By R.A.M.

What does it mean to be born again?

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The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper whether little or great, it belongs to literature.

Sarah Orne Jewett

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The seven was in my right hand the day I was born, though I did not see it until twenty-five years later, when I reached out with my whole heart, mind, body, and soul, and thought I love You.

Dante was right: by knowledge, love, freedom, logic, and wisdom one can only travel so far. To continue the journey toward truth, one must make the leap of faith.

Robert Allan McNeil

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I would like to share with you a story of a search for truth and a journey toward faith. It is a journey to understand the nature of humanity, knowledge, love, freedom, and their relationship to one another. It is also a journey to understand oneself and the very fundamental experiences of daily life. It asks whether there is a God of the creation and, if so, what His relationship with us is. Above all, it is a story of a young man searching for the truth about life and the nature of his own humanity.

I am an ordinary person with no unusual or special skills, except for a tenacious pursuit of truth. If I have any strength, it is that I am philosophical by nature. It is not something I chose; it is simply who I am. As a teenager,

I was occasionally criticized at family dinners for being so philosophical. Discussions sometimes became heated when I challenged and debated my parents, and older brother and sister, in discussions about current events, beliefs, and assumptions. pg.4

Sometimes I made a meaningful contribution; other times, I was simply an amateur finding my way. My three younger siblings would sit there and listen and watch the family dynamics unfold, sometimes smiling as they waited to see who the last one left at the table would be. Of all those dinnertime conversations one self-perception became clear: philosophy was my strong suit.

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During those years, I gradually began to shed my childhood and grew into my teens and early adulthood. I was searching for my own identity and independence, learning about my own passions, strengths, and weaknesses. I needed to acquire and assess the knowledge and skills required to understand myself and make a living. It was my first major transformation in self-knowledge. I think it is one of the most difficult and stressful times in life because it marks the beginning of the journey to understand oneself and the world, and to find the courage to do so. It is a time when one must trust one’s own instincts rather than defaulting to one’s own culture to do the heavy lifting.

Later in my early twenties, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. I remembered the dinnertime admonitions from my teenage years: “would you stop being so philosophical.” I decided to put all that “stuff” away and be someone who would make a living as a carpenter, or perhaps as a musician- somebody with unique, marketable skills. pg. 6

It was a sound career choice, and surely a wise decision, but it felt like telling a musician to play a musical instrument without learning to read and write music or telling a lawyer to practice law without understanding the foundational concepts, of which all just man-made laws are based. It simply did not fit. I knew I could not go much further unless I understood my own nature as a human being and my relationship with God, if there was One. What foundation would I build my life upon? That was not clear to me. I was confused, and I was beginning to grow angry at life, at myself, and if there was a Divine Craftsman, at God.

Anger is a natural human response to confusion, uncertainty, and misunderstanding. It is not a bad thing. Rather, it is an emotion that signals something is wrong and it motivates us to respond. The difficult part is discerning what to do and how to express it.

Within this emotional and intellectual turmoil, I discovered a poem called Desiderata, a poem written by Max Ehrmann in 1927, (1872-1945). It helped lead me out of the confusion and has been the cornerstone of my life ever since. It helped me begin to believe in myself.

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Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time

Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism

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Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

1927

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The universe may be unfolding as it should, but are we unfolding as we should?

A copy of The Gnostic Gospels was discovered accidently by a shepherd in the Egyptian desert, at Nag Hammadi, in 1945. In the Gospel of Thomas, saying # 70, Christ says, ” if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

In Luke 17:21, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.” The truth is within you, and the truth is eternal. It is true today, as it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow.

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At that time in my life, I decided to return to school and I moved back to my parents’ house. My parents had a dog who was usually tied up in the backyard. One day, I decided to take him for a walk. I discovered some trails and woods which led me on a journey I am writing about a quarter century later. Some of the best times of my life came when I was twenty-five, philosophical by nature, angry, and running those trails.

Running on those trails and thinking about life and the nature of my own humanity, saved my life. Looking back, I think the Lord must have smiled at His creation, at least that part of it.

I did not consider myself to be religious, but I would say that I was theological: “Theo,” meaning the Divine Craftsman, if there was One; and “logical,” meaning human reason. pg. 12

So as I took my daily run with the dog through those trails, my thoughts turned increasingly toward philosophy: the nature of humanity, what motivated me, and where God did fit into the picture, if He existed. If God did fit into the picture, then what was His relationship to His creation? These were lofty questions, I must admit, but it was not just that I wanted to know. It was the fact that I thought I had the right to know. I had to understand my own nature as a human being and, if there was a Divine Craftsman, His relationship to His creation. Looking back, I think of the old saying: “be careful what you ask for because you may just get it.”

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Henry David Thoreau said, “that of all humanity’s follies, perhaps the greatest was our disassociation from nature.” This budding athlete was raised in the city of Boston, a city of asphalt, concrete and families bound by faith, hope, and love for one another. That is one way of saying that we were as dysfunctional as any other family in the city of Boston or anywhere else. Only time and experience give us an understanding of ourselves, our brothers, sisters, parents, and life. We often have longer relationships with our siblings than our parents had with us. Those relationships are shaped more by time and experience then of faith, hope, and love alone.

I really did not experience and learn to appreciate the beauty of nature until this time in my life. I ran those trails through all four seasons, and they were never quite the same and never boring.

I would startle a pheasant as I passed, and it would sound like a jumbo jet taking off in flight. Sunlight would filter through the trees, creating rays and shadows that would always keep me coming back.

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As a starting point for my search for truth, I believed I would have to begin stripping away every assumption and belief I held, then rebuild those beliefs when logic and wisdom required it. This was the beginning of my living out Christ’s words: “unless a man be born again, then he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” To be born again, is to be renewed in spirit, intellect and truth.

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So, I pictured myself as one man alone on a planet, searching of my nature as a human being and for my relationship with God, if logic and wisdom would lead me to one. What I was searching for was self- knowledge. I thought I would first have to define the nature of knowledge before I could understand myself. So, I started there. pg. 15

What is the nature of knowledge? Is it perception, understanding, or comprehension? Is it the understanding of anything, everything, oneself, and the universe, and all that exists within in it? What I needed was a definition of knowledge. I thought of knowledge as humanity’s perception and understanding of itself and the universe around it. The disciplines of knowledge are infinite. We are the universe struggling to understand and comprehend itself. Humanity’s need for knowledge is insatiable. It will never be fully satisfied. There are only momentary pauses in the quest for the joy of understanding.

When I was in Florence, Italy in 1970 I was sitting on the steps of the Cathedral of Florence, in front of the Baptistery, reading a biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti, (1475-1564) The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. That was when my real baptism began. It was when I started asking questions I had been thinking about since I was four years old, if not earlier.

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One of the passages described Michelangelo’s search for the marble from which he would sculpt his David. At the quarries outside of Florence at Carrara, they found the piece of marble that he wanted. One of the workmen asked whether this was the marble from which he was going to create his “perfect man”, his David. Michelangelo replied no. He was not going to create his perfect man from that marble; His perfect man already existed within that marble. All he was going to do is chip away at all the imperfections so that perfect man could stand freely.

Of course, the historical David was not a perfect man. Historians have identified many flaws and imperfections in David and in others throughout history. Over time, cultures tend to mythologize their heroes. pg. 17

I thought that we were doing something similar with knowledge and our own imperfections. Over the years, we chip away at ignorance so that we may stand freely. Our growing understanding of knowledge helps free us from ignorance, poverty, disease, hunger, and enables us to pursue our visions and freedom. We also seek to unravel the mystery of humanity and the nature of the universe. I realized that I was motivated to gain knowledge, as every man, woman, and child, has been throughout the past, present, and future. The disciplines of knowledge may differ, but they all had the same motivation: understanding. The truth already exists; I was only beginning to comprehend it. One piece of the puzzle fell into place.

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As I continued to run those trails over those months, I turned my attention to love, that most confusing and consuming of emotions and concepts. What was it? Where did it come from? How should one define it? Poets and philosophers have tried to describe love, but has anyone truly defined it accurately? I found the dictionary definitions of love inadequate. They described the motivations and results of love as feelings. But is love only feeling? My instincts told me no. Is it some nebulous concept forever poorly defined and often misunderstood? I needed better definition. Does the soul of love possess and reflect both intellect and emotion? Are intellect and emotion the tools of love and our relationships? pg. 19

How could I reconcile the different forms of love? The love one has for a child differs from the love one has for a wife, husband, or lover. The love one has for a friend, neighbor, brother, sister, or parent, is different as well. Love has many faces, and I knew Christ had said that “No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends.” I found the current definitions of love insufficient. So, as I ran those trails, I turned my thoughts toward defining the concept of love. Was it emotion alone, or was it both emotion and intellect? What is the common denominator of love?

It IS LIFE!

If I experienced an epiphany during this entire journey, it was then. I realized that I could not separate life from love. Where there is no need to share life, there is no love. Love is a relationship. There it was. It was like being unable to see the individual tree because of the forest, or the person because of the people.

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When I walked out of those woods that cool and sunny Sunday morning, so many years ago, I knew that I understood the most fundamental and important principle I needed to know. Love is the intellectual and emotional need to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom. The foundation of love is the intellectual understanding that leads to the emotional need and to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom. The second piece of the puzzle fell into place.

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Most, if not all, of us begin our work life at jobs that do not fit this description. Many are manual or service jobs with low pay that do not yet excite or express one’s soul. But they do teach us certain disciplines, like showing up on time, teamwork, and responsibly performing one’s duties. Work provides us with a regular income to sustain one’s livelihood. It also helps us begin to identify and understand our passions, motivations, and who we are. None of us has the same desires and dreams. Each of us most discover what is within. The passions, innate talents, and skills within us lead us toward future fulfillment and joy. Identifying them is the labor of our lives. When one discovers the discipline of knowledge that excites and expresses one’s own soul, then one is on the road to so much more.

With each run on those trails, my understanding of myself deepened. Still, I knew something was missing: freedom. Human beings need the freedom to choose, decide, and even make mistakes. We work in countless disciplines to pursue physical, intellectual, emotional, financial, and political freedom. Through our work, we hope to earn a living, gain financial independence, and share our knowledge and creativity with others.

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Regrettably, we even have to fight wars for political freedom, using knowledge without love to achieve it. This leads to the destruction of life, liberty, and property. It is a window into the gates of hell.

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There are five elements of freedom: physical, intellectual, emotional, economic, and political. The core elements of human freedom are physical, intellectual, and emotional. The economic and political drives toward freedom, support and amplify these core elements.

Human beings are driven by physical, intellectual, and emotional motivations that move them toward freedom. These three motivations have distinct characteristics, but they are not separate to one another. They interact and influence one another. I think this is like the theory of quantum entanglement.

Physical freedom is the ability to move one’s body from one place or state to another without being impeded by internal or external forces. Internal forces include one’s own physical health and well-being when they limit movement. External forces include other people or circumstances that restrict freedom of movement.

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Intellectual freedom is the freedom to search for knowledge. It includes freedom of thought, speech, press, religion, association, and the freedom to pursue knowledge and truth. It is also the freedom to act.

Human emotional freedom cannot be separated from intellectual freedom because we are both intellectual and emotional beings. Passion for truth and knowledge is the fuel of this intellectual endeavor.

Emotional freedom is the state of being independent and intrinsically free while also being interdependent through the love of others. It is shaped by our relationships and by how we feel others perceive us. It reflects our need to be understood, loved, and recognized as well as our need to understand, learn, and love one another, by exercising knowledge, love, and freedom, to help fulfill one another’s needs. Love is the intellectual and emotional need to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom. pg. 27

Economies are societal relationships through which we exchange goods and services. Financial freedom is our ability to obtain them. We gain that freedom by applying knowledge in our relationships with others. The path toward freedom is full of pitfalls, and the constant challenge is to balance knowledge with love so that both lead to a mutual growth and greater freedom.

Human beings first existed within nature. They then established bonds and relationships with one another to increase their chances of survival. Within a democracy they established a representative form of government as a trustee of the community’s decision-making process. One responsibility of that trustee is to ensure and protect the individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. pg. 28

On June 15, 1215, England’s King John agreed to and signed the Magna Carta. It is one of the first legal agreements in English law to assert that the rule of law could arise from a collective agreement of the leaders of the provinces and not only regal decisions that are also the instruments of the rule of law. It marked the beginning of humanity’s long experiment with democracy.

I could have written chapters about each of these motivations, and others have in the past and will in the future. I knew that I was seeing something very important. I was beginning to see and understand myself. I was looking at myself and understanding who I am as a human being. It was what I wanted and what I needed to know. I am motivated to gain knowledge, to love, to be loved, to create, and to be free.

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It is not enough to explore and define the nature of knowledge and freedom. It is also essential to explore and define what the nature of love is. Recognizing love’s dual nature as both intellect and emotion is an essential step toward understanding of our own nature as human beings. Intellect serves and satisfies emotion, while emotion drives intellect. The process is cyclical. Intellect and emotion are distinct but interdependent, unified with one another. Love is driven and fulfilled by both. It is also the catalyst of our understanding of knowledge and freedom. Again, I think it is similar to quantum entanglement. pg. 30

Knowledge, love, and freedom are like food, water, and air. Without enough of each, then one will surely die. How one comes to understand the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom- and their relationship to one another is the challenge of one’s life. No matter who we are or when we live, we all live within the rules of life. The foundation of those rules is the relationship among knowledge, love, and freedom. It is the trinity of life. These are the rules of engagement within which life unfolds. Our body, intellect, and emotions are the essence of that trinity of life.

I was beginning to feel more complete but at the same time I began to look at other people with greater understanding. I realized that I had not only defined who I am as a human being; I had also begun to understand who my fellow human beings were. I felt a more complete understanding of others and myself as individuals across the past, present, and future.

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As time went on, I realized that this is not only my nature, nor only humanity’s nature; it was what is meant by the words “In His Image and Likeness.” I realized then that I was starting down a path I had not fully foreseen or expected, and it was beginning to scare me as much as it excited me.

In the Gospel of Thomas, verse 2, Jesus describes what I believe reflects that same experience of insight that I was having then: “Let the seeker keep seeking until he finds. When he finds he will be disturbed. When he is disturbed, he will be amazed. When he is amazed, he will be invincible to everything. And when he is invincible to everything, he will be at rest.”

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I knew that I had to understand the relationship of knowledge, love, and freedom. I discovered that growth requires a balance between knowledge and love. Knowledge comes first, and love flows from it if there is to be growth. Dante said the same thing in his Divine Comedy. It is like an Algebraic equation that identifies the value of an unknown variable.

If there is an imbalance between knowledge and love, freedom is inhibited and in the worst case, life is lost. This is what the English philosopher, John Locke called a natural law. It is a law that is interwoven into the very fabric of life. I later came to realize and know that it is God’s law, and it is as eternal as God is Himself. It is what human beings call the rule of law. It is probably the most important natural law to understand, because it illuminates why things happen as they do.

All just man-made law is based upon this natural law. Accidents, tragedies, injustice, and evil acts are a result of an imbalance between knowledge and love. Knowledge by itself when acted upon in relationship to other men and women, is an evil act when it is not balanced with love. pg. 33

Knowledge is like a glass bottle filled with water. When men and women use it to quench their own thirst and the thirst of others, it is balanced with love and leads to growth. But when knowledge is used without love, it becomes broken glass without water, cutting and hurting everyone who comes into contact with it. It is no longer fulfilling its purpose; It has destroyed itself. Sooner or later, it will be swept away, or time will do the work. This balance of knowledge and love, which leads toward freedom, is essential to understanding why things work well -and why they do not.

These three abstracts, knowledge, love, and freedom are the only tools that we must have to understand ourselves and the universe that we live in. There are an infinite number of disciplines within each of these three abstracts, knowledge, love, and freedom. How we understand and use them, defines our own humanity.

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This natural law, of the relationship between knowledge and love and the balance between the two, which leads toward freedom is universal both in time and place. This is the inherent baseline of love and the inherent baseline of the universal rule of law.

If the two are out of balance, for example, when too little knowledge applied, the result is ineffective and fails to resolve the situation or enhance individual freedom. When specific knowledge is knowingly used without being balanced with love, it becomes an evil act. Growth always depends on balance: Knowledge is the tool, love is the relationship, freedom is the goal. pg. 35

If the individual sacrifices their own freedom for the well-being of another’s freedom, then that is mankind’s reflection and exercise of a divine love. It is a Divine love that never diminishes the life of another.

The search for the understanding of these three abstracts, knowledge, love, and freedom is the most powerful driving force within man. The understanding of each and the relationship of the three to one another, are the secrets to understanding life. It is why God gave us life. There is an infinite number of plots and stories but there is only one theme. The balance of knowledge with love that leads toward freedom is central to any story. The search for knowledge, love, and freedom is the driving force of humanity. pg. 36

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I thought if I had a group of children and I put them in the woods to find their own way to survive and prosper without helping them by showing them the way; then I would be irresponsible, negligent, and even criminal. How could a God create and not show the way if it was based on love? How could mankind be held responsible and accountable for our actions to both God and our fellowman, if God made the rules but did not abide by them Himself?

To understand who my Creator is, I must look at the creation. Because I am part of the creation, I have to look deeply within myself to find the Creator’s reflection and discover truth.

pg. 38

William Ernest Hocking explores this search within his treaties, Meaning of God in human experience: A philosophic study of religion first published in 1912. In it he states “Consciousness, self-knowledge, knowledge of man and of reality, this is the great result of our insertion in history-nothing else matters.” (pg.495, sixth edition, 1924)

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If the creation reflects the Creator, and if He loves what he has made, would He not, at some point, must become physically and spiritually one with it? Logic and wisdom led me to say yes. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) once asked, would Hamlet understand who Shakespeare was simply observing the play? Lewis thought he could not, unless Shakespeare had entered the play himself at some point.

So on that April evening in 1976, as I was listening to music through headphones, I thought of where I had been and the questions that I had asked myself. I was absolutely amazed at how far I had come. I never really thought that I would come up with the answers that I did and the point at which I was at now. It was clear to me that I had to see if God was there.

I thought should not God want me to know that God was there, and that He loved me, if I am sincere in my search for Him? If God is there and He knows that I am alive, then should not I know also that God is alive and be sure of it? How can one truly love one another if one is not sure that the other one is there? I had no idea what to expect if anything at all.

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So, with my whole heart, mind, body, and soul, I focused on a crucified Christ. Something deeper within me urged me to mean it even more. I felt like a trapeze artist suspended in midair, ready to let go of the physical world and hoping that someone would catch me. Then I thought, I love You.

At that point a “Voice” came back and said: “Listen to the lyrics,” and those lyrics were, “nobody goes there, nobody shows where, nobody goes where you can find me.” The timing of the “I love You”, and the direction to listen to those lyrics, was perfect. I felt like I had just had the wind knocked out of me. I knew at that instant, my spirit and the Spirit of Christ were joined forever.

pg. 41

As I recovered from the shock, I looked down at the paper before me and the pen in my hand. I saw that I had drawn the number 7, though I had no memory of doing it. For some reason, I looked at the palm of my right hand and realized there was a 7 there as well. I had never noticed it before. It was clearly defined and visible, its top line dividing my palm in half. I wondered about the significance of the number: seven days of creation, or the seven deadly sins? I did not know. I stood at the bureau in my bedroom for a long time, thinking about what had happened. I felt drained and was shocked at what had just occurred.

One of the most unusual guarantees of our Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, is our right to pursue happiness. “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

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It was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 (1743-1826) and inspired by the English philosopher, John Locke. John Locke in 1689 (1632-1704) argued that “the law of nature obliged all human beings not to harm the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” John Locke states of life, liberty, and property, which are the rights of man. Thomas Jefferson states of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which are the unalienable rights of man. No other government in the world asserts a government’s responsibility to protect this right of the individual to pursue happiness.

I suspect Jefferson quoted Lock’s law of the rights of man in his original draft. My instincts tell me, that people, like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, pushed back on the use of the word property, or the concept of property as being an unalienable right of man.

pg. 43

In Jefferson’s original draft, his second paragraph’s opening sentence states: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal …” When Jefferson gave Franklin a first draft, Franklin crossed out “sacred and undeniable” and wrote in “self-evident”. Franklin was a newspaper publisher, editor, and writer all of his life. He was also a scientist, one of the most famous people in America and Europe.

America’s original sin and the worlds was slavery and the ownership of other people as property. If Jefferson truly believed that the pursuit of happiness was an unalienable right of man, then I think that he would have explored and defined what the nature of the pursuit of happiness is.

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Life is a dynamic process, and the parameters often change. On this lifelong journey the individual must come to a point where logic and wisdom reach out with love, to make that leap of faith, to continue on the spiritual journey toward fulfillment and happiness. When the individual makes that leap, Christ will be there, and He is as real as the individual. He is the Creator of the individual, the incarnation of the Divine Craftsman. He said, “I shall be with you even until the end of time.” The impact of that union of Spirits changes both, for an eternity. It is very real. It is one of the truest feelings of love which I have ever felt in my life.

Over the next few days, I was reading Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Divine Comedy. Dante had Virgil as his guide, and I had Dante as mine. Virgil was born and lived in (70 B.C.-19 B.C.) and was a Roman poet who represents the logic and wisdom of man in Dante’s journey. I thought how incredible it was that a man like Dante who lived seven hundred years ago and wrote this classic piece of literature was still teaching about life. The written word is indeed very powerful. We shall probably not have a Dante come along too often to reflect and write about the truth of humanity’s nature, culture, and understanding of life over the history of humanity’s time. But let us hope that there is enough of us that do strive to understand the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom and what their relationship is to one another.

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One of the many insightful things that was observed by Dante was that love was the only thing that expanded within this universe. If one gives love away it is like a flame. Each time it is passed to another, it never diminishes the flame of the giver.

As an example, when a man and woman love one another and intellectually, emotionally, and physically become one, they create something that is greater than either individual, a new life and a relationship, as a family. He was right love does expand, but I knew that was not the only thing that expands. Somewhere, somehow, I didn’t know when, I had heard that the universe itself was expanding. I had no knowledge of Astronomy but that was to change very soon.

pg. 47

When I read of Dante’s expansion of love concept, and my association of that concept to an expanding universe, I was working evenings, part-time in a local variety store, the J&R, “the little store”, at Medway, Massachusetts.

It was a Monday night, April 12, 1976. Suddenly, I felt what I could only describe as the Grace of God flowing through me, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I thought, “You love me that much?” This was not supposed to happen to me. Such things might happen to people in history books, but certainly not to me. I thought, “Are You sure You got the right guy?” You must see something in my future that I cannot yet see.” I was amazed by the feeling and wondered whether any of the customers entering the store could see anything flowing through me. I knew they could not, but the feeling was incredible. It continued as I closed the store later that evening, remained with me when I went home and went to bed and was still there when I woke up the next morning. It flowed through me throughout the day like the current of a river, or a rip current that was pulling back with the tide at the ocean’s shore. I then understood the significance of the seven I had drawn and the seven in the palm of my right hand: It was for creation. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped. I guessed God had made His point.

pg. 48

When I started this journey, I had a lot of questions, and I thought that I needed answers, and that I had the right to know the answers for sure. Well after this, there would never be any doubt in my mind. I knew for sure. Now I began thinking, what did God have in mind for me? I didn’t ask for anything like this! One does not pick something like this!

I continued to run those trails and started to read as much as I could about Astronomy. I learned about the “Big Bang” and the expansion of the universe, the formation of galaxies and solar systems. Many of the advances in the understanding of the universe were recent discoveries, such as, the echo of the “Big Bang” in the form of microwave background radiation, emanating from all directions of the universe. It was discovered by accident by Bell Lab scientists, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, in 1965, confirming the “Big Bang” theory. They went on to win Nobel Prizes in physics for their work. They beat out Robert Dickey and his team, who were trying to find it. Their equipment was not as good. Upon hearing the news, Dickey told his colleague, “We’ve been scooped.”

pg. 49

A few weeks after I had felt the Grace of God flow through me: I was back on my trails as usual. It was a beautiful crisp, cool day. I was on my way back from a side trail that I usually took. I was thinking about the nature of one’s soul. Is it the same as one’s spirit, intellect, and emotion, or mind? What is the nature of one’s soul? Does it in fact exist? If it does, then I thought that it must be Divine in nature and is freely given to man by God. It is the Divine essence of life that we give ownership and definition to by the lives that we lead. As someone once said, “what we do in life echoes an eternity.” It is the Divine software of the physical hardware of the body. I believe it is similar to the nature of quantum physics.

The speed of light travels at 186,282 miles a second. A beam of light would travel around the earth 7 1/2 times a second. Light travels that fast because it has no mass. It is pure energy. Anything with mass cannot achieve that speed according to present day physics. Only energy can travel that fast.

When the Lord was dying on the cross on Calvary 2026 years ago, He said to the man dying also next to him, ” you will be with me in paradise this day.” The soul would have to travel faster than the speed of light to be in paradise that day. Those souls would only be 2026 light years away from Jerusalem at the speed of light. Our galaxy alone is 100,000 light years across.

My “heart” and “mind” are my spirit, intellect, and emotion. My body is my means to express my intellect, emotion, and spirit. My soul is defined by all of those.

If an ocean represents the Lord of the creation and one drop from that ocean represents the soul of one’s being, then that is the entanglement of both.

If my soul does exist and my heart, mind, and spirit are imprinted and interwoven upon it, then that opens a passageway into eternity. If my soul does not exist, then my spirit, intellect, emotion, and body will return to the dust of the universe from which it came. The gift of life is indeed the miracle of life.

pg. 50

Love is what ignites the spark of life, which allows the light of intelligence and love to shine, within the creation.

The price of admission to life, and being alive, is very expensive. It is the inevitable death of the body.

As I ran, I felt a “Presence” descend around me. I remembered thinking and saying as I slowed to a walk, “Rinnie”, (that was my dog’s name) there’s something going on here.” Rinnie was away from me, in sight, but came toward me, as if he sensed something too.

pg. 51

I stopped and the “Presence” surrounded me. I could not see anyone, but the “Presence” was there as surely as I was. I could sense the Intellect and Emotion, the Intelligence, and Love. I could sense and feel, Holiness.

I looked to the sky and felt something in the right rear of my brain, as if the blood started to flow there, where it had not before. I remembered thinking, “I swear my mind just expanded.” Then with more than lightning quick speed or even quantum physics speed, I felt a void in my body and then it returned, as if my soul left my body, and then returned within a second. I continued to look up, and it was as if someone had put a blue dye in my eyes. I had never seen the sky that blue, that beautiful. I felt the “Presence” leave, and I walked the rest of the way back home, thinking about what had just happened. I knew I just felt the same “Presence”, the Lord’s Holy Spirit of Love, which the Apostles had felt on Pentecost Sunday, two thousand years ago.

pg. 52

I knew now that God had something special in mind for me. I felt a closeness to my Creator that I could not have imagined before I started running those trails. It all seemed so impossible, but it was all so real.

pg. 53

Christ said to His disciples that if He had not entered into this world, then man would not have sinned. Man sins, when he exercises knowledge, and it is not balanced with love. Of course, man has always sinned, but he could not have been held responsible and accountable to God for his actions, if God made the rules, but did not abide by them, Himself. No one is above the law, not even God, Himself. The Lord became one with His own creation to abide by this law, His law. He has given us life and mortality. Mortality is the price of admission to being alive.

I now knew why Christ had lived and died. The Lord came into this world because of His love for us. His life and death made us responsible and accountable for the ownership of our own lives, and accountable to God and to our fellow man.

pg.54

Man has exercised knowledge that has not always been balanced with love and man will continue to be challenged to find that balance. Man has sought to understand and develop a relationship with his Creator throughout history. The Lord, I am sure, is quite secure in the knowledge of whom He is. I believe He wants us to be secure in the knowledge of whom we are as man. Christ said, ” The Sabbath exists for man, man does not exist for the sabbath.” Religion starts within one’s culture, community, and family.

The search for truth starts within one’s soul. It is a very hard and lonely journey which leads one to understanding and joy. It is a journey that ” if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ” We are the children of the universe born from love and stellar dust. We are all God’s children.

pg. 55

It is Mans’ exploration of his relationship with life and his understanding of his own humanity. It is man’s exploration of his relationship with a Deity and his own mortality.

Truth is built upon knowledge, love, freedom, and logic and wisdom. It begins with the understanding of ourselves and our own nature as man. It is our understanding and relationship to the various disciplines of science. It is the understanding of the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom, and their relationship to one another, that leads one to an understanding of one’s own humanity and the nature of science and the world around us. It is this understanding that is witnessed to within a community that gives life to a religion. It also leads one to begin to understand the nature of God.

pg. 56

The church of God is not a dome of structured rock or the frame of a wooden structure. They are places for people of faith to come together. Truth is not exclusive to the religious and political organizations of the clerics. Truth is based on science and human experience of our relationship with knowledge, love, and freedom.

The church of God exists within the hearts and minds of each and every one of us. It is found in our understanding of the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom, and in how these are related to one another. It is found in our humanity: our need to gain knowledge, to love, to be loved, to create, and to be free. It is also the recognition of natural law- the balance of knowledge and love that leads toward freedom. We, as products of the creation, represent the church through our relationship with God and with one another. A relationship with God is not imposed from the top down; it grows from the bottom up. I found that He met me in the middle when I was ready. The most significant event in human history was when the Divine Craftsman became the “Son of Man.”

pg. 57

May 15, 1976, was a Saturday. I was at home that evening at around six p.m. I was sitting on the side of my bed thinking about all that had happened to me, and where it was leading. I had never felt closer to the Lord. I knew that there was not a thought that went through my mind that the Lord did not know about. I knew that firsthand, when I thought back to the moment, six weeks ago, when logic and wisdom brought me to the point when I reached out and thought of a crucified Christ and thought “I love You.”

That Saturday evening as I sat in my room, I thought to myself that if I looked up at the bedroom door that I would see Him standing there and I would not be a bit surprised. Well of course when I looked up, Jesus was not standing there, but just then, in the center of my mind, the figure of Christ came into view. I could see and feel the power of the Divine Christ.

pg. 58

Jesus wore a deep rich red, burgundy, colored robe. His arms were beside Him with His palms face out. His hair was brown, shoulder length. I could not make out the features of His continence. But it was the power that He generated that I would never forget. The fluidity of motion around the Figure was clear and circling Him. I fell back on my bed feeling my heart racing and my breathing rate doubling and thinking, “Oh my God, You do not know what You do to people.” But as soon as I got through half that thought, I knew that Jesus only generated as much power as I could handle then and there. I knew there was an infinite amount more. I thought that Christ could not have generated that kind of power on Calvary because there would have been no one left standing for miles. The image of the Divine resurrected Christ only lasted for a few seconds, but I would never forget it for an eternity.

pg. 59

Up until this point I had never associated power with Jesus. I had only felt His humanity before this. Now I had seen and felt His Divinity. As I lay there recovering from this encounter, my heart and breathing returned to normal, and I thought of the fact that I could not see the features of Jesus’s face and I wondered why.

These events took place over fifty years ago. Whenever I looked at the palm of my right hand and remembered what had happened, it still seemed unbelievable, yet undeniably real. It felt as though the finger of God had moved just enough to touch the outstretched hand of man, as Michelangelo Buonarroti depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The painting is beautiful, but it is a false depiction of humanity’s creation.

Darwin speaks the truth about the creation and the evolution of man and the evolution of all life on this planet over the last 4.5 billion years.

Distance gives one perspective and objectivity to past experiences and events. Some things are hard to absorb and understand when one is close to them.

My sister, Janice once asked me, why I believed Christ was who He said He was. He always said that He was the son of man.

pg. 60

The Divine Craftsman needed to become one with humanity within the history of this planet. He knew of all the joys and sorrows that humanity would experience over the lifetime of the planet. He knew of all the natural and man-made tragedies that man would suffer.

It is a much more powerful question than if I just believed in Him. The question as to why one has a certain belief is a much more difficult answer to articulate. That is why I have begun to put pencil to paper since I could not articulate the reasons when I was asked that question. I decided to write for my own clarification about this personal journey toward truth. And in the writing the mosaic of my life was becoming increasingly clear. Writing is what organizes one’s intellect and emotion of one’s soul on paper.

pg. 61

The universe began from the radiant energy of the “Big Bang”, smaller in size than the period at the end of this sentence. If that is not the definition of a black hole, then I do not know what is. If that is true, then I shall let the astrophysicists do the math on that one. I can picture a couple in the next universe over having breakfast one morning and looking up at one another and saying, “did you feel that?”

The universe has expanded for the past 13.8 billion years and has evolved galaxies, solar systems and life. All the atoms that make up everything we see, including ourselves, were created within the first moments of the “Big Bang” and within giant first-generation stars that burned up their nuclear fuel and exploded in supernovas, spreading their heavier elements of debris, dust, and gases into interstellar space.

pg.62

We now know that our solar system is the product of the gravitational collapse of the debris and dust, left over from the explosions of first-generation stars. It is approximately 4.5 billion years and has a projected life span of 10 billion years. The Earth orbits within the Sun’s habitable zone, where it is to remain in a habitable zone for roughly another billion and a half years. We orbit a very stable and very average star.

Five of the most common elements in the universe and within us are hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. When a planet lies within a star’s habitable zone, these elements, along with others, given enough time-roughly one to four billion years- lead to the evolution of life in various forms. Chemistry comes first, then leads to biology. Through billions of years of evolution and natural selection, sentient beings emerge and strive to understand themselves and the universe around them.

pg. 63

We can see the same process taking place in many areas of the night sky. The Orion Nebula is one such stellar nursery. The three fingers of creation is also one. We know that our sun exists within a galaxy of over 200-400 billion suns and many of these suns have planets orbiting them. Planets are left over debris and dust that form when the star forms because of a gravitational collapse. About half of the solar systems are binary or multiple systems where more than one sun comprises the system. Our galaxy exists within a cluster of galaxies, and these galaxies exist within a universe that contains trillions of galaxies, whose stars have nurtured the evolution of life on trillions of planets. Most, if not all galaxies, possess black holes at their centers. I would further reason that the universe is probably one of many. The creation could be described as a multi-verse.

pg. 64

One of the key questions today in cosmology is whether the universe’s expansion will come to a halt and then begin to contract, collapsing in on itself, “the big crunch”, and in essence forming another radiating black hole which then would explode in another “big bang,” creating another universe. We could have an oscillating universe that would continue for an eternity as it has an infinite number of times in the past.

As a ball is thrown into the air, it leaves the hand at its greatest speed, but gravity gradually slows it as it rises. Eventually it stops and begins to fall back, or contract. For the universe’s expansion to stop, there would have to be enough dark matter in the universe to halt its expansion by a gravitational pull. Astronomers are looking for this dark matter, that makes up to ninety percent of the universe. It could be in the form of black holes, neutrinos, planets, brown dwarfs, or something they have not discovered as of yet. If there is not enough dark matter, the universe will continue expanding forever, eventually becoming dark, empty, and lifeless. But if the expansion rate is slowing, then the universe may be recycling itself on a grand scale. I think that I shall leave the math to Astrophysicists for that answer.

pg. 65

The most recent data suggests that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing because of something that is called dark energy and not decreasing. If the expansion rate is increasing, then the galaxies will recede from one another forever and their stars will exhaust their energy and die along with the solar systems and life that they have nurtured. Only time and the study of the universe will lead us to grasp a more complete understanding of the Divine Craftsman’s design.

I visualized a creation that was a multi-verse that was teeming with life. I visualized it as being like a pot of boiling water. Each bubble is expanding and contracting or maybe just expanding, but many are going on at once. A creation that never had a beginning and will never end but will always change structure and form. Energy and matter are the same thing, but different forms of one another.
Energy leads to matter and matter leads to chemistry and chemistry leads to biology and biology leads to sentient beings trying to understand themselves and the universe around them. The life within the creation struggles to understand the Alpha and the Omega.

pg. 66

If our universe is more than thirteen and a half billion years old, then the question that I asked myself was, what was the Divine Craftsman doing previously, “twenty-five billion years ago, fifty billion years ago, a trillion years ago, an infinite number of years in the past? Something that was outside of our own universe’s timeline. I thought that He would be doing the same thing that He is doing today, creating and sharing life.

The reason I believe there is a continuous creation is that I believe that the Divine Craftsman is always true to His own nature. He possesses all knowledge. He always loves and shares life. He always wants to be loved. He always creates, and He is always free to do so. That is why I believe the creation never began and it will never end. Each universe begins and ends but the creation does not. It just has to be big enough and I do not think it is my place to put limits on God’s abilities. We know there is one universe. It is probably one drop in an ocean of universes. In John 14, verse 2, the Lord said to His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

pg. 67

pg.68

pg. 69

pg. 70

In Luke 10:22, Jesus said: “All things are delivered to me by my father. And no one knows who the Son is, but the Father: And who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal him.”

In John 14:6-7 Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” May 15th,1976 was a Saturday, …. I am still trying to come to terms with all this.

He also said, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.”

He also said in Thomas, saying # 70, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

“Nobody goes there, nobody shows where, nobody goes where you can find me.”

” The truth is within you and the truth is eternal.”

pg. 71