Identity

(And OB! said)

One Sunday morning, several years ago, I stood alone in the sacristy of the inner city church I served in Houston, Texas, vesting for communion. I was having my usual argument with God about the way he was running the universe, while I put on layer after layer of vestments, all appropriate to liturgical renewal—collar, cassock, alb, amice, cincture, stole, and chasuble. And I felt miserable, because it seemed as if my life were falling apart.

For years I prayed fervently to God. I wanted clear, unambiguous answers to all my questions. I reasoned that if God wanted me to “get it,” he would speak to me in clear, simple terms, and I would not be confronted with multiple, conflicting claims to the truth. In the scriptures I thought I was promised that all I needed to do was knock, and the door would be opened. I was frustrated by the same response I got every time I asked, “God, who are you?” The Silence always seemed to answer back, “Who are you?”

So it was, on that particular Sunday morning, while I stood in the sacristy, mentally pounding on God’s door and demanding answers, as I looked at my reflection in the mirror to make sure my vestments were proper, neat and straight, the Door opened, and a voice spoke to me. I was stunned. The voice seemed to come out of the air, slightly behind and above my right shoulder. As I looked at my full, vested reflection in the mirror, the voice said, “You’re putting yourself on.”

What is important about that experience is not that I thought I heard a voice speaking out of thin air, but that I understood its clear, simple meaning. I knew at that instant I stood face-to-face with an important decision. So I chose. Beginning immediately with my vestments, I started taking my self off. That day I took an unexpected turn on my spiritual path—inward, through the open Door.