This Will Change Everything

And I mean everything.

If you’ve been reading you know now that at this point in the “miracle year”, I’ve moved to Austin, Texas by this point, am working in a haze of culture shock, have just moved into a beautiful new apartment and am occasionally rummaging through boxes of old letters and childhood artifacts. In addition, I have learned that in order to heal my belly of granite marbles I’ll need a machete. If this is your first time here, welcome! Just begin and I’ve given you some links below to help you get some backstory.

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There’s absolutely no way to tell you this story without including what comes next (and frankly what started from the beginning) though I could not know where it was leading. (What a sentence.) If you began with me allllll the way with The Agent of Change or have read some of the story about speaking with the vicar then you’ll know that much of this began with that huffy hoity toity comment about challenging Jesus to show himself to me. You will know that this Jesus Showing had already begun. But I was about to find out that this request did not only go unanswered, but had much more to show of “himself”, and was about to pay double for the gamble I’d challenged.

When I’d left the vicar, in addition to her parting prophecy, she’d told me that the Episcopal church was varied in how it appeared in different areas across the country. Some churches leaned heavily to the Catholic “flavor” if you will, with many high bells and smells, pomp, and ritual. On the other hand, many Episcopal churches, she informed, would feel completely opposite: protestant in feel and nature. No bells. No smells. A pulpit and some pews. I would need to do a little church shopping to find something that felt like what I’d been used to at St. John the Divine.

In the midst of teaching daily in my haze of change, freaking out about my personal uterine hell and the suspicion that something was up with my grandmother’s memory, I was seeking a new place to call my church home.

Within a month of Sundays, I found that in Austin, Texas there was nothing comparable, least of all, “divine” to behold the likes of the trillion-foot stadium of worship in New York. Joking aside, something that I couldn’t put my finger on was missing. Was it the cowboy boots the reverend wore in this one? Was it the country music in that one? Was it the lack of incense? Or the over-abundance of variety? Or was it the lack of form no matter where I attended? I at least was aware not to be quick to judge a congregation. I wasn’t really worried about that. It was something else.

Clearly these churches were an example of the protestant end of the spectrum of all things episcopal which meant little to me at the time.

Honestly, I didn’t know enough to have an opinion one way or another. I was not then, and admittedly not now a theologian or apologist and was pretty ignorant, excepting general knowledge, of the historical “great divorce” of the church. My family were a bunch of non-practicing Catholics going on fifty years now (if you count before I was born) and had a sort of laissez-faire approach to the Catholic DNA within, St. Anthony for a lost article or exclaiming “Jesus, Mary!” as my grandmother did when I was little. I remember once asking her: “Why do you always leave out Joseph?”

Point is: I was going by “feel” and the Great Assumption (for that would have to be capitalized in my family) that the worst possible thing I could do would be to step inside a Catholic Church. I was Episcopalian after all, wasn’t I? I’d been baptized and confirmed in that church and had a personal friendship through my spiritual director with it as well. (Did I mention that I was the only one in my family they didn’t baptize?)

Knowing all this, whatever I do, I will NOT step into the Catholic church directly next door of my new apartment complex within walking distance that I pass multiple times daily on the way to work and wherever else life takes me. It’s off limits. It’ll stir up you know what with my grandmother. Leave it alone. It goes under the “can’t” column. Put it out of mind.

Remember when I said there are many branches on the vine of this miracle year? Well I believe we’ve come to the crossroads where I’ll be traveling down one path, stop, U-turn and take another so you can have a view of the whole tree. How’s that for mixed metaphors? Then we’ll journey down the trunk again. So apologies if this feels like a story of tangents at this point. Stick with me. I’ll bring it all home.

Now we have a quick stop to give you a bird’s eye view of how God works to make all things come together according to plan.

My mother at the time had lived for years and years with a wonderful secure job in Irving, Texas about five hours north of Austin. We were both so happy to be living in the same state and to be able to see each other on a more regular basis than once or twice a “plane flight” year.

After I’d live round about a month in my new apartment, my mother called me with the very unexpected news that she’d been let go from her very secure job. It was a very strange occurrence and brought up all sorts of “what now” questions. Just as she was only on the brink of pondering her next steps, her now previous boss put her in touch with a colleague who needed services she could render…in Austin, Texas.

Yes.

Quite simply, she interviewed. She was hired. She moved into the same apartment complex! By August we were fifty paces from each other. And yes, we were very, very happy about it. It had been so long since we’d been anywhere living near each other.

As fall (or what is called “fall” in Texas for lack of another more appropriate word such as Moresummer) approached – I’ll just refer to it as September - and after my mother was settled in, we both began to learn about our new city. In addition, she came along with me in my Episcopal church search and agreed with me that, if her opinion was at all desired, these churches weren’t doing it for her either.

One day as we drove home, she asked me about the church next door.

“Why don’t we just go in there?” She asked.

I responded something illogical like “Because it’s Catholic and we can’t do that, right?” I mean I didn’t exactly say that but that was the subtext and the telepathic message in which we often communicated.

      “Let’s just go,” she simply stated.

Permission granted.

So the next Sunday we found ourselves at church…er… mass.

Do you know that feeling when you walk into a place, any place, and the sense of “home” just washes all over you?

That.

Inexplicable.

It wasn’t high bells and smells. It was a church made of Austin stone. The procession was small of three to four men. (Different feel from what I’d seen in St. John’s.) The congregation was full and hearty. But there was something very simple - humble - about it.

How do explain home? How do you explain the feeling of knowing that what you are experiencing is simply “yes”?

My mother began to cry within the first half of the first word of the first hymn.

Guess she was home, too. (She had memories I didn’t though. Memories of family attending mass together.) For me, it was just a yes. My shoulders dropped.

And there it was. Right next door to my home. Dang, God. You’re good at this.

So we began attending together as I continued my search for a doctor that could attend to me without disdain or a machete.

So let’s put some pieces together. A new home. My mother living nearby magically and unexpectedly. We are attending a Catholic church. I have a new job. What could possibly be in store?

A death.

This will change everything.