“Saying the Prayers For The World”Account of Faith Discoveredby Fr. Jim Waters, FBS, PhD

From Homeless Teen, Emmy Winning Videojournalist to Ecumenical Franciscan Priest.

A semi-autobiographical and fictionalized account.Chancellor: Sanctus Theological Institute

Vicar General: The Christic Ministry

“Saying the Prayers For The World”

An account of faith discovered byFr. Jim Waters, FBS, PhD

Chapter 1

The year was 1964, an approaching snowstorm found me with snowgathering around my feet, while I stood beside a nearly barren highway.Waiting to hitchhike for the first time out into the vast winter landscape of Northern Virginia.

Lost in the midst of an approaching Christmas with neither money norfamily. I pulled the coat and scarf in closer to me as I waited near a truck stop hoping someone would take pity on me. Dreaming a bit as I stood against the phone pole looking out onto the highway leading away from the by now frozen landscape, sure I'd be swallowed up and left for death in a few more hours, a thought that felt just fine to me.

Just a year before I’d stood in Notre Dame, walked the streets with my Dad in Lisbon, Portugal, sailed the Atlantic from France down to N. Africa and out to the Canary Islands, then back to Bermuda before the week long trip home to Boston, Mass.

Now I stood with no one to call for help or a family to call my own. Never again would I allow that word to cross my mind or allow me to trust in anyone. It's true, in the end we must rely on our ownselves alone, others, even God will let you down. .to me even God was lost in the swirling snowstorm enveloping me, driving me on to look for another way of life.

My Beginning

Having begun life as the result of my Irish Mother’s rape, resulting in mybirth in Enniskillen, N. Ireland. I learned later we’d been taken to the US to deal with some un-named diplomat’s bastard child. Removed to Washington my mother was forced to sign me into the care of the FederalCourts. I was shuffled through numerous foster homes, abused at a Catholic Orphanage. I’d been adopted for three months then returned to another holding house till finally adopted by a good father much against his wife’s approval.

A New Life...perhaps?

Less than a few hours following my Dad’s departure for Viet Nam, I toobegan my own journey into my own Dark Night of the American Soul. A

hundred dollars in my pocket, I chose to hitchhike over a costly bus ticket, heading toward yet another chapter in a life I’d never really felt quite sure of. After walking a mile or so with my small bad I Somehow found a ride on a freight truck with a trucker who was headed home to Des Moines. Cowboy Jack as he called himself told me I ought to make for Chicago if possible. Said I’d find work and a goodly number of truckers would be headed that way. Jack said he’d be sure I found one that was safe for me.

Here I was, heading west into this iron laden land towards the blackenedsmokestacks of the Midwest. Bleak landscapes with ever darkeningwindows foretold what lay ahead, homeless and nearly 16 in two months.Not a great prospect for life, but then I’d never felt life was a sure thing for me. I knew my future was tentative at best. Driving down windblown roads into a night where my uncertain future lay.

First one city then another, truck stops, coffee, a sandwich and a few minutes of sleep between the CB calls and Jack’s running commentary on how this may prove to be the best thing to get me started on life after all. A life of hard work in a land of hard people. Glancing out the often snow blown windshield I could see the ever flattening land stretch out before me. We’d crossed over the coal scarred mountains of West Va. then on into Ohio and wherever else the rumbling shaking truck rolled through the night and on into the frozen day away from what had once been a sad lifeless home. That is, till at last Jack got me on another truck headed on to Chicago. Driving through deeply scarred towns and small cities, beyond the cities long known as the last bastion of what continued to be the last holdouts of our great depression. For me it all proved to be My Own Great Depression.

Chapter 2

A new home?

I stepped down into what I found was the urban decay of South side Chicago. What could be bleaker then dim corner lights, boarded up storefronts and a few hollow-eyed souls seeking shelter from the cold and ever stinging wind. In those first few steps I found myself lost remembering how life seemed to be one constant spiraling downward for me.

Never sure where I belonged, Caught in a life t hat seemed to be forever one step away from a darkened hallway leading me to remember what life had been like in one of my 6 foster homes. I'd been shut up in a dark room left with a small sleeping pad, my food was left for me twice a day with only one small window to give me one source of light. Every so often the people would enter to beat me once again or as I thought back a man often drunk would abuse me for what seemed a game. Only when a neighbor complained did police rescue me resulting in yet one more foster home then another.

Now 15 nearly 16, I’d been told to leave home and never return. My adoptive father was on his way to Viet Nam, leaving my increasingly emotionally closed off adoptive mother to dwell on the real daughter she’d lost 3 yrs before on Christmas Morning.

My little sister and I had been best friends. Though frail she'd often ride in the wagon I pulled full of papers on my newspaper route. Though small and just a child she made sure I tossed the papers up onto each stoop along the route. Even my buddies came to regard her as that cool sister who was always tagging along with me. My best friend's sister had become her best friend so it had been that she and Carole would help hold the nails as my friends and I built the tree house in the backyard. A house we’d even added a room called Marion’s Tea Room. This was the sister I’d dreamed of and loved so much. When her lungs would fill with fluid my parents would allow me to help her each time. To this day when I hear a child cough I'd think of her, we'd even say our prayers together asking God to somehow give her a good night's sleep. Yet I guess God forgot about her just as He'd forgotten about me all my life too. Often at night if she began coughing she’d come in and let me slap on her back till she was able to sleep next to me holding onto the Teddy Bear I’d had since my birth in Ireland.

I’d been the one to find her that day. In the hour before dawn I’d gone to her room to place a dot of red on her nose, a sign Santa had stopped by. Instead I found my beloved sister asleep in death from cystic fibrosis. This became the end of faith and love of Christmas for the rest of my life.

From then on my mother refused to acknowledge me as her son. This week before Thanksgiving at age 15 a few hours after seeing my Dad depart by plane, I found she'd packed my bag. Dragging me from the house she then drove me to the bus station. Pushing me out of the car with not even a wave goodbye I saw her for the last time till I saw her the night she died 25 yrs later.

Chapter 3Life beyond life....!

Oddly though, years later when I was shot while in yet another combat zone I found myself looking down on my own bloodied body to see a quickly moving tunnel till I emerged into a sparkling place of the sharpest light I could ever imagine. It was when I was told I'd have to return that I turned to see my sister and my own daughter playing beside a radiant stream of water, flowing with what looked like tiny twinkling lights around a tree so bright as to appear as if it was alive with light and stars. They never did see me. .till just as I was about to leave a young woman turned and with eyes so loving I saw once again my own Michelle, the mother of my unborn baby with whom I was but a week away from marrying before the IRA bomb claimed their lives. An act that had yet fully soften in my own memory of a life lived in sorrow and rejection.

I was now on my own, hitchhiking along roads that framed the rust belt of America. Walking through the dotted landscape I saw tree lit windows, wondering why my life always seemed such a failure for me, surely God kept pushing me away, I determined never again to look heavenward for hope, it was here with me amidst the freezing snow and barren wasteland.

Drifting off to sleep as we drove on further into my own deepening despair I thought back on the day before Christmas of my 13th year, with my Dad gone away to sea I attached a rope to one of the tree limbs of our tree house hoping to end the increasingly violent days spent in a house devoid of love. I jumped hoping to wake in a world far removed from the one I’d descended into. Rather the limb broke just as the rope tightened around my neck. Landing on the frozen ground I walked back in to the house to be confronted with a mother who began to beat me when she saw the red mark around my neck. She’d gone out to see the rope still attached to the tree limb. Blaming me for her own sad life, she went in to call one of my aunts to see if she'd keep me till my Dad’s return so he could take me away from her home for good.

I’d think of suicide every so often from that day on, till this present time, yet never succeeded at carrying out the dream of ridding the world of my presence.

Back to the present in Chicago during a vicious winter storm I sought one night’s escape in a shelter where two men tried to assault me, I’d responded by sticking one with my pocket knife and escaped out into the frozen night. This was the life I'd been plunged into and knew if I was to survive I'd damn well better do what I could to make it somehow.

Walking the streets I returned often to my own quiet thoughts of having watched my Dad as Captain on the Cutter Castle Rock. In the midst of The Bay of Pigs fiasco as he stood down the Cuban gunboats against orders to let the Cubans murder exiles as they fled.

I'd seen him at 3 am in the morning during horrendous storms calmly leading the young helmsman steering a course through the massive wave surges. He'd stand behind and to the side of the young man, his shoulder resting on the frightened seaman giving him quiet instructions... then when a relief came my dad always gave each man a well done and thanked each for helping to get us through the storm. Night after night, day after day I watched as my Dad guided the ship through the North Atlantic winter, always a presence of strength and comfort. I'd overhear the men down below talk about how the “Old Man” was sure one hell of a Skipper. Dad was never quiet in both praise and quick to let you know if you'd messed up. I knew just by his look when to shut up and listen.. yet I knew his anger would never last, that a hug was soon to follow. I took those lessons to heart now as I searched to find my own way as a helmsman of my own journey. Dad may be in Viet Nam but somehow he was with me still. Had I known it would be over 20 yrs till I saw him again I'm not sure I'd have had the strength to continue on. I did though.

Within a few days I'd landed in a busted out, barren Catholic Church twoweeks before Christmas. Somehow I’d found a part-time job washing dishes and cleaning up in a small diner. The owner arranged a small room in the local hotel for free in exchange for odd jobs. Just two years before I’d traveled Europe on my Dad’s ship, now I worked and lived in a place that served as part bordello and hideout for those on their way downhill quickly. From here I’d try to find a way, somehow?

Chapter 4 Morning the first hour of prayer

Mornings came early for me, work as a dishwasher and janitor at a localdiner gave me the excuse to rise at 3:30 am, in time to find a world outside the one windowed room still not awake yet. I would come to learn in later years this was the First Hour of Prayers in monastics the world over. Perhaps at this hour I was destined to begin my search for something to believe in. Having slept a night in the abandoned church on the corner across from my room, I’d discovered an elderly man entering a broken door to the church. Now I watched him morning after morning, leaning on a worn cane stumbling through as yet unmarked morning snow.

A short while later he emerged stooped, amidst the shadows cast by the corner light, seemingly swallowed in the flickering half-light surrounding him till he began walking down the crumbling steps into the shadows of the decaying twilight.

I'd wondered what could he be doing every morning; entering a crumbling old boarded up church. Windows broken with only a few panes of stained glass still remaining. As for me the church held only memories of abuse and sorrow, What was it that drew him on such a soul numbing morning in the hours before sunlight?

On Christmas Eve morning I made my way to work a bit early. Quiet, andalone, at one with the glistening light, reflecting off the new snow as though I was a priest waiting the moment of divine consecration. Stopping at the edge of the sidewalk to watch as the old man entered through a side entrance I quietly crossed the street and followed the man into the church. The dust and glass strewn floor stretched out beyond me. Here at the entrance of this barren church glimmering light filtered in from the glass above the altar.

Falling snow drifting in as lonely angels softly landing amidst the shattered glass littering the floor below. Looking to where the altar once stood I saw the old man leaning on his cane kneel while placing the cane beside him. Waiting while he bowed and crossed himself, I then began to approach within a few feet of the praying soul, silently not wanting to frighten the old man, I sensed that here was a man who perhaps knew the sorrow I felt, alone with a cold dim light of morning as cold and barren as any night in a world devoid of faith. Was this all he lived for? Praying alone in an empty church, forgotten, soon to be but more rubble in the rush for urban renewal. If that's what they call a world of steel and glass, of concrete and broken dreams.

Glancing up to watch the snow falling as it filtered through the shattered stained glass. I thought of those the world over who prayed to the God who they hoped would somehow hear their pleas. I'd long since given up on any God or anyone. My life had been a journey into what T.S. Elliot termed the Wasteland. Was this the God who'd seen my sister die on Christmas eve three years before, who'd allowed my mother to be raped then murdered after bringing me to the US. Silence, no booming voice or burning bush to light the way, I knew this was my journey, a path I must claim as my own.

As I walked further into the depth of the darkened filthy sanctuary I wondered; where were you God?... when I prayed for help as the priests abused me, the nuns beat me and the foster homes where I'd been beaten and locked in darkened rooms for weeks on end. In the midst of those dark thoughts I wondered what made this man Pray, what did he know I didn't ?

The old man stopped then looked up at the sound of my footsteps approaching. Turning, he looked with eyes revealing a deep sadness andloss. Asking why I'd disturbed him on such a morning as cold and dark asthis. I told of seeing him morning after morning from my room across the street, that out of curiosity had decided to follow him. I asked him why he came. He said, “It may be forgotten and long since a part of the past, but my children were baptized here, they had their first communion here, my wife prayed her rosary near where you're standing now.”

“We were married here, as was her funeral, now just a few years past. Along with my most of my old friends. Please Jimmy, will you join me and kneel please.

For me, it was from the altar that once stood just beyond us, our Priest celebrated mass Sunday after Sunday, and Easter after Easter. How can it be that what was once sacred ground is now only fit for dust and an old man like me?”

I answered that all churches were but hollow soundless bells of dreams lost forever, at least that had been true for me! He answered…” Were they all for nothing? I can still hear the Priest consecrating the bread and the wine, Tracing the symbol of the cross on my baby's head, I can remember the choir and see the children receiving their first communion, who can forget that! The Church may say this place has lost its usefulness...is no longer sacred…but what of the prayers...the hope we who came week after week, often on a daily basis, what had become of that faith? A faith we held so close to our hearts.

How can those be shuttered and torn apart? Can we forget the

Christmases spent awaiting the birth of our savior? “Times change I guess, but what was once holy ground is now said to be but barren. How can that be? What was once holy is now just dust and dirt...No, not for me! “What of the prayers...who will say the prayers? Who will say them now?”

Chapter 5 The Prayers

I'm Old and can only say them a little while longer, and then who will say them?” I asked the man...what he meant. Saying the prayers, why there are plenty of other churches...what about those people and their prayers. He answered me by asking, “How can the church just come in, tear out the Altar and declare this place no longer sacred. How can they tell God that he is no longer here? No longer welcome...how can they?

As long as this Church stands here, there must be someone to say the prayers for the world. In a world of such doubt and religious hatred perhaps our prayers made a difference. Who knows, my prayers mean so much to me, that's what my wife wanted, what she asked me to continue doing, just before she died. Now I've got to do it till I can't any more.” The old man asked me if I would join him in his morning prayers. I asked why. I no longer believed.

I'd been cast aside, lost here in the depth of this darkened night. I said I'd stay till he was done. For me, God had long since ceased to be part of my meager life. I was born to an Irish mother raped in Ireland then taken to Washington, DC. From what I would learn later on, this was with the help of the Church and state dept. She’d been returned to Ireland only to die a nameless woman, barren of her only child.

With me forever to wonder who she was, now a young man in a land devoid of hope. Now I wondered who'd hear my prayers. Was there indeed a God. Or was He just a comfort for the powerful and elderly. ? The old man knew my story, understood what I felt, yet told me to just pray believing that perhaps for me this was the place I'd find hope — hope amidst the broken corner light in a church of no altar where shattered light fell cold upon the ground where we knelt.

For a while we prayed, till I felt his hand on my shoulder as he got up to leave...I started to join him but he said, “No! You can't leave just yet, please for an old man and the sake of your own soul You must stay behind. There will come an answer, maybe not one you'd wish to hear, for your life will never be an easy one, your's will be a life lived in the shadows of life. Jimmy, don't despair for I will be with you throughout the journey you've been on. There has been great darkness early in your life, yet remember this darkness will one day enable you to see the despair in others, for you will one day be called to administer the sacraments of grace.

Chapter 6 The Presence Comes

You'll be visited by The Presence who'll comfort and give you a commission for your life. What may seem in your sight now as despair will be light to others one day. Remember this day for your night shall be turned into day!

“How can you say this... despair, night, sadness, what in the hell are you asking of me, how do you expect me to believe in anything you've told me. Look where I live, among prostitutes and bums, my life has ended before it had a chance to begin, so why should I trust what you tell me?”

In the dim light, I saw the Presence bow his head with tears streaming down his cheeks to fall upon the dust strewn floor. He reached out to me and said: “There will come a time when I will reach out again to bring your heart to life! Jimmy, you'll be at war, your life will take you from this place to yet more heartache.. but in the midst of all this pain you will bring light to those in need if prayer and your strength too! You see.. I have no one but those I send, guided by the Spirit I pray you'll answer by taking one step at a time, this is all I ask.

Do you think it was easy to send my apostles out into a world bent on their destruction? Yes, my heart aches to think of the pain you must suffer and are suffering. Know this one thing, your life will have meaning, you may not perceive it as such, but your heart will reach out to those almost beyond all hope, your hands will heal and your stumbling voice will bring calm and love to many the world over. Tarry awhile here Jimmy, allow me to be with you though belief seems such a long way off for you now. It was after all for my own friends, remember how Peter betrayed me three times then went and hid along with most of my followers. Can you image how I felt, such a journey from my Father's home to a land where I could hardly find a place to sleep at night. Yet now.. here we are, in a so called abandoned church. When I prayed so often I'd go to the Mount of Olives.. and yes.. one day you'll pray there too.. we find out strength in prayer.. strength to meet others and share in community. Like me you found your own community among the outcasts of society. For they like you look at what is real.. who's gonna be straight with them. There's no false impressions or promises. People are who they are. Learn to listen to the stil voice within you for that is the voice of the Holy Spirit I've sent to help guide you along your life's journey.

Just wait a little while longer for me and most of all for all who seek theworld over. We're not alone you know, there are those who wait for theanswer throughout the world, we're just two among the whole. God be with you my young friend, you may think God's not been aware of you, just know you're not alone.

Chapter 7 Last words from the Old Man

Stumbling down the crumbling steps, upon reaching the sidewalk he looked back, telling me to just wait, I'd know the answer soon enough, perhaps this very day! “Remember,” he said, “my wife prayed for me now I'm praying for you. All I ask is that you think ask within your heart, who'll say the prayers once I'm gone? Return to the altar, you'll be given a grace beyond that which I can describe. Please,don't just walk away, I beg of you for the sake of the World. You are the one chosen whether or not you can even fathom it yet.

Deep within I wondered if it might not be true, the prayers we say tonight are for the whole world on this Christmas Eve. His shadow disappeared into the swirling snow, causing me to lose sight of him for a moment or so. Crossing over to the church door, to pry it open hoping to see him once more.

Looking out all I could see was snow and a brightening of the streetlight. I could faintly hear his soft voice speaking to someone else from within the snow. Stepping onto the steps a bit closer I could almost visualize what appeared to be another person, a man wearing not a winter coat but a cloak or garment that shielded his face from view.

In those same moments the snow whipped up by the now silent winds from what had been a near blizzard, turning into a veil of falling white. Scarcely able to see their movement continuing into the new snow, I felt not another drop of white, the snow just suddenly stopped falling.

The light seemed to burn brighter, it was then I saw him emerge for one step.. for some reason as he appeared to stop for a second to look in my direction, a smile had replaced his weathered and tired face into one who'd somehow seen beyond an unseen veil.

There was a light in his eyes of such a radiance I knew instantly I'd somehow become witness to a miracle or something beyond my ability to comprehend. He then raised his hand in a slight wave, and then just as quickly... the cane dropped! Falling into the snow below. Where was he, just as he'd been walking along there was no one, not even the person he'd been walking with.

I ran toward the light where last I saw my friend. At first I saw his footprints for a few feet only to be joined by yet another set of footsteps. Beside the shoes I saw an imprint not of shoes or boots but of sandals. For a few feet they were there. Then Nothing! What should have been footprints dragging in the snow disappeared, revealing only the old

man's cane. I was left standing under the corner light alone. Snow began falling once again as I looked around me only to see barren streets, nothing. Glazed snow in the unploughed street revealed not a single footstep, not even the sandal prints I was sure I’d seen? Even the diner I'd be soon working in was darkened. All was dark except for this one light.

I've always wondered about this over the years since that fateful day. In such need.

Chapter 8 The Communion and sending forth

Kneeling before the empty place where the altar had stood I looked and saw a small plate and what seemed to be a cup full of wine while the plate held a small piece of bread.

In those few moments the light began streaming through the broken stained glass above me to reveal The Presence once again. Though seen through what seemed to be a haze he knelt too, then reached out to take the bread and wine, giving both to me, offering both I looked up and reached out to take the bread and drink, how was this possible..was I on my own Journey into the Holy Instant where all time ceases to be but a moment bringing all that has happened more clearly into focus..did I take communion from the very hands of the one from whom all love and grace flows from.

As I knelt and took the bread and wine I felt the touch of His hand upon my forehead...then in looking up I saw the empty room and before me a broken plate and cup, with no sign of ever having been touched.

Little would I know that I'd spend my life trying to find my way out of thedarkened world I'd somehow been born into. A world embracing all people, faiths and even those lost to belief.

Born of rape, abused, then adopted by a father who'd been friends to a president I was now among the poor of the world. I knew now what the world really was. a vast wasteland devoid of all hope, perhaps what I'd seen had been but a poor kid's dream, or had it.. ? Turning back to see the church, I knew I had an hour before the dinner opened for a few hours at least. Head down against the chill and wind I walked up the path to re-enter the church. Closing the door as best I could, I looked toward the vacant altar and place where the old man knelt each morning. Where was he now? Though he believed in God, I just couldn't be sure.

As I looked up to see the soft snow filled light coming in through the broken stained glass I thought of a long since forgotten incident I'd thought had been long since blocked from my memory. There'd been the Plane crash when I was about 7 when the gentle Lady in Blue had guided through the choking burning smoke and flames in the midst of my best friends and his family who lay dead inside the burning wreckage. She'd somehow taken me into her arms out to the clear air where I could breathe again to hear the sound of sirens just out of sight. As she lay me on the ground, and leaned in close to kiss my cheek; she began whispering to me; ”You'll know my presence often during your life in the years to come, you may forget what I say this day, but you'll remember! On that day my Son will show you how he'd sent me to you, that you have

a path to live. Just remember you're not alone, you'll know. In that second I lost sight of her as the sounds of sirens began to stream into the area.

Just maybe the answers I sought just might begin to be found beneath the broken stained glass and now barren floor where an altar had stood. The Church may take all its buildings and board them up! As scandals and ever hardening reliance on dogma. Churches drive people from Christ's embrace. Let us drop to our knees in prayer.

In reconciliation, remembering the Prodigal Son may we draw once again from the well of faith and open wide our arms to welcome in the hurting, those of weakened faith, all who've been lost due to loveless dogma or our own inability to take to heart the Love of Christ.

Chapter 9 the journey contiues

In the next two years, I'd begin night school, learn how to live in the midst of poverty yet find how deeply I cared for those few friends I'd come to love and know. The old Greek merchant who argued daily with my boss at the diner, yet always managed to find small ways to let me know what a friend my boss was and how much he cared for me. The women became both sisters and guides to me as I matured into a young man. So funny to accompany them to Sunday afternoon movies or out for chinese once a week. They'd even get me to go with them when they shopped for lingere' loving how embarrassed I'd become yet how conservative they were with me, never allowing me to as they called it “Mess Around”or even to date. For them their mission was to make sure I finnished Night High School and go onto college.

Thinking I'd become an accountant I started at a local small school but quickly found my heart was in film so a year later I moved to S.C. And film school. This was a school where I could attend a cinema school for a modest amount of money from the funds I'd saved and my friends had given me from what I came to find out was a savings account that had been set up for me a couple of years before. .

A year and a half later I went to London to make arrangements to fly to Belfast, N. Ireland where I had a summer job as a print photojournalist for a group of small Christian publications.

While waiting on the Airline bus to take me into London I met a young French Woman who worked in London, while sitting next to one another it seemed loved captured our hearts..from that moment on we became lovers. Though innocent we found ourselves in our own world with my job taking me away for a few days at a time. Within a few weeks we found out we were to be parents.

I asked Michelle to marry me which she happilly accepted. We took a cheap student flight to Northern France and went by train to Honfleur to tell her parents and family, plans for a wedding would come in just under three months. I managed to enroll in the Univ. of London and continue my freelance job as a photojournalist.

A few weeks later while on assignment in Belfast, amidst the near constant riots, firebombs and utter fear I was for the first time injured during a bombing resulting in shrapnel wounds to my legs and stomach. It was while in Queen Anne's Hospital the US Embassy contacted me to let me know Michelle had been killed instantly during an IRA bombing attack at the entrance to our local Leicester Square Underground Station. Once again my life came to a shocking end in total disbelief.

Chapter 10 Embarking on a hidden life

In an instant as with the rest of my life, all would be changed in an instant. I went on to return to Washington, DC where I had a few friends, it was while there that a Defense Dept. agency recruited me for service and training to serve as a counter-terrorist officer as soon as I was through with college. During my summer in N. Ireland and contacts at school I'd come to meet and know a number of political leaders in Belfast and somehow found myself accepted as a friend to the protestant leadership. By the time graduation rolled around I'd attended a number of schools and begin my own sworn revenge on the IRA members who planted the bomb that had killed my beloved fiance and child. A year and half later this hunt ended in a wild area of western N. Ireland when a British Army Unit allowed me to kill all members of the team that had planted the bomb, a team that included men who'd killed numerous innocent people.. Catholic and Protestant alike. Though I found revenge a bitter pill and not the answer to the pain deep within my soul it led me into the world of global terrorism, hunting down others wherever they may be.

I'd go on to witness numerous acts of terrorism, find myself wounded indistant lands, alone to think back on this very Christmas morning again and again. I've seen children die in Belfast, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, n the US and in lands we can barely name.

We cry out. Where is the answer? Looking back I thought of my own abuse at the hands of the supposed religious, the beatings at the hands which held rosaries, abuse from priests who'd vowed to live for God, where I constantly pleaded, where were you God, has Jesus forgotten us all in this hell of creation. Was this not God's creation?

Did not Jesus say, “Forbid them not. For such is the Kingdom of heaven?” Rather we had used religion as a vehicle to turn hate into bullets and bombs sending them into the hearts of men, women and children. We not destroying our ”defenseless ones”, are we not bringing down our own destruction?

The first time I fell victim to a terrorist bombing was in Belfast. Laying inthe street amidst the wreckage of a shattered taxi, glass that had flown tothe ground below and the shrapnel which had pierced my body from head to my ankles. I could at least see the children I'd shielded from the blast running into their mother's arms. I lay there in a distant land, suddenly remembering an orthodox prayer I'd heard once, called “The Jesus Prayer”... “Lord Jesus have mercy on me a sinner”. So simple yet so full of grace and humility.

Perhaps God was here with me in this moment of grace in the midst of

terror. While waiting for help in the midst of the madness of a terrorist's dream, I once again remembered how it had felt learning my fiance and unborn daughter had been killed in yet another bombing. The Provisional IRA had launched a massive bombing attack in London near our small flat on a small alleyway near Leicester Square in Central London.

It was as if Jesus had knelt in the glass strewn street to somehow hear my own confession of failure and doubt. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church; the Orthodox Rite of Confession finds the priest accompanying the penitent to the side of the altar to face an Icon as the priest places his hand on the persons shoulder. In prayer the person speaks to Jesus, looking inward to search the soul seeking forgiveness and solace. Rather than a moment of condemnation the believer is restored to fullness and grace. Knowing that as the father welcomed the prodigal we may say to Jesus; hear my prayer from the depths of my soul. To take my wounded soul into your own heart, take all the lost moments of my life, the hurt, pain, the doubts I've held in for so long.

As I awaited medical care I found the silence wrought on me by the bomb's blast almost a welcome relief. Sounds of screaming, sirens, falling walls and the cry of the injured seemed far away, “Lord Jesus Have Mercy on Me...a sinner”. Though I had no one to call or visit me in the Hospital, no one to go home to I felt as though I must be alive for some as yet unknown reason. The pain of losing my one true love, then seeing riot after riot, being shot at then surviving a massive bombing made me think back on my first homeless Christmas.

It was then while waiting for medical help I felt that same whispered kiss on my cheek once again, the Lady in Blue, knelt beside me holding me, telling me the children I'd carried to safety, shielding them with my body would be ok, that I was right where the Father wanted me”. Just as sudden soldiers moved me to a stretcher for a quick ride to the same hospital I'd been before.

Chapter 11 A Return to a time before

Yet I knew somewhere the Old Man beneath the corner light, and “The Presence” I'd witnessed and experienced on that cold Christmas morning returned to me that day, one again reminding me we were never alone, we just need to reach out and touch the outstretched Hand of God.

As I lay in the hospital bed I went back to that early morning beneath thecorner light and church left barren by an uncaring world. I couldn't butthink that rather than refuse so many lonely people a place before the altar of Jesus, let us welcome others as that old man did so many years before, when he asked me to take my place at the table of Grace. Then perhaps those broken stained glass windows will send forth a light that will not wither and die in the ever-increasing night. This old man, his name now forgotten, knew it was for us to say the prayers for a world in such need.

The Presence

Silent as the breath of a child's prayer, I felt a presence enter the brokenwindow that looked down upon the withered altar floor. “Jimmy... turnaround, did you not hear what the old man tell you but a few minutes ago? What he said was you were the one chosen to Say the Prayers! I have others but it's you I've chosen for this Holy Instant.

In later years this same presence would intercede to save my life while in combat situations, first while walking as a journalist in Belfast with British Troops. We'd come under massive automatic weapons fire from rooftops nearby. As the bullets pierced the wall behind me, suddenly it felt “OK”--a peace amidst what I came to recognize as the bluish swirling light in the midst of a hushed breeze. There would be the unseen hands reaching out to push me down or out-of-the-way of certain death. Looking around I saw the nearest soldiers firing from more than 15 ft. away from me. Yet after the firefight was over I tried to thank whoever saved my life. The soldiers said they'd glanced in my direction to see whatlooked like a force push me hard just as the bullets struck the wall behind me.

Later, in Operation Desert Storm the same thing happened, then again in a drug raid that went badly in NC, during combat in Bosnia/Kosovo, inAfghanistan, in Greensboro, NC when the KKK and Aryan racists killed five, wounding 12. Again and again, that same light came and fear left me almost as if I found myself falling into the arms of someone who truly loved me.

Chapter 12 The Lady in Blue

I'd actually felt this back when I was but 6 or 7 in California during a flight from Lake Tahoe to Oakland with my best friend and his family. As it near a small airport near Oakland the plane lost power, falling uncontrollably to crash before it could reach the runway. I now remember the sudden wrenching sound of metal and whoosh of fire and wind as the plane blew apart. I could see bodies on fire, my own friend his mouth open in a silent scream reached toward me then collapsed in death. All I remember is arms enfolding me, the whispering sound of a cool breeze as if a softly falling summer rain sought to bathe us in hope. Those same arms seemed to be leading? “No Jimmy, your friend has been taken already to a place of such love that it'll feel like falling into a cloud. Can you think of that, plus my Son is watching out for him. Let me take care of you till I can get you to safe ground.

As we reached blue sky and green grass beyond the fire I felt her let go ofme, she leaned down and kissed my cheek, saying “I'll be with you oftenover the years, my Son has entrusted you to my care so don't worry we love you so much. Now sit here and wait for others to come and take you home. I love you Jimmy, I'll see you again in a few years. I Later learned my friend and his parents all died suddenly in the crash of the twin engine plane, all except for me.

Finally the sirens began getting louder, I could feel blood all over my faceand head, in looking I could see my hands also had suffered cuts yet no sign of burn marks on my body. Within an hour or so I was in the emergency room of the Hospital where my parents found me. I could hear the doctors tell them I'd told them a woman dressed in blue had been seen through the smoke and flames helping me out of the plane, that I'd felt a cool wind surround me as she led me to safety.

My parents later told me this was something I dreamed, due to the head concussion and was just scared. Not believing me they just said I'd been in a state of shock. To this day I can see the lady in Blue and feel her kiss on my forehead. One day a few weeks later while walking in the yard with my Dad I told him to look up at the clouds. I told him the Lady in Blue told me as my buddy Jack died he fell into a cloud for Jesus to take him home. Dad took my hand and said no matter what others said I should think of that when I think back on the plane crash. He told me he'd thanked the lady in his own prayers for looking out for me.

This would become a silent bond between my Dad and I we'd bring up once in a while as I recounted to him my various experiences with the Lady in my adult combat experiences.

Years later when I was 12 my little sister Marion, the only natural child my parents had become my best friend and loved to hear my made-up stories of Christmas. I'd shared with her my memories of the Lady in Blue, of how I often asked her in my prayers to look out for her. Especially when she had one of her many Cystic Fibrosis attacks. Little Marion came to love the Lady too. On one occasion during a terrible attack, she told me in secrecy ... for us alone that she'd met the lady too. That Christmas Eve I'd told her I'd wake her up and check to see if Santa left her with a red nose. It was our custom to place a dot of red iodine on the tip of her nose to let her know Rudolf had indeed visited. Early the next morning I ran to wake Marion, only to find her still, blue in color and not breathing. I yelled for my Dad, but as he arrived I knew my sister had gone to be with Jesus. Later in the day my mother had forced my Dad to throw the tree outside and toss the presents in the garbage. From that point on we never did have a Christmas. to the point I'd often her tell my Dad her only child died because he'd insisted on adopting me. I knew she hated me and wanted me gone. Later in the winter I'd gone to my tree house, strung a rope from a nearby limb and one end of the rope to my neck. Jumping off I'd hoped to end the family's pain by dying, if only by removing my presence from their memory. The old tree limb cracked and broke, leaving me sprawled on the ground, with a bright red rash on my neck. When I walked into the house my mother saw me and immediately began beating me telling me she'd had enough of a bastard son forced on her. That night my Father took me to my Aunt and Uncle's home, then later to his Coast Guard Cutter where I'd live till we moved to NJ. Forced to live with a succession of family friends till finally sent away at 15, cold, alone and lost in a land of broken down decaying churches and hollow eyed men and women, a land lost in the American wasteland.

I write this now in the fall of 2010 at a time when America finds itself home to more homeless and cast aside citizens then at any other time since the Great Depression. How can this but force us to examine our faith? A faith stripped of pretense to look as I did back in the South Side of Chicago that long ago winter.

Where there was darkness...Light. Remembering the Presence once again.

Stunned, I turned to find a light falling upon the worn spot in front of where the altar had stood. The place where the old man had knelt a thousand or more times I suppose. The light revealed a wooden plate with a small crude wooden cup beside it. There’s been nothing but the dust and torn carpet. Now a plate and cup, empty till I looked back toward the door then back up toward the stained glass window above the altar. The glass had broken through the image of Jesus. I could hear the voice; felt the presence yet saw no person before me. Alone I felt strong hands touch my forehead as if to impart some sort of blessing.

Why me? Though baptized Catholic, I surely wasn’t much of anything. Church had all been bit of a joke, with clergy mouthing mere words with little meaning to a kid still lost and searching. Here I was still a young teen with snow drifting through the roof of a former Catholic church.

I remembered once again in the years since the words of The Presence that snowy day. “ Jimmy.. This is for you, take and eat of the bread, as with your life and mine it’s been broken for you. Now take up the cup, take it for this is a sign for you today and forever. This is my blood poured out for you and a world in such a need as you're heard this very morning. It is a symbol of my love for you... drink and eat this is the moment you've searched for these many years.” I wanted to run or get away from such strange Thoughts and sounds, yet at that moment I felt within me the words I'll always remember! The presence must have known my life. What I thought, my doubts and distrust of any sign of hope or love. “OK I've had the bread and wine, now what? Can you give me back the family I've lost? I don't think so! What about the old man? He's surely lost it all, just like most on this street. If we're so special what are we doing in this living hell? There aren't any easy answers, are there?” I stood to walk out toward the my job at the diner.

“Jimmy... stop. Will you walk away too...?” answering I responded; “Howcan I walk away from what I never really had? Why should I stay now?”Whether it was words spoken or thoughts in my head, the presence softlysaid, “I understand, there were those who walked away from me too—myfriends. Yet there were those who remained, those who came back.

Now will you join those who stayed? Just stay awhile and say the prayers, I promise you won't be alone. Just stay with me for a while.” I promisewhenever you say these prayers I'll be with you. Your life won't be easy. In fact it'll be far from that. I'll be with you, try to think of me once in awhile OK?”

Chapter 13 Belfast and War

Later in life I'd find an elderly priest in Belfast who'd save me from certain death, he listened and prayed with me, telling me how often as a lonely priest he'd look up from his prayers to sense a presence surrounding him as

if it was truly the Lord beside him too. Other times I'd be moved by strong arms from the path of bullets meant for me, or the path of a bomb. A few months before Fr. Henri Nouwen died I was able to spend a long weekend in his presence following a period of deep despair. Telling him of this day when I was but 15 he told me of his own private encounters with the quiet grace of God as Jesus came to reach out and guide him from the deep well of darkness too. During a freelance media assignment to Bosnia/Kosovo I ventured alongside US troops, and others into areas that seemed to echo the horrors of Nazi Germany's Death Camps yet involving entire villages.

We were led to fields where early in the morning after a nighttime rain we could see bodies by the dozens edging up through the mud. A couple of my fellow news photographers ventured into Sarajevo. More nightmare then city, we witnessed snipers shooting women and old men running across streets, a child holding onto her mama’s hand being shot as they ran. In one instance as I ran with a small group the gunmen got me too. Many years later a documentary on combat news people I'd see footage of myself being shot. Not a pleasant thing to see let alone experience. In need of some kind of hope and rest we drove like madmen once I'd been operated on toward the world known village of Medjugorje in the mountains between Bosnia- Herzegovina. Where for many years a chosen few receive messages and thousands have seen miraculous images of Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Queen of Peace with messages of peace and Love, and are meant to guide each one of us to a closer relationship with God. Thinking back on one morning when one of the visionaries led us up a rocky, mountain , the site of many miracles since 1981. Here the Our Lady of Medjugorje appeared before me as the same lady in blue I'd seen many other times.

Chapter 14 Rise and Praise, lesson in humility

Though I'd lost hope in God after seeing war upon war, so many murders, horrors no person should witness, enough to drive a wedge between me seeing a loving God remotely involved in our lives. Yet in the moments of the vision I was taken back to the Christmas Musical performance at College when the orchestra and huge choir had risen to sing the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel from his “Messiah”.

As the chorus began, we followed custom by rising from our seats to join in with the ever rousing chorus. I looked over a few seats before me to see a friend with her sister seated between she and her mother. You could easily see the young girl of about 14 was a victim of cerebral palsy.

With the music continuing the girl began to cry, she tapped her left arm and hand against her sister, looking down we could all see the girl was indicating she too wanted to rise and honor The Messiah, Jesus Christ.

I leaned over to help them reach in to help this young woman stand, holding her weight in our arms and hands it was as if I suddenly could close my eyes and see the Lady in Blue as she leaned down to hold her now dead son as he was lain on the ground beneath the cross. I could imagine how she felt, the tears falling from my own eyes became her tears as her hand caressed her son's scarred face and looked upon the Lord now gone from them. The music continued and with it I suddenly found myself crying as if through the haze of the light morning sun radiating through the clouds I could see in the face of that young girl the face of hope, or true devotion and love. While we stood and waited for the long chorus to end this handicapped girl could only see her Lord before her, seeing him no longer dead beneath the now empty cross but risen above us as our hope for life! I've held that story so far within me that it emerges in times when faith all but seems gone forever.

Years later following assignment to Bosnia/Kosovo as a TV news Videojournalist I'd returned home battle scarred and numb to all emotion except my own sense of darkness, a darkness surrounding me as a should. At the behest of a friend who'd known for years a well known priest and author I was invited to join Fr. Henri Nouwen during a long weekend along the New England Coast.

Chapter 15 Fr. Henri Nouwen, direction in peace

Fr. Henri's custom was to hold a casual Eucharist in his hotel room for those who'd accompanied him. He'd asked us to share our own impressions of what it meant to us in light of our own lives. Henri mentioned that we each carried our own dreams and imaginings which went into forming how we approached Jesus each and every day. Most of all he asked that we reveal that which had touched us the most.

On this morning with a haze filling the picture window beyond us, I looked around the room to see 10 of us. Most were old friends, some seminarians and Priests and those like myself who'd come on retreat to find that which was lost in our own lives.

I mentioned that I found faith deeper among those who'd gone through great suffering and times of doubt in their own lives. Especially those I'd met in various war torn lands.. yet one place stood out as a remarkable shinning moment in humanity where soldiers refused their government's dictate to fire upon their own people!

In East Berlin it was by Government edict that the decision had been made to trap as many citizens as possible trying to return via a temporary opening of the borders. Rather then block their return the border guards laid their weapons down, for peace had broken out like spring pushing the long dark winter away.

I'd remembered what it was like the week West and East Berliners climbed atop the wall to begin the joyous effort to tear down the one sign of division and hopelessness in Europe. A sign that communism had never worked, freedom was now more then just a term in history books, it was real and tangible to us all. I'd flown with a crew to videotape this earthshaking news, and how by accident we'd stumbled on a father and son who were shopping in West Berlin yet lived just over the border in East Berlin. Seeing the tag on their car we walked up to the father who invited us over for dinner that night. Learning how they'd suddenly found the borders opening the previous day they'd gone over to visit with their grandparents, and were now on their way back over. We climbed into their car to ride with them the short distance from a festive West Berlin to the gray, dim ghostly East Berlin that seemed to be virtually bursting with color and joy. The Guards saluted and reached out to shake our hands, as we braked to a stop scores of people thronged our car, handing us beers and hugging us we fell in with the families celebrating the hope of a free future. A dream so long denied behind the imposing and deadly wall visible from the windows of my new friend's home.

Later that night they told us that for the first time their small home church would be celebrating an unheard of community communion service. That there would be Catholics, Lutherans, Christians from many underground churches, all formerly used to worshiping in private, now able to come together as one Christian Community. Following years of what seemed to be hopeless prayer.

By early evening, the street was closed with scores of local residents bringing over food, a minister came and set up a small table to serve as an altar for the assembled group. Scarcely believing my eyesight I saw even soldiers and police joining the assembled throng of people with song now bursting forth from us all as if on cue. Prayers were said, the minister then took a single loaf of bread, a glass of wine. Said the words of consecration and blessing, then began passing the gifts of grace and joy from one person to another.

I took a small piece of bread and sip of wine and passed it on to a police officer who stood weeping next to me. How selfish we accept our ability to worship or not worship. I now live in a city that celebrates it's own embrace of atheism and distaste of anything related to Christianity. I look forward toward my soon to come move from cold, rainy Portland,OR back home to the Boston area.

Not once did I see anyone fill the glass or offer up a new loaf of bread. This one loaf and single glass of wine served well over 50 to 75 people, it was only when the last person, a soldier with tears and deep wracking sobs flowing from his heart did the bread and wine reach an end. This wasn't some Gospel story but communion on an East Berlin street where Jesus walked that very night! Where peace had broken out and freedom became for all of us more than just a word we heard in school or from a politician's mouth. Rather we lived it person to person. Once the impromptu service was concluded we had the chance to talk in the family's home and talk about what we'd just witnessed.

How could it be I asked, that the bread and wine lasted so long, surely someone must have brought more to use without being noticed. No, the father told me that this had indeed happened.. in fact he said one police officer had been so touched he knelt and spent part of the service in deep prayer. To this day I remember it as the day Christ once again walked among us!

I asked Fr. Henri where was Jesus in the Balkan War? I still struggled to find true belief after all the war and acts of terrorism I'd witnessed. Henri said we lived in a world of light and darkness. Victims of our own freewill and lack of faith. A world caught in between both peace and war. In the midst of our own searching and wandering we somehow we must reach into the darkness and in faith touch the offered hand of God.

I also told the group during the next day's Eucharist of how as a homeless teen I'd met the man who disappeared before my eyes after asking me to continue telling the prayers for the world. Before my own eyes I'd seen the elderly man walk out with cane in hand into a swirling snow storm. I'd seen him caught up into what seemed a whirling circle of snow till amazingly another man appeared to be walking alongside him. Looking into the street lit snow I could see the other man wrapped his arm around the elderly man I suddenly saw no one. .just the cane drop into the snow! I'd run to where I'd last seen them only to see a set of show prints and what looked like the footsteps that seemed to be made by sandals in the snow. The two had gone for a precious few steps then just the sandal prints then just the cane laying in the snow, alone. Along the way I'd seen more than once incidents that seemed impossible yet they'd happened.

Fr. Henri told me his own unique experiences yet also revealed how sad his life had been most of his life. .that we were both joined in our own dark night of the soul. We'd walked along the cold windswept shoreline, almost lost in thought. Knowing I'd lost a fiance and unborn child to a terrorist's bomb.

Telling him how I'd been recruited through the urging of an old friend into the Defense Intelligence Agency I'd trained while finishing college then worked in Ireland, N. Ireland and parts of Europe and the middle east to confront what had become a Soviet sponsored link of terror groups the world over. While in N. Ireland I'd participated in a number of raids and missions designed to stop the IRA, or Provisional IRA a Marxist group that claimed to be Catholic yet in private worked to rid a united Ireland of all religion and form a Marxist militaristic state.

Chapter 16, The Priest and the IRA

At one point while undercover I'd been targeted for kidnapping then murder by the IRA. While running behind a row of small houses and flats in the Catholic area of Belfast, hoping to find a place to hide then call in for help from my British Army group of SAS members. Turning a corner I saw two cars full of IRA men closing in when a door opened as an elderly man in a Priest's collar lean out to grab me and pull me inside out of sight of the IRA men. Safe for at last I was led to a bedroom and told to hide inside a small closet till the IRA team had left the area.

For the next week I spent countless hours talking, praying and listening to this endearing Priest as he helped me walk though the minefield of my own sense of terror and sorrow. I'd told him the story of how Michelle and I had met that summer day after my second year in college. He knew we'd fallen in love instantly, that I'd moved in with her that same day before I began my off and on job of freelance print journalist in N. Ireland. The sadness of losing the only woman I'd ever loved.. and wanted to marry. That she'd been killed the week we were planning on flying to France to be married in her home parish near Honfleur in France. I'd told him how full of revenge my soul had become which was the reason I'd signed on to join a counter terrorist unit operating in N. Ireland and the men I'd shot and killed as part of what I saw as a life's mission to rid the world of those who targeted innocents. This kindly Priest saw into my heart and soul, a hurting shell of a man who'd been rejected all his life. Daily I joined Fr. Robert in his prayers.. told him of the old man I'd met in Chicago and the prayers he'd said till one day he'd just gone away right before my eyes. I took communion and had finally asked him to bless me before I was to be picked up by my own SAS team to get me out of danger. In little more then a month I'd find myself wounded in a major Belfast bombing that would find me entering yet another mystery of life.

When he lifted the bread and wine I thought back on the old man asking me to continue what he did each day, to Say the Prayers for The World.

We must make our way under the corner light, knowing one day we'll look and see another set of footprints right there alongside our own.

Chapter 17 Return to a Time Before

In the passage of time since my days in Northern Ireland, the land of my birth I remembered the dreams I'd begun having while in Hospital recovering from wounds received in yet another bomb. There'd been the ambush we'd escaped with one dead and me having to shoot an IRA man firing at us as we tried to escape. The bombs and shootings seemed to create a confusion where one day melded into another. As if we were caught in a land between life and death I found myself waking in the middle of the night having dreamed the same one over and over again, day after day.

I woke in utter terror, men were chasing me as I ran down a small country lane, somehow north of Belfast near the coastline. As I ran down the road I could see a small house with a curving stone walkway and a bluish door with thin windows alongside the door. As I reached the walk I saw my wife throwing the door open and screaming as she reached for me. .just as I felt a bullet strike me in the back near my head. As I fell dying I could see her tears streaming from such loving eyes. .! The same eyes as my own Michelle had but a mere two years before when last I saw her alive before her death at the hands of the IRA.

Yet somehow I knew I'd been in this past life or life before an IRA man. Who'd married the love of his young life. Katherine had been but a few weeks pregnant just as Michelle had been when I died on our front walk. I could somehow remember the wedding in a small Catholic Chapel just over the border in Eire (The Irish Free State) as we liked to call our own Ireland. But she'd been from Northern Ireland so I moved to the home her parents had left her upon their death.

We'd met by accident in church for unlike most in Ulster she was Catholic. For her own sake we'd moved out into the country and come to love our quiet life between my missions on behalf of the Irish Republican Army to which I'd been a soldier since the age of 15. It had been after once such mission to bomb a British Military guard post I'd taken flight to avoid capture and certain hanging or the firing squad. Yet a traitor in our midst had given me away leading to my death just as I'd reached out to take Katherine’s hand.

A dream drawn from mist in time, I never new till a few weeks later. I'd told a friend of the constant dreams, of how I somehow seemed to know in a rough way where I'd lived..to which he suggested I take one of his family's cars and take a weekend to rest up following my hospitalization and see if it was a indeed a dream or a deep memory remembered from a life I'd somehow lived before.

The next day I set out on the Antrim Road north out of Belfast. A road known for it's rough beauty and views of the Irish Sea. Approaching a small intersection my hands suddenly turned the wheel! I knew instantly this was the way to my old home..for the next hour I gone on a variety of road till I came to a stop sign and three roads converging. Driving on the road to my left I came to the top of a small county road, a road I 'd remembered to the very core of my soul. As I drove up a slight rise I stopped suddenly upon seeing off to the left down a grassy hillside the house. There in front of the house was a narrow curved walkway from the road to the front door..the same walkway and door from my dreams, dreams that had come every night..to the point that memories from that time invaded my life even while awake. In the act of drawing this well of information from deep within I found myself asking if this was reincarnation, or a memory carried in my soul as from my wife and what had been to me my unborn child Katherine carried within her as I died before her very eyes. Most clergy I talked with discounted it all yet wondered aloud how I could somehow remember in such detail areas of N.Ireland I'd never visited before?

I drove down to the house, parked then began walking up the walkway..remembering in vivid detail how I had died at the hands of the Bristish Soldiers. I could see my wife pulling the door open and heard once again her screams as she reached out for my outstretched hand as I fell from the gunshots to my back and head.

Walking around the house I looked inside till a car drove up beside my own loaned car. An elderly man and his wife stepped out asking if they could assist me in some way. I told them I was recovering from injuries and had taken a few days of rest to drive out into the countryside. They told me they'd moved to the area following their own wedding back in the 1920's. This was by now 1972. The couple asked me to join them for tea at their home just up the road. It was over tea the wife brought out a scrapbook to show me early photos and newspaper clippings from their life. One photo that caught my attention was a faded old black and white of the couple standing in front of their home with a few other people. As I looked closer I motioned to a young woman with such sad eyes. Why they said. That was Katherine McCann who's husband was an IRA man killed right in front of her the year before. With her was her year old child born but months following the terrible death. They said she stayed on for a year longer then moved elsewhere in N. Ireland..they thought it might be to Enniskillen a city a hundred miles from Dublin.

It would only come to my knowledge that in 1948 I was born in that same city in N. Ireland to a young woman who'd been raped then forced to take me to the US. All I knew at that time was this dream would figure strongly in my life from then on.

Chapter 18, Life After Death, a return

During one of my life after death episodes in surgery I found myself on the otherside of a dark tunnel looking over to see my late fiance Michelle kneeling in lush green golden grass reaching out to play with a cute little girl of about seven or eight who was playing with others beside a stream of what looked like irridescent water and light, creating sparkles of light creating a mirror for all that surrounded me. As I looked around could see another woman appearing with a glorious smile walking toward the others, she reached out to touch my daughter's hair then looked in my direction, she seemed to sense I was there, yet made no motion to wave or let me know for sure she saw me. This woman who then sat beside t he stream of water turned to look into the water I noticed to be the same face I'd seen in the old photo, she was my very own Katherine.

This surely what I'd never heard of as being part of any near death episode I'd read of before. While at the same time questions flew into my mind only to be answered in ways I still can't explain. Somehow my life had crossed so many barriers of time and being, showing me I had been loved.. though I thought I was indeed in heaven the tears kept flowing, how could this be heaven if the ones I loved were all gone from my life and why couldn't I stay. I had no life to return to..! No..I pleaded to the Presence just off to beyond my reach to allow me to remain.. the answer came in the form of a sudden command to return, my journey was far from over.

I turned, hoping to be greeted with smiles and perhaps acknowledgement of my presence. Only to see they didn't seem to see me. I'd never wanted to leave that place of light and such warmth and peace. Yet the darkness drew me toward it, a darkness that seemed so full of pain and dread. In this moment I longed to run towards the fun just as I saw another woman who waved and beckoned my fiance and my little daughter toward her. I knew without knowing with words that I finally saw my very own daughter along with for what came as an amazing shock my mother. I knew for some reason to the very core of my being that this woman was my mother..whom I'd learned before as an unknown woman who'd been raped by a US diplomat.. had been forced to bring me to Washington, DC and hand me over to an orphange then to multiple abusive foster homes. I knew from my time with the Defence Intelligence Agency that my mother had been sent back to N. Irelnad then died soon after returning home without me. The saddness of knowing I couldn't talk or hold my true loved ones.. my true family pained me to the very core of my soul.

How could this be if I was in heaven..could this really be heaven? Or another period of torture once again. It was then with those thoughts the

knowledge that I was on my way back to live out a life that had been set before me so I couldn't pierce the barrier into eternity, Just yet!

As I attempted to cry out for their attention the darkness grabbed me fully and threw me into the passage between the morning light and the dim light of life. I could see a silver cord attached to my being, coiling up drawing me toward a surgical operating room where I could see a sheet being closed over my face. Immediately a sharp pain jerked me back to life, I heard blips pinging on the monitor, a nurse nearby raced over uncover me as did a doctor, then another one leaned in as my sight quickly lapsed into darkness. I later learned the pharmacy had sent up a mislabeled IV bag to be used during my emergency surgery due to a gunshot wound to the sternum.

As a result of those injuries and complications I retired from TV news on disability. With that freedom I began exploring aspects of the new age.. and spirituality along with accepting freelance media assignments that led me to travel in various areas of the world.

The search to find answers to my life's longings led me to more travels, exploring my own inner life and question the validity of spirituality in light of the life I'd already lived.

This is a continuing account of one life touched by a dying man under acorner streetlight and the Presence I still look to at times for a bit of lightand hope.© 2010 Fr. Jim Waters,FBS; Sanctus Mediahttp ://www.sanctusinstitute.orgsanctusinstitute@gmail.com