What I wanted to ask the bishop: how many homeless folks in your diocese have made it through RCIA to become a Catholic? The procedure to become a Catholic is significantly more involved than it was in the first days of the church, it seems.

I can bear witness to that fact. Why did I not stay for the celebration feast afterwards and ask my question then? In truth, I do not choose to spend the money on the dinner. The one being who has most helped me in my recovery is under my care and the funding for his care is being pulled like an infant alive in a partial birth abortion procedure. I am allowed to lease a another horse when I myself have sold Splendid High, according to one who tries to lord over my life.

Then and only then will it be possible to lease a horse. Why does it matter? He’s just a horse, after all. No, he is not. Not every horse has the Look of Eagles, but he does. Not every horse has as large a heart. I would venture to say that he has the biggest heart of any heart on the Ranch of 120 plus horses. He is a Thoroughbred and he also I suspect has the big heart gene. His lung capacity is huge. He literally has a huge heart, an enormous one and far bigger than any human’s.

He is the instrument that my Higher Power has used to help heal me-he, in particular. Heal me of what, you ask? I have not yet recovered fully from a Catholic priest sexually abusing me when I was 17. My world was shattered at that point and I had my first break with reality, called psychosis, a fragmented psyche, literally–and was first hospitalized just days later.

I have pyroluria, as determined by a lab test, which is an abnormality in the synthesis of hemoglobin. The disease is genetic but is initiated by an extreme stressor. This is a controversial disease but I know it is true and I myself had the test done by a lab in Kansas. My father, a physician, said he would look into it but never did. After all, I am a mess genetically, predetermined by my biological parents, aren’t I?

I have been homeless three different times, while today no one would know that by looking at me. I can absolutely trace the homelessness back to the incident with the priest. I will run from structures because that is where the abuse occurred. Pyroluria can be the underlying reason behind post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, both of which are my diagnoses.

At today’s celebration, I cannot eat what they serve anyways. How many people would try, as a way to treat their PTSD, a regime which forbids: animal products of all kinds (meat, dairy, eggs, cheese, butter), oils and fats outside of whole plant foods, fried foods, all sweets except sweet vegetables including fruit, oily and greasy foods, nuts and seeds, nuts and seed butters? I do not say I do this perfectly but I have been fairly adherent to it and it has helped tremendously. It is worth it to me.

I probably will never be part of a parish. I do not have tremendous trust in people and I have to move around a lot, even if it has been, in former days, in and out of hospitals. To become a Catholic, you have to be settled, it seems, or born into another kind of genetic nobility. That is alright, I am Jew–a Messianic Jew and no one can ever take that away from me.

They can rip a Splendid High from me, or they can try–and are, desperately. One thing I do know is how to fast and pray. That I do. I know how to live on rice and beans and greens. People talk about living on cat food, well what I do can be cheaper by far than that. Cat food is pricey in comparison. I just received my special order of 25 pounds of organic short grain brown rice and I still have some of the lentils I bought in bulk. I am good to go. I still have to buy the veggies, but that is doable.

“This kind goes out only by prayer and fasting,” says my Lord. We shall see if the Daniel Fast of pulse and water applies because that may be the way I get to pay for my partner in grime: a Splendid High known as Mel, who loves me unconditionally and may be the only being on earth that could. For sure, he is the one being who can be around me on a day to day basis. I am that damaged and I know it. So does my Higher Power, whom I call God and the Spirit of Truth, who is my Comforter, knows that and that is why Splendid High and I met. Mel was given the job no M.D. could do and he does it well. Superbly, it seems. He is a muse bringing me back to writing also.

I will let the bishop celebrate. There is much to be said for the Catholic Church, but for right now it is not a place I can rest my head nor eat. I am not allowed Holy Communion until I go through the RCIA program and at this rate, it is highly unlikely.

I am not a fit reporter for the church either, it seems. I do not blame them. I am one very inconvenient person with a lot of baggage. One thing I can say, is that my attorney said most priest abuse victims lose their faith entirely. I know some kill themselves. A lot actually, or become addicts of the most intransigent sort.

Mel and I are going to work for our Licensed Addictions Counseling degree and be instruments of the Lord healing those whom the church refuses to reach out to in any meaningful way. Mel draws people in and is my better half with a far bigger heart. Equine assisted therapy is our path forward in conjunction with the L.A.C. because the recovery field is the one place where the dual diagnoses of psychiatric conditions and addictions are an asset not a liability. Addictions counselors are almost always recovering addicts themselves.

I am determined together we will help others get better, even as Mel is helping me now. And the Messiah is our King and Ruler of our lives, our Sponsor: The Faithful and True. As was on the sign at church today: You are my inheritance, O Lord! And that was a sign if ever there was one…Praise God!