At the start of my third semester at the University, still under the gracious tutelage of the professor and his wife, I had gained much knowledge. Yet this knowledge was much more than of that found in books. Many things were being unearthed within me. And I offered much resistance, at first. The dawning occlusion of my true inner savage was bewildering to say the least. I would attend Mass with Father Ralph and slowly began searching the dark, dank depths of my mortal soul not only for a moralistic philosophy, but for a more straight and narrow path. And it was upon one Sunday morning that I experienced a noumenal phenomenon that would change the course of my life. Up until then, I had grown all-too accustomed to stroking the dark underbelly of the Beast, but, upon that Sunday morning, in the twinkling of an eye, I was changed. And, as I would continue to learn, the ways of the Spirit move very subtly-almost imperceptibly. I will attempt to describe the experience with mere words, yet most of it will inevitably have to remain a mystery, inscrutable.

     I was in my dormitory, lying upon the black, burlap sheets of misery and despair, when lo and behold, a presence seemingly paradoxical appeared where, I lie as a torrent of emotion washed over me, leaving me not with a feeling of depletion, yet with an indescribably blissful sense of completion. And as I then, for the first time in my life, sincerely began to ponder upon the existence of a higher power, my body began rising up to meet the peak of some holy, calming tower. And I was blessed with such a liberating, ethereal sensation and elation, that I was thus disassociated from any further indignation. Instead, throughout my flesh, I felt this incredible warmth, weightlessness and serenity, although at the moment, I wasn't aware that I was witnessing His Divinity. And as the hair upon my skin stood on end and my whole meta-physiology was titillated to the point where Body & Soul reunified-were electrified by this noumenal power that flowed through me, I was born again. And my once ravaged and scarred essence had been miraculously healed and cover-coated with pure Love and higher Security, by the intense Light of the Heavenly Father's aura, as He tenderly welcomed me.

     This holy, dynamic light, the reflection of a power unable to fully conceive, bathed and cleansed my impure soul, thus the devil was forced to flee. However, the result of this theophanic rapture and deliverance which had manifested a return to innocence would prove only just how subterranean were the chasms which a life lived in egregious carnality and depravity had grown. Yet when I sat quietly and contemplatively upon those pews of birch every Sunday, reaching out a heart's hand to grasp the intangible, I knew now without a doubt, that my soul's reconciliation with God and gradual ascension towards His Kingdom would be unfathomably redemptive and transcendent both despite and because of my abysmally fallen state.