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Read the Fresno Bee's feature on Gloria
Revilla Doyle.
"Sharing
the right spirit," Guy Keeler, Feb. 8, 2006
Gloria Revilla Doyle was featured
in the St Columba's Episcopal Church February 2, 2005 newsletter.
Gloria Revilla Doyle — a 15–year
parishioner this very month, known by sight if not by name
to many St. Columbans (not least because of her bright red
wheelchair) — has completed a memoir, A Journey
Not Chosen, Healing, Survival and the Human Spirit. Claimed
by an inoperable spinal cord tumor 22 year ago, her story
is not one of difficulties and travail, but of overcoming
them through openness to non–Western medicine and progressively
deeper faith. St. Columba’s plays a significant part
in her story:
At Denis’s request we began
to attend church in January, 1990. Our friend Morton took
us the first time. We sat in the second pew.
At first I wondered why I was there.
It was not my place. I felt alien. But I had promised. Promised
that I would go to church in good spirit, with an open mind
and heart...
We went every Sunday. Denis partook
of the Episcopal service, singing the hymns, saying the
responses, sitting, kneeling and standing. I sat, watched
and listened.
Then something happened. The message
touched me. Deep inside, it resonated with something heretofore
unknown. I began to cry. Silently. At first it was a few
tears, then a steady stream. Those around me were preoccupied
with the service. Mercifully, they did not notice. I was
relieved.
Bit by bit, as the weeks passed, I
found solace, then sustenance. After three months of church,
I wanted to celebrate the eucharist. Denis signaled for
the priest to bring me communion.
Gloria's book is available in our bookstore
(where part of the proceeds goes to St. Columba's). It is
also for sale at Politics & Prose, who is hosting an event
for the book on Sunday, March 13, at 1 pm, to which one and
all are invited. You can also learn more about the book at
www.journeynotchosen.com.
©1999-2005 St. Columba’s Episcopal Church
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