Catching Up

My childhood was rather extraordinarily sheltered.  Adulthood opened a few doors, but mostly my life was all about following the pattern laid out from birth to death.  The only possible adventure would be the return of Christ, and while other people hailed it with joy, I figured they hadn't really thought through all that Tribulation stuff.
The voice of the Holy Spirit whispers gently to the root-bound, and I had numerous moments when I thought I heard something and found myself in trouble with the adults in my life.  They were sure they knew what the Holy Spirit might or might not say.  What I thought I'd heard wasn't likely or even possible.  So they said.
For me one of the global differences between Protestant as I experienced it and Catholic is that Catholics expect to be surprised.  They are open to Mary dropping off a message or some other improbable happening, and I love that.  While they have every confidence in the Word of God, they don't shrink God's work down to a contract.  Instead of closing their eyes and resting in God's peace they keep their eye's sharp looking for the work of God and for their place in it. 
Becoming a Catholic was for me, a Holy Spirit as Gandalf moment.  I was sitting there in my garden smoking a pipe, when he scratched a secret message on my heart, "Do or die time," so I did.  For me, becoming a Catholic was like Bilbo running straight out the green door.  I am having an adventure.