Reality: Reflections

I remember as a child, looking out my bedroom window across the river valley to the horizon and seeing the crucifix–a sure sign from Jesus meant just for me because my sister couldn’t see it. Every now and then I’d take comfort in talking to it. This went on for a year (a year is a very long time to a child) when I was about eight and in the midst of my devout Catholic phase, which thrilled the nuns at St. Michael’s no end. I never told my mother about it, having dismissed my sister’s obvious lack of worthiness to partake in this miracle, and maybe I should have. She would have pointed out the occasional dots of “crucifixes” along the horizon and saved me the trauma of noticing them myself. If Jesus was speaking to me, He cleverly used a string of telephone poles. This was my first break in faith.