We lay there on our backs in a line, I in the lead.  The water in the stream wherein we lay was only an inch and a half deep and had slowed to a trickle beneath us, but it was cold, icy cold.  It was so dark, there being no light whatsoever, that we had given up trying to see anything long ago.  The walls of the passageway in which we lay had narrowed down to a claustrophobic six inches on either side of us.  But it was the ceiling, the ceiling of that cave in which we lay, that was so overwhelmingly awesome in its presence.

That ceiling of dirt and rock had narrowed down to only six inches above my face.  I had had to turn onto my back and push myself forward with my feet, inching myself forward through the ever-narrowing tunnel.  I stopped and grunted, “Hold” to my other four companions, breathing in the dank, stale air of the underground passage.  I thought of the rope tied amateurishly around my ankle running back to the next guy’s ankle and so on to the next.  My buddies could always pull me out.

I did what no professional cave explorer would ever do.  I thought about it.  I thought about the walls, the floor, the ceiling.  I imagined the earth above me slightly shifting and the great expanse of rock above me simply settling to fill this narrow worm-hole, crushing my body beneath its weight.  The waves of claustrophobia began to wash over me.  I suddenly could see, but it was only an imagined redness of fear.

The single word “Pull” burned into my mind, but what came out was a blurt of panic, “Just a sec.”  One of my buddies, sensing my fear, called out, “Are you all right, Pete?”  I couldn’t answer.  The feeling of that ceiling pressing down on me had grown so that the words would no longer form in the tangle of my mind.  My fear began to spread among the other four.

We were teenage amateur spelunkers (cave explorers), the five of us.  Why our naïve parents let us do this is beyond me.  It was 1960 though – a time of innocence, pre-drug, pre-Viet Nam and the end of the Eisenhower years.  The atom bomb hung over heads – instant annihilation – so what was the danger in a little cave exploring for the boys.

My four friends and I would take off every chance we got and head for Onondaga Cave country in Missouri, south of St. Louis where we lived.  These boyhood adventures would sometimes last a week where we would find and explore a cave, never coming out.  We were fascinated with the great adventures of these dramatic underground house caverns of earth and rock and once we got over our initial fears, took chances that make me shudder today.

We thought we were pros.  After all, we had bought hard hats with little lights perched on the fronts.  We carried nylon rope with us and wore special boots.  Truth is, looking back, we didn’t have a clue and it was only by the grace of God that I live today to tell this story.

Up until this moment I had been respectful of my surroundings, but excitedly fearless.  My natural teenage buoyancy carried me far past any claustrophobic warnings.  Claustrophobia, up until this moment, had never been an issue.  But now it came roaring forward in all its magnificence.  I became scared to death I was going to die and it began to spread rapidly to the other four.

“Let’s go back,” whispered Artie.  At the same moment we all realized that we could push ourselves forward with our legs, but this method would not work in reverse.  Amateurs.  We would have to go forward.

One of the other guys said, “Maybe we should pray.”  At that moment, for each of us, it was the only choice.  I closed my eyes to the fear and went to that child-like place in my imagination – that place of safety, that place of soft bed, warm sheets, Mom close by, and sweet trust that I was in the presence of God.

In an instant it no longer mattered if the earth caved in.  It no longer mattered that the water was freezing.  I was in that place of innocence, that sweet safety of the smile of God.  No biblical passages jumped to mind.  No logic of intelligence took control.  I simply went to that space within that was to me “in the presence of God”.  There was no other choice.  If I couldn’t get there now, if I couldn’t exercise what I had been taught now, when could I?

And it was easy.  I simply went there.  And it was instant; once there, the fear vanished.  The claustrophobia was no more.  It did not subside; it was instantly gone because God was here and in the presence of God there is no fear.

At that, I spoke to my friends reassuringly, “All right, let’s go” and started to push myself forward.  There in that tunnel, we all later agreed, we had each found God in our own individual ways and that re-discovery for each of us had allowed us to move on.  The time it had taken was less than a minute, but what a minute!  For each of us it was a lesson and a memory that would last a lifetime.

Within 15 yards I suddenly felt nothing beneath my head and as I pushed my body forward still on my back, then nothing beneath my shoulders.  The sound of the space changed dramatically and I knew that the top half of my body had entered another space, a much bigger space, another room.  I stopped.  We were through the tunnel.

The blackness was total, but the air and sound had changed dramatically.  The adventure would continue.

This is a two part series.  Tune in tomorrow for the finish. :o)