people are not bankrupt or suicidal or disabled from a terrible disease or accident. And yet, many people claim they have been bowled over by something they consider supernatural. For these people, the trauma that leads them to an encounter with God is softer—an aimlessness, or unexplainable hopelessness—the kind of despair that Sophy Burnham felt when she looked at her perfect life and said, Is this all there is?
A confession here: I have more than a clinical interest in understanding the prelude to dramatic spiritual experience. I want to know what happened to me.
And My Heart Was Strangely Warmed
I told you that I was assigned to write an article for the Los Angeles Times Magazine in June 1995. I did not tell you that at the time, my inner life was a sickening storm of misery. First, my career—always a bedrock of security and self-worth—tottered uncertainly. A year earlier, I had taken a leave from my eleven-year reporting career at The Christian Science Monitor for a fellowship at Yale Law School, and finally decided to leave the news business for good. I had received a book contract to write about Burma’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and was preparing to move to Rangoon, which almost everyone I knew thought was professional suicide.
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
A confession here: I have more than a clinical interest in understanding the prelude to dramatic spiritual experience. I want to know what happened to me.
And My Heart Was Strangely Warmed
I told you that I was assigned to write an article for the Los Angeles Times Magazine in June 1995. I did not tell you that at the time, my inner life was a sickening storm of misery. First, my career—always a bedrock of security and self-worth—tottered uncertainly. A year earlier, I had taken a leave from my eleven-year reporting career at The Christian Science Monitor for a fellowship at Yale Law School, and finally decided to leave the news business for good. I had received a book contract to write about Burma’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and was preparing to move to Rangoon, which almost everyone I knew thought was professional suicide.
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
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