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A TRUE STORY...
Once upon a time, there was a young man troubled by problems at home. There was domestic fighting, drug abuse, constant crises and daily heartache. Before deciding to take his life, he tried calling out to God, who had somehow become quite remote during this time of family trial.
"Please, dear God. Just give me a sign that you exist and that what others say about you is true. If you really are a loving Father, I promise to dedicate my life to you. I promise."
He waited. No sign. No stars shooting across the afternoon sky. No white dove swooping down and landing on his shoulder. The 15-year-old boy just felt a quiet sense inside his heart that was new, but somehow familiar.
A few evenings later, he experienced a moment of pure awareness of God and believed with all his heart that he had experienced Jesus. Oddly, the experience was new, but somehow remarkably familiar. It was as if he had known Jesus "from forever" and Jesus not only knew the boy intimately, but loved him thoroughly. Later, the boy used to say that if he could take that moment and stretch it into infinity - that would have to be heaven! He decided to dedicate his life to the Truth he had discovered. God, indeed, existed and was Pure and Perfect Love after all.
Years later, when the boy was 19, he had already completed Novitiate in a religious order. News came that his parents' divorce was final and that his mother had attempted suicide. He felt bitter anguish and fear. Just before Christmas vacation, alone in his monastery cell, he put his head down on his desk and cried. "0 God, where is home for me now? My family is in shambles. Everyone is going their own way. They're selling the house we grew up in. Where is home?"
"Home?" He heard a Voice inside his deepest heart, like a clear, calm whisper of Compassion. This Voice inside was new, but somehow familiar again.
`Where would you like home to be?"
"0 God, that's just it. I don't know."
"Paint me a picture."
"A picture?"
"Yes, a picture. Dream! Paint me a picture of `home'."
Growing as quiet and still as he could, the boy let his mind become a blank canvas. He saw two mountains on the shore of a lake. The one on the left slightly smaller than the one on the right, the full red moon rising between them. A comet shot across the sky which was dimming in twilight. A few stars were emerging as a lone mariner sailed a small boat out toward the open sea.
He painted the picture he had seen in his heart in his journal.Years later the boy prayed that he didn't spend the rest of his life "searching for a lake in the mountains with the moon rising and never finding it." He continued to pursue God and went on long pilgrimages in search of capturing that beautiful feeling that had captured him in his youth. Finally, his travels led him to Patmos, the island in the Agean Sea where John, the beloved disciple, was exiled after the death and resurrection of the Lord. In winter, alone and sick with flu, the boy had finally given up. He began to question his sanity. He was tired of praying. Tired of God's "grand silences." He decided that God was not going to speak to him in special ways any more.
The ship that weekly carried visitors to and from the island of Patmos was late.The boy waited alone on the shore. One hour after the next, as the afternoon grew late, he began to sink along with the sun into a dark place inside. He experienced the rock bottom of his insecurity and loneliness. He realized he had been trying to escape his inner pain. Now it had caught up with him. Leaning against a large rock on the shore, he cried. The tears were bitter and he felt abandoned. Looking up, he noticed, through his tears, two mountains across the inlet. The one on the left was just a little smaller than the one on the right. He recognized those mountains. He had seen them when he heard the Compassionate Voice years ago. Suddenly, an enormous full red moon began to rise between them. He noticed the stars. "0 my God it's... " - his exclamation was clipped by the marvelous pierce of a comet rushing through space over the mountains. "Not the sailboat. 0 God, not the sailboat. . ." Just then, a single mariner headed out toward the open Agean Sea in a sailboat in exactly the perspective the boy had seen years ago!
In that instant, the tears that were bitter became sweet. It became clear from that moment that God's language was All Things. The rock which supported his head was God's lap, the theater of the sky His lullaby. The sea was His poem of a current deep and wide that somehow flowed in mystery like His boundless Love. God was not silent. He was speaking all along and would continue to speak the beauty of His Love and care forever. The boy fell in Love. And so he wrote a song that night on the ship when it finally arrived at midnight. He called the song, "Could It Be You?"
Epilogue
The boy wrote all these things down in his journal. One afternoon, years later, he was in bed sick with the flu once again. He happened to open one of his journals and read at random, "I hope I don't spend the rest of my life searching for a lake in the mountains and never finding it." He laughed and cried out loud "I did find it. I did!"
The journal entry was dated January 28,1977. Out of curiosity, he looked up in his later journal when he had been in Patmos, recognized his dream-becoming-real and wrote his song. The date? January 28,1984 - seven years to the day! Seven is the biblical number symbolizing completion and fulfillment. The number is used frequently in the Book Of Revelation, the last book of Sacred Scripture, which was composed by John - on the Island of Patmos!
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