The Night I lost myself
Concord, Obama, and the Night I Lost Myself
I first heard about Barack Obama when I was attending the Nazarene church in Concord.
I felt an incredible emptiness at that time in my life and needed church, I thought. I went to the same church as a young person going to youth group and returned to it. I was working for 3 years at a software consulting firm in San Francisco. I never completed my school but I learned the job. I failed miserably because I was searching for things.
I was a talent during those years and went to castings and got booked for jobs way before the internet exploded with talent. It was fun but I was searching.
I made my roach-infested apartment a home and always paid my rent in money orders. The apartment was the worst apartment in Concord. By night the population increased with illegal immigrants and during the day it thinned out. The apartment today was converted to condos but it was cheap rent and it was a home. I was also walking distance to the police department and BART. It was perfect.
I first realized what a church denomination mostly of white people would have an impact on me. I went to the pastor because I did not feel right in that church. I saw tension with the pastor’s daughter who divorced her husband then. One of the pastors was nice to me and his wife pretty much screamed at me. They later divorced and I knew that would happen.
I got baptized in that church but it just was not the right place.
This was the time when Obama came on the scene and I never heard of him. People in the church were saying things like he was the Antichrist, you should vote for McCain. So I read his books but I was not educated enough to really comprehend his books. I hadn’t been to Diablo Valley College in years and I only had schooling with Heald classes in San Francisco, Hayward, and Concord. This was way before I entered Heald in 2013.
I was going through issues and reached out to the founders of Glide and I remember Janice Cecil — Jan’s wife — emailing me and encouraging me to attend Glide. This was about the time I felt something inside telling me to get up and go to the church.
It was not voices but something that led me to walking and being found stripped down with pulling out my hair. I went to Herrick Hospital and my life changed forever.
This was when I completely lost myself and went through a transformation so traumatizing that it would cause me to become withdrawn and would take years to recover.
Obama was hope to the world. I was in Concord trying not to drown in my own head. The church told me who to fear. The hospital told me who I was. Glide told me to come home.
I didn’t know it then, but that breakdown in Concord was the ash stage. The stage where you meet yourself for the first time — naked, hair in your hands, nothing left but Spirit.
And from there, I started again.
Cathryn M. Murray
From Ashes | Concord to Salem | Still Becoming
Salem, Oregon | August 4, 2026
