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.
On June 14, 1995, around two o’clock in the afternoon, I lowered my guard. I opened myself up just barely to the notion that there might be a God who cares about me in the same way that Jesus cared about, say, his friend Mary. I prayed—and in that split second of surrender, I felt my heart stir and grow warm, as if it were changing. It was a physical thing, exquisite, undeniable.
Years later, I would learn about a far more famous heartwarming. In 1738, the British Anglican minister John Wesley was flailing about in his ministry, his faith intellectually strong but spiritually comatose. On May 24, he attended a small meeting of charismatic Moravians, who were known for their recklessly joyous faith. At that moment, a door inside Wesley unlocked, emotionally, spiritually. That moment left a visceral fingerprint. Later, he wrote five words that captured the touch of God: “My heart was strangely warmed.”
So it was for me. The moment was seared into my memory, and later, when I wondered if I had really encountered God, that warmed heart acted like a Polaroid snapshot, confirmation that a spiritual transaction had indeed taken place.
I wish I could tell you that I was blinded by a piercing light, as Saul was on the road to Damascus. I wish I could that say I smelled roses, the aroma that mystics inhaled in the presence of God. I wish I could tell you that I heard a roaring in my ears, or words, perhaps, like the few simple, ghostly words that Augustine caught when he opened his heart to God. My encounter with the unseen was not nearly so dramatic—not then, at any rate—and yet that quiet moment whipped me around with hurricane force. It became the continental divide of my life, the line that separates “before” and “after.” In the next several weeks, the colors I saw were almost unbearably vivid—the cobalt Los Angeles sky at night, the husky green of the summer grass. Even the tan upholstery of my car was so gentle and calflike, I ached to touch it. Things I once enjoyed became dust in my mouth. I walked out of The Bridges of Madison County because I could not bear the pain on Meryl Streep’s face—she was an actor , for Pete’s sake, but I could not tolerate even fictional sadness.
And I was terrified by the implications of my decision. My family jokes that all truth can be found in the movies. Perhaps, perhaps not, but the most authentic spiritual moment I have witnessed is not in church but in the movie The Apostle . Robert Duvall plays a Pentecostal preacher who murders his wife’s lover and flees to Louisiana. He starts a new church, and his flamboyant, holy-roller sermons on the local radio station draw devout, poor, black parishioners.
No sooner has the dilapidated
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.
On June 14, 1995, around two o’clock in the afternoon, I lowered my guard. I opened myself up just barely to the notion that there might be a God who cares about me in the same way that Jesus cared about, say, his friend Mary. I prayed—and in that split second of surrender, I felt my heart stir and grow warm, as if it were changing. It was a physical thing, exquisite, undeniable.
Years later, I would learn about a far more famous heartwarming. In 1738, the British Anglican minister John Wesley was flailing about in his ministry, his faith intellectually strong but spiritually comatose. On May 24, he attended a small meeting of charismatic Moravians, who were known for their recklessly joyous faith. At that moment, a door inside Wesley unlocked, emotionally, spiritually. That moment left a visceral fingerprint. Later, he wrote five words that captured the touch of God: “My heart was strangely warmed.”
So it was for me. The moment was seared into my memory, and later, when I wondered if I had really encountered God, that warmed heart acted like a Polaroid snapshot, confirmation that a spiritual transaction had indeed taken place.
I wish I could tell you that I was blinded by a piercing light, as Saul was on the road to Damascus. I wish I could that say I smelled roses, the aroma that mystics inhaled in the presence of God. I wish I could tell you that I heard a roaring in my ears, or words, perhaps, like the few simple, ghostly words that Augustine caught when he opened his heart to God. My encounter with the unseen was not nearly so dramatic—not then, at any rate—and yet that quiet moment whipped me around with hurricane force. It became the continental divide of my life, the line that separates “before” and “after.” In the next several weeks, the colors I saw were almost unbearably vivid—the cobalt Los Angeles sky at night, the husky green of the summer grass. Even the tan upholstery of my car was so gentle and calflike, I ached to touch it. Things I once enjoyed became dust in my mouth. I walked out of The Bridges of Madison County because I could not bear the pain on Meryl Streep’s face—she was an actor , for Pete’s sake, but I could not tolerate even fictional sadness.
And I was terrified by the implications of my decision. My family jokes that all truth can be found in the movies. Perhaps, perhaps not, but the most authentic spiritual moment I have witnessed is not in church but in the movie The Apostle . Robert Duvall plays a Pentecostal preacher who murders his wife’s lover and flees to Louisiana. He starts a new church, and his flamboyant, holy-roller sermons on the local radio station draw devout, poor, black parishioners.
No sooner has the dilapidated
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