After all these many years for some reason I remember very vividly an experience I had as a teenager. As with many teenagers I was troubled. Being a very shy person, I found it difficult to fit in with the gregarious goings-on in high school. It seemed,at the time, that most everyone was having such a good time relating to each other and having fun. I had friends, to be sure, mostly on the tennis team, but when it came to the social aspect of the teenage community I felt extremely inadequate. I felt awkward and out of place. Wanting to date and relate on a social level for a very shy person can be a difficult situation. It creates an internal conflict that was not easily resolved. One night I was feeling particularly down about life and was looking for some relief. As many people do in trying situations, I felt the need to seek some solace in God.

I had been raised in a conservative Lutheran church. It was a relatively small church by today’s standards but still a vibrant and devout one. So on this particular night I decided to go to church. It was late in the evening on a week day and I figured no one would be there. So I got in my ‘54 chevy and drove to the church. This was the ’60s and our church was never locked. When I got to the church there were no cars in the parking lot, so I knew I could spend some private time in the sanctuary. In the Lutheran church, at that time, the sanctuary was a special place. Although as in all churches Sunday morning has a social element to it, when one enters the sanctuary in the Lutheran church things change. It is a holy place, set apart from the world. While there may be lots of talk and laughter outside this holy place, when one enters, it is like stepping across a threshold. The socializing ends and a different frame of mind sets in.

The same thing occurred to me that night. When I opened the door to the church it was dark. I didn’t turn on the lights but made my way to the doors of the sanctuary. As I entered the only light came from the altar. It was a soft light beaming down on the cross and the altar. I sat down near the back in all the quiet. As always it seemed to me that I had entered into a different world, a world of the sacred. As I experience my surroundings I did not feel a sense of ecstasy or joy for I was troubled. But instead I felt somehow comforted. I sat there for a long time not praying or meditating but merely looking at the dimly lit cross and altar. It helped. In some way deep within myself I felt that I was not alone and that God was with me in my distress. After I sat there for a while, I did pray to God to help me in my time of need. That prayer was not met with some striking religious experience, but rather a sense of connection with the divine. Being in that place by myself where I had felt the presence of the holy so many times in church services, it made me feel better. There were no easy answers to my troubled adolescent mind but, at least for a few minutes, I felt deeply loved and not alone. It was just one incident among many in my life where I would turn to God both in times of trial and times of joy. Although the sanctuary in churches remain a special place for me, that same sense of the holy has expanded into all places in life. It is not predictable but the holy grasps me from time to time in all of my comings and goings. When it does, it still speaks to a depth of life that is not matched by anything else. It rarely lasts long. More often it is like a brief and fleeting glimpse. A glimpse of what life is really about and can aspire to be. It both affirms and accuses. It points me to something deeper that can grasp life and create love, beauty, and meaning.