Fingerprints of God_ The Search for the Science of Spirituality - Barbara Bradley Hagerty [33]
My personal life was equally uncertain: thirty-five and single, I had met a marvelous fellow whom I expected to marry. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong reason: I could already smell the loneliness of middle age and was determined to stave it off. At bottom I knew the relationship would end on the shoals, either before or after the wedding vows.
Most disquieting of all was my crumbling faith in the religion of my childhood, Christian Science. Everything I cared about deeply—my relationship with my parents, my friends at church, my job at The Christian Science Monitor, the metaphysical worldview that steered my thoughts and actions—all this threatened to topple once I admitted that I no longer had the energy or fortitude to believe in Christian Science.
I felt as if I were in an operating theater, watching as those parts of my life that defined me were surgically removed. A snip here, and my career is removed; a slice there, my faith lies in ruins; a third incision severs my hopes for marital bliss. The surgery was complete. I could no longer identify who I was, for all the distinguishing parts had disappeared. Into that vacuum rushed the shrill questions of an untethered soul: What is my purpose in life? Will I ever have a family, or will I end up a moderately successful, tired woman who eats cereal for dinner alone each night? Mainly, I wondered, Is this all there is? They were always there, these questions so common as to be comical—and they drained me of all joy like a dull toothache.
This was the backdrop for my trip to Los Angeles for the Times article. These were the questions in the back of my mind when I met Kathy Younge at Saddleback Church, when I listened to her story of cancer and hope, when I sensed an unseen but palpable force as we sat on a bench in the dark, cool night. I returned to my hotel and the next morning bought a Bible. I wanted to know the source of Kathy’s serenity in the midst of cancer, and so I began to read the biography of Jesus, beginning with the book of Matthew.
There is a reason the Torah and the New Testament and the Koran are deemed sacred.When they are read at the right time, they can exert a seemingly physical power. The Gospels—which tell of the kindness and boldness and humanness of Jesus—reached up and grabbed me, demanded that I pay attention. The words of Matthew the tax collector, Mark the itinerant, Luke the doctor, and John the fisherman hijacked my senses. I heard the voice of Jesus saying to the prostitute,“Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more”—I heard it as if he had uttered those words to me. I tasted the salty air of the Galilean Sea and smelled the fear of the fishermen caught in a vicious squall.When Jesus touched the desperate leper, I recoiled from the brackish wounds. This two-thousand-year-old story sprung, like those pop-up birthday cards, from two dimensions to three—from myth to concrete reality.
What unnerved me was that this feeling seemed to come from outside me, not within: it was as if someone had tied a rope around my waist and pulled me, slowly and with infinite determination, toward a door that was ajar. Over those next few days in Los Angeles, I grew curious—inordinately curious—about how these Christians I interviewed each day came to “know” God.What was the password, the open sesame that unlocked the mystical door to God? I determined to find out, and as I interviewed people for my Times article, I also collected “testimonies”—the stories of people’s conversions—hoping to find the combination to the lock. My curiosity became an urgent thirst. I had sipped something mystical on that chilly Saturday night with Kathy Younge, and I wanted more. It was like a long day at the ocean, where nothing matters—nothing—except feeling long, cold drafts of water glide down your throat. King David captured it nicely: As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee, O Lord.
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