I found a nice place to rent at a very reasonable rate. The only question I had that my landlord couldn't answer was whether there were any Catholic churches nearby. Like Gervase Markham, I am a Christian, and pretty serious about it.
Now, when I was in the U.S. Navy, there were times when we weren't able to celebrate Mass for a month. In fact, it was the Navy that (inadvertently, but nonetheless) came between me and God, and that drove me absolutely batty.
So here I am yesterday about 2:30 pm-ish, I've just agreed with the guy to rent a room, and I'm walking down the street. There's a huge place with pink walls and a lot of trees growing over. I think it's kind of funny to have a city park enclosed in pink walls. So I walk to the gate.
It's a Carmelite monastery. It's two blocks from my home. It has Masses every day of the week at 7:15 am, and a Sunday Mass at 10:30 am.
When you put together all the things that are happening for me at once, there's only one explanation. God's been working another miracle.
Maybe he's giving me a glimpse of Heaven on Earth, because that's what I felt that afternoon.
Posted by WeirdAl at December 5, 2004 8:43 AMIt's good to see some religious people in with Mozilla. Even better is the fact that you're proud enough of your faith to admit it in a public forum.
Daily masses are great too. :)
Posted by: David at December 5, 2004 10:29 AMAww... don't be calling every coincidence a miracle... I mean, it's a funny story, but...
Surely if there are miracles they would be a little more grand. Someone falling four floors down and walking away unharmed, stuff like that.
I hope I can say this as, well, a non-believer.
~Grauw
(From Alex: I don't recall God ever defining how big an event a miracle has to be. :) )
Posted by: Laurens Holst at December 5, 2004 11:17 AMSuch statements from Christians always make me shake my head in wonder. Last week I saw an episode of the Amazing Race where a Christian racer stated that the fact they finished last on one of the pre-determined non-elimination rounds showed "how much God wanted [them] in the race".
a) Dumb luck is a prefectly reasonable explanation.
b) What sort of interventionist God is sorting out this sort of trivial crapola.
I mean, while The Amazing Race can be entertaining and it's nice that you can get to mass with minimal effort there's plenty of other things he could be nudging towards a happier resolution if he feels inclined to get involved.
Posted by: Paul McGarry at December 5, 2004 5:42 PMHow does that story relate to how "It pays to be a Christian"?
If you weren't a Christian, you wouldn't care whether there is Mass or not, so it wouldn't be an issue, would it?
Posted by: Anon at December 6, 2004 3:17 AMOr it could just be the fact that churches are extremely abundant, and you lucked out by moving so close to one.
Personally, I don't think everything that can be explained by coincidence should be attributed to the Christian god working miracles.
Of course, I also think that Christianity is a load of crap, so I'm a bit biased.
Posted by: Mike at December 6, 2004 10:14 AM