FOLLY 

I finished out the school year at the university, directed a seminar on political risk analysis in London over the summer and returned at the end of the summer to Mobile to take up a job in a friend's import-export company where I worked simply as a freight forwarder.  It paid the bills.

I ended up making a new set of friends because most of my former friends found good cause to draw away from me.  My behavior was erratic. Then too, I was no longer a professor, but only a clerk working in an import-export firm and I no longer lived in the historic Garden District, but in a condo apartment.  Friendship with me was less profitable than it used to be.  But I was not critical.  I understood the logic, and would have reacted the same way.  In fact I really did -- holding myself in some contempt.  But actually I enjoyed not having to measure up any more!  I enjoyed being contemptible!  It too offered a great sense of freedom.  I no longer felt it necessary to play to other people's expectations for me.

I guess I was hoping that I would find something significant for myself "out there" in that wild and crazy world.  Certainly this was what I got as a major message from our popular culture.  But I knew better -- just as I had understood in Nepal watching the very sorry looking heroin addicts.  Indeed, I rather quickly discovered that this wild and crazy existence was as troubled and as sad as the polite but heavily burdened world I had left behind.  If anything, this new world was inhabited by even more desperate people, looking for something that continued to elude them.  Most of them in fact were looking for the world I had just left behind!

When in the spring of the next year (1984) I heard that Martha was going to be marrying in June, my reaction was one of relief, not remorse.  This pretty much terminated any remaining responsibilities I felt I had to the world -- or even to myself.

That first year after the divorce I lived a rather reckless life.  Though I broke no laws, I found myself largely uninterested in society's well-being, or anyone else's for that matter.  I read no newspapers, watched no evening news.  There could have been a major war going on -- and it would have meant nothing to me.

 THE FIRST RAYS OF LIGHT 

There was the couple, Susan and Cecil, who had sailed across the Gulf with Martha and me the first part of the summer of 1981 -- and who took Martha in when she first moved out.  Cecil was a lawyer who offered his services gratis in drawing up the uncontested divorce.  Susan and Cecil, caught in the middle, nonetheless remained very sensitive to both of our feelings as we struggled to understand what was happening to us.

There was another couple, Terri and Erv, the ones who bought the largest of our housing debts from us, who moved Martha's half of our furnishings into their house when we broke up housekeeping.  Martha spent a good deal of time with them as well.  But Erv would frequently go out to breakfast with me -- and just listen.  He was (is) a very kindly person -- a religious Jew, who would later become for me some kind of representation in my mind of what Jesus (as a Jew) must surely have been like.

And there was Stephanie and her husband Skeeter.  We used to be jogging partners in the good old days.  They had watched from quite close up my growing stress and sleeplessness over the financial crisis and my emotional withdrawal from life.  Then when the break occurred between Martha and me they reached out to both of us.  I was invited to attend prayer meetings with them (they were charismatic Catholics) -- though it probably was all a bit too early for me to connect with.

It was Stephanie who used to drop off cards and biblical quotes to try to cheer me up -- and who one morning dropped by with an urgent message:

"Miles, promise me you won't laugh when I tell you this."
". . . Yeh, okay, Stephanie."
"Are you sure you won't laugh?"
"Yes, Stephanie."
"I was praying last evening about your situation and I got the strongest vision of you becoming a minister!"
A stunned silence, followed by a huge grin that was as good an effort as I could make not to laugh!  I was touched by her earnestness -- though not greatly impressed by her prophetic powers!  [Hmmm! ...would you believe it!]

Then there was Martelle, a long-time friend and widow (Martha and I had been close to both Martelle and John while he was alive).  She also was a great listener.  It was she who brought me back to the (Presbyterian) church -- through an invitation to attend a seminar at her church on crisis.

I gradually began attending her church of a Sunday morning (with her often at my side) -- sitting way in the back, teary-eyed, feeling that every sermon was directed to me!

All of this "unconditional concern" (which I eventually came to understand as being at the heart of true "love") which these friends showed me during this time of personal crisis was not something I was used to.  In my world everything had its worth, its "price."  But their deep concern, which became priceless to me, came without a price.

What I also began to notice about these people was that they did not come at life the way most everyone else I knew did.  They had a deep sense of "beingness," of who they were and what their lives were about that did not depend on how they played the "game" of life.  I was intrigued about their sense of who they were.   They came to represent to me a vision of personhood that I hungered for.

In my being intrigued at their deep character--I began to ask questions about the details of their faith. Needless to say--their faiths (as religion) did not exactly take the same form.  But their faiths all had the same quality.  And it was a sense of that quality that began to affect me deeply.  We are not talking religious dogma here.  We are talking about a special spirit that underpinned their lives.  And I wanted that spirit--desperately.

Thus contact with these spiritual giants--plus some very mysterious "interventions" in my life from the strange world of God--began to draw me forward.  I was increasingly curious to know more about this strange new world that was just beginning to reveal itself to me.

[By the way, I must state that Martha started down this road a bit earlier and more determinedly than I did.  As she had a lot of time by herself down by the bay when we first separated, I came to find out that much of that was spent reading the Bible and praying.  I don't know much about how that turned out once she went back to Texas--except that years later she went through the very lengthy and complicated process of having our marriage "annulled" so that she could join the Catholic Church]

 
EARLY STEPS TOWARD THE RECOVERY OF A SENSE OF "SOUL" 

Fairly early on, as indicated above, I started attending church -- for reasons that were not entirely clear to me at the time.  Of course I was certainly looking for that special quality I observed in my religious friends.  But I had no particular program for coming up with this for myself.  I just found myself greatly intrigued by all of this and sought it out -- rather vaguely, but determinedly.

Over the summer of 1983, with my regular duties at the university over, I still had one more commitment to the academic life.  I was in London directing a seminar on political risk analysis.  But I found that my mind was as much on Christianity and the richness of the the English religious tradition as it was on politics and economics.  I seemed to find myself every Sunday morning among a mere handful of worshipers at the nearby St. Pancras church -- not certain what was "there" for me.  Something was.  I kept coming back.

Back home in Mobile that fall of 1983, I continued to find myself in church every Sunday, normally the Presbyterian church where Martelle attended, but also rather frequently an Episcopal church where Betsy, a friend I was dating, attended.  Both churches intrigued me -- though my fascination for the Presbyterian church was the greater because it was the denomination I grew up in.  The Presbyterian church thus offered me a deeper sense of "rootedness," something I craved deeply.  It felt like, well, I was "coming home"!!

In 1984 I returned to the university, rather disinterested in academic politics and more interested in the thought processes of my students and friends -- and rather absorbed in some of the fast-unfolding thoughts of my own about life.  In late 1984 I officially rejoined the Presbyterian church (after a 20+ year absence) -- though I cannot say that this marked a significant shift in my slowly evolving spiritual life.

But it certainly opened my eyes wider to the importance of relationship as opposed to self-sufficiency as the heart of human life.  This was my first encounter with the language of having a relationship with Jesus Christ -- rather than just being familiar with his basic goodness and setting him up as a fine moral example for all right-minded people to follow (which is what I remembered about Jesus from my early Presbyterian teachings).

I didn't do anything dramatic that weekend about having such a "relationship."  Yet the idea intrigued me -- and began to gnaw at me.

We struck up a deep friendship which continued forth from that weekend--but unfortunately lasted only a few months, when he suddenly died of massive heart failure.  Both his life and his death had a profound effect on me--and gave me another glimpse of who or what Jesus Christ must surely have been like.

 HUNGER FOR MORE 

I was so moved by this experience that it became one of those life-changing moments.  As I looked through those bars at the fellows on the other side the only thought that seemed to grip me was how very similar we probably were--except that they had fallen afoul of the law and I had not.  I had abandoned a quite fine marriage, broken the heart of a very wonderful woman, which seemed a greater crime than what most of them had probably committed (the fact that I had heard that Martha was quite happy with her new life still did not exempt me from a deep sense of guilt for having brought on our divorce).  Yet I was on the free side of those bars and they were not.  I felt a deep sense of connectedness to these men--men whom under other circumstances I would never have had anything to do with.  In the following days I could not get thoughts about that jail visit out of my mind.

It was now summer (1985), school was out, and I had committed myself for the summer only to the study of Spanish in an intensive summer course at the university.  Basically my afternoons were free.  My thoughts during that free time returned to this issue of jail and those who were locked up there.  I grew impatient with the idea that I would have to wait a whole month before I could return again to Mobile County Jail.

One afternoon in mid-June I wandered down to the offices of this ministry -- and began a friendship that was to be a major influence in my life.

Emmett was unlike anyone I had ever known before in my quite Yuppie existence.  He was simple, direct, and amazingly effective in his work.  There was nothing "churchy" about him.  He had little resemblance to any of the professional clergy that I was getting to know through my new church affiliations--except, of course, Father Streeter, whose personality was much like Emmett's.

The people that gathered around to work with Emmett were equally common folk with uncommon ways.  Life at the ministry offices was itself a bizarre phenomenon--at least to me, for I had never before encountered "charismatics" (though Cursillo had presented some of the same features).  I had never encountered Christians who were ready at the drop of the hat to pray with someone for some need they had.

The office of We Care jail ministry was a buzz of activity, for it was not only the office of a jail ministry but also a drop-in center for those with various personal problems.  Praise music filled the rooms, prayers seemed to be going on somewhere almost all the time, noon-times produced a gathering of people from here and there for Bible study--and there were the "tongues," those strange sounds that came from the charismatics which to them gave evidence of their coming under control of the Holy Spirit!

This was all new to me.  To me Christianity had pretty much been limited to stately Sunday morning worship and weekly good behavior that set one off as "Christian."  True, Cursillo had opened up the vision of the Christian life as having a "relationship" with Jesus Christ (I was still working through the meaning of that concept at that time). But this being "empowered" by the Holy Spirit as the mark of the Christian life I had never before even heard of.

Needless to say, Emmett and his friends tried on the spot to engineer on my behalf my "receiving" the Holy Spirit.  It was a grand failure: "tongues" just would not come to me.  In fact, in months of trying nothing like that ever authentically developed for me.  But they finally accepted the fact--and we all learned new things about the work of the Holy Spirit through my "failure" at tongues!

I kept coming back to the ministry every afternoon--in part to go with Emmett and some of his friends to Mobile County Jail, or the Youth Detention Center, or G.K. Fountain Prison, or wherever, and in part just to be present at the "happenings" in the We Care offices.  I was intrigued by their energy, enthusiasm, and dedication.  I wanted very much to have their spirit -- even if I never could get into "tongues."

Then BOOM!  The 10-piece orchestra struck up with such volume and beat that I felt I was at a rock concert.  It all made me feel uncomfortable -- not because I had never "rocked" at a rock concert, but just that I had never associated such happenings with Christianity.  For about 30-40 minutes the music continued, complete with an aproximately 50-member choir and a dance group of about a dozen twirling women in colorful dresses and a smaller number of men in Eastern looking shirts and trousers.

The music did not stay at this loud rock level but eventually moved into a somewhat quieter and more reflective mood, more hypnotizing with the repetition of choruses and certain verses.  Then it moved to a very much quieter mood -- almost hushed and inwardly introspective so that it had more the aspect of prayer than music.  Then came the tongues, wave-lengthed to a single note that reminded me of the Omm found in Hindu meditation.  It was mesmerizing.  The pastor then went into prayer, prayer that I know lasted many times longer than the pastoral prayers I was familiar with from Presbyterian worship. But it was a prayer that absolutely drew my heart into it all -- the kind of prayer that you might wish would go on forever.

Then it all ceased, and the pastor began to preach -- though it seemed more an extended Bible study than the kind of 15-18 minute homily which constituted a typical Presbyterian sermon.  The sermon went on at some length, though I really was not aware of how long he had actually been speaking until he finished with an "altar call" and I noticed from my watch that he had been preaching for well over an hour!  I was amazed, because I had never gotten impatient with the length of all of this.  In fact, aside from the fright I first received from the music, I had found myself so "drawn" into this worship that time simply dissolved.  I even dissolved -- in that while there must have been well over a thousand people there for Sunday evening worship, I felt not overwhelmed by the number but well integrated into the whole.  I even felt "close" to God.

Needless to say, I came back the next Sunday evening -- and every Sunday evening thereafter while I still lived in Mobile.  I was sort of a "Presbyterian" by day and a "charismatic" by night -- though I never really got the tongues part that the charismatics felt was so important to the Christian life.

I really grew to appreciate my new charismatic friends.  They not only were so "empowered" by their worship, but also truly "moved" by the Spirit to undertake amazing things.  While I found that many Christians were willing to take "correct" Christian positions on this and that issue, even buying space in newspapers to present their petitions or sending money to organizations that promoted their positions on these issues, I also found that it tended to be the charismatics who would actually be found out in these hurting places personally doing the work of direct Christian charity and counsel.  I admired deeply their personal dedication.

 DISCOVERY OF THE "TRANSCENDENT" LIFE 

Even as far back as those days during my separation from Martha I found myself contemplating the sense of  fortuna that I always had a sense was "with me" -- for better or worse.  I'm not sure when I began to understand this hand as the hand of God and when I began actually to find myself in "conversation" with this God but I certainly had notions of something like this even before the divorce in early 1983.

But the God which or who began to evolve to my understanding over time was not the God of my Sunday School days.  This God had no clear persona, no identity such as I had once assigned -- and then rejected -- as God.  This God did not live above the clouds or anywhere "out there" somewhere.  Nonetheless, I knew that I was not just talking to myself in these "conversations" but was in some kind of dialogue with some kind of "Other One" we commonly call "God."

Furthermore strange coincidences began to occur in my life that I realized could not have been mere accident.  In particular I found myself meeting people at exactly the time when I needed to meet such people -- and whatever "message" or insight they had for me at the time.  This kind of information-flow I began to take note of--and sense that this is how "God" was answering me back.

Thus not only did I take note of a special presence I gradually began to call "God," but I also became much more aware of other people as part of the "higher" game plan of life.  I became very aware that I was far from alone in this universe, but greatly, beautifully joined with the world around me.  I began to appreciate the idea of "soul"--my soul--as a wonderful subset of a much more extensive Soul, Cosmic Soul, comprised of God and neighbor.

Certainly all this understanding did not come on at once--nor consistently.  For me, my "conversion" from an agnostic or atheist to one who believed in the profound reality of God was a very gradual, sometimes erratic, process of movement in this direction.  But it certainly went forward, step by step as each of these new events took place in my life.

 A TIME OF DECISION 

But one area of my life remained highly problematic for reasons never quite clear to me:  women!  I had been dating Betsy now for a long time--but just couldn't get settled down into a one-on relationship with her.  She was beautiful, intelligent, energetic, and enjoyed a wide range of interests quite like my own.  But something held me back from a full commitment to her--and consequently I found myself over and over again starting up secondary relationships.  I don't know what I wanted from a relationship--but these new relationships proved no more successful in providing a solution.  As a consequence I found myself increasing the juggling act by adding to the number of balls I was trying to keep up in the air.  This was no way to resolve the issue.

By the summer of 1985, when I added yet another relationship to the program, I was trying to balance about 5 different relationships.  I was out every night of the week, studying Spanish in the mornings, at the We Care Ministry in the afternoons--and growing exhausted in the process.

No words accompanied this vision--but I new exactly what it meant.  It took me absolutely no time to say "yes" to the vision.  I then fell back into a deep sleep, the first I had enjoyed in a very long time.

In the morning I awoke, understanding fully what I had agreed to during the night.  I was going to give my life full-time to the service of God, an evangelist or teacher who would help people like myself come out of their isolation and find their way back into harmony with life, with the cosmos, with God.

Indeed, I found that as I stepped back, a true sense of friendship seemed to replace the unattainable expectations for a "relationship."  I was surprised and pleased at this discovery.  I also realized that what I had wanted all along was soul-to-soul intimacy with them, not mutual and exclusive "ownership."

The first country I came to was war-torn El Salvador.  My very first meeting was an informal one, with a young priest, José, who was assigned by the archbishop's office to receive me and to serve as an interpreter during my stay in El Salvador.  We immediately hit it off--and found that we had a wide range of issues to discuss, including our respective faith stories.

In the days ahead I interviewed party leaders, businessmen, newspaper editors, academics, clerics, etc.  But I found that what I enjoyed most was my time with José.  I met his mother and sisters (he was the last surviving male member of the family; one of his sisters was a young widow) and heard the story of family tragedy brought on by the civil war.  But I was also moved by the strength of their character, their continuing joy in the midst of such violence, their ability to carry on rather normally in the midst of such mayhem.

At one point I accompanied José in bringing the gospel message and communion to a small parish he had charge of in the mountains.  Here too I heard the same stories--and saw the vitality in the people's eyes and hearts despite the constant tragedy that accompanied life in their country.

In them I saw the countless generations of little people who have carried on life--despite the mighty plans of the "great leaders" to save these same little people.  Indeed frequently, as I listened to these leaders, I kept wondering how close some of them really were to these people in whose name they carried on their great crusades (some individuals, however, I sensed really were very close to the common people).  I got the distinct idea that their countrymen would be a lot better off if people like them would give up trying to "save" the others--and instead would let them work out their destinies themselves.  Their "little people" seemed to possess enormous durability and fortitude of their own.

Into my fourth week of interviewing I found that my mind kept coming back to José and his family in El Salvador.  So I cut the program short and returned to El Salvador--just to check out my feelings (or instincts) further about these things.  That final week in El Salvador confirmed all that I was beginning to understand.  God really was with these people--and was somehow going to see them through this present crisis--almost despite the efforts of well-meaning individuals to save them.

Ironically (or was it so ironic?) I returned to Mobile to the news that the university president's office was frightened at the prospect of so many major personalities descending on the campus at once. They were deeply concerned about the huge costs involved in assuring security for such a conference.  So they made me scale the project way back.  Thus, for example, even though former President Jimmy Carter was willing to participate for only a negligible fee, I had to uninvite him. However we had made the ($25,000!) commitment with Henry Kissinger and so we would honor that--turning the event into a Kissinger extravaganza (their idea, not mine!).

Ordinarily I would have been crushed.  But given what I had come to see and understand in Central America, I actually greeted the news with relief.  It meant that I was going to have to uninvite a number of North American and Central American dignitaries--but I really didn't mind.  Somewhere in El Salvador I had lost my desire for such a conference anyway.  It all worked out for the best.

The year went by quickly.  Christmas came quickly and I headed off to the West Coast to join my parents and sister for Christmas then to return to Mobile via El Salvador, where I spent a week with José and his family and friends.  Christmas also marked the beginning of the heavy Mardi Gras society balls--which I participated in, juggling things between Debbie, Kit, Mary, Marcia and, as always, Betsy.  Nothing much had changed on that front!

 LAY MINISTRY 

At first there were just a few of us, then a few more, then quite a group!  We would gather at the We Care office on Tuesday nights at about 7:00 for prayers.  I would give a short biblical thought for the evening, we would pray together at some length, and then at about 7:30 we would be off:  some to the County Jail, some to the City Jail (men's and women's sections); some to the Women's and Children's Shelter; and when a number of youth joined the team, we added visits to the Youth Detention Center; and then when we had an overflow (over fifty volunteers showing up) I would take a handful of volunteers out onto the streets around the port, where we got to be well known by the ladies of the night!

We would go simply to be "available"--to be a presence, to pray, and to offer thoughts from the Bible. On the streets, we would chat with people who approached us, pass on paperback New Testaments if they were interested, and pray with any who desired it.  We were never "preachy," just there to let them know that they were not forgotten, not by God, not by Jesus, not by Christians who cared.

We were quite a group:  Presbyterians and Charismatics, Methodists, Episcopalians, and a few others--though the Presbyterians and Charismatics were the most numerous.

Some were a bit scandalized that we would regroup later in the evening (not including the youth!) in a back room at a yuppie "fern bar," to snack and drink (lightly) and simply to let the excitement pour forth.  We all returned from our respective evangelical visits excited--and eagerly sought the opportunity to talk about it.

We were mostly Waspish Yuppies--some were even rather prominent business leaders--who were discovering the joy of going forth into our world in the name of the Lord.  I particularly delighted in seeing my very proper Presbyterian friends get "turned on" by all of this.  They learned to open up to others about their own faith, to help others similarly open up--and to pray, pray, pray (we eventually added a Thursday evening prayer circle to our list of activities).  Needless to say, we became a very close group.

As G.K. Fountain was an all-male prison, the team that would go into prison was made up of the men.  The women would serve as back-ups to the men, cooking, praying, and worshiping with us when we returned from a morning, afternoon or evening session.  Food was abundant--especially in the form of cookies, which I remembered from Cursillo (I ate so many cookies at Cursillo--yet burned off so many calories in just the emotional intensity of it all that all those calories were used up).  In fact, in most important respects it was a Cursillo seminar we were putting on.

Team meetings were designed primarily to build up a very close team spirit--which it certainly succeeded in doing.  After eight Wednesday nights and one Saturday all-day retreat together, we were a very close group.

It was at Cursillo that I first saw adult men hugging each other in greeting.  This was a shock to this Presbyterian--at first.  I later discovered that this was the standard greeting among all "renewal" Christians, including charismatics.  And I came to enjoy it--for it symbolized the closeness of the Christian fellowship that we were willing to extend to each other.  Christianity for this group was not a Sunday morning formality--but a part of the intimacy with which they/we, as Christians, greeted the world.  I liked that sentiment very much--especially after having been so "removed" in my feelings about most other people--and even about life itself.

A very sad note in all this closeness occurred at the communion service that all the team traditionally shared on the last Wednesday evening training session.  Someone (some of the team knew who, but I never did) among the Catholics mentioned the fact to a Catholic priest--who then showed up to ensure that the Catholics would have a separate Communion service.  Most of the Catholic members of the team were burned.  Some even came to the "Episcopal" communion service in protest.  That bit of "churchiness" or priestcraft (as I later came to term it!) left a deep impression on me.  It really was an insult to Christ as far as I was concerned.

The "weekend" (actually Thursday evening to Sunday evening) itself went wonderfully well.  There were 15 tables of about 5 or 6 inmates, a table leader and a spiritual director each.  I was a "spiritual director" and in fact was called on often to take time out to pray with one or another of the inmates.

I also gave one of the "talks"--drawing on Paul's letter to the Romans, which was eventually to serve me as the center-post of my own personal theology.  It was an excellent match-up for me to be delivering that particular talk.  The talks were always personal and often emotional.  My talk in fact brought two of my teammates themselves to tears (it was the story of the collapse of my yuppie world and the "second chance" that God gave this sinner).

One of the highlights of the weekend for me in fact was when one of the guys at my table, who was well-known as one of the prison bullies (and who was there at first just to keep tabs on his boys) quietly asked me to pray outside with him--and proceeded to break down into a flood of tears, tears which did not stop for the rest of the weekend.  The other inmates were stunned--and moved.  [He and I kept in touch for over five years, even through a couple of prison moves on his part--until a combination of my move to Garfield and his move to yet another institution broke the link.  I tried a couple of years ago to restore the link, but my Christmas letter was returned with "addressee unknown"].

The Sunday evening closing was profoundly moving.  Betsy showed up and they were all glad to meet my "girl."  We all had become close--inmates as well as team by then.

But I was again reminded of the downside of religion, when only a couple of months later a baby of one of my teammates was killed in a car accident and we all came to the funeral.  It was a Catholic funeral and all the non-Catholics were quietly told that we were not to go forward to receive communion during that part of the funeral service.  It felt so strange to be shut out of the highest point of the service--because we were not members of the "true" church.  This did nothing to improve my very dim view of denominational differences within the church.  [I was very "Presbyterian."  But I was also "Episcopalian," "charismatic," and even "Catholic" if they'd have me.  I didn't care.  I was "Christian" to the core.]

In the spring I signed up for another Kairos weekend--and went through the same process again in May (1986).  Even the second time through it was a moving experience. Kairos came to mean a lot to me personally.

 SEMINARY:  YES OR NO? 

As that last school year developed, I suppose I thought somehow I might, like Emmett, develop some kind of a street ministry right there in Mobile.  The growth of my evening evangelical group certainly seemed to point to the possibility of developing some kind of full-time ministry of that nature.

But there was something in the name "Princeton" that attracted me.  I felt sheepish about having "freed" myself so fully from the presumptions of yuppie life--only now to be thinking about applying to what distinctly looked like a yuppie citadel.  Nonetheless I applied.  Then I heard nothing--weeks past the time I knew I was supposed to hear from them.  Finally in March (1986) I got the news, about a month late:  I had been accepted.  I was excited!

I went in to tell my pastor the good news.  We chatted a while.  Then as I was about to leave he told me something very strange.  He told me that he was actually surprised that Princeton Seminary had accepted me.  He had had many conversations with the admissions office--in concern about my commitment to the church.  I was speechless.

Needless to say, I thought on those words a lot after that meeting.  I realized that this issue could have been raised only by him--for there was nothing in my application that would have caused any such concern about my commitment to the "church" [the Presbyterian "church"?].  I knew that he had become increasingly disapproving of my evangelical style and my close association with charismatics.  I know he did not care for Emmett.  Yet--he had earlier given me such encouragement to apply to the other two seminaries (which he had close connections with).  But in considering the matter further, I decided to just let it drop.  Anyway, this only served to confirm the Princeton decision for me.  God obviously wanted me at Princeton, despite some serious human opposition!

But even then, I hadn't really made up my mind that I was actually going to go to seminary.  I wanted very much to stay in Mobile.

That same evening, as I was entering the kitchen door to my home, the phone was ringing.  It was a real estate agent that I had worked with a lot in the past (and who had lined up this house for me).  She too wanted to know what I was going to do.  She asked me to get back quickly to her with a price.  (Obviously she wanted the listing!)   I agreed, and called her back the next evening with a price based on my original cost plus the cost of some improvements I had made on the house.  She said "Fine. I'd like to show the house tomorrow."

The next day she arrived with a friend and went through the house.  But we signed no listing agreement.  Later that day she called again to say that she had a purchaser for the house, one willing to pay $1000 more than my asking price!  And she was the purchaser!  She had just sold her house to someone who wanted immediate occupancy, and she needed to find a place of her own--fast.  She always liked the house I had bought, knew that I was thinking of moving, and had added the $1000 as a gift to help me through seminary!  The only catch was that she needed the house in two weeks:  the end of March.

But this left me with the problem of where I was to live for 2½ months until I would leave for Princeton.  Two nights later, as I explained my plight to my Thursday evening prayer circle, one of my friends, Bill, spoke up.  "Miles!  Now I know why I had such a strange thought only two weeks ago.  I felt this strong urge to invite you to move in with me into this huge, rather empty house I'm living in.  But then I thought what a strange idea, since you had your own place already.  Now I know why I had that thought.  You do indeed have somewhere to stay until you leave for Princeton--and whenever you return on vacation--and a place to store all your furniture while you are away at seminary!!!"

Holy Cow!  If I had any doubts about whether God wanted me to stay in Mobile to do street ministry, or to head off to seminary, there could be no doubts now.  God himself sold my house out from under me, and took care of all the secondary details as well!  I was definitely leaving Mobile.