"Can one truly experience God outside of the Church?", Michael in his dorm room stared at this essay prompt for a while, with the cursor on the computer blinking at least 1,000 times before he started to write his first sentence. "No, one cannot truly experience God outside of the Church because", yet stopped writing there. He could not for some reason answer this question, and became extremely frustrated, as it was a Sunday, and planned on going out with his friends later that night. After 2 hours of staring at a blank computer screen with the same sentence, he walked away from his desk with frustration and decided to go for a run. "I need to get my mind off of this," he thought to himself, yet was still stressed about the 5-page essay, especially since it was due that Monday.

One of the first things Michael noticed as he walked outside was the bright sun, and how the radiant warmth from it hugged his body. He felt this feeling for 15 minutes as he made his way to Central Park, and began to run his usual running trail.

A couple of minutes into his long run, he began to notice a sort of haze covering the sun, making the center of the sun appear to be a tanned ivory color. And seeing this, he became instantly distracted from the stress of the essay and was really captivated by the site of this. And what was odd about this entire situation was that Michael himself had never been that interested in nature, and would rather spend his entire day walk down 5th ave than spend it exploring a park. And as he continued to be pulled into this vision in the sky, his migraine slowly faded, and all of the thoughts he had over his essay, other homework, lack of sleep, and low supply on money began to disappear, and a flood of calmness came over him. And in this calmness, he had no thoughts and no distractions, simply the trail ahead of him that he was running.

Michael himself struggled with his given essay prompt because of his spotty religious background. Raised Christian, he was familiar already with all of the religious teachings and accustomed to attending Sunday services. However, like many people, he fell out of his faith in his teens and started to stop attending church. And up until now, he struggled with thoughts with and questioned even the existence of God himself; "Why would God allow such terrible things as genocides and mass murders happen in the world?" he thought. And because of his strong doubts in God, he struggled to answer his essay prompt.

However, these thoughts and doubts of God ceased to exist as Michael continued his 6-mile run around Central Park until he reached the end. And shortly after stopping, he realized not only was he not out of breath, but also that he in a way found his happiness in the run. In that, he not only experienced peace and calmness while running the 6 miles, but also at the same time felt very content. And noticing this, he started to walk out of the park and back into the busy streets.

When he was about to cross the first street with one foot on the dry black tar, a strong hand on his arm pulled him back, causing him to narrowly miss being hit by the oncoming bus. And when he turned around, he saw a priest still holding his arm. Michael was about to thank the priest for this heroic action, but the priest already started to walk away and disappeared into the crowd.

Experiencing what just happened, Michael was in utter shock and instinctively looked at the sky for guidance. And when he did this, the fog-like haze had disappeared, and the center of the sun returned to a bright yellow again. Michael at that moment then realized what he was going to write about in his essay, and rushed back to his dorm.

"Yes, one can truly experience God outside of Church, because … "

For Further Reading:

500 Years of Virgin Mary Sightings in One Map

Did the Virgin Mary Warn Rwanda's Holiest Town of the Genocide?