This is Who I Am

He was very sensible of his faults, but not discourage by them. - "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (Sept 28, 1666)

My name is William E. Goss, II.  Everyone knows me as Bill except for long time friends and family who call me Billy.  On June 28, 2014, I receive holy orders as a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church.

My dad was a Baptist preacher and truck driver with degrees from Mississippi College and Millsap’s College and attended the Louisiana Baptist Seminary.  The man was a very educated truck driver.  His preaching did not support his family.

My mother was a Catholic girl.  She was raised in the country and attended a small rural school.  Not a very educated person but she was devout in her faith. She was a popcorn girl at the theater when they met.  They dated two weeks and were married for 25 years until my father died.

You don’t preach at a big Baptist church when your wife is Catholic and wears pants to service, especially in the 1960’s.  It was her faith and her relationship with God.  He would not make her believe as he believed.  Love, respect, and perseverance makes success.

I was baptized at two weeks old.  That was my entire formal Catholic formation as a child.  I grew up in the Baptist church and saw how my father was treated by the organized church because my mother was Catholic.  I didn't want anything to do with that religion.

I played football in college and I was a lot better in my mind than in the coach’s opinion.  There were requirements to stay and workout with the team over the summer, I could not do this because my father was sick.  I would go home and work.  This didn't add to my success in football.

I met my wife when she was 17.  I was 23.  She was a good Catholic girl who played organ at mass.  Some of our first dates were to mass.  She told me that she made up her mind to marry me the day she saw me.  My baby face made her mother think I younger than I was so she said we could get married.  The only condition is that we had to be married in the Catholic Church.  We got married the day after she graduated from high school.

My father was in the hospital on a ventilator when we got married and died before my children were born.  In his last years, he attended a Pentecostal church because this is where he felt the spirit.  He was in the hospital for almost a year and I don't remember him being visited by a Baptist preacher or a Pentecostal preacher during this time.  I know a Catholic Chaplin visited him in the hospital because of my mother.

The funeral was held in the hall at the Catholic Church where my mother was raised.  He is buried in a community cemetery behind that Church.  I don’t visit his grave nearly enough.

The priest that had the most profound impact on me was from Nigeria.  An African man who came to the United States as a missionary.  He told us that Irish Missionaries came to his village when his grandfather was chief.  His grandfather thought that his dead ancestors were living in the trees and he worshiped them.  His father became a Christian and the head man of the village allowing him to have several wives.  

I would like to call this a potpourri of unrelated happenings.  Mainly because I like the word potpourri; but, they are related.  All are the seeds of my faults.  I am not discourage because they are the source of the garden of my thoughts.  

I think this is enough.  Just enough to let you know were I am coming from when I tell my stories.  Peace