Late For Supper: The Testimony of Rob Evans

I was steaming up the airplane window with my tears. Eleven years old, I was waving at my dad with my tear-soaked handkerchief. He was standing in the terminal window, waving good-bye to me and to my little sister, Susie. She was sitting next to me, sniffling. They called me “Robbie”. It was August of 1964, at the end of a two-week visit with my dad, Jack Evans, his new wife Jeanne, and his new family in Buffalo , NY .

As the plane taxied away, I kept my face against the glass, pressing for a last glimpse of my dad. As we took off, I looked down numbly as the ground got smaller and smaller, and to my amazement, and brief joy, I saw my father's house, and yard, with kids waving towels over their heads! It was my step-sisters, Bonnie and Sandi, and their friends, waving up at us, hoping to wish us a final good-bye to our wonderful summer visit. I waved back, and then, smile fading, sat back in my seat for the flight back home to Philadelphia , to my mother, June, and her new husband, Jim Doughty.

Daddy Jim had been a Golden Gloves boxer, with busted hands and a broken nose to go with it. A big, dark, handsome man, he loved conquests, and my mother was one of them. She had been unhappy in her marriage to my father, later explaining to me that “your father loved his work at Westinghouse more than he loved me”. Jim must have sensed this vulnerability and exploited it when he met her at a party my parents attended together. My father's version of the divorce was that “he couldn't make my mother happy anymore”, and that “she had fallen in love with someone else”. During their separation my father came to the same conclusion when he met Jeanne. They married in July of 1962. My mother married Jim a month later, in August. Dad and Jeanne lived in our old house in Berwyn , PA , before their move to Buffalo . My mom and Jim moved across the Delaware River to a new house in Cinnaminson , New Jersey .

“I think my mother struggled with her emotions after the divorce. Years later told me she missed talking with my dad. That was why she couldn't handle seeing him, not even when he dropped us off after our visits with him. After a weekend visit, he would drive us over the Ben Franklyn Bridge to a diner on Rt. 130 in Cinnaminson , NJ , where Jim would meet us. My mom never came for us. One night, my dad took us on to our house after we had begged him to come see where we live. When we rushed into the house, saying “daddy's here, daddy's here!”, my mom got very upset. Daddy Jim rushed out to the car, and we followed him. He yelled at my father, pushed him back into the car, and told him to never come back. My dad wasn't as big as Jim, so we thought Jim was about to tear our daddy apart.

“Don't hurt my daddy! Don't hurt my daddy,” I screamed.

My sister Susie just shrieked. As my dad drove away, we ran into our bedrooms and buried our faces in our pillows. I remember my mother and Daddy Jim explaining something to me, but I don't remember what they said. We couldn't settle our emotions until we spoke to our dad and he assured us that he was all right.

Later that year dad moved Jeanne, her two girls and their new son Johnnie to Buffalo , NY for a job transfer with Westinghouse. That was around the time that I started keeping a calendar of my own design. Since we would only be seeing our dad two or three times a year now, I created a “countdown chart” that I would check off daily. I kept the chart next to a picture of my dad and his family. I counted the days until the next time I would see them again, number the boxes, and then check them off every day—180, 179, 178, 177. Oh, how I missed my dad.

I didn't blame my mom for these things. Not at all. We had all been charmed by Jim Doughty, this dynamic Hemingway-of-a-man, and I got a new little sister named Brydi. To know Daddy Jim was to be overwhelmed with a powerful and extraordinary personality. He drove a shiny-new blue Cadillac convertible with the white top down all year-long. He loved dancing, and we all did Chubby Checker's twist. We would turn the stereo up as loud as possible and sing Harry Bellefonte's “Daylight come and me want to go home”. Duke, our dalmatian dog, would howl along. My Mom loved it, and also added her flair. She was absolutely enthralled with the folk music movement of the early sixties. The Weavers, The Singing Nun, The New Christie Minstrels all played on the stereo when my mom had her way. I played air guitar in front of the stereo, and at night on my bed. I loved guitar in an organic kind of way. I already played guitar like a virtuoso—in my dreams. Daddy Jim and my mom saw this and heartily encouraged it. They got me several guitars, and faithfully took me for guitar lessons starting at age 12. Soon I was playing the Beatles, “Ticket to Ride”. I started writing my own songs not long after:

Jim also loved Latin dancing, everything Jamaican and everything the black culture had to offer. Ray Charles was #1 with us. “Baby what I say? Baby what I say?” We would twist and jive and sing at the top of our lungs. Baby Brydi clapped along. Jim's passion for life was contagious. I soon loved all of these things too! Over the next four years his passion carried us out to a lakefront home in Medford , NJ , where we would sail passionately and dive off the dock passionately and ice-skate in the winter until we dropped.

And I guess it was passion that carried Daddy Jim into an affair with a black woman whom he wanted to marry, but my mom would not grant him a divorce. In order to get what he wanted, I guess he concluded he would have to remove some of the comfortable feathers from our lakefront nest. So he tacked-up pictures of black women from Ebony magazine all over the house, and threatened us with harm if we touched one of them. I tried to lock him out one night, but he kicked down the door. It was a siege. I soaped his car windows solid with soap on Mischief Night. He asked me if I knew how it happened. I told him I did not. My mom finally gave him a divorce in 1968. He later divorced that woman as well. She responded by committing suicide. Needless to say, my world was not a stable one. So, like others of my generation, I looked for “a little help from my friends”.

Woodstock in 1969 was my siren-song. I was only 16. I was just a bit too young to get myself up there so, instead, I let my hair grow as long as my mother would allow. I learned to smoke pot with my a young neighbor, and I learned every song I could from the Woodstock album. I sang a mean Joe Cocker. In time, I would team up with three other musicians to create a band we called “Cheese Bozax”. We got that name from a friend of ours, who came out of the woods after three days on LSD and that was all he could say, “cheese bozax”. It was our own secret little joke. But then the joke was on us when our high school gym coach found himself the master of ceremonies for the 1969 Lenape High School Battle of the Bands. He miss-pronounced our name and said it like it was French or something. “And here they are, Chez Bozay. All the cool we had planned for was up in smoke, in more ways than one.

Peer-pressure being what it was, we had to change the name of our band as soon as possible. We settled on something a little more psychedelic, Cerebrum. By 1970 we were getting really good, and actually won some of the regional Battles of Bands, with prize money and trophies, and most importantly, recognition of my compositions. We were aghast at the bands that would win playing Steppenwolf's “Born To Be Wild” for the seven millionth time while we were playing my very own, obviously intellectually and melodically superior, original rock opera compositions. To our fury, when we returned the next year to Lenape High School gymnasium as Cerebrum, (fresh from winning a State-wide competition), the same gym teacher who butchered our name the year before, took a look at us preening in our jeans and rawhide vests, read our band name on the card, chuckled, and introduced us: “And now here they are, Labotomy.” To identity deficient teens who viewed Music as their solace, comfort, identity and family, this offense was unforgiveable. ”Time to egg his car”, we thought. But he was our gym teacher; therefore much bigger than us.

By 1970 the searing, constant pain of missing my dad had been replaced with a mere, constant longing. He and Jeanne lived in Pittsburgh now, and were so happy! To add to their happiness, they had another son, named Danny. Susie and I would now fly to Pittsburgh , where my dad had advanced to top management in Westinghouse. I absolutely adored John and Dan, my little brothers, and since I only saw them a couple times a year, I would play with them by the hour, and squeeze in some guitar practice when they got tired of flushing toilets in darkened bathrooms¦ We called that game submarine warfare. I would turn on the sink, flush the toilet and yell, ”dive, dive”.

Back with my mom in Medford , NJ., Kahlil Gebran, Hinduism, and drugs were as common as air and water. I read Siddhartha and got high. Pot and LSD were the other members of our group. All of our friends, associates, band members, and even my sister Sue puffed away.

My mom had to pick me up at the police station once for being drunk, and defend me in court for complaints about noise from the band. But mostly I managed to stay beneath the radar; I was pulling down good grades, had a prize winning band, and played guitar around the clock. Besides, mom was dating again. His name was Gil Hubley, and he had four kids; Mike, Debbie, Danny, and Roxanne. Mom announced she was going to marry Gil in May of 1970. It just so happened that her wedding to Gil was to be at Medford First Presbyterian Church on the Saturday immediately after our junior class trip to Hershey Amusement Park .

Great , I thought, A day off of school on a Friday!

So, the Thursday night just before the class trip, I spent the night with friends dropping acid and smoking hashish. We were going to stay awake, and spend the whole night “getting ready” for the class trip. Around midnight, with our minds totally warped and hallucinating, we hopped in my friend'sVolkswagen Beetle (with a canvas hatch roof) and drove around wherever the mood led us. We decided to head up Rt. 70 to the Marlton circle to get some gas, all along laughing our heads off. There was a hitch-hiker with his thumb out. He looked like he could have been one of us--long hair, jean jacket and split-out knees--so we picked him up. He squeezed into the back-seat directly behind me. We passed him a lit joint. As he exhaled he thanked us profusely for picking him up and asked us if we wanted to take him to a party in Philly.

“Sure!”, we said.

He continued to explain that he had just walked away from the low-security state facility east of us where he was being held on minor charges.

He laughed, and said, “If they only knew what I really done.”

He then proceeded to talk about a murder he had committed and how he had carved the body up into pieces. The other guys in the car roared with laughter and groaned at the gory parts as if it was a cheap horror flick. I was, on the other hand, horrified and with the LSD coursing through my mind, it was as if every detail of the murder was actually my own murder. The pleasure and detail he took in describing it, was as if Satan-himself was gloating behind me.

Just then, we pulled into the garish light of the Shell station at the circle. Our driver, Neil, slid back the canvas roof of the Beetle, stood on his seat, up through the open hatch and crowed expansively to the attendant with a fake cockney accent, “Fill ‘er up, me good man, just Fill ‘er up.” As he plopped down on the seat, everyone laughed. I simply got out of the car and started walking away. Neil jumped back up through the car-roof and said,

“Where are you going? Don't you want to go to the party?”

I just shook my head, and said, “I'm going to go back to your house. And with that I started walking back the way we came, east on Rt. 70. It was a relief to be out of the car, but the blackness, the on-coming headlights and the LSD all combined for a very disorienting walk through space and time. Attempting to focus, I started to meditate on Siddhartha and the “peace at the river” that this Hindu mystic also sought. As I trudged along the side of the road, I started humming “Wade on the Water” (by who?) but put new lyrics to it.

”Peace by the river, peace by the river.”

It was at about that point the police car's red light went on just as the spot-light shined on my face. It might as well have been a punch in the face, for what it did to my brain. A voice from behind the light said, “Where are you going?” As my eyes adjusted a bit, I could make out the outline of the “Marlton mountie” as we so irreverently called the local constables.

”I'm going to the river,” I said, mystically.

“You're going to the station,” he said with coffee on his breath.

The back door of the patrol wagon opened and I climbed onto a green vinyl, vomit-proof seat, with a cage in front of me. The two policemen kept the light on so that they could keep an eye on me. Their conversation confused me, and reignited the panic that I had just fled in the Beetle. Wild-haired and wild-eyed, my appearance prompted the officer to ask the obvious: “What are you on? Come on, you're on something. Pot? LSD?”

Guilt, fear and drug-inflamed confusion sawed-away at my remaining sanity. I could only manage to say, “Take me to jail, just take me to jail.” I said it over and over again.

Over the next couple of hours I was processed through the local jail, and then taken to the County facility in Burlington , where I slept off my high in a room full of men on cots covered with more vomit-proof green vinyl. While my classmates were riding the roller coaster at Hershey Park , I was riding a cold cot in the county jail. It took about a day, but my mom used her honeymoon money to get my $2,500 bail together. I got out in time to go home, shower, put on some nice clothes, and go to First Presbyterian Church in Medford with my guitar to sing in a very small private ceremony for mother and her third husband. The song was “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” by Peter, Paul and Mary. 

Mom and Gil were building a new home for their combined families that required that Sue, Brydi and I move in with Gil's four kids in a three-bedroom house over in Rancocas Woods , NJ . The problem was that my sister Sue did not wish to be so “combined”. So in the summer of 1970, while we were visiting with my dad in Pittsburgh , she decided to make the move and simply announced to my mom, over the phone, that she was going to stay in Pittsburgh , and to “please send her stuff”. I envied her living with Dad, Jeanne, and the gang, but I was just about to enter my senior year of high school, and I was already accepted at Rutgers University . It just about broke my mother's heart to have Sue jump ship, but mom understood that Sue was not about to become a Hubley so she let it go.

I returned to Rancocas Woods at the end of that summer understanding that my mom needed me. Besides, I only needed to sleep in the basement with Mike and Danny for a year while the new house was being built over on Centennial Lake . A little pot once in a while, a good reading light and stereo headphones hooked up to Jethro Tull would get me through that. My band was dynamite and getting better by the day; Cerebrum kept winning prizes; I was elected class musician. The most serious thing that happened that year, as far as I was concerned, was that my Guild Starfire V electric guitar was stolen from a gig in Camden . So I opted to go the acoustic route with a Martin D-35 with a spruce top, ebony neck, and Brazilian rosewood-back. Little did I know then that the theft would be providential as “Martin” would be my companion for the next thirty years.

I studied finger-picking and acoustic guitar styles constantly until I could play albums by ear: Doc Watson, James Taylor, Tom Rush, Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, Hot Tuna, Paul Simon, Bert Jansch and for my band (what does this mean “my band”? Did you dream about playing for them?), The Moody Blues. Graduation summer I hitch-hiked to the Jersey Shore with my guitar to play in a coffee house to deafening applause and where, unknowingly, I entertained a beautiful young woman who would later enter my life in a forever kind of way.

Rutgers University in the fall of 1971 was exciting at first, and then quite lonely. I was to begin a two year journey of study, songwriting, party and a some more dabbling in existensialism, but something happened on the way to frat house. As I sought to write songs that were meaningful, it was dawning on me that my life was not. I saw a sign—in what I now believe was both a literal and spiritual sense.

“The Psychology of Christ: A Lecture. Hmm. That looks interesting , I thought. It was advertised in The Targum , our school paper. The ad appealed to me because it appeared to address a question mark in my life with an intellectual approach. Yeah, what about Jesus? , I thought. I had been reading Nietzsche, Sartre and Plato, and even had a copy of Will Durant's History of Western Civilization next to my bed. I hadn't even thought about Jesus in years. I couldn't remember the last time I went to church.

So, I climbed on the campus bus the next night, walked into Miller Hall at the appointed hour. There was no one there yet. I checked the door, and the lecture was posted for that room. I was even a little late. So I sat in the back row, near the door, checked my watch, and waited.

A fellow in his mid-twenties came in with short hair, a white shirt and tie. He stood at the lecturer`s podium, got out his notes, and proceeded to talk about the Psychology of Christ in a speaking-style that would have been appropriate, had he actually been addressing a room full of people. The problem was that I was the only person in the hall. After about forty-five minutes, he finished up, and walked past row after empty row to me sitting in the back. I shook his hand, thanked him, and assured him that I would certainly be bringing my friends next time. I rode the campus bus back to my dorm. And to this day, I cannot for the life of me, remember even one word that was spoken.

During the summer of ‘72, I was, gratefully, out of the Hubley basement in Rancocas, and into my own bedroom in our new house at Centennial Lake , NJ . It was just down the street from the house that Jim and mom had built in ‘67. I think mom and Gil liked the area. They certainly didn't like each other. Gil was cold to mom, cold to me, adored his youngest daughter Roxanne, and chastised his other children with various “helpful” discipline. I just avoided the family as much as I possibly could. I really wanted to buy a car, so I was working my tail off at a local construction site, clearing trees day in and day out with a chain-saw. I also shoveled hot asphalt by the hour. By mid-August, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I couldn't believe what I saw. This 6' 4”, 165 lb. weakling had packed on 20 lbs. of pure muscle--185lb and ripped, not an inch to pinch. I felt like a Greek god.

Over that summer, Gil's cold animosity toward my mom drove her to distraction and she confided in me her fear and dismay. She said he had threatened her. She had hired a private detective. I saw him sweeping in the garage one day and sized him up. He was maybe, 5', 9” or so--155 pounds, tops. I seized the opportunity to set things straight.

“You're tough with women. How do you do with men?”, I asked sincerely.

“What?” He was stunned.

I looked down at Gil's immaculate garage floor and imagined him lying on it, rubbing his jaw.

”You and me. Here, now.”. I had been digging in the garden with my shirt off, was wet with sweat, and was absolutely furious with the little worm. My fury grew by the second. I would have squashed him. And he knew it. He wisely did not take the bait from the raging son of his new wife.

“I'm not going to fight you,” he said levelly.

I literally begged him. “Come on. Please. It would be good for the family.” I mocked.

“This doesn't concern you,” Gil said softly.

“Oh yes it does. You hurt my mother? I hurt you. It's that simple”.

Gil walked away and into the house. Shortly after, my mom came out to me in the yard and said, “I appreciate what you tried to do honey, I really do. But it didn't help. I think you should go away for a while.”

“OK, I'll go to dad's.”

Mom nodded, so I showered, packed a bag, stuck out my thumb at around seven at night, and even though I was an accomplished hitch-hiker, I'm quite certain that I then broke all records for hitch-hiking, for all time. Just a block from my home, within five minutes of walking away, I caught a ride—one ride—all the way from Medford , NJ to the Wexford exit of the Pennsylvania turnpike, north of Pittsburgh , just ten miles from my dad's home. Within fourteen hours of walking out of my Mother's door, I was walking into my father's house in Pittsburgh . Jeanne was shocked to see me as I non-chalantly walked through their door. The fact that she didn't just drop dead from the shock of seeing her bushy-haired, huge, and very hungry step-son just walk through the door unannounced was, and remains a credit to her. I told her what happened and she understood. She called my dad at work and they prepared a bed for me. That day I played with my brothers, caught up with my sisters. Five days or so later my mom called and said things had cooled down, and that I could come home. My dad put me on a plane, and my mom picked me up at Philadelphia airport the first week of September, 1972. Things had not only cooled down, but had become remarkably better. Miraculously better. And it was all because of “Chee-sus”.

Re-discovering Jesus

“While I was in Pittsburgh , my mom confided her family-woes to a friend of hers, Lily Hohns, over at the local swimming-hole, Mimosa Lake . While my little sister Brydi, played in the brown, cedar-colored water with Lily's daughter, my mom told Lily her tale of marital misery, and about my muscle-flexing response. That's when Lily told my Mom about “Chee-sus”.

Lily Hohns was a beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde-haired Christian who had been born in Latvia , raised as a Pentecostal, knew the Bible cover-to-cover, and was one of the prayer-warriors in the Gospel Temple of Philadelphia pastured by a man named John Poole. Her endearing way of saying the named Jesus has, as you see, stayed with me to this day.

“There is absolutely nothing that ‘Chee-sus' cannot heal”, Lily said to my mom with her crisp Latvian accent. “I will be praying for you, June, and for your family.”

Lily meant what she said. Binding satan and loosing God's power with all of the authority that the Word of God had bestowed upon her, Lily not only prayed for our family, but introduced mom to one of the associate pastors of Gospel Temple , Dennis Corrigan. He and his wife, Robin, lived just two miles from us in Lake Pine , NJ . They met with my mother and prayed with her. She was quite impressed with their kindness, and concluded that I would be interested in his take on Christianity, his intellect and his huge library.

On the way home from the airport, my om told me what had happened in those short, few days I had been gone. She suggested that I might like meeting with Dennis too.

“He reminds me of you”, she said. “He's quite an intellectual.”

My mother knew how to bait the hook. She saw my books and knew I had always been a voracious reader. I called Dennis right away and made an appointment for the next afternoon around five. I thought about Jesus-stuff all the next day, and made a long list of issues I wanted to discuss. At the appointed hour, my mom took me the back way from Centennial Lake to Lake Pine and dropped me off. There was the Volvo in the driveway Dennis told me to look for. I knocked on the door and Dennis answered. He was about thirty, with penetrating brown eyes, and a kindly expression. About to buy my own car, I said, “How do you like your Volvo?” He dug the keys out of his pocket, and in a few moments, Dennis Corrigan soon discovered that I had never driven a stick-shift before.

“More gas, ease the clutch.” We jerked suddenly toward the house and stalled. Dennis laughed.

“Try it again. Clutch-in. Reverse is here.”

He helped me engage reverse, and we shook and jerked out of his driveway in an automotive epileptic-fit. In just a few minutes, with a total stranger as Coach Volvo, I was sold on Volvos. A Volvo would definitely be my first car. Back in his driveway, we stopped, and sat in the quiet for a moment. I broke the silence with, “Tell me about this philosophy of yours.”

His eyes fixed on mine and he said, “I'd be glad to. Let's go in.”

We walked into the house, which was filled with a wonderful aroma. His wife Robin had been baking, and met me in the kitchen with a bright-eyed greeting and an offer of fresh-baked bread and coffee. Two little girls, one about four, the other about two, were playing on a thread-bare carpet in the sparsely-furnished living room.

“Terra, Shannon , come say hi,” their daddy said kindly. The little ones ran by waving. To say they were happy would be an understatement.bI followed Dennis upstairs to his quiet attic office. We sat across from each other. He looked at me. I looked at him. At age 19, I thought I had most of the answers. I was soon to dawn on me that I did not.

Barely able to control my condescending tone, I sighed, patted a Bible sitting on a near-by table, and said,”Really now. Look me right in the eye and tell me that you actually believe these fairy tales. Adam and Eve? Resurrection? Virgin Birth?” Dennis leaned toward me slightly, looked me right in the eye, and said simply, “I do.”

I sat back with body-language that demanded an explanation. Dennis continued: “Try to think of it this way. If God wanted to come to earth, and be one of us, why wouldn't he do something special? Don't you think that a virgin birth be the perfect way to do it?”

I had never thought about it that way. Then he said, “Once upon a time there was a little boy watching his father plow the field. He saw that his father's tractor was going to run over an ant-hill. The little boy wanted to warn the ants.So he became an ant!”

I sat back in my chair. Of course! Now it made even more sense. Jesus was born of a Virgin. I get it. God became a baby so he could talk to me, I concluded.

Dennis saw my hard negativity start to fade. He elaborated: “After a Virgin Birth, a Resurrection isn't that hard to imagine, is it?”I shook my head with a different kind of disbelief now. I couldn't believe that I was starting to believe! What Dennis was saying was absolutely logical, in an absolutely impossible way. And this sucker wasn't even breaking a sweat!

Wait a second , I thought. A life-time of skepticism shouldn't be, couldn't be, so easily swept aside. So I came back at him with another suspicion-laden question. “What about Adam and Eve?” Dennis matter-of-factly said, “A complicated story, told simply enough for child to understand. God made them. God loved them. They disobeyed God. They hid from God. God looked for them. And God now looks for us.”

My heart was beating faster. A new fountain of joy was starting to bubble inside of me. I wanted to believe in God, I really did. But there was one last hurdle that had been carefully constructed in my mind after many hours of studying philosophy in my dorm-room at Rutgers . I hit him with a question that I expected would keep him busy for the next hour:

“Nietzsche, Sartre, Socrates, Plato. What about them?”

“They're dead,” he said.

I knew the rest. And Jesus is alive , I thought to myself, nodding, exhaling slowly.

Just then, Robin called up to us: “Dennis, can the girls come up and say good night?”

“Of course! Send them up”, he said. And his two little girls came up, all bathed, hair combed. “Good night”, he said, giving each of them a kiss on the cheek. The attic smelled faintly of flowers from their shampooed hair. The little one, Shannon, shyly looked back at me as she went back to her mom. Terra smiled at me before she disappeared down the stairs.

I looked at Dennis smiling back at them. There was something about that moment, their sweet kisses, Robin's voice. I thought about our talk and the countless books behind him, all over the walls. It struck me that Dennis had much more than any book could teach. Not only was my mind captured by his heavenly logic, but even more, it was in that moment, that brief, eternal moment, that I believed. Hope dawned on me like sunshine dawning on the face of a prisoner who had given up ever seeing a sunrise again. There is Peace. There is Joy. There is Love. There is God.

Dennis dropped me off at my house that night, he said, “You might want to think about being baptized.” I told him I would, and that I would call. As Dennis' headlights faded down our drive I realized that despite my attempts at debating him, there was something in Dennis I had never seen before and I wanted it: peace, confidence and Faith.

Lily Hohns called the next day to ask me how my talk with Dennis had gone.

“Great”, I said.

“Would you like to go to church with Murray and me?”, she asked.

That night I attended a Pentecostal prayer meeting at Highway Tabernacle, with guest Pastor Ern Baxter preaching. He paced back and forth on the stage, preaching about how they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. And I actually understood what he meant! Then, before we left the auditorium, everyone sang a wonderful song I had never heard before in a lovely minor key,

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, We pray that our unity will one day be restored, Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love.” The song ended with everyone rocking gently back and forth, arms around each other. I walked up to Mr. Hohns for my ride home and said, “I want that. I want this. This is what I have been looking for. This is it.”

I spoke to my mom about how I wanted to become a Christian, and that I wanted to be baptized. She said that she did too. So, I called Dennis and set we a date to be baptized. School was starting again and I had to go back up to New Brunswick to set up my dorm-room. This time, instead of being an old pit of loneliness, I was buoyant. Since I really didn't know any Christian songs, I started singing popular commercials with new meaning. Instead of “Coke is it”, I sang, “Christ is it! Na-na-na-naaâ, na-na-na-naaaa!” over and over again. I bought a Bible and started reading the book of John.

I drove down from Rutgers in my new old 1966 Volvo at the appointed hour. On 5 p.m. September 6th, 1972, my mother and I were baptized together in Lake Pine , NJ . As Dennis and I stood in that cedar-brown water, and prayed for me, I knew in my heart that Jesus did indeed love me. And as he plunged me backwards into the water, in “the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, I came out of that water a new creation. The old had passed away and the new had come. My true life's journey had begun.

Those Darn Catholics Had it Figured Out All Along or “Why the Incarnation Made Me Catholic”

In the 34 years as a Christian, but before I became Catholic, I taught children that the authority of Christ begins with the fact that He is the God who made all things. I taught that Genesis, Chapter 1 leads us to John, Chapter 1, which teaches that “The Word that made all things has become Flesh and dwelt among us”. This reality explained the amazing things that God and Mary's son, Jesus, did and said. As C.S. Lewis said, “If you can swallow the incarnation, the resurrection is cake”. The apostle Paul grasped this significance as he pointed out in his first chapter of Romans, that “if you look at the things God has made, that you will see His Character revealed as well”.Hence, all created things, like water, wood, blood, flesh, bread, wine, and light reveal Christ's character.

The Catholic Church is not at all reluctant to elevate the meaning of these simple substances found in our physical life. Take the bread and wine used in the Eucharist, for example. It would follow, that the transubstantiation of the Eucharist is a Catholic doctrine that quite unapologetically equates the bread and the wine with Christ's very own Body and Blood. The doctrine of Transubstantiation of the Eucharist quite brazenly and wonderfully points to a meaning that really is trans-substance--“beyond what a substance appears to be”. In short, if God can become man, it means that the fleshly world is not merely an accident, or something to be tolerated. Rather, it is is “very good”, as Genesis tells us. I have come to find out that it is the very means through which He is bringing about the salvation of men—fleshly, fallen creatures that we are.

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is proclaimed in the Mass as the touch-stone of renewal; with His death and resurrection being the method He has chosen to remove sin and death from our lives, so that we can join with our Creator in His reassertion that “It is good”. Yes, we believe as Protestants believe that nature is fallen. But we do not believe it is totally corrupted. As Catholics, we easily and correctly celebrate the goodness of the created world and are not at all shy or reluctant to include created, sensual things into the celebration of life and into the worship of the people of God toward their God. Such a world view (and, I would contend, biblical view) results in a church that includes the use of wine and water, candles and incense, costumes and color. It engages physical actions (such as blessing ourselves with holy water) so that the believer is reminded daily of the new, cleansed reality we now enjoy as born-again, children of God. In a very child-like way, the believer is also invited to participate in the re-telling of the Gospel story by participating in the physical actions surrounding the mystery of the Eucharist in our kneeling and procession, and in our participating in the priestly offering of the sacrificial host to Father.

I believe that the authority and reality of the seven Catholic sacraments flow from Christ Himself and, therefore, are not just mere man-made traditions. How could I resist an organization that glorifies the incarnation of God and sacrifice of Christ in such an audacious, child-like and literal fashion? “This is my body broken for you.” The Catholic Church does not limit it to a mere meal, nor a tool for evangelization, nor a mere symbolic joyful meditation, nor just a celebration of community. As the reality of the Eucharist hit me full-force, I was logically impelled to consider Christ's authorship of the other sacraments and the way they “hang together” and function together as a sacramental orchestra, if you will.

As this truth dawned upon my soul (particularly about the sacrament of Holy Orders), I had to fall on my knees and repent of my ignorance and, truthfully, Protestant prejudice, in my rejection of the idea of apostolic succession. Simply put, I had to consider the fact that there has been two thousand years of Catholics that have gone before me. Through this reflection on the believers on past generations, I joyfully opened my heart and welcomed all the communion of saints whom I had openly rejected throughout the previous 30 years. I cannot tell you the profound, almost giddy joy I have had on numerous occasions in thinking about my Catholic brothers and sisters in heaven—Peter, Paul, John, and, yes, Mary. The fact that the saints are alive and well in heaven, and praying for me, Rob Evans, gave me a peace and a joy that made me want to talk to them, to include them in my daily walk. I asked for their prayers and believe they are intercessing for me and my family this very day.

When asked recently by a report the reason why I decided to make this conversion, I shared with him the image of the traditional symbol for justice—the blind-folded woman holding a scale. I shared that I had really struggled to be fair as I weighed and considered the past 30+ years of my Christian experience. I asked myself, “How could I walk away from the church that brought worship and praise, practical Bible-application, and a ‘personal relationship with Jesus Christ' into my life?” Of all the answers that flowed through my head, I think the sobering reality of the many family divorces rose to the top of the heap. Being a child of divorce actually helped me to differentiate between motives and methods. For example, my parents were motivated by “love”, but divorce was the method that they chose to pursue it. And the results were very mixed: Sure, I received new half-brothers and half-sisters from my parent's new marital unions, and for that I rejoice. I also was removed from homes where the undercurrent was not healthy for anyone considering marriage in the future. But my experience of “family” suffered, as the dysfunction that accompanied their divorces manifested itself.

So it goes with the Protestant paradigm. It is an historical fact that the fathers of the Protestant experience. The 16 th century Christian protesters proclaimed their love of Jesus Christ and, in the process, ‘divorced' themselves from the Catholic Church. Their new doctrines of personal union with God through faith-alone and the Bible-alone produced spiritual children, to be sure, but they were children who knew little of their glorious family history. As with any divorce, some things fall by the wayside. The problem is, those things that fell by the wayside were the very heart and lifeblood and ‘glue', so to speak, that would keep the family together. Without a family meal that can truly satisfy—the Eucharist; without a means to heal the soul on a regular basis through an objective means—Reconciliation; without the extraordinary graces of spiritual ‘fathering' that comes with Holy Orders, we were a family destined for serious dysfunction. And, despite the extraordinary faith and efforts of millions of Protestant believers over the past 500 years, the simple fact is that the Protestant family keeps divorcing and divorcing and divorcing—to the tune of tens of thousands of different denominations or churches. The spiritual carnage of these divorces is incalculable. Please know as you read these, perhaps, too direct words that they are not said with malice, nor bitterness, but with a soul-deep desire and love for the unity for which Christ prayed in John, Chapter 17, and, surely desires until we all join him in heaven.

The Vacuum of History and Leadership

During the past 30 years, I've had more than a few opportunities to play a supporting pastor or elder role in various churches on the west coast, in Nashville , and on the east coast. At more pastoral leadership meetings than I care to remember, I consistently noticed the inability for persons of good-will to balance their opposing Biblical perspectives. . Rather than illustrating magnanimity and being open to broader perspectives, too many leaders were argumentative. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good verbal tussle just like the next guy, but many of the persons or groups involved in these pastoral meetings and debates seemed ready, almost at the drop of a hat, to play the “we'll just break away and start our own church” card. In their minds, this seemed a perfectly fine solution because, in their minds, they were “advancing the truer expression of the Gospel”. Such a move was “necessary” if we wanted to pursue the pathway of truth. These justifications sounded very much like the rationalizations that my parents made to us and themselves when they forsook their vows and chose a supposedly better marriage path.

When I approached the Catholic Church as a Protestant leader who personally went through or witnessed numerous church failures, it was as if I was discovering for the first time, an ancient church that was simply there—in fact, always there, and functioning as an apostolic church should. Sure, it had disagreements by its members, but it survived—not for 20 years, not for 100 years, but for 2,000 years! I say this with respect, but with absolutely sincerity to any Protestant who earnestly desires to seek the truth: Do you think this is an accident? Do you think this is due to human ingenuity or power? There's simply no way. It's nothing short of a miracle. A well-catechized Catholic would simply point out that such a feat is not due to human efforts, but simply do to the fact that Jesus Christ established the Catholic Chuch and promised to protect it until the end of time. Sure, it would have sinners—even great sinners—within its fold, starting with Peter and Paul themselves, but the Church itself—the bride of Christ—would be protected by the bridegroom.

Now there may be some hardcore fundamentalists and evangelical Protestants who suggest that the reason why the Catholic Church has survived for 2,000 years is because of the efforts of the devil. Here's one of the myriad of reasons why this doesn't work. If the Catholic Church were guided by the devil than why would the devil allow the Catholic Church, in the years 387, 393, and 397, at various Church councils, determine which letters from the various Catholic communities would comprise what you and I know today as “the New Testament.” (citation that defends this fact). As well, why would the Catholic Church—if it were guided and protected by the devil—go on to painstakingly hand-copy the Scriptures for a thousand years, until the arrival of the printing press (citation). Then, why would that same church commission Johannes Guttenburg, the inventor of the printing press, and others to print the Bible in multiple languages. In short, such an argument is simply silly and untenable to any one who is interested in seriously addressing the question.

Naturally, there were many issues that, during our journey, we questioned, struggled with, and then eventually embraced because of their biblical and logical beauty. We discovered, for example, that purgatory was not “another way to heaven” that somehow, undermined the work of Christ on the cross. Rather, we saw it as a radical application of Christ's death on the cross. I think of the word as “Purge-atory”. We knew that the blood of Christ was powerful enough to remove our sins here on earth, but didn't carry that power to its logical extension—that his blood even extends into eternity, cleansing away any effects of sins of believers committed here on earth. Because God is so holy, the idea that he is letting sinners into heaven—sort of holding his nose (because we're really not clean, just “covered” with Christ) is far less tenable than the idea that we would be cleansed with his holy, purifying fiery love.

The apostle Paul refers to our work as "being burned, so that wood, hay and stubble may be consumed, and that the gold and precious gems of our work would be revealed” (1 Cor. 3). This “purging process” (hence, “purge”-atory) can take place while we are still on earth, but also will, if needed, take place after death, but only for those who have died in friendship with Christ. To therefore “pray for the dead” is not macabre, but rather loving and optimistic, as we acknowledge the on-going relationship between the believers who have died with the living God, as they are being purged and purified for their eternal destiny.

Over the next many years, I anticipate being asked about many issues that keep my Protestant brothers and sisters out of the Catholic Church.

I hope to be able to continue to address these issues with kindness and truth. Also, as with the most important issues of life such as the raising of children or perspectives on one's career, I'm sure my perspectives will change. In fact, one prominent Catholic assured us that “We ain't seen nothing yet!” That the experience that Shelley and I will have in the church will continue to grow; in how we see the Church, the world, and our faith journey. It's simply inevitable in light of the inexhaustible treasure trove of truths and mysteries and perspectives found in the Catholic faith. That said, my initial six months as a Catholic have been almost exclusively euphoric.

For example, every day at Mass my wife and I are reminded that the universal and eternal family of God has reached out to us with a purity and a unity that brings us profound peace. We have been invited into a communion with a forever family—a family which with great detail and articulation in the liturgy declares that the eternal love of God, found in the Trinity, has now overflowed into all of creation.

Catholicism is, to me, the fullest way we humans can experience the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. The Church has safeguarded the Truth for 2,000 years, despite the individual moral failings of many of its leaders and millions of its members. The Church be the dominant moral force for “the good” in the world for 2,000 years, providing more charitable outreach, even to this day, than any other entity. And the Church celebrates the created order—taking what is good in that order and baptizing it for the sake of the Gospel. In short, Catholicism is the incarnational reality of Christ himself in the world today because of its ability to both unabashedly teach and live the truth, better I think, than any other institution. To be Catholic is to experience authentic freedom to live, to love at extraordinary levels, and to learn the ways of the Master—the way that leads to the sanctification that we're all called to.

The modern cynic that I was demands that I balance my enthusiasm for this “Catholic Church” by acknowledging that there are styles and customs in the Catholic Church that I find quite foreign and odd. But just as I am concluding, “What an odd bunch”, I am prodded yet again by the gentle Holy Spirit to consider that it should be an odd bunch. “Why?” I ask.

“'Cause they bring everybody with them. Everyone is welcome. They don't leave anybody behind. That makes for an odd bunch ”.

Count me in. Count me in.