THE YEARS FOLLOWING

When I look back at all this and count the years, I can scarcely believe that it occurred almost 40 years ago. The vision is still just as real to me today as it was the morning after. But the years since then have been filled with other experiences, both negative and positive.

In the first place, the genius’s walk was much different from mine, as you might imagine. He didn’t have any “Road to Damascus” experience, and while he thought it was great for me, he had to find his own way on the spiritual path. So little by little, in an intellectual way, he began his own search. And over the years he has developed a solid faith that is dependable and meaningful for him and comforting for me. Someone once compared women and men in their spiritual walks by saying women are the kindling of a fire and men are the back logs. I don’t know about all couples, but that analogy is pretty accurate for us. The genius is just so steady and I am sometimes on an emotional roller coaster.

Secondly, finding a church over the years has been a real challenge for us. Good preaching and music are the two things we looked for, but what pleased me didn’t necessarily appeal to the genius. I didn’t care if the service was unstructured and had contemporary music, whereas he wanted a traditional service and the hymns he had grown up with. I liked the hymns, too, but didn’t particularly want to be tied to the same old cold services with opera-type singers in the choir.

We visited and/or joined Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal, even Nazarene churches all over the city, but all of them left something to be desired for one or both of us. Finally, a few years ago, the genius attended a funeral for a former IBMer and came home raving about the preacher who did the service. I agreed to visit the church with him and we did so some weeks later.

From the very first, we both felt like we had at last found a place we really loved. We already knew many of the people, some we had grown up with and hadn’t seen for years, and others, as well. So, after 33 years of searching, we had finally found a church for both of us. It is mostly traditional, but not frozen in the past, so I can enjoy the services and other weekly events also. Our minister and the choir are just what we like and enjoy each week.

I trust that we have both grown spiritually over the years through thick and thin; I am certainly not the giddy believer I first was, nor is the genius the doubter he was at one time. We have both matured over the years and are learning to rely on each other spiritually as well as intellectually, as we always have done.

I’m not saying we have arrived, but we are much farther along than we were some 40 years ago,