Danny McCay

My transition from high school into college was, like so many other young people, also a time where I stopped going to church, at least regularly. It was not like I woke up one day and said to myself “I’m just not going to church anymore”, I just fell out of the habit, got lazy, got distracted with other things. You know, the usual stuff.

I did not go straight from high school to college like my friends did, I stayed out of school a year and worked a couple of  jobs. I remember the day I got my acceptance letter from the University of Montevallo. My Mom was home and my Aunt Dean was at the house. I was pretty excited. I was going away to college!

Since my friends Pat and Paul had already been there the year before, they were able to help me get assigned to a room with one of them. We had two rooms at the end of the hall on the top floor and the stairwell was across the hall. We moved all the beds into one room and setup a living room in the other. It was almost like being in an apartment.

Pat and Paul had this friend, Charlene (her nickname was Charlie). Well, I was in the cafeteria one day, not long after school had started and there was Charlie, sitting with this cute little red head. I didn’t have much time and only spoke to Charlie for a few minutes. The cute red head thought I was a jerk (she told me later), perhaps because I did not pay her much attention, or maybe it was because I spun the chair around and sat on it backwards. Whatever it was, I did not make a great first impression.

A few weeks later we had a M*A*S*H party at the campus lake house. They played the movie and everyone dressed up like the cast. There was the cute red head, by this time I knew her name, Marianne. She was actually with this other guy, but he was a bit timid and I don’t think it was an actual date date. More like a couple of friends going to the movie together. I managed to sit next to Marianne through the movie and spent most of the other time talking to her. I was leaving to go home that night and she mentioned that she was cold so I gave her my sleeping bag that I brought to sit on. I know some people might think that I was being really slick by leaving myself an excuse to see her again, but I was really just being nice. I did like her though.

We started seeing each other for meals in the cafeteria, taking walks, etc. Falling in love is great. We had “the night”. You know, the one where you stay up all night just talking? We actually had several of those. I started going to church with her( to that catholic church down the street). It was not all perfect though. We did break up a few times. I even asked her to marry me once and got turned down. Finally, on April 1st, 1981 (yes, that’s right, April Fools Day) we were walking around the campus and town. She kept hinting about it but I was a little dense. It took a while for me to figure it out (that she wanted me to ask her again). When it finally hit me I asked and this time she accepted. We got married about a year and a half later on August 28, 1982. 17 and a half years later I would convert to Catholicism [I'm a fast learner ]. Marianne never asked me to convert, never bugged me about it, but she has always been a good example. God led me to her so that she could lead me back to Him. Thanks be to God.

The Hand of God

Somewhere around my senior year in high school or just after I graduated I had a frightening and profound experience. I went rock climbing with my friend Paul. We were free climbing, which means no safety ropes or devices. Just us and the rock. We were climbing in an abandoned rock quarry on Ruffner Mt. We had worked our way down a crevice and around the front of a fairly large outcropping of rock. We were about 80 feet up with jagged rocks below. Paul was ahead of me and was giving me pointers. There was one place where I really had to stretch to reach across. Paul told me to just go straight across but I thought it would be better to step down a little so that’s what I did. I had my right had on a little spike of rock just over my head. When I moved my left hand over to that same piece of rock, it broke off. For a moment I was there on the side of the rock, both hands in the air, and moving backward. Now, you can believe what you like, but at that moment it was like a hand pressed against my back and held me up. I believe it was the hand of God, or at least my guardian angel. There was no natural explanation why I did not fall. I managed to get my hands back on the rock and make my way around to relative safety. I remember there was a scrubby little tree that had grown up in some dirt that had collected in a V shaped part of the rock wall. I wrapped my arms and legs around that tree and sat there shaking. It took a while for Paul to coax me the rest of the way to the top.

As I reflected back on the experience, I realized even more clearly that I should have fallen and I probably would not have survived. Like a typical teenager I continued on with my life although I have always thought about that moment and believed that there was a reason why I was saved. Even today I can’t say for sure what that purpose might be. Maybe it has been accomplished already and I don’t even know it. God does work in mysterious ways. Perhaps it will be my ordination as a deacon, or something I will do as a deacon, or perhaps it is something else entirely. Whatever it is, I know God has a plan for me. I just need to do my best to not interfere with His plans.

Lord, not my will, but Your Will be done…Amen.

The next chapter of my faith journey takes us to the Independent Methodist Church of Huffman (IMCH). The Reverend W.B. (Pete) Clifford was the pastor. My oldest brother Jim and his wife Rita started going there and liked it so we started going there too and we liked it. We went there mostly during my high school years. I eventually joined the choir, made some friends, and played a role in a production of Godspell. I even had a solo, “We Beseech Thee”. Lets just say there’s a reason why you’ve never seen my name on Broadway and leave it at that.  At the beginning there is a scene called the Prologue/Tower of Babble. My part in that was the [St] Thomas Aquinas verse that began with “God is apprehended by imagination, intuition, reason, touch, opinion, sense, and name – and so on…”. Perhaps this was prophetic? Who knows but God. (p.s. My brother Joe played the part of Jesus which I thought was pretty cool, he did a good job too)

I had a much more authentic conversion experience while I was at this church. I began to understand that God is real and that He loves us. A desire to serve Him began in me around this time, perhaps you could call it a seed that had been planted. I knew that I believed in God but I had no particular direction. It was around this time that I met some friends in school who were catholic, Pat and Paul. I eventually went to Midnight Mass with Paul and even played guitar and sang with him. It was at Holy Rosary in Gate City, an old but lovely little church. This was my first real exposure to Catholicism.

There was a split in the congregation at IMCH. I never knew exactly what happened or why, it was some sort of disagreement. All I remember was a fair number of people left and (I think) set out to form their own church. This experience left me a bit jaded about church in general. At the time it was really more like a feeling or emotion rather than a cohesive thought. A good many years passed before I began to contemplate how the split had affected me and what it meant to me. I could not understand why a church would split like that. Were we not all followers of the same God? Were we not all led by the same Holy Spirit? If those things were true, where did the division come in? Why could we not just reconcile the differences? It did not make sense that the way to resolve a disagreement was for the dissenting group to break away and start their own church so they could have things their way. We stopped going to IMCH around the time of the split. I don’t know if the split was the reason for that or if it was something else. At the same time I was in those semi-rebellious teenage years and like many teens, church became less important to me than other things, like football for instance. I have many fond memories of IMCH and the people there. Overall it was a good experience that helped me grow in my faith.

So… where to start. My earliest memories of church was the big Methodist church in Woodlawn (a suburb of Birmingham, AL). I guess it was named First Methodist of Woodlawn. The pews were big (to me anyway) and all wood, no cushions back in those days. I don’t remember much about the services. We stopped going to that church when I was very young. I don’t know why. My next experience was when I was in the 5th grade. I had a little trouble in the public school so my mom & dad pulled me out and sent me to a Baptist Christian school. Maranatha Baptist Church/School in East Lake. It was a strict Southern Baptist (fundamentalist) church. I remember a girl getting a pretty severe paddling for having her skirt an inch too short. It was here that I had my first experience with being evangelized. There were a few kids in my class that really wanted to “save” me. I know their heart was in the right place, but their approach was a little rough. I felt pressured and finally said the prayers they wanted me to say mostly to get them off my back. I don’t recall any real conversion in my heart but I probably acted the part well enough. I was better accepted after that and got along with everyone pretty well. Looking back on those days I can recall a few images in my mind of some anti-catholic sentiment. I did not see that at the time because it was somewhat subtle. I remember a movie they played one Sunday night that scared the heck out of me. I even had nightmares. That was not the norm though. For the most part it was a good experience. I got baptized there (full immersion of course). I went back to the public school the next year, I would guess for financial reasons. Shortly after that we stopped going to that church. Some years later it closed down. I never heard what happened.

A little over a year ago I began a journey to (God willing) become a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Church. I was not born into a catholic family so my faith journey up to this point has not been the same as most catholics. Back a few months ago I was having dinner with my extended family and we were talking about the formation I was going through. I mentioned that I had considered blogging about my experiences and I might even include a bit about the experiences that brought me to this point in my life, but I was skeptical that anyone would actually read it. My sister-in-law said (enthusiastically) said she would be interested and would read it. So Robin… this is for you. If anyone else reads it, I will consider it gravy.

A strange thing happened to me this morning, but the story really starts back about a week ago.

Last week I started playing around with Twitter. I have a few relatives on it and thought it might be fun. Yesterday evening I saw a few stories on the news about a comment President Obama made on the Jay Leno show that had something to do with Special Olympics and bowling. Well, since I have a son that participated in the Special Olympics and won a gold medal in bowling, I thought I should check this out.

I saw the comments the President made. Here’s a brief transcript of the key exchange:

THE PRESIDENT: I bowled a 129. (Laughter and applause.)

LENO: No, that’s very good. Yes. That’s very good, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something. (Laughter.)

LENO: No, that’s very good.

Well, at first I was a bit offended but after thinking about it for a moment I thought, you know… if Obama had been at that Special Olympics event and only bowled a 129, he would have gotten his butt kicked! I don’t think he would have even come in second.

I typed up a message on Twitter but did not send it until this morning. I sent the message around 6:05AM. 15 minutes later my home phone rang. I did not recognize the number so I let the machine get it. It was a radio producer for the Associated Press! I picked up. He said he had seen my message on Twitter, found my blog, and called me up. He wanted to interview me to get my reaction to the comment the President had made. I obliged, saying essentially the same thing I said here.

I thought it was a bit surreal that this was happening, I mean, it’s not every day you get interviewed by the Associated Press. It was also strange the way it happened. In less than 15 minutes from sending my message he found my number and called me. Like a friend of mine said, maybe Big Brother IS watching.

The high points, in order of importance:
I am a Roman Catholic Christian (by choice, not by birth).
I am a family man. I have a wonderful wife and three grown children.
I am a candidate for the Permanent Diaconate in the Diocese of Birmingham, AL.
(the two lines above are not out of order, my first vocation is Marriage and always will be, I am still discerning the second)
I am a patriot, I love my country although I am not happy with what is being done by our current president and congress.
I’m an Alabama fan! ROLL TIDE!
I am a worker. I have a really good job at SouthernLINC Wireless.
I am a self proclaimed techno geek. I like gadgets, computers, etc. If it uses electricity or has an LED, I’m interested.
I am a ham radio operator, although I am not very active in the hobby lately.

And just for the record, I’m a PC and a Penguin. I was a Mac for a while until it died and cost too much to replace.

I’m using the wordpress iPhone app to write this post. The iPod touch is the best PDA I have ever used! It only gets used about 20% of the time as a music player. I can check e-mail, surf the web, twitter, and now post messages to my blog. Pretty cool!

We had snow today! Finally the predictions come true. There was snow on the ground this morning when we got up around 6:00AM. We left for Mass around 7:30AM. The roads were in pretty good shape although when we got to the interstate on-ramp the Trussville Police had them blocked. We took the scenic route instead (wish I had not forgotten my camera).

We left church around 9:30AM, stopped for gas, then headed up Hwy 11 thru downtown Trussville. We tried going over Chalkville Mt Rd but the traffic was stopped about a half mile before we made it to the interstate so we got turned around and tried yet another route. We stopped at McDonalds for a few minuutes and then headed up Edwards Lake Rd. We avoided Pine Tree Dr becase of the two bad hills along the way and opted to go around to Springville Rd and Brewster Rd. We made it to our street but not all the way up the hill. We stopped about 30 yards short of the driveway. We were able to shovel the road off enough to get the car back in the driveway.

The whole trip was fun though. The trees, fields, and yards were really pretty with all the snow. Driving around when it’s snowing is one of my favorite things to do.