Along The Winding Road: With Deacon Mark Komula

A Simple “Yes” 

Sometimes, when we look back along the road we've traveled, we don't want to revisit the whole journey. We want one moment. 

Not because everything was better then. 

Just because, for a brief moment, we were exactly where we were supposed to be – and we didn't know it. 

It was in the Spring a few years ago, before I knew where the journey would eventually lead. I was singing with the choir at St. Peter’s and also with the Roof Garden Barbershop Chorus. I cannot remember every rehearsal, but at one of the choir rehearsals, Karen asked me to be the cantor for the upcoming Mass of Confirmation. 

I simply said “yes.” 

Then I thought about it afterward. 

What? 

Wait? 

The bishop will be there. 

The church will be full. This time with many unfamiliar faces. And it will be me at the podium leading the congregation for the singing. 

I didn’t really think about all of this before I answered. 

I was very nervous. 

When the choir rehearsed for that Mass, I was relieved to learn that the processional hymn was one I already knew: Dan Schutte’s Send Us Your Spirit. 

I told Karen about my nerves, and she seemed to understand. But, she didn’t ask me if I wanted change my mind about saying “yes.” Instead, she did something with rehearsal that we didn’t do very often. She had me practice from the podium in the sanctuary where I’d be standing on that Sunday afternoon. 

Still, I was nervous. 

This particular version of Send Us Your Spirit, had a key change going into the last verse. 

I knew how to do that. And I could hear the organist play into it. 

As the cantor, I would be leading the congregation. I had to get it right. 

That final rehearsal I walked down the stairs from the choir loft and up the center aisle to the podium in the sanctuary. My footsteps echoed in the empty church. I could hear the rustling of sheet music as the choir prepared. 

I stood at the podium, staring at the microphone with the red light indicating it was hot. I took a deep breath and looked up at Karen as she began directing. 

Lori played the introduction. I knew the beautiful melody. I watched as Karen turned away from directing Lori through the intro and towards the choir. 

I raised my right arm to bring in the invisible congregants and began singing. “Send us your Spirit, O Lord.” My voice solid and amplified, echoed through the empty church. 

I sang through both verses, watching Karen carefully. 

I heard the choir in four-part harmony. 

Lori played the bridge. I heard the key change. 

I knew I could do it. 

I sang the final verse. 

As the final chord echoed, Karen turned to Lori and they had a little conference. 

“Mark,” Karen began, “that was correct musically, but it still needs something. It needs to sound like you are praying.” 

I read the lyrics on the sheet music. 

“Winter has chilled us, and stilled us to long.” 

I thought about that. 

The past winter had been awful. Not the weather, the season. 

I sang it again. 

This time Karen loved it. 

"Do it that way Sunday and it will be perfect.” 

Sunday was coming… fast! 

I kept practicing in my cement block garage. 

It helped me hear myself from the outside. 

My brother, Matt, had given me that tip. 

I called him for another. 

Sunday came and I took my place in the sanctuary. 

Karen waved. 

I stood and invited the congregation to sing the processional hymn. 

As I sang, I watched the faces of those in procession. 

The server carrying the cross, then the confirmandi and their sponsors. 

They bowed reverently at the base of the sanctuary and took their places in the pew. Many of them joining the hymn. 

The deacon with the Book of Gospels held high. 

He wasn’t from our parish. 

I wondered where Deacon Ron was. 

More deacons processed, then several priests and finally the bishop wearing his mitre and carrying his crozier. 

Next to him on his right was Deacon Ron. 

And behind them two more servers. 

I kept singing, but was getting worried about becoming too emotional as I entered the last verse. 

I focused my attention on the organ. 

Listening intently as Lori played the bridge into the key change. 

I heard my starting note. 

I knew I could duplicate that with my voice. 

“Send us good summer, oh Lord.” 

So far, so good, I thought. 

“Winter has chilled us, and stilled us, too long.” 

I felt the emotion but my voice didn’t break. 

I watched the faces in the first few rows as I completed the verse. 

I looked up at Karen as she directed the stop for the singers. 

The organ played a few more bars and it too went silent. 

I turned from the podium and faced Bishop Mark Bartchak. 

It seemed like we made eye contact for a split second. I wasn’t sure. 

He began, “In the name of the Father…” 

Sometimes I wish I could go back there. 

Not to change anything. 

Not even to say something different. 

I would simply like to stand there again. 

To hear the organ. 

To hear the voices. 

To feel what I felt before I knew what was coming. 

But I can't go back. 

None of us can. 

At the time, I thought I was simply saying yes to singing. 

Yes to being the cantor. 

Yes to trying something that made me uncomfortable. 

It was a simple yes. 

I had no idea how many other yeses would follow. 

I can't go back to that moment. 

And perhaps I shouldn't want to. 

Because that moment was not the destination. 

It was part of the road. 

I am here now. 

Shaped by every mile that came afterward. 

I can remember the man I was with gratitude. 

I can miss that moment. 

I can even wish, for just a little while, that I could stand there again. 

But the road keeps going. 

And I am still walking it. 

What simple yes are you saying today that may shape who you become years from now? 

Following Truth Wherever He Leads.

  

Sometimes we don't recognize the significance of a moment until years later. 

At the time, I thought I was asking a simple question. 

I knew Ken, but Ken was not simply another man I happened to know in Somerset. He was one of those people whose name carried some weight in the community.

Ken had served as Somerset's state representative from 1969 through 1980. He was an insurance agent and a businessman. He and his wife, Rita, operated their businesses out of an eighteenth-century house that was part of the historic landscape of Somerset.

But Ken was more than his résumé. 

He was an entertainer.

Ken and his barbershop quartet, Heart and Soul, were well known around Somerset. Their harmonies were exceptional. They didn't simply sing four-part harmony; they were four-part harmony. And the entertainment was real. When Heart and Soul performed, people didn't just hear good music. They enjoyed themselves.

Ken had that kind of presence. 

He was one of those characters who became part of the fabric of a community. 

If you lived around Somerset long enough, you knew Ken. 

And if you heard Heart and Soul sing, you remembered them. 

But titles, accomplishments, and even musical talent don't really explain Ken. 

Service does.

Ken had a way of being involved in his community that made him more than a businessman, former state representative, or entertainer. He seemed to know everybody, and everybody seemed to know Ken. His connection to Somerset wasn't merely professional. He had invested himself in the people around him. 

That was Ken.

I remember one night when the Roof Garden Barbershop Chorus was singing the National Anthem at the AAABA playoffs at Point Stadium in Johnstown. 

We sang it beautifully. Then we stayed for the game. And then the skies opened. 

It wasn't a gentle summer shower. 

It was a downpour.

I got completely soaked. Everything in my wallet was soaked, too—money, cards, everything. It looked like it had gone through a washing machine. 

Ken didn't hesitate. 

He told me to get into his Cadillac. 

So there I was, dripping wet, climbing into Ken's Cadillac while he simply went about taking care of somebody who needed a ride. 

Who does that? 

Guys like Ken. 

That's the part of Ken I don't want to lose.

The titles will eventually fade. The political office becomes a line in a history book. Even the recordings and memories of Heart and Soul will become harder for people to find. 

But I'll remember the Cadillac. 

I'll remember standing there soaking wet.

I'll remember Ken opening the door and telling me to get in. 

Because that's what service looked like when I knew Ken. 

It wasn't a speech. 

It wasn't a title. It was a man seeing somebody who needed help and simply helping him. 

And one evening, I asked that man about a song.

It was Holy Thursday, and the choir had sung something that had caught my attention. 

I didn't know the title, but I wanted to hear it again. 

So I asked Ken if he knew what it was called. 

He could have simply said, "I'll find out." Instead, Ken went to the choir loft – in a different building – to find the sheet music. 

He came back and showed it to me. 

The song was Called to the Supper of the Lamb by Tony Alonso. 

That little act tells you something about Ken.

He didn't make a production of it. He didn't tell me how busy he was or how many other things he had to do. 

Somebody had asked him a question. 

So he went looking for the answer. 

I bought the CD. 

And I listened to it. 

A lot. 

There was something about that music that kept drawing me back. I didn't understand yet what it was doing in my life. I only knew that I loved the sound of it, and somehow the music had gotten under my skin. 

Then, a few weeks later, I saw an announcement in the parish bulletin: 

New choir members wanted.

I showed up before the Wednesday evening rehearsal.

Lori, the organist, and Karen, the choir director, greeted me. I introduced myself and told them I wanted to audition. 

They both laughed. 

Karen looked at me and said, "We take anyone willing to sing." 

So much for my audition. 

I joined the choir.

I didn't know it then, but that decision would become part of a much larger story. 

And Ken wasn't finished. 

Later, he invited me to a guest night with the Roof Garden Barbershop Chorus. He thought I might enjoy it and wanted me to come see what they did. 

I wasn't sure. 

Another choir member advised me to accept the invitation. 

His reasoning was pretty straightforward: Ken wasn't going to let it go until I did. 

He knew Ken. 

So I went. 

And I fell in love with barbershop music.

There was something completely different about it – the harmonies, the sound of it, the fellowship, the sheer joy of making music together. 

I joined the Roof Garden Barbershop Chorus and became part of that family. I stayed with the chorus until I entered formation for Holy Orders. 

Looking back now, I can see something I couldn't possibly have seen then. 

I thought I had asked Ken for the name of a song. But Ken didn't just give me a title. He went and found the music. 

A few weeks later, I walked into a choir rehearsal. Then Ken nudged me toward another kind of singing. And eventually, music became part of my life in ways I could never have anticipated. 

Maybe that's one of the things I've learned about God's invitations. They don't always arrive looking like invitations. Sometimes they look like a question. Sometimes they look like a sheet of music carried back from a choir loft. Sometimes they look like a bulletin announcement. And sometimes they look like Ken, telling you about a barbershop chorus and refusing to take no for an answer. 

I didn't know where any of it was leading. 

I only knew that I kept saying yes. 

Ken has since been called home to the Lord. 

Rita still mourns him. 

And I hope I never forget him. 

Because Ken meant a great deal to me. 

When I think of him now, I don't first think about the political office he held, the businesses he ran, or even the music he made. 

I think about the man. 

The man who went looking for a piece of sheet music because I asked him about a song. The man who opened the door of his Cadillac for a soaking-wet chorus member without giving it a second thought. 

The man who wouldn't let me get away with declining an invitation to sing. 

That's the Ken I remember. 

And somewhere along that winding road, I began to understand that the music wasn't merely something I was singing. 

It was becoming part of the way God was teaching me to listen.

Following Truth Wherever He Leads.

Years ago, I searched high and low for Sen-Sen. My father always carried a little pack in the pocket of his suit coat, and as a boy I loved them. Eventually they disappeared from store shelves. I bought boxes of them whenever I found them, knowing they wouldn't last forever. 

Today they're gone, but the memories remain.

Looking back, I realize I was searching for more than candy. I was trying to reconnect with a time and a person I loved.

Looking at an old family photo triggered a memory of something else I have been searching for. A hymn. Actually, a recording of that hymn. A hymn I heard for the first time as a child.  Isn’t it funny how our senses work. We see a picture, we remember a particular taste, and then a sound.

For me, that progression led me to a precious memory. That old black and white photo got me thinking about what we might have been doing back then. My siblings and I are clearly dressed in our Sunday best. It’s 8:15, I’m guessing in the morning, because at that age we’d have been in bed if it was evening. There must have been some important occasion that my parents wanted to memorialize.

Once a month, we traveled from Greenville, Pennsylvania, to Buffalo, New York, where Apostle John W. Fendt conducted District Services at Kleinhans Music Hall. Congregations from across the district gathered there, and the combined district choir filled that magnificent hall with music unlike anything I'd ever heard.

Before the service began, the choir would sing. There were no microphones, no praise band, no stage lighting – just dozens of well-trained voices, accompanied by a magnificent pipe organ, filling Kleinhans Music Hall with harmonies that seemed to come from every direction.

One of the songs the choir sang was composed particularly for this kind of choir. In 1922, Carrie B. Adams composed a choral anthem based on Psalm 125. I found and purchased a copy of The Choir Herald where it first appeared.

Each time I hear the words of that Psalm, I am taken back to hearing the New Apostolic Church Buffalo District Choir sing, They That Trust In The Lord. Particularly the section of the song where the choir stops and a trio of voices begins.

The full choir stops; a trio steps out from the choir and up to a single microphone. The organ plays and two women and a man begin: 

“I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” 

The voices blend as one. 

The harmony flawless. 

The timing impeccable. 

When the full choir resumes, they sing powerfully, 

“Let the people praise thee, praise thee oh God!”

I can still remember how the final chord resounded in that hall and in my soul. 

I can still hear it now. 

I searched for years for a recording of that song. 

I eventually found a recording on YouTube.

The video was grainy, the sound was poor, and the choir... well, let's just say they weren't the NAC Buffalo District Choir. I listened anyway. Not because it matched my memory, but because it reminded me that some things are too deeply woven into our lives to be recaptured by a recording.

As a younger man, I searched for an obsolete breath mint. 

Years later, I searched for an old hymn.

One could never be found again. 

The other, I discovered, had never really been lost. The words of Psalm 125 are still with me, and so is the trust in God they planted in the heart of a little boy. 

Following Truth Wherever He Leads

A "Wink of Providence"

I have been working on another book, One Tin Soldier. While working on a genealogy, I discovered so many mysteries about my ancestors, that it led to me creating a work of historical fiction. As I wrote this post, I received one of those unexpected ‘winks of Providence.’ I learned that Kleinhans Music Hall had been designed by a pair of Finnish architects. Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Father and son. As someone who would eventually come to appreciate his own Finnish heritage, that discovery made this memory even sweeter.

It must have been sometime in the 1960s. I don't remember exactly what year. I just remember that it was summer, it was Sunday morning, and my dad was scheduled to preach in Pittsburgh. 

We lived in Greenville, Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh was a smaller congregation than ours. My dad was a minister in the New Apostolic Church, and people seemed to love him everywhere he went. 

I asked if I could go with him. He said yes. 

I'd made the trip with him before, and I knew part of the routine. 

We would leave early Sunday morning and stop at a diner in Pittsburgh for breakfast before going to church. 

This was before the interstate highway system through western Pennsylvania was finished. We'd drive about twenty miles from home before getting onto I-80, then pick up I-79 heading toward Pittsburgh. Eventually the interstate simply ended on the north side of the city, near the turnpike. 

You knew you were getting close to Pittsburgh before you actually got there. You could smell it. And then you could see the smog. That was Pittsburgh in those days. 

The church wasn't some grand building with stained-glass windows and a steeple. It was a rented storefront that served the small congregation there. 

But before church came breakfast. The diner was the kind that seemed to be everywhere back then. Dad and I would sit at the counter. He'd order a soft-boiled egg, toast and coffee. I'd get one of those little single-serving boxes of cereal. I knew the routine. 

Except that Sunday, we never made it inside. We had parked and were walking across the parking lot toward the diner when a man approached my dad. “Hey, mister, can you spare a dime?” 

Dad reached into his pocket. He didn't give him a dime. He pulled out a couple of dollar bills and handed them to the man. Then Dad turned around and started walking back toward the car. I followed him. We got in. 

I couldn't understand what was happening. 

“Why are we leaving?” 

Dad told me that the man needed our breakfast money more than we did. 

Now, I was a little boy. And apparently my face betrayed the obvious problem with my father's generosity. 

If we had just given away our breakfast money, what exactly were we going to eat? 

Before I could ask, Dad said: “The Lord will provide.” 

And off we went to church. 

We arrived just as Sunday School was ending. One of the teachers was a German woman everyone called Oma D. That morning, one of her students was celebrating a birthday. And Oma D. had brought apple kuchen for everyone. Including us. 

I don't remember what my dad preached about that Sunday. 

I don't remember the hymns we sang. 

I don't remember the name of the man in the parking lot. I don't know where he went after my father handed him those couple of dollars. 

But more than half a century later, I remember the breakfast we didn't eat. 

And I remember the apple kuchen we did. 

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in another diner, this time with my wife. On the wall beside us was an artist's drawing of a 1958 Chevy Impala. 

My dad had one when I was a boy. One glance at that drawing opened a door I hadn't walked through in years. 

Suddenly I was remembering that enormous front bench seat, the dashboard, and what it felt like to be a little boy riding beside my father. 

I've been going through old family photographs ever since. I started out looking for a car. Instead, I kept finding Dad. 

And perhaps that is why this old Sunday morning in Pittsburgh came back to me. 

This weekend's Gospel tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure buried in a field. A man discovers it and realizes that what he has found is worth more than everything else he owns. 

I've spent the last couple of days thinking about how much treasure can be buried in an ordinary life. 

When I was that little boy riding to Pittsburgh, I didn't know I was making a memory. 

I was just going somewhere with Dad. 

I didn't know that watching him hand our breakfast money to a stranger would stay with me for the rest of my life. 

I certainly didn't know that someday I would become a deacon and find myself preaching about treasures hidden in fields. 

And I don't think Dad was trying to teach me a lesson that morning. 

That's what makes the memory precious. He simply saw someone who needed what he had, reached into his pocket, and gave it to him. Then he trusted God with what came next. 

The apple kuchen makes a wonderful ending to the story. And I can still smile when I think about the timing of it. 

But the older I get, the more I realize that the kuchen wasn't the treasure. 

The treasure was sitting beside me in that car. 

My father couldn't have known what would be waiting for us when we got to church. He didn't give that man our breakfast money because he expected God to replace it. He gave it because, at that moment, he believed it was the right thing to do. 

And then he trusted God with what came next. 

More than fifty years later, I think that's what following God so often looks like. 

We don't get to see the whole road. 

We don't always know where it leads. 

Sometimes we simply recognize what is true, what is good, what Christ is asking of us in that moment - and we follow. 

I started looking through old photographs this weekend because I wanted to find a picture of a 1958 Chevy Impala. 

Instead, I found myself remembering a Sunday morning in Pittsburgh, a hungry stranger, a couple of dollar bills, a breakfast we never ate, and a piece of apple kuchen I can still almost taste. 

I was just a little boy going for a ride with his dad. 

I didn't know I was watching someone follow the Lord wherever He led. 

I just knew Dad said we'd be all right. 

“The Lord will provide.” 

And He did.

Following Truth Wherever He Leads

For me, one of those moments came on Holy Thursday in 2014.

Janis and I were sitting together in a Catholic church. I was still in RCIA, preparing to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. 

Everything was still new to me. 

The incense. The music. The washing of the feet. The procession. The priest. The deacon. 

I watched everything. 

What I was not doing was imagining myself as a deacon. 

Nothing could have been further from my mind.

I wasn't becoming Catholic because I wanted to be ordained. I wasn't looking ahead to some future ministry. At that moment, I was still trying to understand the road immediately in front of me. 

Could I really do this? 

Could I leave behind the religious world that had shaped me from childhood and profess the Catholic faith? 

Could I finally follow where I believed God was leading me? 

That was enough for one winding road. 

And Janis was sitting beside me. 

She couldn't have known what was coming either. 

Years later, when the possibility of formation for the permanent diaconate unexpectedly entered our lives, I would discover that this particular calling wasn't mine to discern alone. 

Janis would have a voice in that decision. 

More than a voice, actually. 

She had veto power. 

And let's just say she wasn't exactly waving me toward the starting line. 

But that is her story too, and if that part of our journey is ever told here, it will be told with her blessing. 

On that Holy Thursday night, though, none of this was on our minds. 

We were simply a husband and wife sitting together in a pew. 

I was watching a deacon serve at the altar. 

I didn't know that years later I would stand there myself. 

I didn't know that the woman beside me would have to decide whether she was willing to walk that road with me. 

I didn't know what God was doing.

I didn't know I was watching my future. 

Looking back, I've come to believe that life is filled with moments like that. We live them without recognizing their significance. Years pass, the road turns, and suddenly we find ourselves looking backward and thinking: 

Oh. That's what that was. 

Maybe you've had a moment like that too. 

A person you almost didn't meet. 

A door you nearly didn't walk through. 

A decision that seemed insignificant at the time. 

A moment you couldn't possibly have understood until years later. 

Sometimes we don't recognize God's hand while the story is being written. 

Sometimes we have to travel farther down the winding road before we can look back and see where He was leading us all along. 

If you'd like to step back into that part of my journey with me, I'm sharing a sample chapter from my memoir, The Long and Winding Road: From Cultic to Catholic. 

Chapter Thirty-nine, “Take It To The Limit,” takes you into that Holy Thursday night - when I was still preparing to become Catholic and had absolutely no idea what the future held. 

I invite you to read it. And perhaps, as you do, you'll remember a moment from your own life when you didn't realize you were watching your future. 

Following Truth Wherever He Leads.

Forty years ago this summer, Janis and I were eagerly awaiting the birth of our first child. I was working as a printing press operator in the in-house print shop at Joy Manufacturing Company, a manufacturer of coal mining equipment. 

I had been there for seven years. It was a good job – steady work, excellent benefits, and the kind of security every young husband and father-to-be hopes for. 

Most of my co-workers were about my age. We were all at different stages of life – some married, some single – but we shared one thing in common: we were practicing Christians. 

The conversations we had during coffee breaks and lunch often revolved around our families, our churches, and our hopes for the future. 

That sense of stability began to unravel in the summer of 1986. Joy Manufacturing was a publicly traded corporation and had become the target of a hostile corporate takeover. 

As the battle for control intensified, rumors spread throughout the plant. Then the layoffs began. Week after week, employees were called into the office and escorted out. The company was desperately trying to cut costs in an effort to avoid the takeover. 

With a baby due in just a few weeks, every announcement left me wondering if I would be next. I had been keeping this fear secret from my wife. I rationalized it as making sure she didn’t worry.

Then my Friday came. 

My supervisor asked me to report to the manager's office. The Human Resources director was already there. 

"You're being laid off." After seven years, everything I owned at work fit into a cardboard box that had once held 250 No. 10 envelopes. 

As I sat in the binding room waiting for my shift to end, I thought about how I was going to tell Janis. 

My supervisor, Becky and I were working on stuffing some envelopes when I saw the Plant Manager, Bill O’Rourke walk pass the door. 

Not long afterward, he came back and this time entered the room.

"Mark, your wife is waiting for you in the lobby.” 

I got up and followed him to the lobby where Janis was waiting, her face all smiles even though the day was scorching hot and she was eight months pregnant. 

Bill stopped and said to Janis, “It was a pleasure meeting you.” 

Then he went up the steps quickly to his office. 

"I have some news," she said. 

"Me too." 

As we walked to the car, I could feel the eyes from inside watching us. Or at least I imagined I could. I had been watching every Friday afternoon for weeks. 

In the car she went first. 

"The doctor says the baby will probably be here within ten days!" 

I burst into tears. 

"What happened?" she asked. 

"I no longer have a job." 

The drive home was filled with more tears than words. 

The following Monday, I returned to work to begin my notice period. My manager had my résumé professionally typeset and printed. 

Later that day, Bill O'Rourke stopped by the print shop. He expressed his sorrow over what had happened, encouraged me to use him as a professional reference, and reminded me that good people sometimes find themselves on the losing end of circumstances beyond their control. It wasn't a long conversation, but I've never forgotten it.

Looking back, I've realized two things. 

First, God was already opening doors I couldn't yet see. What felt like the end of the road became the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. 

Second, I wasn't protecting my wife by carrying my fears alone. Marriage was never meant to work that way. 

God gives husbands and wives one another so they can carry life's burdens together. 

For nearly forty years, Bill never knew how much that brief conversation meant to me. 

Forty years later, I reached out to him to send him a note, telling him how much his kindness meant to me. After exchanging a few emails, Janis and I shared lunch with him just last month. 

We talked about where our journeys had taken us. 

He left Joy not long afterward and went on to a distinguished career at Alcoa, eventually becoming a nationally recognized speaker and co-author of The Business Ethics Field Guide. 

Seeing where life had taken both of us made our reunion all the more meaningful.

Sometimes God provides exactly what we need - not by changing our circumstances immediately, but by placing the right people along our path at just the right time. 

That cardboard box wasn't the end of my story. 

It was simply another bend along the winding road.

Following Truth Wherever He Leads.