I am not a loner. ..................................i am a soloist.
A MIRACLE......(true story.. flashback to 1982 ish)
When i graduated from college I had been feeling called to something in heaven, but i wasn't sure what it was supposed to look like on earth. I had ambition to accomplish something definite in the world and I was not interested in joining the religious life. The class that i graduated with was driving shiny company cars on their sales routes as i took a job in a Benedictine Abbey. I was very suspicious that the Lord had set a trap from which there would be no escape.
Sometimes I was angry. Why did I have to think about wearing a black robe filing in and out of prayers in a black robe. Christmas with a bunch of old men. No kissing wife and bubbly smiling kids. Pisssssed off, I prayed. Fasted, did penance. My family and anyone else who had allegedly "known" me either thought quietly (Paul is nuts or going nuts), or sometimes they said it to my face. I KNOW!!! THIS IS INSANE.
But I began to get used to it. The only thing was that I was getting my questions answered.
O.K.! If i have to do this ridiculous life because there is a heaven and a hell and someone should make some noise about it, or make a difference about it ....
Well at 22 or 23 and not really advisedly, i fasted and prayed until it was a habit and TRIED to listen for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, who seemed to me kind of mixed up sometimes.
So going around Cleveland Ohio, to have prayer times in quiet church after quiet church, and to prayer meetings of charismatics ....I found the search and the mission tiring.
I sat on the steps of Our Lady of Peace .... about 4 in the afternoon. And i was hungry.
"LORD! I'm hungry" I prayed out loud. Just then a sound inches from my side... on the cement steps...."thut." (actually "thut" is the sound I determined that a basketball makes when it goes through the net without touching the rim not "swish." But in this case the sound was actually more of a tht, but since there is no vowel in tht i am gonig to borrow thut.)
So when I heard this "thut" sound on the pavement beside me (actually tht, to be precise) I looked and saw this instantaneous answer to my prayer..."LORD, I'm hungry"
It was a crouton. O Great! Thank You Lord. A whole crouton. I wonder if I should eat it all in one bite or save it and eat it little by little for a few days. Or am I supposed to share it or something?
At least it was instantaneous. I wish all my prayers were answered that quickly. Except maybe for the sarcastic gripes and You don't have to answer those at all. Can you tell the difference?
What about if I disguise my voice and pray, will You answer me right away because of how much You like to hear from people you haven't heard from in a while?
Anyway thanks for the crouton.
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P.S. I'm sorry Lord... i don't mean to expose you as a hoax, but I'm going to tell anyone who reads this the WHOLE TRUTH about this incident.... ..
some time later, maybe a few days or weeks, I can't remember exactly... but someone had found these handyman ads that I had circulated (because I figured the Apostle Paul in my Bible didn't want to beg, rather earn his living with his hands) and they called me up and asked if I would broom a five gallon bucket of tar on a back part of the roof of their house)
Well this job was half a block from OUR LADY o f PEACE. and when I was up on the roof spreading the tar, i noticed the lady who owned the house put a little plate of diced bread out on the porch for the birds.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 miracle? I believe YOU anyway Lord, but I want to play electric guitar. is that o.k.?
2004 again
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Of kids i have worked with.....at age 12 it seemed they couldn't add two digits together without consulting me. At age 13 I think one of them has covertly obtained a Phd. Summa Cum Laude in Omniscience. At least it seems impossible that she can be taught anything.
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Some of my piano students' parents don't speak English that well. so the kids have to translate what I say sometimes because they don't know what I mean. Whether this is on purpose or not, the misunderstandings that come out can be peculiar.
When I say to the little girl...."Half of my pay ... is YOU being nice to me." Now I'm not sure what she says to her mom, but from the way she responds to me, I am sure this gets translated as ...."MOM, Paul wants more pay."
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The Catholic man that didn't think he could accept the challenge of religious vows.
So he married.
Then his wife taught him .....poverty, chastity and obedience.
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About in 1997 or 1998 when i came to Washington d.c. I was full of enthusiasm for doing
something in ministry. You do things like that when you are new somewhere. One idea was
Catholic Jihaad, to borrow an expression from a sword swinging religion. . I thought that Catholic Jihaad would be a great way to introduce Catholics to something radical .... like praying a little bit and admitting it. But alas it was too radical and ... scary.
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I went to a meeting of Eucharistic ministers. I don't like meetings. I like an empty church. It was on a Saturday morning in Rockville Maryland and it was scheduled to last from about 9 till noon or 1 p.m. As I was arriving there were a stream of cars pouring out of the parking lot as if a basketball game just ended. I learned that the speaker for the Eucharistic meeting was sick.
I wondered why everyone who was prepared to spend 3 or 4 hours listening to a man, didn't stop for a little while to listen to Jesus in the Eucharist. I didn't judge anybody. I got what I wanted. An empty church. Actually I noticed another Eucharistic minister, who had converted to Catholicism that stopped in to pray.
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