This particular Winter Park cathedral has a side door open. Did someone forget to lock up? 

I have a complete and utter fascination with church architecture. Especially religious looking older and historial type cathedrals. I am going to blame it on my parents. When I was a child, I was fortunate and blessed. I lived in Naples, Italy for three years. There are some very famous and incredibly fascinating cathedrals in Italy. I visited many of them.

• St Peter's Basilica in Rome
• Cattedrale di Pisa (Pisa)
• Basilicca di San Gioavanni in Rome
• Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence
• Duomo di Siena
• Amalfi Cathedral
• Naples Cathedral
• Cathedral of San Rufino in Assisi
• San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice
• Basilica di San Marco in Venice
• Cattedrale di San Lorenzo in Genoa
• Verona Cathedral
• Duomo in Orvieto
• Basilica di San Maggiore in Verona

This Italian cathedral experience spoiled me.

Today, I visit churches as often as I have the time. I excite myself tremendously when I drive past a church I have not yet visited.

I don't care to visit every church it has to speak to me. I am attracted to older, traditional, style churches. It's all about the architecture.  If it gets my attention I will stop to see IF I can get inside. Once inside I will head straight for the Nave or sanctuary. I will head for the altar because many times that is where the pianos can be found.  

Knowles Memorial Chapel invited me in on one dark and stormy 2017 night.

Dark, yes, Stormy....not exactly...rainy a bit , but not stormy.

The piano was covered. By family was with me. As is my custom, I sat down after uncovering the piano and opening the lid. I began to play as I felt the leading. Composing spontaneously is my joy. I began to release my heart of passion, desire and worship....inviting the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
​
During one of our first conversations, the Rector of Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church, Father Brian, mentioned hearing this song on Facebook and liking it. I started to play this song during the Eucharist and communion portion contemporary liturgy service. I added it to the Mystery of Faith project because I considered it an important part to my personal worship revival and renewal. To read more about this renewal....
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Verse
Come, Come Holy Spirit 
Come, Come, Come Holy Spirit 
​(REPEAT)

Come, Come, Come and fill me 
Now Come, Come, Come and fill me 
(REPEAT)

Chorus
Won’t You Come
Fill me now
Holy Spirit Come  
Come and show your power, Come and fill me now
Come and show your power, Come and fill me now
Come and show your power, Come and fill me
Come and fill me

For most of us, the difference between what we think and feel we want can be quite different from what we actually need.

Perhaps this is part of the mystery?

From Oct 2016 - February 2017, I spent most of my late evenings walking around my neighborhood....alone....in solitude....with our family Labradoodle named Snicker Doodle.

Walking alone with Snicker was felt like my only hope at the time. These late evenings and often early morning walks afforded me the escape needed from the overwhelming and much-too-heavy weight of the world I had created. 

Yes, I had created a world. This world had a foundation of pride, negligence, and apathy. It was an abusive, dominating and controlling world of darkness, despair, rejection, failure, fear, excuses, pain, isolation, loneliness, and confusion.

Although this terrifying and stressful dark world I had created seemed to develop abruptly, I knew the truth. I knew this world had taken several years to build. 

There is one important thing about this world I want you to know. I was the god of this world. Everything in this world was a result of what I allowed and did not allow to happen. This world was shaped by my choices.

This world was also framed with a facade of false hope. Hope that always remained out of reach no matter how hard I prayed, fasted, believed, worked, tried and cried!

I thought I knew an important spiritual law. I thought I knew I was the sum total of what I believed. I believed that if I could conceive it, I could achieve it. I read lots of business books and positive thinking and self help books. They all seemed to get their wisdom for success from the Holy Scriptures. All the success books seemed to have the wisdom of the biblical proverbs as their underpinnings. I wanted to provide big for my family but all the hopes and dreams I had for success seemed to slip elusively through the exhaustive and endless efforts of action. 

​Everything I thought I wanted was always just beyond reach.

I was reminded of a time I visited Salt Lake City, Utah. I embarked on a hike to the top of a summit, but when I reached the top, I was met with a small ravine and a higher summit in front of me. This went on for a series of summits and ravines to more higher summits...this went on for and many hours...many hours....hot hours, until I realized this was not going to change for a long, long, long, time. The top peak was never the top peak, because there was another top peak once I reached what I thought was the top peak. I realized, as long as I move forward towards this 'dangling carrot', I was never really going to be satisfied because I knew that carrot was somehow rigged to manipulate me into a direction of another master. I was not satisfied and content with the one present and beautiful summit experience, I had to have more. Greed and pride had slipped in and dangled the carrot in front of me. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this hike initially, but I reached a point of frustration. I realized I was never going to really get the tallest peak in the remaining sunlight of the day. And with the settling frustration I knew I had to take all those hours and go back through what I had hiked without the  gratification of victory and domination. 

Remember this hiking experience became a wake up call to the world I had been creating. In my world of deferred hope, I could literally feel my physical body decaying under the daily stress and anxiety. Each day I felt like I was being led to the black pit of despair by the very executioners of hell. The blood in my veins ran hot. The muscles tightened around my heart and neck. Breathing became difficult. I fought to hold my head up. Passion and focus had been drained. Manhood was dry...withered....empty and void.  I had hit the wall. Dead end. Nowhere to turn. Nowhere to go. No one to talk to. 

​and then....