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March 21, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 6Oakland,
CA
“Body of Christ,” said the celebrant
“Thank you,” replied the man.
The priest looked startled. The man’s wife gasped.
This incident took place more than a decade ago when Steve McCoy-Thompson,
a combination Zen Buddhist/ Gnostic but nonetheless cheerfully willing
Catholic churchgoer, accompanied his wife, Meri, to Mass. Instead of crossing
his arms over his chest and receiving the priest’s blessing as he
usually did, Steve decided he, too, would receive Communion.
As his turn came, though, Steve suddenly realized he didn’t know
what to say, so he tried, “thank you.” Result: a humiliating
ecclesiastical error that has made its way into his new book, “Journey
Into Belief: Finding God through the Creed.”(Ligouri Press, 2004).
“Journey” traces the organizational development consultant’s
doubt-filled journey towards Catholicism, finally culminating in his nine-month
walk through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) at the
Catholic Community of Pleasanton.
With personal stories, poetic language, and witty twists of phrases, “Journey”
is the handy little companion-book Steve wishes he could have used five
years ago during his faith fence-sitting, when he struggled with hard
questions for which there didn’t always seem to be obvious answers.
“I wrote it as a catharsis, as a way of coming to terms with all
the changes I went through,” he explained during a recent interview.
His journey was a twisty, rocky one, beginning when he met his future
wife, Meri McCoy, at the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts
University in Boston nearly 20 years ago. The two fell in love, but there
was one very large complication.
As he recalls in the book, “One day we looked at each other. I thought
to myself, I love this woman dearly, but she’s Catholic.”
As he was to learn later on in their courtship, his beloved was having
similar reservations. “I love this man dearly, but he’s not
a Catholic,” she sighed.
This son of an ex-Baptist dad and an ex-Catholic mom from Pasadena and
this daughter of staunchly Catholic parents from San Jose got married
anyway. He went to Mass with her for all the years they lived and worked
in Washington, Boston, and Togo, West Africa, where Meri served a stint
with Catholic Relief Services and Steve worked with a Korean-owned textile
factory.
Wherever they were located, says Steve, “I really enjoyed going
to church. It was the one time I could sit back and reflect.”
When the couple moved back to California in 1996 with their two young
children, Meri joined the Catholic Community of Pleasanton. She served
as a coordinator for the family faith program there, helping to organize
the “Holy Chaos” family groups, which meet in one another’s
homes.
Steve credits “Holy Chaos” for playing a key role in his conversion.
“They allowed me to see a church filled with real people with real
lives, not just an institution.” But he still felt isolated “even
though I felt surrounded by faith.” Five years ago, he said, “I
decided to get off this island of myself” by joining the parish
RCIA group.
At the outset, Steve felt overwhelmed by the weekly commitment. “I
don’t have time for all this intensity,” he thought. But somehow,
the time miraculously stretched before him each week.
He would go home and talk to Meri. Some of their conversations are recounted
in “Journey.”
In the charming chapter, “Faith Based Insanity and the Spiritual
Fence,” he recalled the time their first child, Matthias, was very
sick. “He wouldn’t eat. And he would cry long hours. Yet,
when company would come to the house, or we took him to the doctor’s,
he would be joyous. In short, he was driving us
crazy, and we still loved him madly.”
One night, after sharing his thoughts with Meri, she answered, “That
must be how God feels about us.”
Her reply got him to thinking further about their divine parent.
“In God’s eyes, we are children who screw up – a lot.
We do dreadful things, like drive our parents crazy and start wars, and
we may still be forgiven. And it dawned on me; finally, that maybe this
wellspring of love is the foundation of faith-based insanity, for such
undying forgiveness… and defines any sane measure of logic. Faith-based
insanity is captured, I think, in our abiding love for our children. This
faith allows us to raise a child… to open our arms when we know
they may be broken, along with our hearts.”
Steve, however, struggled every inch of the way during RCIA, even in the
scant weeks before the Easter Vigil, when he would be officially welcomed
into the Church.
He writes about the evening when his class was scheduled to participate
in the Book of the Elect ritual, a symbolic “sign up” for
future Catholics. He had a panic attack in the church parking lot. “I
don’t think I can go through with it,” he told Meri.
“Then, don’t,” she said.
Steve writes of that moment, “She is not angry, only exasperated.
And then the tears come. She says that no one is forcing me; not her;
not God…So what is it that makes me hesitate? …Meri asked
if I would like to pray. I can think of nothing better. In the evening
light, with my head bowed over the steering wheel, I ask God for a little
help.
“Strangely, I picture a vase in my mind…. the vase is full
of cracks, and I can tell, just by looking at it, that it won’t
hold water. My first instinct is to smooth out the cracks and make the
surface perfect. The image, of course, is my faith life. It’s not
perfect…but I am a little surprised the symbol appears so easily,
as if God had simply been waiting all this time for me to commission the
painting. I open my eyes to the car dashboard and think I understand.
Meri reaches for my hand. ‘We should go in,’ she says.”
Steve writes appreciatively about his wife’s unpressured support,
how throughout their married life, “through dating, engagement,
and marriage, life in Africa, on either side of the U.S., two children
and nine different jobs between us, she never pushed farther than I could
go.”
During an interview, Meri explained her restraint. “Trusting has
always been a big part of our life together. From my perspective, it was
very important only that Steve go on a spiritual journey, no matter where
he ended up. It was only important that he take his trip seriously. Up
until the last few weeks of the RCIA, it was never clear whether he would
go through with it.”
Metaphorically speaking, Meri never grabbed the steering wheel. “Trying
to control another person’s faith life, by telling them ‘if
only you…’ can end up harming his or her relationship with
God. It’s a good way to make God look bad,” she said.
“Journey” is filled with touching, powerful moments, but the
best is found in one of the final chapters, where Steve remembers how
Karen Miller, the RCIA coordinator, asked the group to write their own
epitaphs in preparation for Lent.
“Mine came out of the blue,” wrote Steve. “like that
cracked vase in the car, and I entered it quickly into my faith journal.
But now the words have a whole different meaning – as if they were
written not for a gravestone, but for a birthstone on an Easter weekend.
‘My work is done; I’m all drawn in.
God found me. He lies herein.’”
Steve is now working on another book, tentatively entitled “What
to Expect When You’re Expecting Faith.” It will be his third.
His first book is a children’s story titled “Weather Boy,”
a piece of historical fiction about D-Day for seven through 11-year-olds.
His two kids – Matthias, 12, and Marie, 10, “still like that
one best,” he said.
Steve and Meri McCoy-Thompson with their children, Matthias, 12, and Marie,
10.
Cover of Steve McCoy-Thompson’s book
