Truth be told, Ive known very little suffering from loss.

My mother almost died when I was four, but I was too young to understand what was going on. The deaths I did experience werent frightening for me. My parents have great faith, and death was hopeful and was spoken of naturally in my family. I remember, for example, looking in my Grandmothers casket as a child and feeling nothing but peace. Everyone said she was a living saint, and I believed this to be so. I did face death in an odd way in my early twenties though. Ever since I was old enough to know we have the power to destroy ourselves I have been afraid of war. My father used to watch a lot of WWII and Nostradamus type programs on TV, and I dont think he realized how these programs terrorized me. I worried constantly, and was convinced that the next armed conflict we would have would be cataclysmic. The Gulf War, of all things, set off my fear and a serious depression. When youre really scared, you start thinking about God and about death. I started taking a serious look at how I was living my life. At the time I was partying with heavy metal bands (I partied with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra back when they were nobodies), I dressed really trashy, (my favorite belt had a pair of handcuffs for a buckle), and I spent many weekends either drunk or high. It was obvious that I needed to make some changes in my life so I changed what was obvious. But I was still desperate for consolation. I was buried alive in anxiety and looked to God to dig me out. I turned to daily mass and the rosary. It didnt seem to do much good at the time, but Ive read about saints who said that God does His best work when youre in the dark, and in hindsight I know this is true. I dont remember how I figured it out, but I realized that 12 years of Catholic education hadnt taught me my Faith. I wanted to know the truth, I didnt know where to look and I was afraid of what the truth would turn out to be. I was certain that I would just find a bunch of rules I couldnt follow, and God would expect me to live like some kind of freak. I put off the search for years. Once in a while I would peak in Christian books, but I would put them down quickly because I was afraid of what I would find. Theres a Catholic channel on cable called EWTN, and for years I was careful to flip past it as quickly as possible because I might hear something I didnt want to hear. St. Augustine used to pray, Lord, make me chaste, but not yet. My prayer was, Lord, I want to know you, but not yet. Then 9/11 happened. I decided, OK, I cant put the search off any longer. I started watching EWTN, reading books, and searching the internet. I found the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I didnt even know this book existed and it had all the answers I was seeking. There were about a dozen times

when I got defensive about what I was learning, but when I was in doubt about the Churchs stand I would search secular resources for evidence from science, economics, history, anthropology and it turned out every time that I was wrong and the Church was right and I couldnt have been more surprised if I had been punched in the face. I found out that Faith and reason go hand in hand and dont contradict each other a huge discovery for a nerd like me that reads quantum physics for fun. I found out that the empty, wishy-washy, God loves you so do whatever you want crowd was wrong and the everything is a sin and were all doomed crowd was wrong too. The Truth was somewhere in between, and it was better than I could have ever expected. I found out from experience that the Ten Commandments were liberating rather that restricting and God didnt want to ruin my good time. C.S. Lewis said it well in The Screwtape Letters (great book, by the way), that God is a hedonist at heart. He wants us to have every good thing life has to offer, but only in the ways that will make us truly happy. He wants the wine to flow freely, but he doesnt want us to be enslaved by alcoholism. Sex is a great gift, but He wants us to respect it, because when it isnt treated like the jewel that it is, families are broken and people get hurt. (I learned this primarily from reading Pope John Pauls Theology of the Body. I highly recommend it.) I found out that suffering, when joined to the cross, has supernatural value that follows us forever. I discovered that Our Lady of Fatima promised us an era of world peace. I wish someone had told me these things. I never understood that saying, The Truth will set you free, but I do now. I was afraid to find out what God wanted from me because I thought He would drop a bunch of chains on me. Now I realize that I was chaining me down and God would release me from sins that I didnt even realize were making me miserable. Ironically, by accepting truths that I found uncomfortable, I found comfort. Ive found peace and it isnt at all what I expected. Like most truths of the Faith, it is a paradox. Peace isnt a shot of Novocain for the soul I have more and different anxieties than before, mainly because of all the new people I love and serve because of my Faith but I have more joy than I know what to do with. Bishop Sheen once said that the peace we experience in heaven will be a wild tranquility. Thats definitely what Ive got now. Ever since Ive gotten to know God better, life has become an adventure. Im a coward and a fool, but God uses me anyway. The purpose of all that emotional suffering, that seemed so cruel and pointless at the time, is crystal clear to me now. It was necessary to push me to my search for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Now, I know who

I am, I know where I came from, and I know where Im going. Ive found the meaning of life: to know, love, and serve God, to be as happy as possible in this life and to be perfectly happy with Him in the next. And the more I know Him, the more I love Him, and Im here at hospice because I want to serve Him.