My own spiritual journey began at a very young age. It was the summer of my sixth year when a Gospel Tent found itself in the vacant lot next to our house in a rural town in Connecticut. It was an age of innocence and trust and kids were allowed a margin of freedom not enjoyed today. So, nightly, I was allowed by my parents to join the meetings.

The year before, floods from Hurricane Diane in August and two months later, from a heavy rain, had reared their ugly heads. Many lives and many more homes were lost and the wounds were still fresh and deep and painful. Everyone was affected.

The sermons were attended by people from all over town and numbered around 30 nightly. With the tent dimly lit with kerosene lanterns, the Preachers would stand at a podium in the front and preach from the Bible. People standing, or seated in the wooden folding chairs, would randomly voice their agreements with an "Amen" or a "Thank you Jesus" or maybe a "Thank the Lord". Each meeting would begin and end with a prayer for Comfort and Grace from the Lord.

I was fascinated by the people who ran the nightly meetings. I didn't see them as Preachers. I had attended Catholic Services with my family where Ministers wore robes and stood aloof from their congregation. The men who preached the Gospel under this tent wore suits and ties and hats and talked directly to the people attending. I saw them, the Preachers, as people who believed what they were saying, who gave hope to a grieving people. I saw them as helping people with their lives.  To me, they were genuinely concerned, they were there to give these people meaning and comfort.

One of the Preachers befriended me and would reward me for memorizing verses of the Bible. I especially like the Book of John and memorized many of its verses. At the last meeting of the Summer, before the tent  eventually moved on, he gave me a Bible, my first, so I could continue reading the story of Jesus. The gift was reverential and, even at six, I understood the love with which the gift was given.