Trinity-Cor Ministries

Interlude 1

The Light Beyond Smoke and Mirrors, Lies and Illusions, Darkness and Dreams


Fr. Ted had deeply impressed both Larry and me with his "fingers versus focus" metaphor. But especially for my friend, there was something about that metaphor that was reaching deep into Larry, that was ministering to him with an import that I would have no way of understanding at that time. The next day after the powerful campfire story, Lawr told me that Fr. Ted had explained the "fingers versus focus" metaphor even further to him. The two of them had gone for a long "walk and talk" down by the lake. Before long they had sat themselves down out on the pier for a deeper sharing - all about what deeper meaning they could intuit from Fr. Andrew's adventure on the "eve of all hallows". But it was then too that the priest had volunteered "the other half" to the meaning of the metaphor that had so impressed my friend.

Using Fr. Andrew as his quintessential example, Fr. Ted had assured Larry that a focus on the Lord empowers a person to journey far toward dreams of great Love, Love like that of the Cross, "Love like only a God could love". But like Fr. Andrew, Fr. Ted warned Larry to beware of the "nightmares" that fear would use to obstruct his path.

Referring to the "fingers versus focus" exercise we had all done the night before, Fr. Ted had asked Larry if there was anything else he noticed happening when his eyes were fixed upon the cross through his fingers. Yes, Larry could "see through" one of his fingers, but was there anything else?

Lawr told the priest there was, not only for himself, but for all of us. He had noticed while focused on Christ that he suddenly saw more than four fingers. The four fingers were simply out of focus, and like illusions appearing out of nowhere, suddenly there seemed to be more than four there.

Fr. Ted had responded quickly to Larry's observation, as if it were all-important to seize this moment and the insights that could be gleaned from it. "Precisely!" he said. "When you keep your focus on Christ, beware of the finger illusions that seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere. In life these illusions parallel the nightmares born of fear that also threaten to undermine our focus."

"Fear will use them to even further attack us, to intensify the cost, cross, crises, and challenges that already stand in our way. The dark illusions are storm-like, beast-like - menacing. How they do threaten to steal our focus. Then they become like the fingers – bars, barriers; a ‘wall’ if you will, that forever obstructs our vision of Christ, that tempts us away from the Love of God; that sabotages our journey to the dreams born of His Love and burning within us."

“In fact, the bars, the barriers, the ‘wall’ are like the Cross of Christ which in some manner all humanity must face – that is, all humanity ‘born again’, all humanity made alive and animated with His Love. Such persons filled with the Spirit and on fire with His Love will always see The Cross before them. And they must journey through it if they are ever to pass over into the Resurrection. The Cross is the ultimate ‘wall’ before which dreams of Love die, and the journey to freedom stops in the face of Fear.”

“But in Christ this need not be so. In communion with Him, Grace will always lead us home.”

"So don't let Fear steal your focus. Always remember the metaphor. Once you focus on the fingers - the fears and the challenges - Christ beyond the fingers, beyond the barriers, becomes blurry and out-of-focus. The Lord at the heart of our lives becomes dethroned, and Fear obliterates the Power that comes only from our focus on the goal and dream of Christ. We become like Peter sinking in the sea, consumed with Fear at the sight of storm and raging seas. He lost focus.”


“But thank God that the focus was Christ, He Who Loves like only God could love. Jesus not only leads us to Himself, but holds on to us in the storm. Clinging to Him, we then know the Power of God’s Love, the only Love that can empower us to complete the journey."

Fr. Ted paused here. By this point Larry, and indeed all of us youth gathered on that weekend, could tell when the trademark pause of this priest was about to happen. In his rush of excitement about Christ, His Love, God’s Truth and Wisdom, Fr. Ted would suddenly stop, but with a look first of dawning self-awareness - as if to say that he was suddenly aware of how much he had got carried away; as if to say that he suddenly realized how much he had gone on and on, perhaps too long.

But not really – at least to any and all of us teens. Had we not listened with rapt attention for hours the night before to the story he had told with passion and intensity? Yet though the story consumed all the hours of the night that we would need for rest, all sense of time had ceased, and hours and hours had seemed to fly by like minutes.

In the quiet of that “signature Fr. Ted pause” Larry sat still, pensive and prayerful. He didn't want to move. He didn't want the power of this moment to end. Again he felt it, as he had felt it so strongly the night before in the quiet of the campfire light. In Fr. Ted's presence he felt the communication of Grace into his heart and soul. Here was a man who was a "channel of God's Peace", a source of God's Light and Love for others. Here was a man who like Fr. Andrew in the story, was a "sacrament" to the world.

Little lake waves slapped against the pier and the beach, and Lawr took in how beautiful the early morning sun was shining on the lake and on the rising hills beyond. Something so important happened in that moment between teacher and student, between master and disciple. Larry reached beyond fear into friendship, reached out beyond fear toward the goal of forming a life-long friendship with that priest, a friendship that would be for Larry sacred and "sacramental" in the years to come - "sacramental" in ways far beyond what he could ever dare to dream possible on that morning by the lake long ago.

I think back now to how powerful that sacred friendship was in Larry's life. I reminisce as well to how that friendship could only happen back then in that time before fear - a time long ago now, a time before “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (Mk. 3:28-30). It was a time before we were taught to be suspicious, taught to see Satan behind every smile, taught to look for and focus on the dark side of every sunrise.

It was a time before fear when we opened with trust to the experience of Christ's Life and Love in Fr. Ted's presence, and in the presence of so many of God’s priests. The healing Love of Christ reaching out through them to touch and transform our lives was so real and powerful. It was so real and powerful that I, Lawr, and others could believe the priest was the man of God he was called to be.

But fear has stolen our focus today. I believe that Christ is still alive in His People today – and especially in His Priests. Yet how much Fear has so infected our power to see Him - to see Him, and to believe that He is in fact present in power to our lives in the person of the people who love us, and want with all their hearts to be for us the face of His Love.