Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life!
Such a Way as gives us breath,
Such a Truth as ends all strife,
Such a Life that killeth death.

George Herbert

Marc Hall was waiting for us in the wood-paneled rector's study at St. Marks. Urbane, scholarly, he spoke eloquently about the role of faith in the crisis confronting us.

"I was wondering," John broke into the flow of words, "if you could say a prayer for me. I mean, for God to heal me."

The Reverend Hall looked - just for a moment - taken aback. "Why, of course," he agreed. He picked up a Book of Common Prayer from his desk. "There's a prayer right in here for such occasions."

For a while the only sound in the room was the turning of pages. "Here it is. 'Unction of the Sick.' Let's go into the sanctuary."

In the shadowy church Edgar Hilliar, the organist, was rehearsing, sonorous chords echoing from the stone walls. The Reverend Hall stepped behind the communion rail in the small side chapel while John and I knelt on the long needlepoint cushion. In front of us, above the altar, a Tiffany window depicted St. John's vision of the glorified Christ in heaven. The morning sun on the glass illuminated the words above Jesus' head. I Am the Resurrection and the Life.

Raising his voice above the organ, Marc Hall began to read. "I lay my hand upon thee, beseeching the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ ... " A priest reading a prayer from a book, John who'd been a Christian perhaps fifteen minutes, and me, wondering if the bathrobe I'd washed for him to take to the hospital was dry yet. "... that all thy pain and sickness of body being put to flight ... "

Marc's voice boomed out in a sudden silence from the organ. " ... the blessings of health," he concluded more softly, "may be restored to thee."

Suiting his action to the words, Marc shifted the prayer book to his left hand. "I lay my hand upon thee," he read again as he placed his right hand on John's head. Beside me I felt John's body give a jerk.

And unaccountably, I began to cry.

Edgar Hilliar was playing again. John stood up, Marc Hall stepped out from behind the railing. Wonderingly, I saw that both of them were fighting tears too. There was an awkward silence, some mumbled farewells, no one meeting another's eyes.

We drove home in silence. Later John told me that at the touch of Marc's hand a bolt of intense heat coursed like an electric shock down the side of his neck, stopping there, searing, burning, then traveling clear to the soles of his feet.