Abigail Rine Favale - Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion

M y earliest religious memory is not really my own. It is an inherited memory, a story handed to me that has, after the fact, been given the flesh and fabric of true memory. Even now, as I call it to mind, specific images appear; I can see the moment unfold, but from a third-person distance, as if I am watching what happens, rather than experiencing it firsthand.

This is the night I was saved, the night that I first accepted Jesus into my heart. I am three years old, driving with my father and brother in a Toyota Land Cruiser. We are coming back from a basketball game. It is mid-March, March to be exact, the Feast of St. Patrickalthough of course the ideas of feasts and saints are not yet part of my world. We live in central Idaho, so there are, no doubt, still piles of snow along the road, glowing momentarily in the passing headlights. Probably trees too, evergreen and snow-laden, but nothing more than tall, flickering shapes in the dark. Im probably staring out the window, listening to my dad talk to us about Jesus; my brother, two years older, is asking questions, wanting to know more. Then Dad asks us The Question, the one that, in this world, is the most important to answer. It is a question with eternal consequences, and a simple yes has the power to permanently mark ones soul. Are you ready to accept Jesus into your heart? Yes, we say, and my dad pulls over and prays with us.

I actually dont know if it was dark. Maybe the surrounding night in this post-hoc reconstruction is imported from the darkness of my own recollection. Or perhaps it heightens the drama of the moment, expressing its spiritual meaning. For those who were in darkness have seen a great light .

There is another facet of this storyone told to me much later, but now fully integrated into my rendering: at the same time my dad was praying with us, my mother was at home in bed (a detail that lends credence to the darkness) and a feeling of sudden suppression came over her, a great, crushing weight, an invisible force bearing down. For the record, my no-nonsense, levelheaded mother is not one to see demons regularly lurking in the shadows. Once told, this experience, with its uniqueness and intensity, was fully ingrained into the story of that night.

My brother, being a little older, remembers the moment in the car directly. I do not. This lack of recollection was a continual source of anxiety throughout my childhood. Not being able to know my own thoughts or feelings in that momenthad I really understood? Did I really mean it?made me wonder if the salvation actually took. I felt as if, somehow, I had been saved by accident, mere proximity, riding on my brothers coattails and sneaking into glory on a technicality. What if I hadnt been in the car that night? Would I have had my own salvation experience later, giving me a real memory to which I could cling in subsequent years?

In those moments, late at night, happening not infrequently, I thought about hell and wondered whether I was really saved. It all seemed so easy. Too easy. To be safe, I made sure to repeat the salvation prayer at regular intervals, just in case. I dont know what the original prayer was like, that long-ago March night, but soon enough I learned the A-B-C formulation, thanks to formative experiences like Vacation Bible School. Accept that you are a sinner, Believe Jesus Christ is the savior, Confess your sins and ask Jesus into your heart. A-B-C, - . Without meaning to, I began to see this prayer as an incantation, a spell that must be meticulously cast to take hold, a spell I worried might wear off after awhile.

There was a time I almost got re-saved by accident. I was probably seven, sitting in the sanctuary of our small Bible church in southern Utah with dozens of other restless children. It was high summer, the week of Vacation Bible School, the sun pummeling through the windows, reminding me that it was almost noon, time for lunch. Wed just finished singing a round of rousing, clap-infused songs, the lyrics written on bright poster board and held aloft by enthusiastic teenagers for us to see. I am a C. I am a C-H. I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N. And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T and I will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y.

Then we were quieted and coaxed into our seats, and the pastor came up front to prime us for an altar callthough I cant resist pointing out the misnomer now, as there was no altar at the front of the sanctuary, only a pulpit.

Everybody close your eyes and bow your heads, the pastor was saying, and we complied; the movement was second nature. Good. Now...

He went on, and my attention wandered. I opened my eyelids ever so slightly, blurrily looking down at my fingers, then to the right, to the left. I couldnt see much with my head down.