Understanding the Mass: My Reversion Story
My eyes were not prepared to see what my ears had failed to detect. Back home, clues like the jolting pings on the sheet metal over the neighbor’s carport, or the rapid-fire whacks on my bedroom window at night, were tell tale signs of rain. But snow is completely different. Unlike rain, where visual confirmation is not necessary, snow has to be seen to know it’s falling. And this is what led to my early-morning surprise.
When I went to sleep the previous night, I could see the familiar trappings of dorm life outside my window — the bikes locked to their posts, the cars parked with school decals, the clutter of art projects gone awry surrounding the dumpster. But as night fell, these disparate objects that dotted my landscape would soon be united under eight inches of white powder.
After completing a project due the next day for my drawing class, I drew the curtains and looked forward to some long anticipated shut-eye. Aside from the occasional screams from the other freshmen on the floors below, the night was uneventful.
In the morning, however, as I flung open the curtains of my third floor dorm room, all I could see before me was an infinite field of dazzling white mounds. Snow is not prejudiced. It enveloped the college president’s car as well as covered Nickerson Hall’s garbage bin. The myriad of individual bicycles seemed conjoined under a blanket of snow.
It reminded me of the smooth rolling South Florida sand dunes where my mother would take my older brother and me with beach umbrella and cooler in tow. But this sand was not hot, dry, or brown, but rather, cold, wet, and white — and just as much fun, or so I was lead to believe by Charles Schultz.
As a native Floridian — born and bred — I had no guides for snow life. The only reference that cold November in 1989 was A Charlie Brown Christmas. This annual television favorite depicts the cartoon characters merrymaking in the snow. All members of the Peanuts Gang are seen cheering and laughing as they make snow angels, have snowball fights and catch snowflakes on their tongues. I could hardly wait to participate.
Through the fogged-up window, I noticed some of my classmates running around in the new snow, leaving footprints similar to those my mom left as I followed her on the beach. Too excited to change, I rushed downstairs in my shorts and t-shirt. I took great comfort in knowing that there were others who had never seen snow either. The art school I attended drew students from all over the world, and I was playing in the snow with two girls from Jamaica, a boy from Puerto Rico and another from Bermuda. Despite our different accents and assorted skin colors, we could collectively be targeted as “snow virgins” because we were all dressed in inadequate attire and were way too excited over the season’s first snowfall.
After a few minutes, the lawn was packed with new playmates. We were all laughing and screaming like children. It was like an enormous white sandbox, whose sides had burst and contents spilled into the streets.
I had regressed to my childhood. All I needed was Snoopy, Linus, or Woodstock to make the scene complete. (Play Peanuts theme song, here.) Now, I hate to speak ill of the dearly departed, but Charles Schultz lied. My guide did not prepare me for the ensuing scenario.
It seems that if a certain amount of pressure is applied to the right type of snow and it falls into the wrong hands, a misadventure can occur. Evidently, tightly packed, wet snow yields ice; transforming fluffy white balls into lethal projectiles. There’s a fine line between innocent merrymaking and loss of consciousness. I guess those scenes hit the floor at the Schultz Studios. A New England local (who would later be one of my best friends) decided to throw a white cannonball at the Cuban neophyte.
I woke up in the nurse’s office with an awful headache and blurred vision. They say I was out for just a few minutes, but the memories would last a lifetime. As I regained my sight, I focused on a poster that was taped to the wall. “Non-denominational Bible Study. Monday Nights. 7PM. Upper Refectory.”
Little did I know that seeing that poster would change my life forever. It would mark the beginning of a journey, an often very painful one, that led me away from the Church of my youth, only to rediscover it again with a relentless fervor that has not subsided a quarter century later. That poster would give birth to a project that would combine all my God-given talents into an expression of his love that I hope will inspire faith in thousands.
I don’t know what lead me to want to attend that Bible study. I was raised Catholic — Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation — but my Faith never really interested me.
