Barrett Michael

Deep within the heart of Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas, Clint Schofield prepares for the most trying part of his job. With his characteristic calm demeanor and sympathetic eyes, the forty-nine-year old chaplain walks with the doctor down a white, sterile corridor into the hospital waiting room. He had taken the job about four months ago as a part of his preparations to become a minister for the Presbyterian Church, but no training in Biblical scripture could prepare him for what he had to do.

The event was typical. An accident on the interstate - ambulances rushing to the scene and delivering a family of four to the hospital. The mother, son, and daughter had minor injuries, but the father wasn't as lucky. He had received the brunt of the collision and had been in intensive surgery since his arrival. About five minutes ago, he died. As chaplain, Clint's duties include delivering the grim news to the family.

He tells them softly, but as soon as the dismal words escape his lips, the mother and son burst into uncontrollable tears, heaving back and forth in their seats. The daughter sits numbly for a moment, as if the news has yet to strike her. With an ambiance of total serenity, she rises gently and puts her arms around her mother and brother, stroking their heads with her young hands. Clint watches in amazement as a nineteen-year-old girl seemingly transforms into an adult in an instant - taking charge of the situation, retaining her composure. After the doctor explains that the wounds had elicited internal bleeding too severe to save the father's life, Clint shares a few words with the family. He consoles them as best as he can, and offers them his spiritual services if they should be interested.

Once aunts, uncles, and close friends arrive, the chaplain departs. Ambling down the corridor, his mind fixes on the daughter of the deceased - how despite tragedy and adversity, she managed to conjure up an innate power that could only originate from the divine. He recalls why in middle age he has decided to become a minister - not only to preach the word of God and Jesus Christ but to help people invoke a spiritual strength that makes miracles a reality.

About seventy-five miles south of Temple, Cathy Norman meets with a university student in the lounge of the Church of Scientology in Austin. As Director of Special Affairs and an avid Scientologist, Cathy often meets with young curiosity-seekers, attempting to explain to them the fundamentals of the religion. She leans forward on the couch and flashes her wispy smile, brushing her shoulder-length brown hair out of her face.

She speaks about the founding of Scientology as a religion in the 1970s by L. Ron. Hubbard, a renowned science fiction author. Hubbard wrote his non-fiction works about the importance of the “theta” - the immortal spiritual essence that each individual possesses. As the naturally pure theta is corrupted by Earthly materialism and spiritual maladies, it becomes necessary to repair it - to indulge in a sort of cleansing to maintain mental and spiritual health. As a Scientologist, Cathy explains, she engages in auditing. In this process, a Scientologist minister asks a parishioner a series of carefully formed questions. By formulating his or her own personal answers, the parishioner forms an understanding of and responsibility for life.

Cathy can't help but smile when reaching this part of her explanation. She had once wanted to be a doctor, but decided that healing the broken spirit was more vital to human existence than healing the physical body. She listens to the student's questions attentively, answering all of them with the unceasing exuberance that can only resonate from the fervent believer.

At a cafÈ near the Alamo, our conversation took an uncharacteristically earnest turn. Driving to San Antonio earlier than morning, Justin and I not only noticed the traditional churches that permeate the American landscape but sites that seemed to contradict our country's foundation on Christian principles: collections of New Age religious centers, two synagogues, a Buddhist cultural center, a Hindu temple, and a Sunni mosque. Both of us agnostics and devout cynics, we looked at the increasing evidence of religious pluralism with unbridled pessimism. To most, pluralism occurs when numerous religious groups coexist and live happily within a single nation. To us, it occurred when numerous religious groups collide like cars in a parking lot on Christmas Eve - resulting in orgies of tension, rage, and violence. It wasn't that we didn't trust diversity. We just didn't trust human nature.

“You have endless amounts of religions,” I said, picking at a bagel. “And each one believes that it is the only truth - the sole way to reach spiritual enlightenment or the afterlife. Get them together in one country and you're going to have some serious problems.”

“I mean, I'm all for diversity, but America's never been a nonvolatile melting pot,” Justin agreed. “You know that you're just going to have Christians going apeshit, trying to convert the heathens, and then the Hindus, Muslims, and New Age guys striking back. And all because religious leaders are too doped up to respect one another.”

Indeed, what we had seen in the past year only seemed to confirm our pessimism. Anti-Semites defame the facade of a synagogue; a protester outside the Church of Scientology screams that Scientologists are bribing government officials and should be exterminated for their crimes; a fanatical Christian walks into a mosque and guns down praying Muslims with an automatic weapon. Religion, it seemed, was a completely contradictory institution. It constituted an inhibitor to peace, not a conduit to it. Since two-thirds of Americans claim that religion holds a vital importance in their lives, it seemed the majority of the population was gripped by some terrible social ill - a highly addictive, dangerous substance. Much like the effects of opium, strong devotion appeared to stone believers into a cloudy stupor that numbs the mind into forging meaning out of random events and prevents believers from seeing any other perspective than their own. How any rational being could in good conscience affiliate himself with an organized religion was beyond our understanding.

It wasn't anything sudden that drew Cathy Norman into Scientology - no life-changing event that forever altered her perspective and cast her into the arms of a new religion. It was more of a process - a slow but affective awakening. Born and raised Presbyterian, she had attended church regularly while growing up in Tyler, Texas, but had always felt an inexplicable spiritual discomfort - like a foreign object was piercing her side, slowly driving itself into her body. She felt bound to what she would later recognize as her material existence - her desires to make money and to enjoy the transient pleasures in life.

In the mid 70s, she entered the University of Texas at Austin to study organic chemistry. She had wanted to continue a family tradition and satisfy her desire to fix the unwell by becoming a doctor but found herself progressively distressed by dire social conditions in America and around the world. On television she watched as napalm exterminated Vietnamese villages, and through newspapers read about the invention of the neutron bomb - the device that flaunts the ability to destroy billions of lives not through fire or explosive force but through toxic radiation that fatally seeps into bodily tissues. Observing these events led to an onset of depression. She ceased attending church and began to lose interest in her studies. Her dejection, however, would not endure for long. The summer between her freshman and sophomore year, she would stumble upon a crumpled paperback that would forever alter the course of her life.

Beneath a canopy of pallid stars hovering in a chaste night sky, Cathy camped on a rocky plateau in the New Mexican wilderness. She had landed a job as a counselor with a youth organization that led camping expeditions deep into the Southwest. That night, she met with her fellow camp counselors to discuss preparations for the morning hike. As she examined a crinkled map of their surroundings on a fold-out table, a beat-up book caught her eye. Brought along by a counselor for midnight reading, the words on the cover stole her attention - Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard. Out of pure curiosity, Cathy borrowed the book and eagerly digested the first chapter into the early morning. Considered one of the founding texts of Scientology, the book discusses how the Reactive Mind stores all negative experiences - all painful memories, harmful emotions, trying relationships - and holds them against an individual. Dianetics tells readers how to expel the Reactive Mind and to progress toward mental, emotional, and even physical restoration. What she read struck her subtly. There was no massive self-realization, but for the first time in her life she had discovered something of incontestable meaning.

A couple of months later in Austin, Cathy stuffed informational pamphlets and audio tapes in her bag as she exited the white edifice that stood at 2804 Rio Grande, an old frat house that had been converted into the Church of Scientology years earlier. As she listened to Hubbard's comforting voice in her bedroom, she heard something remarkable - something that opened her eyes to an innate reality.

Every human being's life extends far beyond a physical, material existence. She felt she had always known this, but had only become aware of it at that moment. She acquired a sense of peace, no longer depressed by social pestilence and violence but incited to do something about it - to help individuals repair broken spirits and to create a hospitable world.

She officially converted in a heartbeat, meeting people with similar viewpoints and eventually marrying a fellow Scientologist. Her mother, siblings, and friends had supported her through her religious endeavors, but her father wasn't as accommodating. Although Cathy suspected he was a closet atheist, he held fast to Christian traditions and dismissed the Church of Scientology as a cult of confused and desperate children. Despite her father's condemnation, Cathy refused to conceal her belief like a dirty secret, remaining determined to wed within the Church. The day of her wedding, she held her head high, her arm wrapped around her older brother, the man who would walk her down the isle.

Her father's adverse reaction to Scientology would become the driving force behind her commitment to the Church - the very motivation for her deciding to abandon school altogether. There were so many doctors in the world and not enough Scientologists, she decided. Not enough people who understood the therapeutic value of auditing and the importance of spiritual restoration. She would become an ordained minister and begin to work for the Church fulltime, where she would remain for twenty-five years.

At his home in Temple, Clint Schofield knelt beside his bed to pray. Leader of the grounds crew for the VA hospital, owner of a local landscaping company, and father of two, he had attended the First Presbyterian Church in town for over twenty years, ever since he married his wife Jan. He was a student in a Bible study class and a church elder, but suffered from an inexplicable spiritual void that he could no longer ignore. His delicate hands folded together, he asked God for guidance. The answer to his restlessness came to him - so quickly, in fact, that he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He now knew what he had to do.

He told Jan the next morning. After nearly thirty years of working in the horticultural business, he desired to leave his occupation, return to school, and study to become a minister for the Presbyterian Church. Jan paused for a moment, then told her husband that she could tell something was eating away at him - and that going into ministry could be the answer he was searching for.

Clint soon found himself in a classroom for the first time in over twenty years - writing papers, taking exams, and learning Hebrew and Greek at a seminary school in Austin. Weary-eyed, he sat in a class full of twenty-something-year-olds, his hand grasping a pen as he attempted to concentrate on the Greek letters written on the chalkboard. Month-long language immersion courses in Hebrew and Greek kept him so tied to Austin that he had to rent a dormitory on campus. He was becoming progressively isolated from his family and prayed that they would understand and forgive him for his absence. He had to remind himself why he was there - that this path he had chosen was correct, true.

In March of 2003, Clint graduated from seminary in the company of his wife, son, and daughter. As he awaited his ordainment exams, he took a temporary job as a chaplain at Scott & White Hospital, a large medical center in Temple located off the Interstate 35. The job places him at a volatile intersection - as mass varieties of people from different religious backgrounds experience a wide spectrum of emotions. He often finds himself springing from room to room, trying to decipher who wants his assistance and who desires to be alone. The chaplain attempts to remain merely a voice of solace unless spiritual services are asked for, but as a religious figure his presence poses a problem for many. Upon discovering what religious denomination he is, some patients and doctors shun him - thinking that if he speaks, he will do nothing more than evangelize and attempt to convert them. What he experiences at the hospital brings him closer to God, but he must always walks on eggshells - always cautious to avoid a theological altercation in a place that hosts enough unease.

He continues to landscape on Saturdays, his only day off from the hospital. He wakes up at dawn, dressing in old jeans and a plaid short-sleeved shirt. As the Texas sun rises and falls above Temple's big blue sky, he will dig in the earth, removing sickly weeds and replacing them with arrangements of vibrant flowers. Once complete, he will return home to visit with his family and to sleep, until waking up early Sunday morning to attend church. He will arrive at the hospital later that day and remain there until nightfall - talking patients through difficult times, helping loved ones grieve, and keeping hostility at a minimum.

From one of the bedrooms prances a charcoal cat that was given to Clint from his son when he decided to go to seminary. Jokingly named “Black Jesus” by his daughter, the cat leaps into Clint's lap. It turns on its back and points its fury legs high into the air. Clint gently scratches his belly. The losses, quarrels, and anxieties of the Scott & White seemed like a distant dream. Black Jesus purred with delight.

The night Justin and I drove to San Antonio, we crashed at a friend's house. As I attempted to sleep on the lumpy living room sofa, flickers of orange light outside one a windows grabbed my attention. I rose from my sleeping area and peered in between the partially closed blinds, scouring the yard next door with bloodshot eyes. On the porch an elderly Asian man sat in the lotus position, his palms open on his knees, a single candle shedding an orange radiance before him. Eyes closed in deep meditation, his face possessed an indescribable quality. His flat, expressionless visage revealed an absence of pain, anxiety, and anger - a warmth of profound peace and contentment.

I found his expression incomprehensible. I couldn't understand it - how he was able to harness such tranquility out of a connection with the unseen. Standing barefoot and spying into a stranger's life like a Peeping Tom, I forget my previous conceptions about inter-religious strife. I couldn't help but feel that I lacked fundamental understanding of this thing called pluralism and religion in general, as I couldn't fathom how a human being can harness such power simply by believing.

Charlotte drove home on I-35 after an excruciating day at work. She had stopped at a light on the feeder and glanced into her rearview mirror. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw a black Ford truck speeding toward her. The collision threw Charlotte forward, then snapped her back like a whip. The impact of her body ripped the seat away from the floorboard and sent her careening into the back of her car, her head smashing against the rear windshield. She gasped for air but tasted blood, then slipped into an all-encompassing darkness.

A woman had been admitted with a severe concussion and brain swelling. She had been struck by a drunk driver, and knocked unconscious when her head hit the windshield. They would have to cut into the brain and drain fluid to relieve the swelling. As hospital personnel wheeled her into the operating room, she had briefly regained consciousness to ask someone - anyone - to pray for her as she went under the knife.

Clint entered the room and winced at the mangled body on the operating table. He uttered a silent prayer as the woman requested, then took his leave to allow the doctors to begin their work. Hours passed. The patient managed to pull through surgery, but her condition remained critical. Survival was doubtful. Clint stayed in her room that night for several hours, praying with her husband. Despite all medical prognoses, she lived.

For the next eight weeks, Charlotte was a resident of Scott & White, a devoted chaplain always at her side. Clint offered her guidance and prayer, which Charlotte gladly received as she re-learned how to walk and eat with a fork. When she returns for her check-ups today, Charlotte no longer resembles the mass of blood and flesh that had been laid on the operating table but a survivor - and, for Clint, the embodiment of an answered prayer.

In January of 1998, Cathy arrived at a hospice in her hometown of Tyler, Texas. About a year earlier, her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. She had gone through a series of remissions thanks to chemotherapy, but the last cycle of radiation had nearly killed her - and the cancer returned with a vengeance. The cells had metastasized and spread to her liver, eating away her strength and confining her to the hospice bed. A few times a week for several months Cathy had driven four and half hours to visit her, but today had come with a distinct purpose - to be with her mother as she died.

Laying on the bed like a frail little girl, her mother resembled a skeleton more than living being. Cathy sat alone with her, rubbing her mother's neck and arm lightly as she slipped in and out of consciousness. Her father was so stricken at the thought of losing his wife he could not remain there for long. Likewise, her siblings had little to offer, visiting occasionally but failing to be of comfort.

Cathy remained by the ailing woman's side until she passed three days later. Before her death, her mother had remarked that her daughter had changed profoundly. She was more soothing, she said - perhaps more mature. But Cathy never accepted her change as simple maturation. She feels that her years of self searching, auditing, and devotion to the study of the mind based on Hubbard's principles has made her a peaceful being - one who accepts that death is not the end but a transcendence of time and space. Her father couldn't remain with their mother because deep down he believed the parting was permanent - an idea too horrendous to articulate into bedside comfort. Cathy, however, continues to possess a feeling of tranquility, solace, and acceptance that she has never received from any other source - not from relationships, not from school, not even from Christianity.

As night fell over Temple, Clint Schofield attended his regular Bible study at the Presbyterian Church. Like many religious centers throughout America, the class has begun to evolve. Clint and other members of the group have noticed that America is changing. Though still predominantly Christian, the number of people who celebrate other faiths increases daily. A controversial move to some, the group has begun to regularly invite representatives from mosques, temples, synagogues, and other religious centers to engage in open theological discussions. As class begins, the visitor entered the room. She was a middle-aged woman with shoulder length brown hair and a wispy smile.

A chair on the Austin Area Interfaith Ministry for two years and a frequent speaker at churches across Central Texas, Cathy addressed the students much like she speaks to the curious people she meets with at the Church. She first explains the Eight Dynamics - the eight elements of life that intertwine all spiritual beings - then delves into the principles of dianetics, theta, and auditing.

Some of these ideas seem foreign to Clint. A Christian his entire life, he can't imagine how Scientologists can find meaning and peace in a doctrine based on the thoughts of a science fiction novelist, much less without a belief in Christ. He's glad it works for Cathy - but it's not for him. Like at Scott & White, he always declines to evangelize, never attempting to force someone to believe what he does. As Clint mulls over these thoughts, the class speaks openly about theology, asking questions, exchanging ideas, and sharing beliefs.

Throughout America, religious chasms proliferate, creating destructive misunderstanding and bigotry, but at a small town church in Central Texas two religions intersect in fluid dialogue. The Christians do not condemn to the fiery pits of hell. The New Age spiritualist does not offer a toast with the magic Cool-Aid. There isn't an element of singularity or absolute understanding, but there is an aura of mutual respect and reverence - perhaps even of coexistence.

Upon envisioning this interaction, I cannot help but feel some of my cynicism quell. Faith no longer seems an unquestionable source of conflict, but something more complex and enchanting. I recall the serene expression on a meditative face, and for a moment I want join two-thirds of the American population by making a decisive decision. But I decide not to pursue this desire - to single make a definitive choice. At least not now. Perhaps too much of my cynicism lingers. I do, however, find myself considering one fact: In the age of American pluralism, more and more people are less likely to practice only one religion in their lifetimes. Like, Cathy, many will convert, transcending boundaries to experience new paths to peace. So if I should ever become cynical about my cynicism, I will likely sample my own proverbial opium, awakening in me the spiritual profundities possessed by Clint and Cathy - the intoxicating smoke introducing me to the divine.

At first, my story was a simple one. I planned tell a straightforward narrative about Cathy Norman, a devout Scientologist who works at the Church of Scientology off Guadalupe. After interviewing and spending time with Cathy, I had more than enough to shape a story about her conversion and life as a follower of Hubbard, but when I spoke to Clint Schofield, my entire focus changed. I no longer wanted to do a story about Scientology but about religion and belief in general. Both Clint and Cathy are religious leaders with intriguing stories, but both also celebrate two very different systems of belief that are, very often, at odds. By putting their narratives up against each other I wanted to show that, despite their “contrasting” religious goals, Clint and Cathy are essentially in pursuit of the same thing - a sense of spiritual peace.

My first attempts to do this failed miserably. The narrative lacking a clear voice and boring me to tears, I became progressively frustrated, until I discovered the problem. Since I myself have no distinct religious beliefs, I seemed one of the least qualified people to write about faith. I went to church as a child but really had no lasting connection with any element of the experience, not even with the free donuts at Sunday school. I attended some youth group meetings on evenings after service for a while, but abruptly stopped when the Fox Network moved The Simpsons from Thursday to Sunday. How could a person who exchanged salvation from hell for the hilarity of Homer and Bart write a moving, thought-provoking piece about religion?

To solve this difficulty, I felt it necessary to include myself in the narrative. I thought that to reveal my apathy and hostility toward organized religion to the reader might add an interesting depth and reformulate the dynamic of the story, possessing three views on faith instead of only one. The Christian, the Scientologist, and the cynic - three people set apart by conviction, or in my case a lack there of.

As I completed my final interview with Clint, however, I discovered something that moved me in yet another direction. My two subjects, who I had chosen completely separately and who lived 75 miles apart, had met before during an interfaith discussion. The piece so far pointed out “flaws” in the religious lives of Clint and Cathy. I suggested that they were somehow enemies because they were of different religions - that they were immersed in a never-ending conflict despite their common goal. This assumption was totally erroneous, as I learned that both Clint and Cathy participate in interfaith organizations that attempt to quash religious bigotry. Upon hearing of their encounter, my narrative took another turn as I became interested in how religious pluralism functions in the United States. I not only wanted to show how different beliefs might cause conflict, but how more religious leaders seem to be working through their theological differences to help prevent volatile misunderstanding.

A constant learning experience, this piece continued to surprise me. Perhaps the most shocking moment came in my final meeting with Clint, when I found myself hanging out at his house for a few hours - even after the interview ended. Thinking of my own experiences with church, I assumed that Clint the Minister would have an overbearing personality - but, in actuality, he turned out to be very easy to talk to. In retrospect, I may have overstayed my welcome. As I remained longer and longer, he kept mentioning that he really had to get to work - but at the time I didn't notice. I was too enamored with the stories of my subject, my cynical views regarding religion constantly altering as I heard more.