Epiphany Stories of Sharing Our Light
Michael Oswalt:
“I’ve decided to get baptized.” Those were not words I had ever expected to come from Matt’s mouth. A friend since college and a roommate afterwards, I knew Matt as the picture of irreverence, always ready with a sarcastic retort or cynical prediction that invariably sprung from a kernel of wit that would both make you chuckle and appreciate his obvious creativity and intelligence. But his personality could be biting. And he drank. A lot.
“Drunk” Matt was even more fun than “Sober” Matt, and he knew it. The intensity of his drinking increased after college, and a series of drinking-related mishaps had recently caused him to enter AA. We had kept up with each other through most of this time on about a bi-monthly basis, so I knew about AA and encouraged him to participate. I was confident AA could change him for the better. What I hadn’t expected was that, as his friend, it would also change me.
Indeed, Matt didn’t just inform me that AA had awoken him to the Higher Power that he now knew was always there, he also had a question. “Would you present me during the baptism service?” he asked. “If you agree,” he continued, “it would also mean you would serve as my Christian mentor.” I readily accepted. Then he said something that has stuck closely with me over the past year: “I want what you have.” I was humbled, but also stung. It was painful for me to realize I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.
Since then it has felt more like Matt has been unwittingly mentoring me. Attending his baptism was a sacrifice—it occurred smack in the middle of my spring semester finals. I went and returned to the most peaceful finals period I have ever experienced. Since that time, week-by-week I gain further appreciation for his new habits. He prays three times a day, five minutes at a time, no matter what else is going on in his life. He attends yoga. He spent a weekend at a monastery. He spent a week of his precious (and limited) vacation time in New Orleans helping to rebuild. Just six months earlier that same free time would have been spent in New York or Las Vegas drinking.
We speak every Sunday, and every Sunday I hang up the phone with the same thought: “Why can’t I do that?” Starting this Epiphany, I resolve to say I can. I can take fifteen minutes a day to pray. Why this particular goal? Because in Matt’s journey I see that consistent prayer is transformative in a way I had not expected. Of course it affects Matt. But through Matt, it has also affected me. His daily reflections breed a desire for more reflection, which he passes onto me. This might be in the form of an interaction with a homeless person or something as tangible as a book recommendation. Matt related how he has experimented with responding to requests for money from homeless men and women by asking if they would like to be prayed for. I’ve now tried it. Matt sent me a book on Buddhist prayer principles, Always We Begin Again, which I have used with a person in my life who is uncomfortable with prayer but not with meditation. Matt’s prayer-life, in other words, is slowly spreading.
Now I want what Matt has, and in turn I want to pass it along. This is the personal transformation I wish will happen in my life this year.
Do I think it’s possible? When Matt was baptized, the pastor—who was also baptizing four others that morning—mistakenly anointed Matt with the wrong name. She said “Mike.”
