstances I would never have had anything to do with. In the following days I could not get thoughts about that jail visit out of my mind. It was now summer (1985), school was out, and I had committed myself for the summer only to the study of Spanish in an intensive summer course at the university, in preparation for a trip I was planning to make to Central America, to promote my peace-in-Central-America seminar. Basically, my afternoons were free (learning Spanish took little of my time, as I found that my knowledge of French made the learning of another Latin-based language relatively easy). My thoughts during that free time returned to this issue of jail and those who were locked up there. I grew impatient with the idea that I would have to wait a whole month before I could return again to Mobile County Jail. Emmett and the charismatics
Another friend who was part of that same monthly jail ministry knew of a new jail ministry that had just opened up in downtown Mobile. It was headed up by a fellow named Emmett, a plumber who had been working for the past ten years as a volunteer evangelist at the G.K. Fountain Prison 50 miles to the north of Mobile. A Mennonite organization had opened up this new ministry in downtown Mobile and had asked Emmett (who, however, was not a Mennonite) to head up their ministry on a full-time basis. So he had left his plumbing business to take up fulltime jail ministry. One afternoon in mid-June I wandered down to the offices of this ministry – and began a friendship that was to be a major influence in my life. Emmett was unlike anyone I had ever known before in my quite-Yuppie existence. He was simple, direct, and amazingly effective in his work. There was nothing "churchy" about him. He had little resemblance to any of the professional clergy that I was getting to know through my new church affiliations – except, of course, Father Streeter, whose personality had been much like Emmett's. The people that gathered around to work with Emmett were equally common folk with uncommon ways. Life at the ministry offices was itself a bizarre phenomenon – at least to me, for I had never before encountered "charismatics" (though Cursillo had presented some of the same features). I had never encountered Christians who were ready at the drop of the hat to pray with someone for some need that they had. The office of We Care jail ministry was a buzz of activity, for it was not only the office of a jail ministry but also a drop-in center for those with various personal problems. Praise music filled the rooms, prayers seemed to be going on somewhere almost all the time, noontimes produced a gathering of people from here and there for Bible study – and there were the "tongues," those strange sounds that came from the charismatics which to them gave evidence of their coming under control of the Holy Spirit! This was all new to me. To me Christianity had pretty much been limited to stately Sunday morning worship and weekly good behavior that set one off as "Christian." True, Cursillo had opened up the vision of the Christian life as having a "relationship" with Jesus Christ (I was still working through the meaning of that concept at that time). But this being "empowered" by the Holy Spirit as the mark of the Christian life I had never before even heard of. Needless to say, Emmett and his friends tried on the spot to engineer on my behalf my "receiving the Holy Spirit," in the form of tongues. It was a grand failure: "tongues" just would not come to me. In fact, in months of trying, nothing like that ever authentically developed for me. But they finally accepted the fact – and we all learned new things about the work of the Holy Spirit through my "failure" at tongues! I kept coming back to the ministry every afternoon – in part to go with Emmett and some of his friends to Mobile County Jail, or the Youth Detention Center, or G.K. Fountain Prison, or wherever, and in part just to be present at the "happenings" in the We Care offices. I was intrigued by their energy, enthusiasm, and dedication. I wanted very much to have their spirit – even if I never could get into "tongues." |
Here I am with Emmett at his new offices of the We Care Ministry
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Life Church
Inevitably I asked the question: "where does all of this "style," this energy, come from?" Emmett's answer was simply: "come and see." And so I found myself one Sunday evening driving out to the edge of town to this strange church which the men of the church themselves had built – and which looked on the outside like a prefab warehouse, and on the inside like a huge meeting hall with many hundreds of chairs arranged in rows and people buzzing about, chatting excitedly. It was all so animated – more like a county fair than what I understood church to be. Then BOOM! The 10-piece orchestra struck up with such volume and beat that I felt I was at a rock concert. It all made me feel uncomfortable – not because I had never "rocked" at a rock concert, but just that I had never associated such happenings with Christianity. For about 30 to 40 minutes the music continued, complete with an approximately 50-member choir and a dance group of about a dozen twirling women in colorful dresses and a smaller number of men in Eastern looking shirts and trousers. The music did not stay at this loud rock level but step by step moved into a somewhat quieter and more reflective mood, more hypnotizing with the repetition of choruses and certain verses. Then it moved to a very quiet mood – almost hushed and inwardly introspective so that it had more the aspect of prayer than music. Then came the tongues, wave-lengthed to a single note that reminded me of the Om found in Hindu meditation. It was mesmerizing. The pastor then went into prayer, prayer that I know lasted many times longer than the pastoral prayers I was familiar with from Presbyterian worship. But it was a prayer that absolutely drew my heart into it all – the kind of prayer that you might wish would go on forever. Then it all ceased, and the pastor began to preach – though it seemed more an extended Bible study than the kind of 18 to 20-minute homily which constituted a typical Presbyterian sermon. The sermon went on at some length, though I really was not aware of how long he had actually been speaking until he finished with an "altar call" and I noticed from my watch that he had been preaching for well over an hour! I was amazed, because I had never gotten impatient with the length of all of this. In fact, aside from the fright I first received from the music, I had found myself so "drawn" into this worship that time simply dissolved. I even dissolved – in that while there might have been as many as a thousand people there for Sunday evening worship, I felt not overwhelmed by the number but well integrated into the whole. I even felt "close" to God. Needless to say, I came back the next Sunday evening – and every Sunday evening thereafter while I still lived in Mobile. I was sort of a "Presbyterian" by day and a "charismatic" by night – though I never really got the tongues part that the charismatics felt was so important to the Christian life. I really grew to appreciate my new charismatic friends. They not only were so "empowered" by their worship, but also truly "moved" by the Spirit to undertake amazing things. While I found that many Christians were willing to take "correct" Christian positions on this and that issue, even buying space in newspapers to present their petitions or sending money to organizations that promoted their positions on these issues, I also found that it tended to be the charismatics who would actually be found out in these hurting places personally doing the work of direct Christian charity and counsel. I deeply admired their personal dedication. |
The Deep South Model United Nations (DSMUN) – April 1985
| Meanwhile in April I enjoyed getting back with my students at the university in putting on the annual Model United Nations conference. |
| And
I was greatly pleased to see that Jeane Kirkpatrick, one of my three
doctoral supervisors at Georgetown University had been chosen by
President Reagan to be America's ambassador to the United
Nations. She was good stuff! And I felt the same way about
Reagan as president! |
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The Discovery of the "Transcendent" Life
I did not have well-defined words for what was happening to me, but I had a vague sense that I was being drawn into something bigger than myself, by something bigger than myself. Even as far back as those days during my separation from Martha, I found myself contemplating the sense of Fortuna that I always had a sense was "with me" – for better or worse. I'm not sure when I began to understand this hand as the hand of God and when I began actually to find myself in "conversation" with this God. But I certainly had notions of something like this even before the divorce in early 1983. But the God which or who began to evolve to my understanding over time was not the God of my Sunday School days. This God had no clear persona, no identity such as I had once assigned – and then rejected – as God. This God did not live above the clouds or anywhere "out there" somewhere. Nonetheless, I knew that I was not just talking to myself in these "conversations" I was having with this Higher Power. I knew deeply that I was involving myself in some kind of dialogue with some kind of "Other One" we commonly call "God." Furthermore, strange coincidences began to occur in my life that I realized could not have been mere accidents. In particular I found myself meeting people at exactly the time when I needed to meet such people – and whatever "message" or insight they had for me at the time. This kind of information-flow I began to take note of – and sense that this is how "God" was answering me back. Thus not only did I take note of a special presence I gradually began to call "God," but I also became much more aware of other people as part of the "higher" game plan of life. I became very aware that I was far from alone in this universe, but greatly, beautifully joined with the world around me. I began to appreciate the idea of "soul" – my soul – as a wonderful subset of a much more extensive Soul, Cosmic Soul, composed of God ... and neighbor. Certainly all this understanding did not come on at once – nor consistently. For me, my "conversion" from an agnostic to one who believed in the profound reality of God was a very gradual, sometimes erratic, process of movement in this direction. But it certainly went forward, step by step, as each of these new events took place in my life. Frustration
In many ways my life showed a lot of progress since the low point of the divorce. I had found, in my return to the university, that I really was enjoying my work again. I had bought a very nice house in a pleasant downtown neighborhood and felt very comfortably resettled. A new circle of friends was widening rapidly. I was making more than enough money to enjoy the many activities that Mobile offered the community. And, of course, I was feeling once again in deep harmony with the cosmos! But one area of my life remained highly problematic for reasons never quite clear to me: women! I had been dating Betsey now for a long time – but just couldn't get settled down into a one-on-one relationship with her. She was beautiful, intelligent, energetic, and enjoyed a wide range of interests quite like my own. But something held me back from a full commitment to her – and consequently I found myself over and over again starting up secondary relationships. I don't know what I wanted from a relationship – but these new relationships proved no more successful in providing a solution. As a consequence, I found myself increasing the juggling act by adding to the number of balls I was trying to keep up in the air.4 This was no way to resolve the issue. By the summer of 1985, when I added yet another relationship to the program, I was trying to balance about five different relationships. I was out every night of the week, studying Spanish in the mornings, at the We Care Ministry in the afternoons – and growing exhausted in the process. 4It got so bad that both Kit and Debby were working together as newly hired salesgirls at Gayfers Department Store’s recently-expanded operations, and discovered over lunch together that the boyfriends they were dating happened to be the same person, namely me. Boy was I in trouble! The "call" in the night
Then one typical sleepless night in July I was jolted awake by a vision or a dream – I'm not sure which. I saw myself holding a set of bagpipes – and as I looked closer, I saw that I was dressed in a black cleric's gown, European rather than American in style. And as I stepped back from the scene, I realized that I was standing on the steps before the doors of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland. No words accompanied this vision – but I knew exactly what it meant. It took me absolutely no time to say "yes" to the vision. I then fell back into a deep sleep, the first I had enjoyed in a very long time. In the morning I awoke, understanding fully what I had agreed to during the night. I was going to give my life fulltime to the service of God, an evangelist or teacher who would help people like myself come out of their isolation and find their way back into harmony with life, with the cosmos, with God. Stepping back from my relationships
It was not long after this decision that a second decision came to me – again as something of a vision or "word" from God: cut out all dating for a month and give the whole woman "thing" a break. Anyway, the time was drawing near for me to go off to Central America and interview political figures who were to be invited to my Central American peace seminar which was scheduled for the following spring. I needed the break. And it was okay with my women friends – for they mostly had already given up on the idea that their relationship with me was going anywhere anyway. Indeed, I found that as I stepped back, a true sense of friendship seemed to replace the unattainable expectations for a "relationship." I was surprised and pleased at this discovery. I also realized that what I had wanted all along was soul-to-soul intimacy with them, not mutual and exclusive "ownership." |
The Vision
| One night in July – after many sleepless nights – I received an unfolding vision … of me dressed in a French cleric’s gown, playing the bagpipes in front of St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. I knew instantly what that meant: that I was to finally accept the covenant set long ago … to devote myself fully to God’s service. What form that was supposed to take exactly was not stated. But I understood the call … and fell finally into a deep rest such as I had not experienced in weeks. |
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The Central-American trip confirms the "call"
In mid-August of 1985 I was off to Central America for a month, to visit five Central-American countries and to talk with various leading figures of those countries. The first country I came to was war-torn El Salvador. My very first meeting was an informal one, with a young priest, José, who was assigned by the archbishop's office to serve as an interpreter during my stay in El Salvador. We immediately hit it off – and found that we had a wide range of issues to discuss, including our respective faith stories. In the days ahead I interviewed party leaders, businessmen, newspaper editors, academics, clerics, etc. But I found that what I enjoyed most was my time with José. I met his mother and sisters (he was the last surviving male member of the family; one of his sisters was even a young widow) and heard the story of family tragedy brought on by the civil war. But I was also moved by the strength of their character, their continuing joy in the midst of such violence, their ability to carry on rather normally in the midst of such mayhem. At one point I accompanied José in bringing the gospel message and communion to a small parish he had charge of in the mountains (a very dangerous place, by the way, as government troops and leftist guerrillas regularly swept back and forth through these remote areas, killing anyone looking suspicious to them). Here too I heard the same stories – and saw the vitality in the people's eyes and hearts despite the constant tragedy that accompanied life in their country. In them I saw the countless generations of little people who have carried on life – despite the grand plans of the "great leaders" to save these same little people. Indeed frequently, as I listened to these leaders, I kept wondering how close some of them really were to these people in whose name they carried on their great crusades (some individuals, however, I sensed really were very close to the common people). I got the distinct idea that their countrymen would be a lot better off if people like them would give up trying to "save" the others – and instead would let them work out their destinies themselves. Their "little people" seemed to possess enormous durability and fortitude of their own. What they needed was inspiration and a bit of guidance. They did not need to be dictated to! Into my fourth week of interviewing (I was in Honduras at the time) I found that my mind kept coming back to José and his family in El Salvador. So I cut the program short and returned to El Salvador – just to check out my feelings (or instincts) further about these things. That final week in El Salvador confirmed all that I was beginning to understand. God really was with these people – and was somehow going to see them through this present crisis – almost despite the efforts of well-meaning individuals to save them. |
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June-July of 1985
I began to put together a major conference, scheduled to take place the next year (spring of 1986) … on peace in Central America (where civil war was tearing the societies apart) … and was getting ready to go to Central America at the end of the summer of 1985 to make contact with key political leaders there (I already had Kissinger and Carter scheduled to participate). Thus I spent the mornings of the June and July summer vacation studying Spanish (the equivalent of the first year of Spanish) at the university in preparation for the trip. Central America – August-September
1985
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Heading with José to deliver mass at much-distressed village
José with two of his sisters (standing and on the right) and friends
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Faith over politics
You can imagine what light this cast on my "peace seminar" concept. As I returned to the States, I found that my heart was no longer in this enterprise. I would have more gladly put on a program to bring some of these "little people" north to tell us Yanquis what they knew about the power of life, the enormous potency of their faith, their ability to find ingenious ways to survive, despite our well-intended efforts to save them all. Ironically (or was it so ironic?) I returned to Mobile to the news that the university president's office was frightened at the prospect of so many major personalities descending on the campus at once. They were deeply concerned about the huge costs involved in assuring security for such a conference. So they made me scale the project way back. Thus, for example, even though former President Jimmy Carter was willing to participate for only a negligible fee, I had to uninvite him. However we had made the ($25,000!) commitment with Henry Kissinger and so we would honor that – turning the event into a Kissinger extravaganza (their idea, not mine!), and that alone. Ordinarily I would have been crushed. But given what I had come to see and understand in Central America, I actually greeted the news with relief. It meant that I was going to have to uninvite a number of North American and Central American dignitaries – but I really didn't mind. Somewhere in El Salvador I had lost my desire for such a conference anyway. It all worked out for the best. |
Once back in Mobile the spiritual scene shifted even more
The the Gulf shore with Betsey – Fall of 1985
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Yuppie Evangelicals!
But neither had my commitment to Christian ministry changed any. Of course my afternoon visits to Emmett and the We Care office had to come to an end with the resumption of the fall school term. But I had made up my mind to go once a week in the evenings on my own to the Mobile County Jail to continue my work there. But I went only one evening by myself before I decided that going alone at this was not going to work. So I started inviting my friends. At first there were just a few of us, then a few more, then quite a group! We would gather at the We Care office on Tuesday nights at about 7:00 for prayers. I would give a short biblical thought for the evening, we would pray together at some length, and then at about 7:30 we would be off: some to the County Jail, some to the City Jail (men's and women's sections); some to the Women's and Children's Shelter; and when a number of youth joined the team, we added visits to the Youth Detention Center; and then when we had an overflow (over fifty volunteers showing up) I would take a handful of volunteers out onto the streets around the port to converse with whomever. Indeed, we soon got to be well known by the ladies of the night! We would go simply to be "available" – to be a presence, to pray, and to offer thoughts from the Bible. On the streets, we would chat with people who approached us, pass on paperback New Testaments if they were interested, and pray with any who desired it. We were never "preachy," just there to let them know that they were not forgotten, not by God, not by Jesus, not by Christians who cared. We were quite a group: Presbyterians and Charismatics, Methodists, Episcopalians, and a few others – though the Presbyterians and Charismatics were the most numerous. Some were a bit scandalized that we would regroup later in the evening (not including the youth!) in a back room at a yuppie "fern bar," to snack and drink (lightly) and simply to let the excitement pour forth. We all returned from our respective evangelical visits excited – and eagerly sought the opportunity to talk about it. We were mostly WASPish Yuppies – some were even rather prominent business leaders – who were discovering the joy of going forth into our world in the name of the Lord. I took particular delight in seeing my very proper Presbyterian friends get "turned on" by all of this. They learned to open up to others about their own faith, to help others similarly open up – and to pray, pray, pray (we eventually added a Thursday evening prayer circle to our list of activities). Needless to say, we became a very close group. |
| Pastor Donahue asked me to
take over his Sunday School class on Christian Evangelism. I was very glad to do so! This happened at a time when I could no longer attend We Care events during the day (the school year had resumed) and Emmett did no such ministry in the evenings (time for him to be at home with his family). So … I decided to go do evening jail visits on my own. But I quickly decided that I did not like going alone … and invited others (at first from my Sunday School class) to join me. |
| In short order I had a large Tuesday evening ministry going … to the city jail, county jail, to the youth detention center, or just to the streets when we had too many volunteers show up. |
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The Kairos Prison Ministry
As if all this were not enough, in the early fall I agreed to be on staff or "team" for a Kairos weekend at the G.K. Fountain Prison in Atmore (about 50 miles to the north of Mobile). This was a Cursillo seminar tailored for the prison environment. Serving on the team meant weekly Wednesday night training sessions in Atmore at an Episcopal church for about 8 weeks prior to the weekend. About half of the 40-man team were Episcopal priests, deacons and laymen, with the other half being mostly Catholic deacons and laymen (no priests on this team). But the team included also a Methodist minister and me, the lone Presbyterian. As G.K. Fountain was an all-male prison, the team that would go into prison was made up of the men. The 20-or-so women who had been working with us would serve as backups to the men, cooking, praying, and worshiping with us when we returned from a morning, afternoon or evening session. Food was abundant – especially in the form of cookies, which I remembered from Cursillo (I ate so many cookies at Cursillo – yet burned off so many calories in just the emotional intensity of it all that all those calories were used up). In fact, in most important respects it was a Cursillo seminar we were putting on. Team meetings were designed primarily to build up a very close team spirit, which it certainly succeeded in doing. After eight Wednesday nights and one Saturday all-day retreat together, we were a very close group. It was at Cursillo that I first saw adult men hugging each other in greeting. This was a shock to this Presbyterian – at first. I later discovered that this was the standard greeting among all "renewal" Christians, including charismatics. And I came to enjoy it – for it symbolized the closeness of the Christian fellowship that we were willing to extend to each other. Christianity for this group was not a Sunday morning formality – but a part of the intimacy with which they/we, as Christians, greeted the world. I liked that sentiment very much – especially after having been so "removed" in my feelings about most other people – and even about life itself. A very sad note in all this closeness occurred at the communion service that all the team traditionally shared on the last Wednesday evening training session. Someone (some of the team knew who, but I never did) among the Catholics mentioned the fact to a Catholic priest – who then showed up to ensure that the Catholics would have a separate Communion service. Most of the Catholic members of the team were burned. Some even came to the "Episcopal" communion service in protest. That bit of "churchiness" or "priestcraft" (as I later came to term it!) left a deep impression on me. It really was an insult to Christ as far as I was concerned. The "weekend" (actually Thursday evening to Sunday evening) itself went wonderfully well. There were 15 tables of about 5 or 6 inmates, a table leader and a spiritual director each. I was a "spiritual director" and in fact was called on often to take time out to pray with one or another of the inmates. I also gave one of the "talks" – drawing on Paul's Letter to the Romans, especially Chapter Eight, which was eventually to serve me as the center-post of my own personal theology. It was an excellent matchup for me to be delivering that particular talk. The talks were always personal and often emotional. My talk in fact brought two of my teammates themselves to tears (it was the story of the collapse of my yuppie world and the "second chance" that God gave this sinner). One of the highlights of the weekend for me in fact was when one of the guys at my table, who was well known as one of the prison bullies (and who was there at first just to keep tabs on his boys) quietly asked me to pray outside with him – and proceeded to break down into a flood of tears, tears which did not stop for the rest of the weekend. The other inmates were stunned – and moved. [He and I kept in touch for over five years, even through a couple of prison moves on his part – until a combination of my move to Garfield and his move to yet another institution broke the link. I tried some years later to restore the link, but my Christmas letter was returned with "addressee unknown"]. The Sunday evening closing was profoundly moving. Betsey showed up and they were all glad to meet my "girl." We all had become close – inmates as well as team members by then. But I was again reminded of the downside of religion, when only a couple of months later a baby of the teammate I had roomed with was killed in a car accident his wife had, and we all came to the funeral. It was a Catholic funeral – and all the non-Catholics were quietly told that we were not to go forward to receive communion during that part of the funeral service. It felt so strange to be shut out of the highest point of the service – because we were not members of the "true" church. This did nothing to improve my very dim view of denominational differences within the church. I was very "Presbyterian." But I was also "Episcopalian," "charismatic," and even "Catholic" if they'd have me. I didn't care. I was "Christian" to the core. If there was any label to describe me, it would have been "Evangelical," a category that belongs to no particular Christian denomination. In the spring I signed up for another Kairos weekend and went through the same process again in May (1986). Even the second time through it was a moving experience. Kairos came to mean a lot to me personally. |
| That November I also participated in the first of a number of Kairos Prison Ministry programs – that paralleled the Cursillo program that Betsey put me into the year before. I had actually been to the Atmore State Prison with Emmett many times before … but just for afternoons. This was four full days spent with inmates. I really found myself energized by this type of ministry. And I was wondering if this is what God was calling me to do. |
The Kairos team studying and worshiping in preparation for our "weekend"
| In December I flew to El Salvador to spend a week with José María and his sisters and friends. My connection to El Salvador at this point was no longer political but deeply spiritual. Then I flew on to Phoenix to spend Christmas with my parents and then Los Angeles to visit my sister and her husband. |
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Seminary: Yes or No?
When the call came during that midsummer night in 1985, I really had not given much thought as to what form that call might specifically take. I certainly did not see myself becoming a minister (a parish pastor). I really don't know what I thought I might be doing – even as I gave notice to the Dean that September that this would be my last year at the university. As that last school year (1985-1986) developed, I suppose I thought that somehow I might, like Emmett, develop some kind of a street ministry right there in Mobile. The growth of my evening evangelical group certainly seemed to point to the possibility of developing some kind of full-time ministry of that nature. Admission to Princeton Seminary
My pastor at the Presbyterian church where I worshiped urged me at least to apply to some seminaries. That fall (1985) he encouraged me to look into two seminaries in particular. I did apply to one of them and got accepted quickly – even before all my paperwork was in. But there was something in the name "Princeton" that attracted me. I felt sheepish about having "freed" myself so fully from the presumptions of yuppie life – only now to be thinking about applying to what distinctly looked like a yuppie citadel. Nonetheless I applied. Then I heard nothing – weeks past the time I knew I was supposed to hear from them. Finally in March (1986) I got the news, about a month late: I had been accepted. I was excited! I went in to tell my pastor the good news. We chatted for a while. Then as I was about to leave, he told me something very strange. He told me that he was actually surprised that Princeton Seminary had accepted me. He had had many conversations with the admissions office – in concern about my commitment to the church. I was speechless. Needless to say, I thought about those words a lot after that meeting. I realized that this issue could have been raised only by him – for there was nothing in my application that would have caused any such concern about my commitment to the "church" [the Presbyterian "church"?]. I knew that he had become increasingly disapproving of my close association with charismatics. I know he did not care for Emmett. Yet – he had earlier given me such encouragement to apply to the other two seminaries (which he had close connections with). But in considering the matter further, I decided to just let it drop. Anyway, this only served to confirm the Princeton decision for me. God obviously had opened the door for me at Princeton, in overcoming some serious human opposition! But even then, I hadn't really made up my mind that I was actually going to go to seminary. I very much wanted to stay in Mobile. God sells my house out from underneath me!
Spring and the approach to the end of the school year was upon me and I still had not made up my mind. One Sunday afternoon, as I was visiting with Betsey's family, the subject came up. The concern was expressed about getting my house on the market if I was going to be leaving Mobile, particularly if I was indeed going to be going up to Princeton in June. I had talked about the possibility of starting up at Princeton with some summer Hebrew language study. Anyway, Betsey's father reminded me that the housing market was very slow, and it would not be wise trying to market an empty house if I left in June before it was sold. Hmmm, it was a thought. That very same evening, as I was entering the kitchen door to my home, the phone was ringing. It was my real estate agent friend, Nancy, that I had worked with a lot in the past, and who in fact had lined up this very house for me. She too wanted to know what I was going to do. Was I going to be putting the house on the market again? She asked me to get back quickly to her with a price if those were my intentions. (Obviously she wanted the listing!) I agreed, and called her back the next evening with a price based on my original cost plus the cost of some improvements I had made on the house. She said "Fine. I'd like to show the house tomorrow." Wow! That was quick! The next day she arrived with a friend and went through the house. But we had not yet signed any listing agreement. Later that day she called again to say that she had a purchaser for the house, one willing to pay $1000 more than my asking price, and no realtor costs involved! For she herself was the purchaser! She had just sold her house to someone who wanted immediate occupancy, and she needed to find a place of her own – fast. She always liked the house I had bought, knew that I was thinking of moving, and had added the $1000 as a gift to help me through seminary! The only catch was that she needed the house in two weeks: the end of March. This was wonderful, I guess. But this left me with the problem of where I was to live for 2½ months until I would leave for Princeton. Two nights later, as I explained my plight to my Thursday evening prayer circle, one of my friends, Bill, spoke up. Miles! Now I know why I had such a strange thought only two weeks ago. I felt this strong urge to invite you to move in with me into this huge, rather empty house I'm living in. But then I thought what a strange idea, since you had your own place already. Now I know why I had that thought. You do indeed have somewhere to stay until you leave for Princeton – and whenever you return on vacation – and a place to store all your furniture while you are away at seminary!!! Holy Cow! If I had any doubts about whether God wanted me to stay in Mobile to do street ministry, or to head off to seminary, there could be no doubts now. God himself sold my house out from under me, and took care of all the secondary details as well! I was definitely leaving Mobile. |
With my close friend Bill ... and my new home away from home (his house at the time)
I finished out the school year with another Kairos Prison program ...
… and a really nice surprise send-off party by friends.
Go on to the next section: The Princeton Days
Miles
H. Hodges