In the Name of the Father.

No child grows up wanting to be a priest.

I didn't. I wanted to be a race car driver - Just like my dad.

It takes a deeper understandng of the world around you for you to even decide whether religion in general is right for you.

I could never understand, as a kid, why some people went to church on a Sunday, while we all lay around in bed.

It takes a real crisis to shake someone around like that...

I'm not ashamed of my father. He was a good man, and I know that isn't through rose tinted glasses. He did good work for people who didn't have the chances he did. Always out at the poorhouse serving out soup - as archaic as that seems now, it was the thing to do back then.

I never felt like he was just going through the motions for good karma, or to pay for some former mistake. He enjoyed it. He loved seeing the people's smiling faces.

They all said he was taken away from us too early. I couldn't understand what had happened. My dad was a hero - the fastest man on the track. I later understood that speed has its risks. He'd hit a corner. Literally - his brakes failed and he hit it. Dead on arrival.

I was too young then to get it. It wasn't until...

Until... Mom died.

Mom was a saint. My Dad always called her that. She was a teacher's aide. Worked at one of those inner city schools. She got an award from the district comission for all of her good work. Never hurt a fly.

She got caught in an armed robbery. It went sour.

Again, I was ignorant to the reasons why.

The pastor tried to explain it to me. I wouldn't listen.

It's times like this - sat behind the wheel of a car - that I think about everything that's happened to me. How far from those times I've come.

Because it's the last time I could ever think about them.

It's like he used to say...

"Driving is he biggest thrill you could ever feel. A mixture of sharp-eyed focus and dead-eyed relaxation. There's nohting like it on earth."

I don't think he knew how right he was.

But there's something he forgot to mention.

When you hear the engine roar under your feet, you feel like the king of the world. You forget about everything. It just becomes a huge blur.

I'm gonna sleep well tonight. For once.