At age 7, I joined the Methodist church. Before, during, and since Jesus has been held up to me as the example of how one should live one's life. For this reason, it is difficult to specify when I was not a Christian. The question is: At what point in my pilgrimage through the world did I come to appreciate the great advantage of having Jesus as a model? The answer is that after some time--perhaps longer than it should--I came to understand the essential requirement of a sense of meaning, value, and purpose for happiness and the existential need for an omnipresent compass during times of muddy, rainy weather rather than a predetermined road map of set rules. Further, again for happiness, I needed to have a source of redemption for all occasions--even during those times devoid of readily apprehended importance or meaning--times that would be lost and wasted except for the sense that one is always on call to be a witness for Christ--even during apparently unpromising and impossibly bleak occasions. In good time, I have come to have confidence in the beneficence and reliability
of the Holy Spirit.
