Topic: Luck

           It was a Thursday night and my parents had choir practice at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Newport, KY. My sister was only a couple years older than me so we couldn't be left home alone. Thus, we attended all the masses, choir practice, and church events. We were very accustomed to the church life. We were a church family; a catholic family. My dad actually had Pentecostal roots. That's one of those churches where people speak in tongues, dance down the isles, faint from the miracle of healing, and become possessed by demons and alternately are exorcised by the preacher. Women didn't cut their hair or wear pants. All the women wore long skirts or dresses, had ornate fixtures on their head that was their hair. We had left such a church only a couple years earlier. Much to my Mother's relief, Dad converted the family to Catholicism. She felt like she was returning home to the faith of her upbringing; perhaps only then understanding the extent of the madness she'd been participating in at the Pentecostal church as she walked through the stone passages, cathedral domes, and detailed carvings of the crucified Jesus Christ, and the sacred heart of Mary. Such carvings were displayed in this sanctuary on this particular night. 

     It was very dark and the street in front of the building was a busy one. Cars would speed by most times of the day. The inside of the church was cavernous and quite long in length. If I remember correctly there was an odd green carpet running from the crucifix all the way to the double doors which opened to the street outside. 

     Choir practices seemed like an eternity. To keep ourselves entertained we usually brought along a sizeable Crayola tin full of broken crayons of every color. Jungle green, cayenne, violet, and fuchsia to name a few. Sometimes we played cards or tic tac toe. My sister almost always won. 

       On this particular night we sat in the seventh or eighth pew from the front where my dad conducted choir practice. While Dad waved his hand through the air to lead the vocalists, my sister and I colored on blank sheets of white paper. Ali colored in a Little Mermaid coloring book while I created my own race of purple and green monsters. 

       I remember being tired that night. The drone of the choir and the organ had a sedating quality the way it reverberated through massive stone structure. My eyelids grew heavy as I scribbled on the paper and before i knew it I was unconscious. I don't remember what position I lay in, but my head was likely resting on the seat of bench with legs on the kneeler. I went into a strange dream. The church was dark and I was alone. Sitting in the front pew. The statues of saints and the crucifix looked eerie in the silence of God. I then saw a light beckoning to me. It flowed softly from the back doors. I stood up and proceeded to follow the light in a slow, reverent manner. In a processional, I arrived closer and closer to the light and it grew brighter and brighter until it began to envelop me and saturate my vision. My fear came to an apex and as my heart pounded. Then the floor disappeared and I went into free fall. And just when the feeling was too overwhelming I opened my eyes. My dad's face was only a few inches I front of mine and he looked terrified. The sounds of passing cars could be heard all around as my dad shook me further awake. It was then that I realized we were outside, standing in the street. I began to cry. My mother rushed forward and put her arms around me. That wasn't the first time I had sleepwalked. This time i nearly walked into traffic. My parents would later tell me that they observed me walking around the sanctuary toward the backdoors. In the middle of one of their hymns, my Mom said she had heard a voice compelling her to go check on me. By that time I was walking through the back door. Choir practice was halted immediately as my parents rushed to fetch me. Had my mom not noticed me and had she not heeded her premonition...

    There were many more choir practices to attend. Many more nights of sleepwalking, falling asleep in the dark of midnight mass; many more prayer services, funerals and weddings of strangers, passion plays of the crucifixion, reconciliation, and glowing candle-lit vigils in the ghostly streets of town as the congregation would chant "Lord Hear Our Prayer."