Preparation for the event was months long. Before the weeks of adult Catechism there were months of reading and hundreds of dollars spent on books. I studied philosophy, theology, read the lives of many Saints, and their writings. I wanted to know the roots of my faith and even studied the Midrash; writings of the ancient Rabbis.

The Catholic faith had been abandoned with my father’s generation. I wasn’t brought up in a single church, but bounced from one, to another, in my youth. In my young adult life, I had decided that it was all bunk, and completely separated myself from God.

Early,in about my 32nd year of life I prayed, in earnest, and God set me back on a path to him. Not only did I receive the grace to stay on the path, but others were given the grace to help.

During Lent, before that Easter, I happened to read a book, ‘The World’s Greatest Secret.’ It had many wonderful things in it, the finding of St. Peters tomb, and stories of the Saints. One story that really stuck with me was that of an early martyr.

The Saint was carrying Holy Communion on a street and was stopped by a Roman soldier. The soldier had wanted to know what it was that was being hidden. Upon finding the Eucharist, the soldier wanted to know, why the saint was hiding bread, and what was the significance of the bread. The Saint was put to death, rather than, give up the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

After many long weeks of study, spiritual preparation, and juggling my schedule, as an over the road truck driver, Holy Week, and Easter Vigil, finally came.

Most of the Mass, up to, were the candidates were received, seems a blur now. I clearly recalled what happened when it came my turn. After making a profession of faith, the Litany of the Saints was prayed.

It was the long, original litany, and all through it, I wanted to run up to the Baptism font, and receive, new spiritual life. I kept looking across the isle at a friend and asking, “Can I go now?” “No, wait,” was the reply. I could hardly wait, my soul knew, and longed for, the life giving grace, that awaited.

When I was called to the Font, I did not hesitate. I leaned my head over and the water was poured, “Ed, I Baptize you, In the Name of…” Father had baptize me “Ed” after all the agonizing, over the name of a patron, but I didn’t care.

“Repent and be Baptized, so that, your sins maybe forgiven you.” I recalled the words of St. Peter, and they were true. I felt the life time of sin washed away in a moment.

Fr. Sean applied the Chrism, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I was handed a lit candle to symbolize my new life, and I returned to the pews, to contemplate it. But there was more to come.

I sat in wonder during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and when it was time, the Catechumens were pushed to the front of the Communion line. Fr. Sean held up the Host, “The Body of Christ.” Fr. Gus’ eyes sparkled, as he looked up at me, over the top of the Chalice, “Eddie, this is the Blood of Christ.”

Kneeling in the pew, the words of the lord, “If you do not eat my flesh, and drink my blood, you will have no life in you,” in the back of my mind, I knew the “World’s Greatest Secret.” I marveled at how is wasn’t a secret at all, only for those who refuse to accept.

After the vigil, there was a reception, in the Church Hall, with lots of food. I never made any further than the hallway; I stood there with a dopey grin on my face. I have pictures, the grin was there a full two weeks later. People came to me and wished me well, my Protestant friends, that were present, remarked how they had never seen anyone physically change after being Baptized before. I stood in the hallway holding my gifts and grinning; for hours.

I look out across, the snow covered, hood of my truck, at a wintry Nebraska day, some many years later. I fight back the tears as I think of how the Lord gave his life, in the 33rd year, to give me life, in my 33rd year.

All nighters in night clubs and restaurants, and then, sleeping away the day.

Over the years my physical self, and the spiritual self, have moved, literally, millions of miles. I have moved my home thousands of miles and have driven nearly 3 million miles.

The normal work a day world forces me to into it’s reality while my most interesting, and greatest adventures, are in the night time world. I just got off the phone with my dispatcher, who sounded like a neglected girl friend, “You never call me anymore,” he said, “Sorry man, I have all this reading, writing, and guitar playing to do, ya know,” I replied.

While I sit in North Carolina, enjoying a sunny, but cold, day, it was only two nights ago that I drove, through a mountain pass, on long stretches of black ice. There have been many long nights of fog, blizzards, tornados, and hurricanes.

I have, in the middle of the night, stood on a Florida beach, looking out over the, dark, Atlantic Ocean. On another night, near the same beach, I have watched a night launch of the Space Shuttle. I felt the roar of it’s powerful engines, and stood in the glow, of it’s column of fire, and then, watched as it faded, and became the twinkle of a star.

In the middle of the night I have played cat and mouse, with a drunk, on a Chicago freeway. I have seen a pimp beating one of his girls on a New Orleans’ street. I’ve dodged police, prostitutes, drug dealers, and thieves, most everywhere.

In the middle of the night I have swam in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and bathed in a cold mountain stream.I’ve stood atop a desert mountain and stared at the awesomeness, of the heavenly cloud, that is the Milky Way. I’ve slept, like a baby, under those same stars, breathing deep, the clean mountain air.

In the middle of the night I have traveled on the spirit plain. I visited places, far away, saw into the future, and into the past. There, I struggled with Demons, and conversed with the Angels.

In the middle of the night I have learned the importance of knowing my place, in time, and in space.

I offered to fix it and was turned down. I was told that I could hurt myself removing the broken bulb, and that it was no big deal, as it would get repaired.

The book store was one of my regular stops when I was in town. I would be away, on the road, one to two weeks but, but returning to the store, was always a high priority when returning home.

On my return, some days later, I found my friends tail light in the same condition, she had not had it repaired. Broken tail lights are a pet peeve of mine while driving. Not knowing if someone is signaling a turn or being blinded by a bright light, where a red lens should be, is annoying to say the least.

This time, while visiting the store, I was using the company service truck, and it was stocked with tools, and parts. I couldn’t stand the sight of the broken tail light any longer.

I removed some of the broken section of red lens, and removed the broken bulb, with a set of needle nose pliers. A new bulb was installed, and clear, red, plastic tape, made a new tail light lens.

I went in to the store without saying anything about the tail light. I often made long visits, looking through the book shelves, and shooting the breeze other customers, and the folks that worked there. It was fun for me knowing that the light was temporarily repaired and my friend didn’t have a clue.

I have been known to be something of a notorious, practical joker, and a prankster, well, infamous, really. The payoff on this “prank” came on my next visit to the store. I enjoyed finding out how my friend had been driving around, with a working tail light, and didn’t know it. She told me how another friend had brought it to her attention by saying “I thought that tail light wasn’t working.”

I never confessed to my good deed, merely, enjoying the fun of it. Over the years I have been in on, and the author of, a number of pranks, some of them dangerous, but this one, was on the top of my list as the most fun. It had the same payoff as a prank, because, the person on the receiving end, didn’t have a clue. I also received the enjoyment, and satisfaction, of helping a friend, and keeping her out of trouble with the law.

This was a change for me, as most of my pranks were good for getting someone else into trouble.

What immediately came to mind when I read this prompt was Son Bathing. No, that wasn’t one of my usual typos.

I am thinking of Eucharistic Adoration. The contemplation of our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. “This is my body, which I give for you,” and “If you do not eat my flesh, you will have no life in you.”

A specific session of Son Bathing stays with me. It was at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery.

After sitting in the the adoration chapel for two, or three hours, visiting with the Lord, time had altered, somehow. The long visit seemed to last only a half of an hour, or so, as if visiting a place of no time or space. The physical body resting here in the corporeal world, and the spirit, in the world to which it belonged, outside of time.

The remarkable experience was savored on the walk up, the hill, to the parking lot. The air above the monastery grounds became filled with the beautiful songs of the Heavenly adoration. The singing in a language not recognizable as any from Earth, not in our sense of language, more like musical tones. The tall pine trees seemed to be filled with it.

The car door closed, the engine started, and the beautiful singing was gone. A parting gift from a visit with the Lord of All Creation.

I often reflect on a story of a church janitor, told by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. The janitor, an old black man, told him of his experience at Eucharistic Adoration; He said, “Sometimes I just sits, and looks at him, and he just looks back at me.” That is the supernatural faith, of a simple man, a free gift from God.

People may doubt, and theologians may argue, but in the end, it is all about that kind of faith.

I’ll see you again tonight

To guide me with your waning light

Until you come again anew

What came to my mind was someone fantasizing about how their death would affect their friends and loved ones. I like to pass on morbid, narcissism when ever possible.

I decide to put on my detective hat and find out about Czeslaw Milosz. It turns out that he was a very interesting person after all.

I still don’t know much about him, and wouldn’t presume to write like him, if I could. I will just leave one of his poems here for you to decide.

Song on the End of the World by Czeslaw Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through fields under their umbrellas
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world there will be,
No other end of the world there will be.

You can read more of his work here.

Light beamed in through a single, round, stained glass window, above the alter. The primary color in the glass was blue with a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, in the center. The blue light beam cast angular shadows past square columns and reflected off white walls.

The building was constructed of concrete blocks,with no art work, or padding on the kneelers. It was simple and plain like the lives of the poor, humble, monks cloistered in the monastery there.

It was the life that I was drawn to, a simple life of work, and prayer, the Rule of St. Benedict. I have learned that if we do not hold to our calling we most certainly can be unhappy. A monk living in the world stays in conflict with it. “Remember, if the world does not love you, it didn’t love me first.”

God would lower himself and become man, in the person of Jesus, in order to raise man up to God. This caused scandal as, in the order of creation, the Angels were created in a higher state of being than man. Man could then be on equal, or higher, status than Angels, and the Angels would serve, God in human form, in the completion of God’s plan.

Satan refused to serve a being created lower than himself through pride, Satan, and his followers, rebelled with the statement “I will not serve.” St. Michael, who’s name means “Who is like unto God,” stepped forward, waged war with Satan, and cast him from heaven.

When we refuse to serve we are serving self and the pride of self.

Sunday afternoon meant gathering with your family for a supper of fried chicken and eating water melon on the back porch. After supper everyone would gather on the front porch chatting, telling stories, and waving to neighbors passing on the street.

Gospel music would play on the radio; “In the sweat by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore,” with some of the old folks singing along. Sundays were a happy time of leisure when you gathered with, and enjoyed the company, of others.

The Staff Sergeant, myself, and two others, chose to the dig in a large, but old, fox hole fighting position. Time had filled the hole in and washed away the old parapet. While we worked, digging the hole out, I wondered who the former tenants had been. The country was very old and was marked by many battles from long before.

The NCOIC, the Staff Sergeant, shouted “I’m done, I’ve had it.” He threw down his e-tool and began to rant about how the Army had screwed him over. He had been passed over for promotion the past two times. He resented how he had been treated after all that he had done for the Army and he was being held back because he couldn’t read. He had been a troubled youth from New Jersey and had moved back and forth from homes and reformatories.

He was going to show them, they weren’t going to cheat him out out of his retirement. All he had to do was re-up one more time, and change his MOS, and he could coast out the rest of his time as a fat old Motor Sergeant in the States. He threw down his steel pot, and helmet liner, and stormed off, stomping, and kicking at imaginary obstacles.

The rest of the day was spent filling sand bags and moving dead falls to reinforce our fighting hole. The finishing touches were put on the kill zone; trip flares and booby trips in the tree line, and claymores around the AO. The heat of the day had been harsh and the night would bring some relief from the heat. The night would also bring with it the mosquitos and unknown terror.

This is an ambush, there is no smoking, or talking. Sitting in the dark, moonless night, anxiety began to set in. Something more than butter flies in the pit of the stomach, more like some thing fighting to get out. The darkness of the night taking on it’s own life; did that shadow just move, or was it a trick of tired, blood shot eyes? Each sound becomes the step of someone in the forest, the rustle of tree branches, the noise of insects,with the whisper of the wind, voices.

Just as fatigue was about to take over, and much needed sleep began to set in, a trip flare went off in the tree line, followed by the explosion of a booby trap. Red tracer rounds flew into the tree line as green tracers made their reply. Ariel flares lit the kill zone with an unnatural light, creating a surrealistic scene, of dancing shadows, and human silhouettes across the field.

The gnawing sensation in the gut, and the fatigue departed. The senses became sharp and the weeks of combat training took over. The higher self somehow separated from the lower corporeal self and stood aback as an impartial, uninterested observer, looking down in vague recognition at the man firing short controlled bursts at the silhouettes emerging from the tree line.

An explosion went off near the fox hole, with a blinding flash, and a deafening crash.The vaguely familiar man, laying back in the fox hole, is regaining his night vision. He holds up his left hand to inspect the the skin and flesh hanging from it. Looking past the hand, standing outside of the hole, bare headed and without a flack jacket is the Staff Sergeant.

The man that had sounded so much like a disgruntled Teamster, and had went away swearing not to lift a finger, had gone insane. He stood with both feet planted in the ground, firing his weapon from the hip,swinging it wildly from side to side. Above the noise of battle he could be heard yelling, “Die you mother fuckers, die”, and then, “I will kill you mother fuckers, I’ll kill ya.”

The Staff Sergeant had ran off again, swearing, and talking out of his head, as artillery began to work the kill zone, and explode in the forest. The higher, disembodied self looked at the bleeding hand, making an objective, and impersonal, assessment, while the corporeal, self bandaged it.

The explosions, and small weapons fire began to subside. The enemy force had been a small one and were gone as quickly as they had came. Random shouts and machine gun bursts began to to fade and the night began to take over once more. The spirit world rejoined with the physical and the gnawing in the gut returned,waiting, in anticipation of the morning.