Blue Monkey Island: Religious Authority

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Religious Authority

It is a priority of mine to present ideas that are practical and informative. Ideas that stimulate and widen. Ideas that encourage exploration and examination.

The world's religions, in my opinion, don't do that. They tend to dictate truth, rather than encourage the individual to find his or her own truth. Religions start with the assumption that there is some truth out there that is above all others and that clarifies the facts behind our existence, and then they go about telling you what that truth is. They do NOT encourage the individual to explore and develop and evaluate their own ideas and understanding. They are not truly empowering. They encourage reliance on doctrine, on holy works or holy messengers.

I think it's time that we as a race come to terms with what religion really is and what purpose it serves. I grew up as a church-going Christian, and I feel I am well qualified to speak about Christianity as it is often approached in modern times. I have studied Islam, read some of the Quran, learned the history of Islam, and heard and read enough quotes from Muslims past and present to have a solid understanding of many of the influences that Islam has on the majority of its adherents.

Buddhism is not so much a religion as it is a path, a strategy for reducing personal suffering and cultivating compassion. And as such, I will not include Buddhism in the current discussion. Nor will I include Taoism, for much the same reason.

I am driven to articulate the limitations that religions - particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - foster and perpetuate.

First and foremost is the belief structure of Authority. Without crunching any numbers, I'm going to posit that 80% of the faithful members of these three religions consider the leaders within their faith to be spiritual authorities. In other words, the typical adherent to one of these religions believes that their pastor/priest/rabbi/cleric knows more about God and the Truth than they themselves do. These leaders are, more often than not, looked upon as experts.

Western society and most large societies around the world incorporate authority figures everywhere - family, school, work, politics, medicine, etc. We are surrounded by authority figures as well as laws and rules supporting such authority. And so we are very familiar with looking to sources of authority for approval and direction.

Such tendencies serve many useful purposes in our society. Having people respect the authority of police officers helps maintain peace, at least somewhat. It provides structure, order, etc. And other types of authority serve similar purposes.

But spiritual matters are different. Unlike human laws , which we acknowledge are man-made, religious laws and doctrine are touted as superceding human ones. And people, in general, do not engage in an objective examination of religious doctrine. Religion is seen by the faithful to be beyond discussion, beyond individual assessment. To look critically at the words or ideas expressed in the Bible or the Quran is blasphemous.

When the Christian Church had its stranglehold on Europe many centuries ago, man-made laws were weaved into religious doctrine, and vice-versa. Thus the rules regarding society were attributed to the same authority that purely religious rules were - God. This is still the case in some areas and sects of Christianity and Judaism, and it is quite prevelant in many Muslims societies as well.

Today in the West, laws regarding society have been, to varying degrees, wrestled from religion and are often freely debated without drawing charges of blesphemy, treason, etc. But, importantly, religious laws have not. The divinity and infallibility of our holy books and revered religious figures is still, for the most part, beyond debate. We have not begun, on any sizable scale, to critically assess our religious sources of authority - the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, and the words and acts of prophets, messengers, saints, and messiahs.

Those beliefs in our society which value authority figures and firm guidelines for thoughts, words, and behavior are, in most cases, strongly expressed in the context of religion. When people who value authority practice their religion, they do so from a conservative perspective. Authority figures provide structure and uniformity. They provide sources of beliefs regarding right and wrong, good and bad. The existence of religious authority figures - Imams, Rabbis, Priests - and sources - Torah, Bible, Quran - give those who value homogeneity of thought and action an anchor, a template with which to evaluate right/wrong and good/bad. For those who need to have others agree with them, a common source of authority is a must.

Only a source of authority can allow one to know he is "right" or "good". Being right and good is important to one who is trying to prove himself, to justify his existence, to look good in his own eyes or in the eyes of others. Religious authority, religious rules and doctrine allow such a person to prove he or she is good, right, acceptable, worthy of being loved. Islam provides that opportunity for Muslims, Judaism provides it for Jews, and Christianity provides it for Christians. At the heart of their faith is the desire to be good, to be right. To be on God's good side. And to appear good in the eyes of others.

The majority of these people are not going to the Church or the Synagogue or the Mosque to find or understand God or themselves. They are going to SHOW their faith, to prove that they are good Christians or Jews or Muslims. Because that is what faithful people do.

And being faithful is GOOD.

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Book Description

The Island Of The Blue Monkeys is the story of the human race, told symbolically through a fictional race of monkeys living on an island - one they believe is the only island in the sea.

Evolving over time from a simple, primitive culture into a diverse and complex society, the monkeys arrive where humanity now sits: on the doorstep of transformation.

Book One - the blue cover - is about the history of the blue monkeys: how their island and their civilization develop, how we arrive at the state of our world today.

Book Two - the purple cover - is about the shift in consciousness that humanity is currently experiencing. The monkeys portray symbolically what each of us is undergoing - an explosive expansion of consciousness, a transformation into an entirely new state of being.

The Island Of The Blue Monkeys is simple yet profound. It is written for readers of all ages and cultures, and is intended not as instruction or prophecy but as stimulation and inspiration.

The transformation of humanity is upon us.

It is happening one person, one monkey, at a time.

Introduction

My name is Harry Phillips, and I sued God, and I want to tell you all about it.

But first, I have a favor to ask of you.

I would like you to imagine, as you read this story, that it’s really about you.

Pretend that this is your story. When something happens to me, imagine that it’s happening to you. And when I realize something, I want you to realize it, too.

You see, I didn’t write this story just to tell you about myself. I’m really not that interesting. Certainly not any more interesting than you are.

Instead, I’m going to tell you a story that applies to all of us. That way we can all get something out of it. We can all experience what Harry experiences, learn what Harry learns, and change the way Harry changes.

And when we’re finished, it is my hope that you will see yourself and the world around you from a very different point of view.

That is my intention.

And this is my story.

Chapter One

I’d like to start off with a question, if you don’t mind:

Do you believe in God?

I love that question. And I hate it at the same time. It assumes that there is only one definition of God, and of course there is not.

There are as many views of God as there are stars in the sky, and no two are exactly alike. So the question is absurd. And yet we often assume that we are perceiving the same God in the same way.

That’s what religion is supposed to do: tell us what to believe. That way, we can all believe the same thing, worship God in the same way. And on the surface, that seems reasonable. But if you dig deeper, you will find that this is not the case. Far from it, in fact.

Religion as it is practiced today is based as much upon fear as it is upon faith. Many people fear that if they don’t respect and worship God, they or their souls will be in some sort of danger. And where did such an idea come from? Religion. Ah yes, religion.

Now, I am not opposed to religion, so please don’t stop reading for fear that this book is the work of the devil. But I would like to present you with a very different view of what religion actually is, what it has been throughout our history, and what it can be.

Religion is similar, in many ways, to a map. In fact, it is a map. A map to a wider awareness. A map to God.

But for most people, that map has become a substitute for the journey itself. Millions, and perhaps billions of people are holding a map in their hands and thinking that they have found God. Only they haven’t really found anything. Besides a map.

Instead of going on that journey, they are holding tightly to the map in their hands and feeling good about themselves because they think they are doing it right. Worshiping the right way. On their way to heaven. All because they have the right map.

Well, guess what? It’s time to stop this silly obsession with maps. Sure, they are useful. Especially if you’re just starting out. But at some point, you have to put the map away and take a step. A step toward what, you won’t know. But a step. Because the map is not the destination. It’s not even the journey. It’s a map. A collection of ideas, perhaps a starting point. But it’s not the journey.

So let’s put away that map for now, tuck it in our back pocket, and head out. We don’t know where we’re going, and we don’t know how long it will take to get there. Perhaps a few hours. Perhaps eternity. More likely, somewhere in between.

Along the way, we can take out our map from time to time, compare our progress to what the map said it would be like. But chances are the journey will look and feel very different from what we expected. We might even find that the journey itself clarifies that map for us, allows us to see the deeper meaning that was there all the time. We simply had to make the journey ourselves in order for that meaning to become clear.

It is said that the farthest distance in the universe is the fourteen inches from the head to the heart.

This story is about that journey.

Chapter Two

I was raised a Christian. However, I don’t cling to my religion the way many Christians do. I don’t feel superior to those who are not Christian, nor do I feel that Christianity is the only true religion.

Many Christians believe that their religion is the only way to heaven, the only way to salvation. And because of this belief, they tend to view other religions and spiritual paths with skepticism and distrust, as something other than the word of God.

This applies to Jews and Muslims as well. Virtually anyone who follows a religion believes, whether they admit it or not, that their religion is the right one. All the others are distorted or misguided in some way.

I said I grew up a Christian, but I did so rather reluctantly. In fact, I stopped going to church when I was sixteen, for reasons I will get to shortly. The point I would like to make here is that I am not a typical Christian, and I do not want the fact of my Christian upbringing to alienate those readers who grew up following a different religion, or none at all.

The purpose of this story is to present a wider view of spirituality, one that encompasses all religious beliefs. In order to do so, it is important to emphasize our similarities rather than our differences.

Despite outer appearances, we are all very similar to one another. And because of that, my story applies just as much to you as it does to me. Sure, the surface details might be different, but what goes on underneath is remarkably similar.

My life has been one of repeating patterns. So has yours. And the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can begin to pay attention to such patterns and to choose, for perhaps the first time, to change them. Unless, of course, you are perfectly happy with every single aspect of your life. But I suspect that this is not the case.

As we grow up, we encounter influences and experiences that remain with us throughout our lives. Patterns are set into motion which play out over and over again. If you look carefully at your life, you will see these patterns. And without too much difficulty, you can identify the circumstances in your childhood that set these patterns into motion.

The easiest way for me to show you how this works is to share with you one of my own patterns and how it was initiated. I’ll just give you a few relevant details. I promise to be brief.

First relevant detail: I was adopted. I found this out at the awkward and difficult age of twelve. Perhaps God planned it that way, I don’t know. But the effect it had on me was profound. For the first time in my life (though definitely not the last), I was faced with the realization that I was not who I thought I was. Everything I had previously believed myself to be was incorrect. And the person whom I loved and trusted more than any other – my mother – had the unfortunate task of confirming that fact for me.

According to Mom, I was found in the narthex of a church in Chicago. At the time, Mom was working with child protective services in the city, and her duties sometimes brought her into the hospital emergency room. So she happened to be there the night I was brought in, and she claims to have fed me my first bottle. I had found my way to the woman who would be my mother.

A wonderful and touching story, to be sure, but not to a twelve year old boy finding out for the first time that his mother is not actually his mother. And to make matters worse, my younger sister was not adopted. Another bitter pill to swallow.

After the initial shock wore off, I settled into my new perspective as someone who had been abandoned as an infant and was now a stranger in his own family. My mother seemed different now, my Dad and sister seemed different. Everything seemed different. I felt out of place. Like a black sheep.

I began pulling away here and there, avoiding certain functions and outings and spending a great deal of my time alone in my bedroom. Dad noticed, and we eventually had a long discussion about the whole adoption thing. I knew he couldn’t understand what I was experiencing, and God bless him for trying, but empathy was not his strong suit. He eventually grew frustrated and told me that whenever I was ready to return to the real world, he would be ready to be my father. Which I appreciated, at least a little.

We were a well-off, upper-middle class family. My grandfather had accumulated a great deal of wealth, though I don’t know exactly how. The bottom line was that Mom had been given a trust fund that kept us financially comfortable. So my sister and I grew up in a neighborhood of people living comfortably.

This had been quite fine with me growing up, but once I found out I was adopted I felt like I didn’t belong in such surroundings. I assumed that my birth mother had been poor, otherwise she would have kept and raised me. The more I thought about it, the more I began to identify with the less-fortunate. I also began to resent, to a degree, the privilege with which I was surrounded.

The shallowness and elitism that I had often detected but had never understood now became more obvious to me. The tendency of wealthy or moderately wealthy people to view themselves as better than the less fortunate, though they would vigorously deny it, was always there. It was in their tone of voice when they complained about welfare, about urban crime, about taxes. It was always there. And it was becoming very obvious to me.

So a pattern had been initiated, one that would repeat itself in various ways throughout my life. Periodically, I would find myself feeling out of place, like an outsider. And I can see that although the circumstances were different each time, the underlying feeling was similar. It was the same feeling I had as a twelve year old boy who didn’t belong in his own family.

I encourage you to look back at your life and to identify where such patterns might be playing out for you. The idea here is not to feel like a victim, not to blame an abusive parent or tragic circumstance that has forever doomed you to repeated failure or unhappiness. The point is to become aware of these patterns. It is only through awareness of them that we can change them. And changing them is what we’re after.

I began this discussion by talking about religion, and it turns out that our religious upbringing (or lack of it) is a very powerful pattern, one that affects virtually every area of our lives. We tend to package our spiritual beliefs into tidy little boxes – this one for Sunday mornings, that one for when a loved one dies. However, our spiritual beliefs actually provide the foundation for everything else that goes on in our lives.

I realize that such a statement may seem a bit of a stretch for some people. Most of us give very little thought to religious matters. And atheists will surely recoil at the assertion that our spiritual beliefs lie at the core of everything we do and believe and experience.

But I intend to show you, through this story, how our spiritual patterns and beliefs actually influence everything else in our lives. And by the time we’re done, I hope to leave you inspired and motivated to examine your own beliefs and patterns and to begin the process of unraveling the mystery that is your life.

Okay, enough background information.

Time to get to our story.

Chapter Three

We begin in Ohio, where I was a middle school science teacher. I was 30 years old, living alone, and I was bored. Bored to death. Or almost to death.

What had begun as an exciting career teaching biology to thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds had deteriorated, over the course of nine years, into a depressing mess. I know some of you have wonderful careers that continue to inspire and excite you, year after year. And I’m quite happy for you. But you are definitely in the minority. I was not so fortunate, and I know many of you are in the same boat I was.

By the time I reached the age of 30, I was done with teaching. Or at least teaching science. I had lost my passion for it. I was still curious about it, but not passionate. Not enough to get up at 5:30AM every day and make my way to a classroom full of tired teenagers who didn’t give a crap about science. It was fine in the beginning, but nine years later it came to be a chore. A miserable chore.

As my enthusiasm for my career faded, I found myself more and more drawn to history and philosophy and religion. Perhaps I was looking for answers, or a new interest to pursue. I really can’t say for sure. And I found the whole thing odd at first, because I had all but abandoned religion as a teenager, and I had never taken any interest in history before. Yet there I was, avidly reading books about every religion under the sun.

I said in the previous chapter that I stopped going to church when I was sixteen. But up until then I had been a rule-following, card-carrying Christian. I attended Sunday school every week and was involved in church outings, youth activities, the whole gamut. For my family, and for many other families, church was a big part of our social life. Not our entire social life – there were still neighbors, friends, and family. But an active church life brought about constant interaction with others of similar faith, of similar perspective.

God and Jesus Christ were there every Sunday, a fixture in my reality. And all of that was well and good until my teenage years arrived. But once I began to question things, many aspects of that stable church life fared poorly. They didn’t hold up very well against an angst-filled, disillusioned young person looking for something real to hold onto. All that church stuff went out the window when teenage reality began to kick in.

In amongst the arguments with parents, the confusion of girls, the lure of doing something different and exciting with the guys, Jesus was nowhere to be found. Quite frankly, he seemed kind of boring by contrast.

How is some nice guy preaching barefoot to a bunch of ignorant people two thousand years ago supposed to be relevant to a 16-year-old whose only priority is sneaking out of the house late Saturday night to share a few cans of beer that his buddy managed to steal from his dad’s fridge without getting caught?

Jesus had no relevance to me and my friends at that time. He was never mentioned, and if one of us had brought him up it would have been awkward and out of place. True, I still attended youth group meetings on Sunday evenings from time to time, but my friends in youth group were almost as mischievous as my non-church friends. All in all, religion served no role in my life at that time, and I eventually stopped attending church altogether.

One of the things that bothered me about church was the fact that no one questioned anything. Everything was to be accepted and believed, never questioned. I would often wonder how people could possibly believe that the dialogue quoted in the scriptures happened exactly as it was written. Every word. The pastor would quote scripture and then proceed to analyze the quote word for word, as though there had been someone there writing down every single word, and those words had somehow made it through two thousand years and multiple translations without being altered in any way.

Really? I doubted it. And to look around and see all the people in the congregation listening intently and believing everything they were told, something felt wrong about it all. How would those people know if they were told something that was incorrect? They wouldn’t. They were in believing mode. Everything the pastor said must be true. Everything written in the Bible must be true. The whole thing bothered me.

Nobody questioned anything. Growing up, I was told what was true, what to believe. No one ever said, “Think about it, Harry, and decide for yourself.” Never. Not once. It was always, “This is the truth, believe it. This is the word of God, believe it.” No one ever questioned anything. And that bothered me to no end.

Let’s take the Santa Claus issue as an example. We’re told growing up that Santa comes down the chimney while we sleep on Christmas Eve and delivers presents to all the good girls and boys. And if we question the logistics of that (such as the fact that people living in apartments have no chimneys), we are given some excuse and dismissed as if it were no big deal. No big deal? My parents are telling me something that I know is wrong, is untrue, and yet there they are, the most trustworthy people in my life (supposedly) telling me otherwise.

Perhaps I was scarred from the whole Santa thing, who knows. But by the time I began to question what the church was telling me, I had grown accustomed to doubt. I kept my doubts to myself, however, because no one else around me was questioning anything, at least to my knowledge. So I gradually detached myself from the church experience, paid less attention during services, and finally, at the age of sixteen, stopped attending church altogether.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who question things, and those who don’t. I was the former, surrounded by the latter. And that is no easy position to be in, I assure you. Not only do you miss out on the comfort of believing what everyone else does, but you have no one else to share your perspective with. You are either ignored or thought of as weird. And you tend to feel alone. At least I did.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because it was another one of my patterns. The biggest, in fact. The one that would eventually culminate in my confrontation with God. Religion tends to instruct you to worship God, to follow His laws, to stay on His good side. Well, that approach never worked for me. First of all, I didn’t see such laws as God’s laws, I saw them as man’s laws, attributed to God. I didn’t see some big hand extending down from the sky and writing His laws with a 40-foot fountain pen. No way. These were man’s laws. I saw that clearly. But no one else did.

As far as worship goes, who was I suppose to be worshipping? God, I was told. Well, who’s that? Where is God? God is everywhere. Really? Where? Show me. But no one ever could.

No one knew. As far as the Christians in my life were concerned, worshipping God was a matter of praying, attending church, reciting creeds, participating in communion. Those kinds of things. They were things you did. I wanted to understand God, but all I was told was what to do. As if having a relationship with God was all about doing things. And that never felt right. Whoever and wherever God was, I was pretty sure He would be more interested in what was on the inside than what was on the outside. Once again, I was questioning things. And once again, no one else was.

One thing that really bothered me was this idea that God was to be feared. That God sometimes grew angry. That God would punish you for your sins. Why would God give me the ability and even the tendency to sin, and then punish me for doing so? What kind of God would do that?

Why would God give me free will and then punish me when I used it the wrong way? How much sense would that make? Not a lot, to me. But no one else saw any problem with that. It was the way things worked. It said so in the Bible.

So that was my teenage experience with God: I wanted to understand, and that required me to question. But no one else was questioning anything, presumably because they weren’t actually trying to understand. They just wanted to make sure they were doing it right. Believing the right things, reciting the right creeds, praying the right way. Got to get into heaven, you know? Got to be on God’s good side.

But what about the other religions? They’re not saying the same creeds. They’re not affirming the same things. They’re not accepting Jesus as their savior. What about them? What about the primitive cultures around the world who have their own spiritual beliefs? Are they out of luck? Oh, that one bothered me. I came back to it over and over again: If one had to accept Jesus as one’s savior in order to get into heaven, did that mean that those who never heard of him were kept out?

No one had an answer for me. No one even seemed to care. It was like everyone was asleep, and only I was awake. I wanted to wake everyone up, but nobody would budge. Glassy eyes. But steadfast in faith.

If being on God’s good side meant accepting what you were told, never questioning anything, then something was amiss. Either God was more like a human than anyone cared to admit - petty and controlling, just like us - or the image we had of God was all wrong.

I went with the latter. And I’m glad I did.

Chapter Four

Okay, back to being 30. So I was still teaching, though losing my enthusiasm for it. I was still interested in science, but I was more and more curious about the why of things. Science is great at explaining how things work – how organisms function, how the physical world operates.

But I was becoming more fascinated with why: why is nature so delicately balanced? Why is every species and life form on Earth provided for? Why does any of it exist in the first place? I kept coming back to the assumption on the part of many scientists that all life forms on this planet evolved from gas and dust.

It became a favorite saying of mine: gas and dust. Each time I stepped back and considered the idea at face value, it grew increasingly absurd to me. Somehow a bunch of gas and dust swirling around in a meaningless universe came together and evolved into a human being that was now pondering how a bunch of gas and dust came together and evolved into me. With no guiding hand or fundamental ordering force to facilitate that. And during moments of clarity, I saw the absurdity of that.

So there I was, contemplating the why of things while trying to maintain my enthusiasm for a teaching career that no longer interested me. And it began to wear on me. Each day I got out of bed dreading the day ahead. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t feel like pretending to be excited about what I was discussing in class that day. It was horrible.

Eventually my frustration turned into depression, and I began to call out sick. I hadn’t missed more than a handful of days due to illness in the nine years I had been teaching, but I was now missing at least one day a month, some months three or four. I saw what was going on, but because I had no idea what else to do with myself or my life I kept right on going. I kept trying to muster the enthusiasm for another day, trying not to give up and call out sick once again.

There were rumblings at school regarding my attendance problem, though no one actually said anything to me about it. But I received looks from time to time – looks that implied my frequent absences were being noticed.

But as I said, I was clueless as to what to do about it. Teaching science to teenagers was all I had ever done. I felt stuck, trapped, and depressed.

The only thing that saved me, that kept me going at that time, was my growing passion for spirituality. As my outside life grew less interesting and fulfilling, my inner landscape was moving in the opposite direction. I once again wanted to understand things. It was a return to that same experience I had in church a decade and a half before – desperately wanting to understand, unwilling to accept the things that others were willing to accept.

On a whim, I approached the school about the possibility of teaching a religious studies course. And the response was a resounding NO. I lived and taught in a very liberal area, one where many parents and school board members refused to allow anything even close to religion to creep into their schools.

I was surprised by the strength of their rejection, though I hadn’t actually expected the idea to fly. It was an impulse, and I followed it. But I was rejected, and so I went back to teaching science and wondering if I would ever be able to incorporate my passion for religion and spirituality into my life pursuits.

I gradually began to grow cynical toward science and the scientific community. And here’s why: the schools allow and even encourage the teaching of scientific theories. Science is a constantly expanding realm, crossing into many different fields of study. And there is constant theorizing and testing of theories, all of which is openly discussed in the classroom.

But spirituality is completely shut out of school, at least in the district in which I taught. No mention was allowed, other than casual references in history and the social sciences. Besides that, spirituality had no place there. And the obvious implication, in terms of the young minds attending school, was that spirituality had no role in day-to-day living.

It wasn’t mentioned in school, it wasn’t addressed on the kids’ television shows. It had no role in their lives whatsoever. Unless, of course, they attended church on Sunday, or church functions during the week. But I never once, in all those years of teaching, heard anyone make a reference to spirituality.

The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I grew. I found myself sympathizing with the conservatives out there who railed against the removal of God from our schools. Which was quite ironic, considering I had stopped going to church fourteen years before. And yet there I was, advocating religious discussion in a school setting.

Are you familiar with the ongoing debate regarding intelligent design? Some people argue that our theory of evolution is incomplete, that it does not account for God. They claim that there is an intelligent force at work in the universe, a force which many people refer to as God. But evolution, as it is taught in our schools, makes no mention of such a force.

That is what the intelligent design debate is all about: some people want that intelligent force accounted for in the classroom. They do not want their children being taught that they live in a meaningless universe, one in which they evolved from gas and dust. Or from monkeys, for that matter.

After a great deal of pondering, I arrived at the root of the problem: those who advocated the presence of God in school insisted that their view of God be the one presented. They were not promoting a critical discussion or exploration of religion; they wanted their beliefs given priority. And that ruined the whole thing.

Intelligent design supporters often had an ulterior motive, and the evolutionists could sense that ulterior motive.

Fortunately, I was not involved in such debate. I had come to see quite clearly that both sides were right on some points and wrong on others. But, as humans often do, both sides were insisting that their view was the correct one.

I began to see why I was drawn to the science/religion debate. I was learning something from it. As the debate raged on, I was beginning to see the futility of argument.

If people are unwilling to open up and consider other perspectives, other possibilities, then they are, for the time being, stuck. There can be no movement, no growth for those who insist that their position is the right one.

I was learning the role that an open mind plays in the expansion of knowledge and understanding. I was learning the importance of honestly considering other points of view. By watching both sides of the intelligent design debate present their assumptions and facts and arguments, I learned one of our fundamental problems as human beings: our insistence that we are right. Our insistence that someone who disagrees with us is wrong. Such thinking not only prevents progress but breeds resentment, hostility, and in certain parts of the world, violence.

I remember thinking at the time, Perhaps I can do something to help us move beyond this dilemma. Perhaps I can offer a different perspective, one that can bring clarity and resolution to this debate.
And that was really the beginning of it all for me. That thought was the seed that would grow into my life’s purpose, my contribution to the human race.

Clarity and resolution. That’s what was needed. That’s what I needed.

Of course, before clarity can arise there must be a period of sorting out, of examination. Honest examination. Being honest with yourself, about what you really feel and what you really believe, does not come easily in our culture. There is a process that one must go through, and the ego stands firmly in the way of that process.

The intelligent design debate is symbolic of a fundamental and unresolved dilemma within each of us: Are you a physical being, or are you something more than a physical being? Does your consciousness arise from your physical form, or does it exist independently of it?

This is essentially what the intelligent design issue boils down to. The evolutionists see evidence that we evolved through natural selection, physical adaptation, and genetic mutation. These do not require an unseen hand or supernatural force.

On the other side, the advocates of intelligent design see evidence of that unseen hand. And although they lack the scientific proof of it, they can sense it, feel it, experience it.

So there is our dilemma: we have to decide, one person at a time, who and what we actually are. Science insists that it has the answer, and so does religion. And all the arguing that goes on between the two sides represents the arguing that goes on within each of us. Who am I? What am I?

Ah, good stuff. And there you have it. It was during that year, my 30th year, that my life’s intent and purpose came into view. I would come to realize, in the years following, that I had been collecting information, perspectives, and experiences throughout my entire life, all in preparation for what would be my life’s primary endeavor.

Big words, I know. But this is a big story. One that applies not just to me but to every one of you.

Who are you?

Why are you here?

Do you know?

Are you sure?

Chapter Five

I don’t know a whole lot about our legal system, though I certainly recognize the value that law plays in our society. But I am not personally interested in it.

That being said, I will do my best to describe this part of my story as accurately and completely as I can. As I said, I’m not very knowledgeable on the subject.

Before I can get to the lawsuit, I need to fill you in on the circumstances that led up to it. I’m sure you’ve heard it said that it’s always darkest just before dawn. Well, I found out during my 30th year on this planet that those words are as true as any.

Why is it darkest just before dawn? Here’s one theory: when something new and unprecedented moves into our lives, there must be a clearing out period beforehand, a removal of debris. The field must be plowed, the chalkboard wiped with a wet sponge (something I’ve done thousands of times). All in preparation for something new.

My life during the months leading up to my infamous lawsuit could best be described as a clearing out, or perhaps a breaking down. I simply broke down. I gave up.

Many of you may know what I’m talking about. Some call it surrender, or reaching the end of one’s rope. The inability to care any more.

That’s what I experienced, and I’ll briefly describe it to you – just enough for you to see that suing God was a perfectly understandable reaction to what I was going through at the time.

As I said, I had lost my passion for teaching and was finding it difficult to even get out of bed most days. Driving to school was dreary.

Walking into the classroom, trying to smile at my students, was a chore. It required every ounce of effort on my part, every day. And this eventually wore me down.

I also stopped socializing during that time. The more I agonized over my unsatisfying life, the less I wanted to connect with others. Perhaps I felt I had nothing to share with them, or nothing to gain by being around them. Perhaps both.

So there I was, dreading my job, shutting myself off from the rest of the human race, retreating into my own little world. There was nothing in my future that caused me any excitement. I was about as depressed as one could get.

And then something strange began to happen.

You’re all familiar with coincidences. They happen to all of us.
Well, it was around this time that I started to experience a lot of them. Not just one here or there, but many of them.

At first, I was amused by them. Occasionally I would mention one to a friend. I might say something like, “Hey, I was just thinking about California this morning, and here you are telling me about a trip you’re planning to San Diego – isn’t that interesting!” And they would nod politely, and then go on with the conversation.

But gradually, they began to occur more frequently. Now, this probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you. And on the surface, I agree. Coincidences happen all the time, and although we don’t understand why they happen, we all know that they do. My problem at that time was that they began to happen all the time. Many times a day, someone would mention something I was just thinking about. A line in a commercial would state almost word for word something I had just thought moments before. Weird stuff. It amused me at first, but when it started occurring throughout the day, every day, I began to worry.

And what did I worry about? The one thing I had never questioned in all of my life: my sanity. It wasn’t an active questioning – I knew I was perfectly rational, I had all of my wits about me. I wasn’t hallucinating or hearing voices or anything like that. But the coincidences and synchronicities were beginning to rattle me.

They always caught me off guard. Sometimes I would smile at them, other times I would marvel. But they kept on coming, and I knew something was up. I couldn’t ignore them, pretend that they weren’t there. They were there. But I had no one to talk to about them.

So where did all of this lead? Well, the scientist in me decided that I needed to be logical and methodical. I decided to document the events as they occurred. One day I grabbed a notepad from the shelf above my desk in the living room and set about recording everything. I noted the date and time for each event, and I carried the notepad around with me. I dubbed it my “coincidence journal”, and I kept it in the briefcase that I carried back and forth to school.

Oddly enough, four days later the coincidences stopped. Completely. I had only recorded a few pages of events, and in retrospect they seemed like nothing. One was about broken traffic lights – I saw one on the way to school one morning, then one drawn by an art student that was hanging on the wall outside the art room, and one on television that night. So I wrote that one down. I did this for four days, and then the coincidences stopped.

A week went by, and still there were none. I pondered this. What did it mean? Why did they stop so soon after I had begun keeping track of them? Was there a reason? Had I caused them to stop happening? And why had they happened in the first place?

Eventually I forgot about the whole thing. I went back to life as usual, which at that time was pretty darn unpleasant. The bouts of depression were daily occurrences. I may have had one good day during that stretch, at least during the fall. I perked up around Christmas, as I always do. But soon afterward I was back to dreading most days and my uninteresting future.

Am I boring you yet? I apologize if so, but these are important details. Over the next year, my life would go from dreary and depressing to exciting and intriguing. And unless you have forgotten the name of this book, you can probably guess where that excitement would come from.

I was about to sue God.

And here’s why.

Chapter Six

I had a realization one day: I am here on this Earth for a reason, and that reason has something to do with why all of us are here. It finally dawned on me that my passion for science, followed by my insatiable appetite for all things spiritual, was in preparation for something. Something big.

As I continued to retreat from the outside world that year, I finally understood that I was more than Harry M. Phillips. I was more than this. I knew it. I couldn’t prove it. I didn’t even feel the need to. I just knew, more and more each day, that Harry was not the whole picture. He was only the tip of an iceberg of some sort.

I stopped pondering whether or not there was life after death, or whether or not the Bible was true, or whether or not I had a soul that was separate from my body. All such lines of questioning stopped entirely for me.

This was certainly something new for me, and it took me a while to realize it. But once I finally did, it saved me, in a way. My attention gradually shifted away from the mundane details of my outside life and toward what one might call “deeper” things: What else am I? If this physical being, this ego-based personality, is not the real me, then what is the real me? Who am I?

I had considered such questions before, but now it was different. The questions felt different, as did my answers. Though I have to say, there were very few answers at this time. I wasn’t finding different answers to the same old questions. I wasn’t finding any answers at all. What changed were the questions I was asking. I seemed to have moved beyond the old questions and on to new ones.

Previously, I had wondered about Christ’s message, about the ideas of heaven, of sin, of salvation. I had wondered whether or not it was true, factual. I wondered how much of Christ’s story actually happened the way the Bible said it did, and how accurate or correct the other religions were in describing God, in describing the purpose of life and what, if anything, happened afterward.

But I began that year to move beyond such questions. I was no longer concerned with facts, with what did or did not happen. I started to see that such questions were distractions. It was tail chasing. It was trying to prove who or what was right or wrong.

The intelligent design debate showed me the futility of argument, of trying to prove that your beliefs are right and someone else’s are wrong. There had to be a wider perspective, one that clarified such debates and somehow accounted for them. Perhaps without even needing to answer them.
So I began reaching not for answers but for new questions, bigger questions. Questions such as: if I existed before this life, and I had somehow played a role in determining my life circumstances or my abilities and talents and preferences, would that make sense? Is there any evidence within my experience that might indicate that?

Can the extreme variety of personalities and abilities and preferences we see in human beings be explained by evolution? Is there an evolutionary explanation for the complexity of emotions we experience? Why do we all look so different from one another? Why do siblings often develop so differently from one another?

I pondered these things and more. Every person I ran into triggered more questions in me. I began to suspect that we somehow brought some of our uniqueness with us into this life. I simply could not accept the explanation that it was all conditioning, or that the human race had evolved into such mind-boggling diversity of talent and preference and personality.

I’m rambling, I know, but during that winter I woke up and began to ramble. Observations triggered questions, questions led to other questions, and just like that, in the span of just a few short weeks, my world came alive again. Only now, it was more alive than it had ever been before.

Suddenly, every person I came into contact with was a new mystery, a new fountain of uniqueness, an avalanche of new ideas to ponder. It was almost overwhelming at times. I often found myself frozen in place, in mid-conversation. I jokingly referred to this as my “epiphany” stage. I was having realizations, insights, coming at me from all directions. And each time, it would stop me in my tracks. I frequently had to walk away from whatever I was doing and allow whatever insight was breaking through into my mind to do so. It was wonderful.

So there it was: a new dawn. And it happened just when things looked the darkest, when there appeared to be no light on the horizon. Just when my life had hit that lowest of spots, dawn arrived.

Was it the end of darkness for me? Certainly not. What would happen to the Earth if night never came around again? Eternal light – good for the soul? Apparently not, at least not at this stage. Just as a plant would suffer without it’s nightly break from sunlight, so too the soul requires the contrast of light and dark to know in which direction it wants to move.

Human life on Earth is all about contrasts – the beautiful and the ugly, the light and the dark, rain and sunshine, happiness and sorrow. Contrast. Without it, life might become colorless, a flat road. When the sun breaks through the horizon and a new day dawns, that new day is unlike any that have gone before.

Yes, this day will eventually end. And when it does, the world will become dark. But no matter how long and dark that night is, the sun shall rise again.

I learned that winter that the sun always rises again. It was a lesson I would never forget, one that would get me through future inevitable nights.

But never again would I sink quite so low as I did during the months leading up to that new dawn. And if there was any way I could share that understanding with others, perhaps to alleviate their fear of the darkness and encourage their faith in the coming new day, I was determined to do it. I would somehow share what I had learned with others.

Sharing deep insights is not easy. Most people are too caught up in the details of their lives to think about such things. They have little interest in words of encouragement, at least not until they are in the throes of their own dark night. But by then, it is often too late. Better to get your encouraging words to them now, so they can tuck them away and have them ready when they really need them.

That became my goal as winter turned to spring: to somehow pass on what I had learned in an effort to be helpful. I had made it through a dark and difficult stretch, and I knew that I was not alone in doing do. But I had emerged with tremendous insight, and I was anxious to share it with anyone who would listen.

Finally, my life had a purpose.

A new day had dawned.

Chapter Seven

So I had found my calling, or so I thought. I would share my newfound understanding of life – the insights and realizations that were now coming to me - with whomever would listen.

It was my first “awakening”, if you would like to call it that. It was like the curtain had begun to be pulled aside, and I was seeing the wizard behind it for the first time. Now, a funny thing happens when a person begins to see beyond the veil for the first time: they assume, at every step of the way, that they have found it. They have found the Truth. The way it really is.

Actually, I hadn’t found the Truth. Anything but. As it turns out, much of my realizations were quite distorted and far from what I would eventually come to understand. And the few people to whom I mentioned some of my epiphanies were definitely not impressed, or enthusiastic. Quite the opposite, they thought that there was something wrong with me, with my mind.

I was growing excited about my new picture of the world, and I couldn’t help but mention some of my more profound thoughts to people around me – mostly to close friends on the teaching staff, or to a friend at Murphy’s. But none of them appreciated what I was sharing with them, and the most I got was a courteous smile, maybe a gentle rolling of the eyes. Luckily, no one took me very seriously.

One of my favorite new themes during this time was my theory that human civilization had existed far longer than people believed, and that it had all but destroyed itself many times. I saw that there was an ancient battle being fought by the forces of light and darkness. I saw a cycle of rise and fall, and each fall was followed by thousands of years during which humanity reverted back to its simplest form. There were climate changes, natural disasters, all intended to reduce man to its naked self and ready him for the next cycle.

I saw parallels to this in my own experience – the cycle of light and dark that I spoke of previously, and the period of darkness that must always precede a new dawn. I began to see that the human race was on a precipice of sorts, poised for either another period of darkness or for something completely new and unprecedented - the golden age that we’ve been hearing and dreaming about (or cynically dismissing) for countless years.

I was excited. I finally understood what was going on.

I found myself being drawn to some of the New Age materials that spoke of the “ascension” that was supposedly taking place. According to some theories, the human race was about to crumble, and those who were ready for the next level of consciousness would “ascend” somehow, leaving behind those not yet ready to do so.

There were many theories as to what this ascension would look like. Some people believed that there were aliens or spiritual beings existing at a higher vibration that would bring us into their ships and keep us safe while the Earth experienced cataclysmic changes. Then, when the changes were complete and the Earth was once again inhabitable, the ascended beings would return to Earth and usher in the New Age, a period of peace on Earth.

This may sound odd or farfetched to many of you, but I assure you that the people advocating such ideas were extremely intelligent, articulate people. They were not insane. This was their perception, and it was quite real to them. I read such materials with interest because I was looking for some way to explain the changes that were happening within me. I felt myself transforming in intense and unexplainable ways, and the idea of ascension seemed to explain it far better than anything else I had come across.

All the signs were there: the increasing violence and terrorism, the environmental destruction, the obsession with and dependence upon oil, the religious prophecies. Everything pointed to one inescapable conclusion: the human race was at some sort of fork in the road, some kind of culmination. It was make or break time, and it matched perfectly what was happening inside me.

As my perception of the world changed, my perception of my own life and my own career changed as well. I started to see that I was in the teaching profession for a reason, and that somehow I was going to be involved in spreading this information. But I needed to find a way to do so.

As winter gave way to spring, I started to feel the urge to somehow share my growing spiritual knowledge. Each day I saw a classroom full of kids who had no idea what was happening to the human race. Their parents didn’t know, their friends didn’t know, and they didn’t know. Somehow, I was going to have to tell people about all of this. But how?

That was the state I was in when I made a choice that would change me far more than it would change them. In retrospect, it was a key moment in my life, a turning point. I’m still amazed that it happened this way, still shocked that I actually did what I did. And yet it happened, and it needed to, and it paved the way for all that would follow.

Here’s what happened:

It was Easter week, on a Wednesday, and I was having a particularly interesting week. Much to my surprise, the coincidences that had all but deserted me over the winter returned without warning and with far greater intensity and frequency than they had before. It was very disconcerting, only now I was in a very different place. I had begun what I understood to be my awakening process, and now I had to somehow fit these coincidences in with my new understanding of reality.

As I pondered the return of the coincidences, I interpreted them as a signal that something was going to happen. Or that I was supposed to do something.

I know you may be cringing at the thought that I would, in such a seemingly confused state, take it upon myself to do something. I can hear some of you thinking, oh great, what’s he going to do? Shoot somebody? Blow something up? Sue God???

Certainly not the first two. I don’t have a vengeful bone in my body. And as far as suing God, that thought hadn’t yet occurred to me. I had nothing against God, per se. Sure, He could have warned us about the whole ascension thing (and many would argue that He did – the prophesies and revelations all point to something big happening at some point). But I really hadn’t yet associated God with the changes I was experiencing.

As my most interesting week continued, I noticed synchronicities unlike anything I had experienced before. The timing of everything seemed to be perfect. Lights would turn green just as I started to move my foot onto the brake. A parking spot would open up just as I pulled into a parking lot. A friend would call me on the phone minutes after I thought about calling him. All sorts of things.

So I was in a very different place that week, and my life felt quite surreal. I was hardly eating, hardly sleeping, and yet I felt better than I had ever felt. I had energy. I was quick to laugh at just about anything. There were moments when my good mood caused me to dance around the house, to say hello to strangers, or to stop and chat with students in the hall (something I rarely did).

I was having a great week. And then I remembered God. I suddenly realized that God must be playing a role in all this. But what was He trying to tell me? What was happening to me?

And then I had a very odd, possibly even insane thought: was God trying to talk to me? Was God trying to get my attention, trying to get some sort of message through to me?

I pondered this for a while, and then I decided it was true. From my very confused and excited state, I finally figured out where all of this was going, what God was telling me.

God wanted me to do something.

Deliver a message, perhaps.

Chapter Eight

So it was Wednesday, and my day started out with a cup of coffee and the morning paper, as usual. Since it was Easter week, there was an article in the paper about the movie The Ten Commandments, which is typically shown on television around that time each year. The article was referring to a recent remake of the movie, and how it was incorporating a more modern approach to the story.

As I read the article, I heard a sound on my front porch. I stood up and walked over to the front door, wondering who or what could possibly be on my front porch at 7:15 in the morning. I opened the door and saw the neighbor’s cat, along with a dead mouse it had brought me as a gift. The cat had done this once before, years ago.

“Well thank you, Moses!” I said to the cat, and then I froze. It was one of those synchronicities I had become quite familiar with.

The cat’s name was Moses. And there I was, standing at the front door looking down at Moses and his gift. Or sacrifice, I thought. I had just been interrupted by a cat named Moses while reading about Moses. Yes, that was a good one. I could feel the chills and goose bumps. I said thank you to the cat and closed the door.

I walked slowly back to the kitchen table, trying to make sense out of my latest little coincidence. This one seemed far more interesting, more important, and more meaningful than most.

Did I mention that my middle name is Moses? Yes, indeed. My mom thought it would be an appropriate middle name for a baby that was abandoned by his mother. So I was named Harold Moses Phillips.

I sat back down at the table and wondered what the incident with the cat might mean, and it occurred to me that there could be far more to my middle name than I had previously considered. Moses was a leader. He delivered a message. Was I walking in his footsteps?

“Now hold it right there!” I can here the Christians saying. And the Jews. And the Muslims. And many others as well. “Aren’t you getting a little carried away here, Harry? Thinking that you’re another Moses, come to set people free?” And I agree with you, it was a ridiculous, far-fetched idea to consider. But remember, I was in a very strange and unfamiliar place at that point, and I was not viewing reality the same way you are. My life had become rather confusing, and I was looking for explanations, any explanations, that could help me make sense of it all.

So that morning I drove to school pondering the thought that I was somehow being told, by God no less, that I was to be a messenger of sorts. And from that vantage point, I could see my entire life leading up to that role. Everything seemed to fit into place – the abandonment in infancy, my identification with the less fortunate, my passion for religion and spirituality, my teaching profession. I saw it all, and it all fit together perfectly.

I arrived at school, walked straight to my classroom, and sat down at my desk. It was still early, and the students hadn’t yet arrived. I looked around at the posters and displays on the walls. Posters showing animals, skeletons, diagrams listing animals by class, genus, species. A whole room full of science. When I was in college, this was what I dreamed of having someday. And here it was, just as I had imagined it. But now I had moved beyond it all. I had discovered the reason behind it. I had found the why behind the how. And the why was much, much bigger!

It was in sixth period biology class that it happened. It was supposed to be a review session for a test the following day. We were discussing species migration, and for whatever reason one of my students asked a very unusual question.

“Hey, Mr. Phillips,” the student said. “Did humans ever migrate?”

Now, I don’t know why he asked that question. To this day, I wish I had asked him that. I don’t even remember which student it was. But had he not asked it, the rest of my story would have been very different. And you would not be reading about it.

It was one of those little things that can alter the entire course of your life. A key moment in which something happens, something seemingly insignificant, that changes everything. This was one of those moments.

“Well, it’s not really a question for science class,” I answered, “but sure, humans have migrated.”

I found the question interesting, so I continued. “In primitive cultures, humans often followed the migration of certain animals because that was their food source. Other groups of people moved with the seasons in order to be at the right place at the right time for vegetative food sources or for more hospitable living conditions. And any time there was a famine, you would see people move from one place to another.”

I thought of the Israelites, perhaps because I had been reading about them that morning. “For instance, you know the story of the Israelites – they moved down to Egypt during a famine, and wound up being enslaved for hundreds of years by Pharaoh. They survived, but I don’t think it played out the way they intended it to!”

I looked around at my students, but none of them were laughing, or even smiling. It seemed they either found no humor in my comment or had no idea what I was talking about.

“Come on guys, you know, the Israelites? In Egypt? The Exodus? Ever heard of the Exodus???”

Nothing. Blank faces, and shrugged shoulders. I was speechless. Then, finally, a voice from the back of the room said, “I know about the Israelites.” It was Suzanne, one of my brightest students.

“Good!” I said with relief. “Then you know what I’m talking about.”

Suzanne shook her head. “Not really. I don’t see what this has to do with migration. This isn’t going to be on the test, is it?”

The students laughed. I smiled. “No, it’s not. But I’m surprised the rest of you don’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t any of you guys go to church?”

I looked out at a classroom full of shaking heads. I couldn’t believe it. None of them knew about the Exodus, about all the trials and tribulations of the Israelites wandering through the desert.

I was determined to give them a very brief synopsis and then return to the test review. But first things first.

“The Israelites moved down to Egypt to escape a famine in their homeland. They ended up staying for hundreds of years, were enslaved by the king of the Egyptians, called Pharaoh, and then Moses came along and freed them.” There I was, talking about Moses in class. After having thought about him all morning.

“You guys have heard of Moses, right?” I asked.

The students all nodded. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“I certainly hope so,” I continued. “He’s one of the most important figures in history. Moses led the Israelites out of slavery. And they migrated back to the Holy Land, only they had to wander in the desert for 40 years before they got there. I’m really surprised you guys don’t know all this.”

I don’t know why, but this really affected me. How could these kids not know this stuff? I viewed it as common knowledge, and yet here was a class full of kids in their mid-teens who had no idea what the Exodus was or what it meant. A story that had been told again and again for almost three thousand years was being lost. This generation that sat before me was, for the most part, unaware of it. As I said, I was deeply affected.

I lost track of my thoughts for a moment, and I must have been staring at the class for far too long. The students began to move about uncomfortably and one of them said, “Mr. Phillips, are you okay?”

My attention snapped back to the classroom. “Sorry, guys,” I said, trying to smile. “My mind wandered there for a second. I think it’s important for you to know about the story of the Israelites. And I’m surprised that you don’t.”

“Well, why should we?” a student asked. “This isn’t church.”

The question struck a nerve.

“No, it’s not church. But this story is important. It is symbolic of the escape from bondage, of any type. The Israelites represent man’s condition, trapped by his own beliefs and limitations. And in order to escape his bondage, he must reach beyond his lower self, beyond his fears and his self-imposed limitations. He must shake free of the shackles of ignorance, call upon God, and free himself from the prison that he’s in.

“The story of Moses is the story of mankind, in many ways. They teach it in church, but it’s not just a religious story, or a historical record. It contains meaning. It teaches you that you must free yourself, and that to do so requires effort and faith. It’s an incredibly important story, and that’s why it has been passed on for thousands of years.” I finished talking and looked around at the faces in front of me. They looked puzzled. As if they had no idea what I was saying, or why I was saying it.

At that moment, I felt a jolt of energy. It was like a current of electricity that shot through my body, down my arms and legs and up my spine. I had the sudden feeling that these kids wanted me to tell them something. Something that would clarify for them why they were here, who they really were.

I looked at their faces and saw them not as teenagers in science class but as lost souls who had long since forgotten who they were. And their eyes seemed to be pleading with me to tell them.

Just then, the bell sounded signaling the end of class. The bell startled me and sent adrenalin surging through me. My heart thumped wildly in my chest.

The students began putting their notebooks in their backpacks. “What about the test, Mr. Phillips? We didn’t review much today.”

It was true. I hadn’t gone over much, and I had assured the class I would review everything in preparation for tomorrow’s test. It would have to wait until next week. But next week was Easter break, so it would have to wait until the week after that. All because I had gotten into a discussion about Moses.

The kids were starting to make their way toward the door, and I had to make a quick decision. “No test tomorrow,” I said. I heard a flurry of sighs.

“No homework, then?” one student asked. I thought for a moment. And then, following an impulse and without giving any thought to what I was saying, I blurted out, “Write something about Moses.”
The students stopped walking and turned toward me, eyebrows raised.

“Huh?” several of them said.

“Write something about Moses,” I said again. “Anything. In honor of the holiday.”

“But why?” one of them asked. I felt annoyed by the question.

“Why not? We talked about him in class. Just give it a little thought, and write something down. A paragraph or two, that’s all.”

I received some odd looks, but the students resumed their way toward the door.

“But Mr. Phillips, I don’t really know anything about him,” said a female voice. “How can I write about him?”

I thought for a moment. “Do you have a Bible at home?”

“Probably,” she answered.

“The beginning of the Bible is all about him. Or you can search on the internet. Don’t put much time or effort into it. Write anything you want. We’ll finish our discussion tomorrow.”

The class filed out, and I sat down in my desk chair. I folded my arms, took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling, trying to organize my thoughts. The last twenty minutes had seemed rushed, chaotic. I reviewed in my mind the scene that had just taken place, and gradually the impact of it hit me.

Not only had I discussed the Israelites in class, but I had sent the kids home with an assignment to write about Moses.

Was this going to get me in trouble?

Did I overstep my bounds?

Perhaps. But deep down, I knew I had done the right thing. These students had no spirituality in them whatsoever. They gave no thought at all to who they were, what they were. From my perspective, our society had failed them. It had failed to provide any encouragement, any stimulation along such lines.

Not that I had any particular agenda, other than to stimulate them. If they decided, upon further examination, that the whole God idea was bogus, that religion was a bunch of crap, I was fine with that. As long as they gave it some thought. As long as they decided for themselves, rather than swallowing whatever was being told (or not told) to them.

That was my point, I decided, as I sat at my desk that fateful afternoon. I just wanted people to think. To examine. To decide for themselves. I was tired of everyone just following the pack, deferring to whatever the loudest voices were saying.

I didn’t know what my role would be in all of this, but I had just thrown my hat into the ring. However the cards were to fall, I was in the game.
I had sent a class full of teenagers home with a small but mighty task. In one sense it was no big deal – write a few words about a man who lived a long time ago. But in another sense, I was taking a step – my first step – toward something bigger, more meaningful, than all the teaching I had done for a decade.

I had opened the proverbial can of worms.

What would crawl out of it?

I would soon find out.

Chapter Nine

That evening was uneventful. I ate dinner, read, and watched a little baseball on TV. I went to bed earlier than usual, for no particular reason. By ten o’clock, I was asleep.

The phone rang at 10:30.

I reached in the dark for the phone on the night table.

“Hello,” I said, rubbing my eyes and turning on the light.

“Harry,” said the voice on the other end. “It’s Barbara.”

Barbara Harris, middle school principal.

“Barbara,” I said, clearing my throat. “What’s going on?”

Barbara paused for a moment. “Well, it seems you’re the talk of the town tonight, Harry.”

“How so?” I asked, knowing full well what was coming.

“Harry, I received at least ten calls this evening. From parents of your students. Would you like to explain to me what went on in class today?”

By now I was sitting up in bed. I wasn’t sure how to answer. “It’s about the assignment then, huh?” I asked quietly.

“Yup. How about starting from the beginning? There was apparently some sort of religious discussion in class? Is that right?”

“Well, yes. One of the kids asked a question about human migration, and I mentioned that the Israelites migrated to Egypt. It seemed appropriate, given the Easter week. But honestly, Barbara, it was no big deal.”

“And what about this homework assignment? Was that ‘no big deal’ also?”

“Well, it was a last second impulse. The kids were walking out of the room, and I had to give them something to do because I had cancelled tomorrow’s test. So I told them to write something about Moses.”

Barbara was silent for several seconds. “Why?” she asked finally.

“I really don’t know, Barbara. I truly have no idea. We had just discussed him, and I had been thinking about him all day. I just blurted it out. Is this really that big of a deal?” I asked, knowing full well that she wouldn’t be calling me at this hour if it wasn’t.

“I’m afraid so, Harry. I had some very unpleasant conversations with some very annoyed parents tonight. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my evening. What were you thinking, Harry? Teaching about the Israelites in class? Science class, for God’s sake!” Her voice was now raised. I had never heard Barbara raise her voice like this.

I felt a pressure begin to build in my head. My face grew hot. I had no idea what to say. Part of me couldn’t really believe this was happening.

“I don’t know what else to say, Barb. As I said, I followed an impulse.”

“What about your discussion during class? Was that an impulse?”

“I suppose. I don’t know. Look, I can’t believe this is causing such an uproar. If the parents don’t approve of the assignment, then the students don’t have to do it.”

“Look, Harry, I’ve got some pissed off parents, and they are demanding that something be done. I left a message with Dr. Mercer, but I haven’t heard back from him.” Dick Mercer was the school district superintendent. I cringed when Barbara mentioned his name – there had always been something awkward and unspoken between Dr. Mercer and I, though I bore him no ill will. He simply had an air about him that rubbed me the wrong way – big man, big ego, that sort of thing.

“OK,” I responded, not knowing what else to say.

Barbara continued, “I’ll let you know what we decide, and I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”

“Right,” I said. “I really hope this all blows over. Honestly, Barbara, I had no intention of causing any trouble. I still can’t believe this could be that important.”

“Well, we’ll see. Truthfully, I don’t see the big deal either – you made an error in judgment, but I don’t think you meant anything by it. We just have to hope that our concerned parents see it that way, too. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I hung up the phone and sat there in bed. I realized that my heart had been pounding heavily throughout the conversation. The muscles throughout my body were tense. I needed to get out of bed.

I swung my legs around and onto the floor, slid my feet into the old pair of slippers I kept there, and walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. I felt as though I were in a dream.

I reviewed the conversation with Barbara in my head. She had sounded pretty angry.

I felt bad for her. She didn’t deserve this. It was all my doing, yet she was now caught in the middle of it. And the worst was yet to come – Dr. Mercer would NOT be happy. He was as adamant as anyone about keeping religion out of our school district. He had been the first one to shoot down my idea to teach a religious studies course, so I knew he would be less than pleased to hear that I had discussed the Israelites in class today. I shuttered.

What could I do now? I felt like I should do something, but what?

Nothing. All I could do was sit and wait. Wait for that phone call in the morning.

I spent the next hour thinking in circles. I went back and forth between “this is no big deal – it will all blow over” and “damn, I really screwed up.”

There were two scenarios – either it would all be fine, or it wouldn’t.

What would be the worst that could happen? Could I lose my job over this? No way, I decided. I was an extremely respected member of the teaching staff. I had no enemies (until that day, that is). And other than poor attendance over the past year, I had no strikes against me.

No, it would all blow over, I decided. Stop thinking about it, I told myself. Go get some sleep. One more day until Easter break.

I turned off the kitchen light, walked back to my bedroom, kicked off my slippers, crawled into bed, and turned off the light.

I glanced at the clock before closing my eyes.

It was exactly midnight.

Chapter Ten

I got up with the alarm at 5:30AM. I made it all the way to the kitchen and had begun making a pot of coffee before I remembered the events from the day before and the phone conversation last night. Immediately, a knot formed in my stomach.

I put down the coffee pot and walked over to the table, slumping down in a chair. I glanced over at the phone on the wall. Soon, it would ring. Soon, I would know what the day would hold for me.

After staring at the phone for several seconds, I stood back up and walked over to the counter to finish making the coffee. Just as I slid the pot back in and turned on the coffee maker, the phone rang. I froze. The ring seemed loud and obnoxious. I didn’t want to answer it.

The phone rang a second time. I walked over and picked it up. “Hello?’

“Mr. Phillips,” came the reply, a low, serious voice. My shoulders sagged. I had hoped it would be Barbara.

“Dr. Mercer,” I said, trying to sound awake and enthusiastic. “Good morning.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Harry. I’m not having a particularly good morning. Are you?” I was not. But I didn’t answer.

He continued. “I talked to Barbara. I know all the details. I want you in my office at 7:15. Got it?”

“Got it,” I answered. I felt like a ten-year-old being scolded by his father.

“I’ve already spoken to several members of the school board,” Dr. Mercer continued, “as well as two of the parents. This is not how I wanted to go into Easter break, Harry.”

“Me neither,” I said slowly. “Me neither.” It was all I could think of to say. But then I had to ask, “Any idea where this is going, Dr. Mercer?”

“Well, yes,” he said, “At the very least we’re looking at some type of suspension.”

Suspension??? I couldn’t believe it. A wave of panic flashed through my body.

“Why?” I asked, my voice a bit higher. I was angry. “Over a little homework assignment?”

“Harry,” he answered, his voice rising as well, “we have a strict policy on these things. You know that. You were way out of line yesterday. Frankly, you’ll be fortunate if that’s all that happens.

"One of the parents is very cozy with half the board members, and he is determined to have you dismissed. And honestly, I don’t see how that can be avoided at this point. Do you realize what you’re up against? This isn’t good. Not for you, not for any of us. Now I’ve got to get in the shower. I’ll see you in my office. 7:15.” And he hung up.

I slammed the phone down and sat down at the table. My pulse pounded in my temples. This whole thing was turning into a nightmare.

I really could lose my job over this. Because of a stupid freaking homework assignment. Damn it.

Damn it damn it damn it.

I laid my head down on my arms in front of me.

Why? Why was this happening?

What the hell inspired me to talk about Moses yesterday?

What was going on?

I suddenly remembered all the recent coincidences. I remembered the cat and the dead mouse on the front porch.

I remembered how enthused I had felt lately, with a new sense of purpose. I had gone to school the previous day feeling better than I had felt in a year or more. And just like that, I had managed to pull the rug out from under myself.

I suddenly realized I had tears in my eyes. I sat up straight and wiped them away. I looked at the tears on my fingers. I was actually crying. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

And then they came. Tears. Lots of them. In torrents. I put my head back down on my arms, squeezed my eyes closed, and cried. Huge, body-shaking sobs, uncontrollable ones. I haven’t done this in years, I thought to myself, and I kept on crying.

For the better part of five minutes I cried, unable to stop. Months, and perhaps years of frustration and tension, all pouring out at once. I cried like a baby. I cried until I couldn’t cry any more.

Then I sat up and took a long, deep breath. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and actually smiled. I smiled at myself for crying like that. But I needed it. And I felt better. I really did. I had just released something that had been building inside me for a long time. And I felt good.

I took another deep breath and thought about my predicament. Is this it? I wondered. Is this the end of my teaching career?

Maybe. Or maybe this will somehow pass. But I knew it wouldn’t. Somehow I knew, this was it. Whatever the rest of my life might hold, it probably wouldn’t involve teaching. At least not science. Perhaps something else…

I thought about my spiritual progress of recent months. I could see how things had led nicely and neatly right up to today. The day I would lose my job. If that was, in fact, how things were to play out.

But what else would I do? How would I earn a living? The reality of my situation began to set in.

I had no other career ideas. I had no foreseeable way to make money.

My thoughts trailed off.

And then, just like that, my anger came back. And this time, it wasn’t directed at me.

In a burst of anger I blurted out, “This is YOUR fault, God.” I sat there quietly, my words hanging in the air. This is your fault.

In my mind, I imagined a voice say, Oh really? And how is that?

“Because,” I said out loud, “if we humans weren’t so damned confused about everything, none of this would be happening.”

I heard no answer in my mind, so I continued.

“What is happening to me? I just want to understand. Everything’s falling apart. What did I do wrong? Why is this happening?”

No answer.

“I want to understand. And I want to help others understand. And what do I get? A bunch of freakin’ crap. That’s what I get.”

Silence.

“I’m going to lose my job over this, God. I’m going to lose my damn job over this. Why? What did I do?”

The kitchen was dead silent.

“God?”

Silence.

“You there?”

Nothing.

I felt the tension begin to build in my body again. More tears were coming.

I put my head down and cried some more. I pounded my fist on the table, uttering a word I won’t repeat here. I uttered it many times, in fact.

I stood up, knocking my chair over in the process, and walked out of the kitchen.

I walked across the living room and opened the front door.

The sky was beginning to grow lighter. The air was chilly.
And there, standing on the mat outside the door, was the neighbor’s cat. Moses.

Dumfounded, I sank to my knees inside the door, looking out at the cat. Moses purred, rubbing his body along the door. I stared at the cat. My thoughts seemed to trail away. I felt the cool air on my face. The cat purred.

My mind snapped to attention. I’m losing it, I thought to myself. I think I’m losing it.I can’t do this anymore. I give up.

“God,” I said with a raised voice. “I give up. You win. I can’t do it any more. I give up.”

I felt a chill run through my body. And another. And another.

More tears welled up in my eyes. My entire body was filled with chills. And it wasn’t just the cold air coming through the screen door. My body felt different.

In my mind, I heard the words, stand up, Harry.

I stood up. I knew it was my own imagination, but it felt right. So I stood up.

Now what?, I thought.

And in my mind, in my imagination, I heard the words that would change me forever.

Sue me.

Another wave of chills ran through my body, this one even stronger.

“Sue me?” I said out loud. “Is that what you said?” I realized I was talking to myself. But I imagined that I was talking to God.

“Do you want me to sue you?” I asked. There was no answer.

At least, I didn’t hear one. But I felt a surge of emotion. More chills, and I began to shake.

Again, a bit louder this time, I repeated “You want me to SUE you?” Still no answer. Only chills. Only trembling.

“God?” I said one last time. And then I was silent. For several minutes I stood there, not moving.

Then I stepped back and closed the front door.

I turned and walked slowly into the kitchen.

What just happened? I thought. Where did that thought come from?

Sue God???

I shook my head. What an odd thought to have.

I walked into the kitchen, picked the chair up off the floor, and sat down. Then I propped my elbows up on the table, put my head in my hands, and took a deep breath.

I had lost track of time. I looked at the clock – it was now 6:20. In less than an hour, I would know my fate. And yet somehow I already knew my fate. This wasn’t going to blow over. I knew it wouldn’t. By the end of the day, I would cease to be a science teacher.

And then what? I once again folded my arms down on the table in front of me and rested my head on them. Closing my eyes, I thought with a laugh, Well, I guess I’ll just have to sue God.

I smiled, and I felt my body relax. After all that had gone on that morning and the day before, it felt good to smile. The idea of suing God amused me. I took another deep breath. And another.

And then, just like that, I fell asleep.

Chapter Eleven

I awoke to the phone ringing.

I lifted my head and looked at the clock. It was 7:30.

I jumped up from my chair, darted over to the phone, and snatched it off the wall.

“Hello?”

“Harry, what’s going on? Why aren’t you here?” It was Dr. Mercer, sounding not the least bit happy.

I didn’t know how to respond. I was still in a daze, trying to figure out how I had managed to fall asleep at such a time.

“Sorry, Dr. Mercer,” I finally said. “Did I miss the meeting?”

“Yes. You missed it.”

“Do I still have a job?” I asked, somewhat jokingly.

“Hard to say, Harry. For the moment, you’re officially suspended. But I imagine we’re looking at a termination, yes.”

I was stunned.

Despite the fact that I had known this was how things were going to play out, I was stunned.

“Don’t bother coming in,” Dr. Mercer continued, not waiting for me to respond. “You’ll get a call if anything new develops.” And he hung up.

I leaned against the kitchen wall, phone in hand, struggling to make sense of it all.

It really happened.

I was done teaching. It was over. Just like that.

Slowly, I hung up the phone and sat back down at the table.

Now what?

I had no idea. For the first time in my life, my future was blank. Completely blank.

Part of me was relieved. I felt as though I had just finished a book, or slammed a door shut. A phase completed, a chapter ended.

I took a deep breath. And then I remembered God.

“Ah, God!” I shouted. “What do you think of all this?!”

I smiled. “I said I was going to sue you. You ready?”

The house seemed quieter than usual. Not a sound.

I laughed and stood up. I walked over to my desk, opened the middle drawer, and took out a pencil and a notebook. Then I carried them back to the kitchen table and sat down. I opened the notebook to the first page.

I took a long, deep breath, and then another, and I closed my eyes.

Thoughts flowed through my head, one after another. Images of courtrooms, images of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha. Images of saints, priests, monks, nuns. I saw Mecca, and thousands of men in white sheets sitting upon a rock covered hill.

I saw crusaders on horseback holding blood-tipped swords. I saw suicide bombers and planes flying into buildings.

I saw a man on a cross. I saw a woman holding a dying man in the street. I saw a man in a grey suit, standing at a pulpit, one hand holding a Bible and the other raised in a clenched fist.

I opened my eyes, and my kitchen came flooding back. I sat for several minutes pondering the images that had just moved through my mind. Then I thought about what a lawsuit against God might sound like, how it would be worded. I thought of the legal jargon I had seen and heard in movies and on television. Then I picked up the pencil and wrote the following:

I, Harold Phillips, hereby sue God, our Maker.

I don’t know if anyone else will ever know about this, but at this point it does not matter. I think I may have a case, and I shall do my best to present it here.

I name myself, Harold M. Phillips, as plaintiff.

I name God as the defendant.

I am accusing God of gross negligence and inciting disharmony.

The reasons for my accusations are as follows:

1. God has sent various messengers and prophets and saints, but these individuals have delivered conflicting messages. There are contradictions between them, and God has made no apparent effort to clarify for us which messages are correct and which ones are incorrect. Therefore, the human race has been left to interpret these messages. And we can all see where that has gotten us.

2. God has allowed the human race to splinter into innumerable groups, each with their own beliefs, and He (or She) has allowed us to argue, fight, and murder each other, often in His (or Her) name.

I, on behalf of the human race, hereby accuse God of the charges above, and I seek, as compensation for pain and suffering, the following:

1. God will send us a new messenger, one that will specify which previous messages were authentic and which were not. This messenger will also clarify the underlying truth existing in all spiritual teachings, and point out where the human race has erred in interpreting these teachings.

2. God will provide, through His (or Her) messenger, a new message, one that encompasses and clarifies the Truth. He (or She) will make this new message available to all members of the human race and will NOT allow it to become distorted or manipulated in the way that virtually all previous messages have.

I do this knowing full well that I may be damning myself in some way. I do it knowing full well that the words I have written here will be considered blasphemous by adherents to many religions. And I do it knowing full well that my time spent in the afterlife (if I am privileged to make it there) may be affected by the thoughts in my head and the words on these pages.

However, I feel in my heart that God, if He (or She) is indeed listening and paying attention to what I am doing and thinking and writing here today, knows that my intentions are pure, and that my motivation is nothing short of wanting to understand, once and for all, the Truth.

I, Harold M. Phillips, seek nothing but the Truth.

And I am asking God to deliver it to me.

To all of us.

Once and for all.

Chapter Twelve

The next few months moved very quickly, and I will only summarize them here. If is seems as though I’m skipping too many details, I apologize. But we have a long story to get through, and this is only the beginning. So I will be brief.

Okay, so I sued God. Or I tried. But quite frankly, there isn’t really much to say about it. This story isn’t actually about me suing God. Which is rather strange, considering the name of this book. But it’s true. This story is not about me trying to sue God. It’s about all the things that happened as a result of me trying to sue God.

So I really don’t have much to tell you about the lawsuit itself.
The lawyer I hired, on the other hand, is a different story.
The lawyer I hired would eventually become a key figure in the story I’m telling you. And so I will tell you about my lawyer.

I nearly fell in love with Anne the first time I heard her voice. It would be several weeks before I would meet her in person, but her voice mesmerized me immediately.

From the very beginning, I felt like I had always known her. Maybe not this version of her - not the life she was currently living. But her personality, I had somehow always known. That’s how it felt, right from the start. And it has ever since.

In the weeks following my dismissal from the middle school (it was actually a suspension, but eventually became a dismissal), I went about contacting a number of local attorneys, most of whom politely declined to take me on as a client. Others were not so polite, and implied that I was either crazy or perpetrating some kind of joke.

I took all of the rejections lightly, knowing full well that it would take some time to find a lawyer who actually understood why I was doing what I was doing. Eventually, I was referred to a woman in Columbus who had done some work for a number of controversial activist groups. The woman’s name was Anne Lewis, and she had been practicing law for 12 years. I left a message for her, including the basic points of my case. She was intrigued by my message, and that evening we spoke on the phone.

Anne and I talked for over an hour, and the more we talked the more excited we grew. I knew she had the perfect personality for such an endeavor, and she told me later that she had hung up the phone that night hoping and praying that
I would choose her to represent the case. I was just as excited and knew that I had found the right person. My determination had paid off. I now had an attorney.

Anne had a number of friends who worked in the media in Columbus as well as around the country. She was very connected and very talkative, and within several days news began to spread that a man from Ohio was attempting to sue God in state court. If I wanted publicity for the case, I had found the perfect lawyer. If not, I had made a terrible mistake.

In fact, I did want publicity. Lots of it. That was the point, as far as I was concerned. Obviously, I wasn’t suing God for money or anything else tangible. At least nothing that any court would consider tangible. First and foremost, I wanted people to think. I wanted them to hear about the lawsuit and ponder the reasons behind it. I wanted people who had never before considered such things to ask themselves why this man was suing God.

Within a week of taking the case, Anne had told dozens of friends and associates about it. And it wasn’t long before my telephone began to ring. I received a few calls the first week, more than a dozen the following week, and after that I gave up answering the phone. Anne decided it would be wise to create a website that would detail the case and the reasons behind it, as well as provide a list of answers to some of the questions that were being asked. One of Anne’s friends volunteered to design and host the website, free of charge, and soon our site was up and running.

The attention being paid to myself and the case was somewhat unnerving for me at first. It was all happening quite fast, almost too fast. I was accustomed to moving slowly through life, pondering decisions and taking my time making them.

Unlike myself, Anne was a very fast mover. The pace of events suited her perfectly. I found myself taking a back seat and watching Anne and everyone else involved do their thing. After a time, I realized that this was just fine. It was enough for me to have initiated the lawsuit. I sometimes smiled when I thought about how little work I was actually doing.

Reporters showed up at my house from time to time, and they called my phone every day. Most of the time I referred them to Anne, or to a public relations friend of hers whom she had brought in to deal with media issues.

It became obvious within a month of initiating the lawsuit that the actual filing of the suit in court was secondary to the attention it was getting. In fact, it was almost irrelevant whether any court would hear the case at all. People wanted to know who this guy was and why he was suing God. They wanted to know what he was thinking. They wanted to know if he was crazy.

The website received more visitors each day, and soon we added a message board. I spent time each day keeping up with the various conversations on the site, occasionally responding to one personally (which created some excitement). In fact, I was well on my way to becoming a celebrity of sorts. All of which I found rather strange.

The school district heard about the lawsuit and quietly informed me that it would be better if we permanently ended our relationship. I was certainly not surprised, nor was I disappointed. I had other interests to pursue now, and although I might return to teaching someday, I had no interest in doing so in the foreseeable future.

I soon grew accustomed to the attention I was getting. And it wasn’t long before I actually began to like it. My neighbors were friendlier to me than ever, and not a day went by without a stranger in town saying hello or asking how the lawsuit was going. The fact that the lawsuit had not yet gone anywhere seemed irrelevant. The phone was ringing off the hook. The website was getting more visitors. Newspaper articles were being written about me.

I felt quite strongly that it was all happening for a reason, though I couldn’t see what that reason was. But I had been told to sue God, and that’s exactly what I was doing.

Only God knew where all of this was going.

Chapter Thirteen

In my backyard was a large mound of dirt. It was there when I bought the house – the previous owner had torn down the old house and built a new one, complete with a full-size basement. The dirt that was removed to make room for the basement had been piled at the back of the property and was now covered with grass and weeds.

The mound was almost ten feet tall, and I often climbed to the top to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the surrounding trees and houses (which were all ranchers in my neighborhood) were a bit too tall, and at certain times of the year I couldn’t quite get a clear view of the horizon. But I often sat there anyway, watching the sun sinking lower in the evening sky and thinking about things. I even caught a sunrise once in a while.

One morning, I was awakened by a bird singing outside my bedroom window. It was late spring, and nature was in full swing outside. The sun had not yet risen.

I sat up, opened the blind, and looked outside. The sky was beginning to glow in the east. To my right, the western sky was still dark.

As I looked for the source of the song that had awakened me, I saw a dark-colored bird standing atop the mound of dirt and grass. The bird hopped around as it sang. It was a beautiful little song, and I decided that I didn’t mind being awakened by such a treat.

The bird stopped singing and flew from the mound to a pile of old bricks at the back right corner of the property. The bird landed on one of the bricks and resumed singing. I listened some more, then started thinking about the pile of bricks. They, too, had been left there by the previous owner.

Several years back, I had used some of the bricks to build a new walkway leading down from my front steps to the sidewalk. I had chosen the ones that were in the best shape but there were still hundreds, maybe even thousands of bricks left that were in decent shape.

The bird flew back to the mound and once again resumed its song. I was no longer paying attention to the bird, however. I was thinking about the bricks. It occurred to me that I could build a platform on top of the mound using some of the bricks. Then I would I have a nice place to sit to watch the sunset.

My mind began to race with ideas. I thought about the different ways I could build the platform. It could be round or square. I would need to level off the top of the mound. I could build a set of brick stairs leading to the top. I walked into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, still thinking about the mound and platform.

After I finished preparing the coffee, I walked out front to fetch the newspaper. I brought the paper back in to the kitchen, took it out of its bag, and spread it out on the table. Then I poured myself a cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, and sat down to read the paper.

The front page contained the usual local new stories, as well as a few involving the CIA, the president’s latest poll numbers, and the never-ending concerns in the Middle East.

I began to read, but none of the articles interested me enough to hold my attention. My mind kept drifting back to the mound and the bricks in the backyard. For some reason, that seemed far more interesting to me than whatever was going on in the world.

I grabbed a notebook from my desk (the very same one in which I had written out my accusations against God), took out a pencil from the desk drawer, sat back down at the kitchen table, and began to sketch some ideas for my platform.

Over the next hour, I made many sketches. I drew round platforms and square ones. I drew mounds with one staircase, mounds with staircases on each side, and even one with a staircase that spiraled around from the ground up to the top.

After an hour and several cups of coffee, the kitchen table was covered with sketches. And by the end of that hour, I had finally found a design that I liked.

The sketch I now held in my hands was a square, pyramid-like mound with steps covering the full length of all four sides. The bottom three steps on each side were three bricks high and four bricks deep. The next seven steps were the same height but shallower, only two bricks deep, and then the top three steps were the same as the bottom three.

I found through my sketches that this combination of deep and shallow steps gave the mound a curved profile. The slope of each side rose gradually from the ground, then became steep for seven steps, then became gradual again before reaching the top. It was sort of bell-shaped, with a flat top.

I held the sketch at arm’s length. I loved the smooth curve of the sides. It looked somewhat like a pyramid, but a pyramid with the peak removed and the sides curved rather than straight. The longer I looked at the sketch, the more I loved it. I wanted to get started right away.

Unfortunately, I had a late-morning appointment with Anne. The mound would have to wait.

I ate a bowl of cereal, took a quick shower, and left the house at nine o’clock. The meeting was in Anne’s office, a drive of 45 minutes. On the way, I thought about the mound and decided that I would begin working on it as soon as I returned home.

The meeting with Anne was short but productive. When I returned home early that afternoon, I walked straight around to the back of the house and began to look more closely at the mound. The shape would have to be changed slightly –it was almost round, as you would expect a big pile of dirt to be. I would have to shape it into a square as I went.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through bricks. I wanted to get started on the platform, but first I had to sort the good bricks from the bad ones. I realized that the sorting process would take a while, and that I probably wouldn’t get around to placing any on the mound that day. But that was okay.

The bird that had awakened me that morning came back from time to time, still singing his song. It was springtime. He was calling, I assumed, for the girl of his dreams.

I had dreams of my own. I had a new project, a new inspiration. I wasn’t thinking about teaching or about lawsuits. I wasn’t thinking about science or religion or Moses or the Israelites.

I was thinking about building something new, something different. I was thinking about dirt. I was thinking about bricks.

I was thinking about building a mountain.

My very own mountain.

Chapter Fourteen

Let me tell you a little bit about Anne.

Anne had everything going for her, at least on the outside. She had accomplished everything she had ever set out to accomplish. She was a successful lawyer, financially secure, well connected. She had an active social life, plenty of friends (male and female), and was quite attractive.

As I said, she had everything going for her. Except for one thing: she had never found that perfect someone. Now, few of us would claim to have found the perfect someone. Most of us have had long-term relationships, many of us are married, and there are very few people who would claim to have never been in love - or something close to love – at least once in their lives.

Anne’s problem was that she had been so successful at everything else, her love life seemed tragic by contrast. If the others aspects of her life had incorporated more struggle, like most of us, then her love life would not have seemed so disappointing. But Anne had succeeded at everything else she had attempted, and so she expected to succeed in the romantic department as well. But it didn’t happen.

So Anne was left with a gaping hole, and that gaping hole was in her heart. She tried to fill it. She dated from time to time. She developed crushes, had promising first dates, and even had passionate weekend getaways from time to time. But nothing lasted. Nothing could fill that gaping hole.

Now, in my opinion, Anne’s biggest problem was that she was too smart. Too intelligent for her own good. And, perhaps, too successful at everything else in her life. And when she failed time and time again to find that perfect relationship, she used that intelligence of hers to dwell on, analyze, and dissect everything that went wrong, everything that might be wrong with her. The more attention she gave to such things, the more frustrated she grew, the more inadequate she felt, and the more depressed she became.

Anne would never admit to anyone that she was depressed.
And for the most part she wasn’t. It was only when she turned her attention to her love life (or lack of it) that the depression started up again. And when she went down that road, there was no telling how dark it would be this time around. Sometimes it was bad. Really bad. And it never resolved itself. She was never able to think her way out of it, to discover some thought or idea that would clarify everything for her. So around and around she went. And she was lonely.

I said earlier that I almost fell in love with Anne the first time I heard her voice. But the truth is, I didn’t almost fall in love with her, I did fall in love with her. And I’ve been in love with her ever since. Not the starry-eyed, head-over-heels kind of love, but a deep appreciation that has withstood all the little conflicts and squabbles we have created with one another over the years.

When I finally met her in person, my first impression of Anne was that she was not the same person that I had come to know over the phone. She was far more intense and direct and serious in person. And at first, I didn’t like it. It was disturbing to me. We had talked for hours on the phone, not just about the lawsuit but about all sorts of things, personal and otherwise. There was a humorous chemistry between us, but that chemistry sometimes disappeared when we were in each other’s presence. I think she noticed it too. Maybe it was me that was different, not her. But most likely, it was both of us.

The oddest thing about our relationship, and what made it different for me than any other I had been in, was that I was able to be myself more than I had ever been previously. There was none of that self conscious second-guessing that so often goes on in similar relationships. In a way, she felt more like a sister or a cousin that someone I had romantic feelings for.

Yes, I had romantic feelings for Anne, though I never actually told her so, and she never indicated that she felt that way about me. There was sometimes a slightly sexual tone to our conversations, some playful banter, but it never went any further than that.

Truth be told, I would have married Anne if she had brought up the possibility. If companionship is the primary reason for marriage, then she and I were a perfect match. But I think Anne needed or wanted more than companionship. She was far more intense than I was in the area of relationships. She wanted to search and to find that perfect someone. She had actively pursued romance for most of her adult life, while I had not. And from her many references to the guys she had dated over the years, it was obvious to me that a romantic relationship was far more of a priority for her than it was for me.

So that was the way things were between Anne and I - the closest of friends, with a touch of playfulness to keep it interesting. And despite a number of stretches during which I wished it could be more than it was, I was, for the most part, fine with that.

And I think she was, too.

Chapter Fifteen

It had been raining for days. The sky was grey, the ground soaked.

I was looking out my bedroom window at a water-logged backyard. I had been trapped inside since Saturday, and I was getting anxious. I wanted to get back to my mound project, but nature was not allowing me to. She had other plans, it appeared.

The phone rang. I walked into the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Harry, its Anne. Bad news.”

“Another strikeout?”

“Yup.”

I slumped into a chair at the table. It was our third rejection by an Ohio court. It seemed no one would take the case seriously. Either that or they were all trying to avoid the media circus that would certainly ensue.

“We could try again,” said Anne.

I shook my head. “It would probably be a waste of time.”

There was a pause. Then she said, “You don’t really think we’ll get the case heard, do you?”

I smiled. “No, not really. But that hasn’t stopped me from getting my hopes up. I’m not sure what I thought was going to happen.”

“Well, it’s up to you what we do next. I’m willing to keep going if you are.”

“I know. I’ll think about it today. My gut feeling is that it’s not necessary, and would be a waste of your time. I guess I need to decide where all of this is going.”

“Well, let me know,” Anne said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already accomplished what you set out to do. But if you want to keep going, I’m with you.”

“I know you are. I’ll call you later. It’s time for some rainy day soul searching.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be home this afternoon, and then I’m driving to my mother’s this evening. Leave a message on my cell if you don’t get me.”

“Okay. Thanks for everything, dear.”

“You’re very welcome. Good luck with the soul searching.”

“Right,” I said with a smile. I hung up the phone and sat back down at the kitchen table, mulling over my options. I knew that Anne would be enthusiastic about continuing with the suit, if that’s what I wanted. The problem was, I didn’t know what I wanted. I hadn’t really thought this far ahead.

All along, I had believed that the lawsuit would lead somewhere. And as things first began rolling, it appeared as though it would. But Anne and I had yet to find a court that would hear the case, and if the reaction we had gotten so far was any indication, the case would never be heard.

I realized as I sat there at the kitchen table that the disappointment I was feeling at that moment was not because of the series of rejections but because the momentum and enthusiasm I had felt earlier was now gone. There were less phone calls from reporters, less visits to the website. The initial flurry of attention was dissipating, and the case was being rejected everywhere we went with it.

So it was time to decide the next step. And I had no idea what that next step might be. None. So that was the real source of my frustration. I didn’t know what to do next.

I began thinking back to that day in April when I had decided to sue God. Did I know then where all of this would lead? Of course not. But back then it didn’t matter. I had reached a point where I wasn’t concerned with outcomes, and that had given me the courage to do what I did.

But as I sat there at the kitchen table, I wondered where that courage had gone. I no longer felt it. I no longer felt the enthusiasm, the drive to continue with all of it. And I was beginning to sense a gnawing feeling, deep in the back of my mind, that the entire thing was pointless. And that scared me.

If there was nowhere else to go with the lawsuit, what else was there for me to do? My teaching career was pretty much over. And even if I could get a position somewhere else, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to teach anymore. It didn’t sound the least bit appealing to me. I honestly believed that my teaching days were over.

The more I thought about my circumstances and my future, the more depressed I became. My finances were beginning to dwindle, and the legal fees were mounting. Fortunately, Anne was charging me very little and had indicated I could compensate her down the road when my financial picture improved. But I didn’t want to take advantage of Anne’s generosity, and I also didn’t like the thought of being indebted to her or to anyone else. At least not financially.

The day wore on, and I tried to think about other things. The house needed work. I hadn’t done any cleaning in months. But my thoughts kept returning to my circumstances and the need to decide on a plan of action. But the more I thought, the more frustrated I became. And I wasn’t getting any closer to knowing what to do next.

I needed to do something. Anything. I considered getting out the vacuum, but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I considered rearranging the living room furniture, which usually cheered me up, but that seemed unappealing as well. Then I thought about the mound in the backyard, and I felt a jolt of excitement. Yes, I thought, that will keep my mind off of things for a while.

But it was raining. Raining hard. I walked into my bedroom and looked out the back window. The rain was coming down in sheets. The backyard was covered with huge puddles. And there was my precious mound, covered with weeds and getting drenched under a dreary grey sky. I sat down on the edge of my bed and continued looking out the window.
Thinking about my mound project had brought me the only positive energy I had felt all day. I wished it wasn’t raining.

Suddenly, I stood up. Who cares? I thought to myself. Who’s afraid of a little rain?

I walked out to the hall closet and pulled out a hooded windbreaker and a pair of boots, then walked into the living room and put them on. I looked at myself in the mirror in the hallway and smiled. I hadn’t worn those boots for at least five years, and I couldn’t remember if I had ever worn the windbreaker. I hoped it would keep out some of the rain.

When I was ready, I walked back down the hall, through the laundry room, and out the back door. Down a few steps, and I was standing in a four-inch puddle. The boots were sturdy and waterproof, so I knew that at least my feet would stay dry. I walked toward the back of the property and stopped in front of the mound of dirt and weeds. There were small rivers of water running down the sides.

I placed one foot on the side of the mound. It was steep, perhaps forty-five degrees. The treads on my boots were new, however, and I easily walked up the slope without slipping. Soon I stood at the top, looking around at my backyard and at the neighbors’ houses that surrounded it. All was grey and wet and dreary. But standing atop the mound, I felt the weight of the day lift. I felt the depression and frustration slip away, leaving me standing tall atop my mound.

I looked over at the pile of bricks in the corner of the yard. I decided I was ready. I climbed back down the mound and walked over to the bricks. I had already sorted out the best ones, and I picked up four of them and carried them back over to the mound and up the side. When I reached the top I bent down and arranged them in a square in the middle of the very top of the mound. Then I stood up and looked down at my work. Four bricks. They looked good. They felt right. The whole thing felt right.

I soon forgot all about my previous worries – the lawsuit, the dwindling finances, the teaching career. They were all gone from my mind. Just four bricks. But it seemed more important to me than anything else. I had taken the first step. A step toward what, I didn’t know. But it felt important. It felt significant.

And somehow I knew, on that grey rainy day, that my real work had finally begun.

Chapter Sixteen

During that time, I had a neighbor named Robert. Robert was 80 years old, a retired marine. He served in the second World War, Korea and Vietnam, and he loved to tell stories. On summer evenings, Robert and I would sit on my front steps drinking beer while Robert spun tales of combat and strategy and victory and incompetence. I was quite interested in Robert’s stories, though I often got lost in some of the vocabulary and names that Robert freely threw around. But Robert didn’t seem to mind whether I knew exactly what he was talking about or not. He loved to talk.

Soon after we first met, I began referring to him as Bob. And although Robert had never in his life allowed anyone to call him Bob, he let me get away with it. Apparently there was something about me that made it okay.

Robert’s wife had died several years after I moved into the neighborhood, and now Robert lived alone in a house that was far more than he needed. But he had lived in it for 32 years, had raised four children there, and had never considered the possibility of selling it. Robert’s children had all moved out of the area, leaving him with no family around. None, that is, except for me.

I eventually became like a son to Robert. In fact, I was far more interested in Robert’s tales and life than his children were. And soon those evening chats on my front steps became important to him. He would often glance out his living room window after dinner to see if I was outside. And if I was, and I didn’t look too busy, Robert would grab a six-pack and walk across the street. It was a routine that Robert looked forward to each spring when the weather grew warmer, and it was something he lamented when cold weather returned in the fall.

For the past year, Robert’s health had been going downhill. It started with his breathing, and soon after that his arthritis began getting worse. Over the winter, Robert did very little. He spent his days in the living room and his nights in the bedroom, though he did walk around the block once or twice a week.

Other than that, Robert did almost nothing. He had a cleaning service that came every month, which his wife had arranged years ago and which made even more sense now that she was gone. Robert wasn’t about to start cleaning or dusting or vacuuming any time soon. Robert also had groceries brought to his house once a week. This saved him the effort of driving to the grocery store, which had become even more difficult since his arthritis had gotten worse.

Most days, Robert watched TV and read the newspaper or an occasional book. He watched baseball, and sometimes football in the fall, but he had little interest in other sports or activities. He had been a career military man, and once he retired and moved into civilian life he found that there was little in civilian life that interested him. The military had been his professional and social life, and once that was over he struggled to fill his time. And then his wife passed away, and he had even more difficulty keeping himself occupied.

So I became an important source of activity and interaction for Robert. Those evening conversations woke him up, reminded him that he still had something to share, something to give. They allowed him to relive the many interesting adventures he had experienced in his life, and he felt more alive while sitting and talking to me than he did at any other time. He hoped I enjoyed our evenings together as much as he, and of course I did.

Though his children didn’t know it, Robert was rather wealthy. He had saved all his life, had lived frugally, and had received some very good investing advice from his brother-in-law over the years. By the time the stock market made it’s run in the 1980’s and 90’s, Robert was heavily invested in the market and benefited greatly. His assets tripled in eighteen years, and when the end of the century came around and the Y2K fears were being talked about, Robert (against the advice of his brother-in-law) sold all of his stocks, and even his bonds, and moved virtually all of his assets into cash, where they remained ever since.

Robert had saved and accumulated over half a million dollars, and none of his children knew it. They were all successful in their careers and had no need for it. Robert had recently decided that such an inheritance would not be in the best interests of his children. He had seen too many families torn apart by fighting over inheritance, and he was determined not to let that happen to his family. His children had no idea he had so much money, and he made sure it stayed that way.

One rainy afternoon, Robert was sitting in his living room watching TV, as he always did. Out the window, he noticed a figure moving outside in the rain across the street. He stood up with a struggle and walked over to the window. He could see a hooded figure at the back corner of the property across the street. It was my house, and Robert could see that the hooded figure was me.

“Now, what the heck is that boy doing out there in the rain?” Robert said to himself. He couldn’t imagine what could be so important that I needed to be outside in the pouring rain.

Robert sat back down in his chair, but he continued to watch me out the window. It was far away, and Robert’s vision wasn’t what it used to be, but it looked to him as though I was carrying something. I disappeared behind the house, and then several minutes later I returned to the back corner of the yard and picked up something else.

Robert’s curiosity grew and grew. Finally, he could stand it no more and he stood up and walked into the hallway to fetch his raincoat. He looked in the bottom of the hall closet for appropriate shoes, but there were none. Didn’t he have a pair of galoshes somewhere? He couldn’t remember.

He walked back into his bedroom and looked in the closet. No galoshes. But there was a box in which he found an old pair of boots from his days in the marines.

“Haven’t worn these in ten years,” he said as he pulled them out of the box. “Not since I stopped marching in the parade.”

Robert carried his boots out into the living room and sat down in his chair. He looked closely at the boots. They were well-worn, but otherwise in good shape. He was anxious to put them on. He kicked off his slippers and placed his right foot in the right boot. It felt a bit tight. The leather was hard, but he knew it would soon soften. He laced up the boot, then did the same with the left one. When he was finished, he stood up and took a few steps. It felt strange to be wearing those boots again, but it also gave him a thrill.

He walked up and down the hallway, working the boots in. Then he put on his raincoat, grabbed an umbrella from the hall closet, and walked to the front door. It was raining, though not as hard as it had been earlier. He opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. The air was warm and humid and smelled like summer rain. He closed the front door behind him, put up his umbrella, and walked down his front steps and across the street to my house. He walked up the walkway, then around the right side of the house.

When he reached the back of the house he stopped and surveyed the yard. It was full of puddles, with patches of grass here and there. It had been raining for days, and had poured heavily all morning. The yard was a marsh.

Robert spotted me, standing atop the large mound of dirt at the back of the yard. I didn’t see him at first, so Robert stood at the back corner of the house and watched. I had a brick in my hand and was pushing it down into the mud at the top of the mound. Robert could see that there were other bricks on the top of the mound, forming a flat platform on which I was standing.

When I had placed the brick in the appropriate position, I walked back down the side of the mound and over toward several piles of bricks in the back corner of the yard. As I walked I noticed Robert standing there in his raincoat and boots. I smiled.

“Hey there, old man!” I yelled above the sound of the rain landing in puddles.

Robert waved. I walked toward him and said, “Are you here to help?”

“Help with what? What on earth are you doing?” he asked, a confused expression on his face.

“I’m building my mountain!” I said with a smile. Robert looked confused. “Come on,” I said, “Let’s go inside. I need to dry off.”

The two of us walked up the back steps and through the door into the laundry room.

Robert watched as I began taking off my wet jacket and boots.

“This ought to be good,” Robert said. “Tell me, what’s so important that you need to be out there on the rainiest day of the year?”

I was thrilled by the question. “Well, Bob, some things are so important that they can’t wait for a sunny day. And this is one of those things.”

“What is? Putting bricks on a pile of dirt?”

“Actually, its a pile of mud. But all the more reason to cover it with bricks.”

I finished taking off my wet gear, and Robert took off his own raincoat and boots. Then the two of us walked out of the laundry room and down the hall to the living room. I continued on to the kitchen. “Something to drink, Bob?”

“I could use a hot cup of coffee,” Robert answered.

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed, and I began washing out the coffee pot.

“So tell me,” Robert said as he sat down at the kitchen table,
“what are you doing out there?”

“Well,” I said smiling, “I had an idea about that mound out there. I’ve got loads of bricks from the old house, and I’ve got lots of free time right now. So I’ve decided to cover the mound with bricks. It’s my favorite place to sit and watch the sunset, so I figured, why not build a platform up there to sit on? That’s where the idea started, and it grew from there.”

Robert thought about it and nodded. “Are you gonna have enough bricks?” he asked.

“Not sure. If I cover all four sides with bricks, probably not. But I’ve got a lot of good ones out front in the walkway. I can always use those if I have to. Or I could buy some. But I have enough to get started. I decided to work from the top down, shaping it as I go."

Robert thought about it. “Well, I’d love to help, but I don’t know what I could do,” he said.

“You don’t need to do anything. Maybe just some moral support. I’m sure it will take me months to finish it. You can provide the entertainment.”

Robert smiled. “And the beer.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’ll do the rest. I want the top to be big enough to put a few chairs up there. And maybe a pole of some sort. I haven’t thought that far ahead, though. I’ll be happy just to have the top platform and a set of steps at this point. Then I can get you up there.”

“Yes,” said Robert. “I’m anxious to check out the view.”

I poured us each a cup of coffee, then brought my sketches of the mound over to the table and placed them in front of Robert.

“This is what I came up with so far. I thought the first few steps would be deeper, then some shallow steps, and then a few more deep ones at the top. So the slope would start off gradually, then get steep, then gradual again before leveling off at the top.”

Robert studied the sketches. “I like it,” he said nodding. “Its different.”

“I agree,” I said.

“But,” said Robert, “that doesn’t explain why you picked today to start working on it.”

I looked at Robert for a moment. “To be honest, Bob, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. The lawsuit doesn’t appear to be going anywhere at this point, and as you know I’m not working right now. I sort of hit bottom this morning, and working on this project was the only thing I could think of to lift my spirits. Which it definitely did, because I feel great now. A little wet and chilled, perhaps, but otherwise wonderful. Right now, I feel the best I’ve felt in days. All because I just spent two hours out in the rain carrying bricks. How about that?”

“Yes, how about that,” Robert replied laughing. “It sounds pretty weird to me, but what do I know? I just sit on my can all day watching TV. But I can see that you’re in a very good mood, so obviously you’re doing something right.”

“Oh, I feel great. I’m probably done for the day, but I can’t wait to get back out there tomorrow. I’m just about finished with the top, and then I think I’ll do a staircase going down the south side, toward the bricks. If all goes well, I’ll have you up there tomorrow night and we’ll toast our first sunset on top. If this rain ever stops, that is.”

“You’ve got a deal,” replied Robert, and then the two of us spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the project and about other things. Robert and I could talk for hours, about pretty much anything. There were rarely any pauses, or disagreements. Robert loved to talk, and I loved to listen.

Eventually, Robert went home. I spent a relaxing evening reading and watching television. I was in a very good mood, and even when my thoughts turned to the other circumstances of my life my good mood remained. I noticed that I was able to think about the very things that had made me feel depressed earlier that day, only now they didn’t affect me the same way. I saw them as simply interesting (though challenging) aspects of this stage of my life.

I no longer had any idea where my life was headed, but that was okay. I knew intuitively that it would all work out, and that eventually I would look back at this time of my life as being important, productive, and valuable.

I decided that I would do my best to remember that state of mind, and the next time I felt depressed or angry or frustrated I would try to return to it. I didn’t know whether or not I would be able to, but I decided that I would try.

I felt so positive, so appreciative of my life that evening that I knew I had stumbled upon or arrived at something important. Something that had to do with choosing my state of mind, rather than allowing my mood to be dictated by my circumstances or my runaway thoughts.

I didn’t yet know it, but I had arrived at a significant realization. One that I would forget and remember many times in the years to come. The initiation of my mound project was closely and symbolically tied to that realization. I was beginning to build something stable, something lasting, something of true value to me.

There in my backyard, on a typical street in a typical town, I had begun a journey toward an existence and a state of awareness that was decidedly untypical in the world in which I was living. I was embarking upon a journey toward a state of being that I was unfamiliar with and unaware of. One that would gradually grow more familiar to me.

And eventually, in the years to come, I would feel the need, the desire, and the obligation to assist others in discovering that state of being for themselves.

Chapter Seventeen

Hi.

I’m Paul.

“Paul who?” you ask, eyebrows raised.

“And what is Paul doing in Harry’s story?”

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m doing in Harry’s story: I’m here because without me, you never would have heard of Harry. I’m the reason you know about him in the first place.

If it wasn’t for me, those crazy ideas of his would never have “echoed around the world,” as I used to say. Sure, Harry was the one with all the ideas. He’s a brilliant spiritual genius, and all that. But I’m the one who brought those ideas to the world. Harry couldn’t do it. That wasn’t his job, his role in all of this. Harry is more of a one-on-one guy. But if his message was ever going to be heard by more than a handful of people, he needed someone who could take that message and run with it, spread it around. He needed someone who could mold his ideas and his story into something solid, something eternal.

And, as it happened, that someone was me.

I first met Harry in a smelly little bar in Ohio called Murphy’s. (no offense Tina, but you have to admit the air in that place was nasty!) I remember thinking, when I first glanced over at him, that Harry was someone who probably didn’t have a whole lot to say, that it was a waste of time to strike up a conversation with him. But I was a bit jumpy after my first day at my new job, and I felt like talking to someone.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), Harry was the only other person in the bar.

Well, except for Tina. Tina was the barmaid at Murphy’s in the afternoon, and although she was usually plenty talkative, she was at that moment leaning down and dipping pint glasses in and out of hot water while talking on the phone she held between her ear and shoulder.

So that left only Harry, down at the very end of the bar where it reached the wall. I wondered why he had chosen that particular stool until I saw the video poker machine on the bar in front of him. He was tap-tap-tapping away, immersed in whatever game he had chosen to waste his money on. He didn’t look up as I sat down three seats to the left of him.

“My name’s Paul,” I said, looking his way. “I’m new in town.”

Harry looked over at me, his right index finger paused in front of the screen. I hoped my attempt to break the ice was well received.

Harry smiled. “Welcome,” he said, nodding once. Then he turned back to his game.

“Thanks,” I said with relief. He seemed friendly enough. “I just started working at GE around the corner,” I said. “Tough first day.”

Harry kept on tap-tap-tapping. “And why’s that?” he asked, not bothering to turn toward me this time.

“Why did I start working at GE today, or why was it a tough first day?” I asked with a smile.

Harry nodded, grinning. “Indeed.”

That answer was, I later learned, typical of Harry. He loved short answers, short comments, ones that could be interpreted in more than one way, which he always seemed to find amusing for some reason.

“Well,” I said, “my day consisted of spending the morning in human resources and the afternoon being introduced to, oh, I’d say 50 or 60 people, none of whom I’ll be able to identify tomorrow. Unless they’re still wearing the same clothes.”

Harry laughed. “That would be even more confusing in and of itself.”

“True,” I laughed, my first real laugh all day. “Good point.”

It had been a really crappy day, not exactly what I had hoped for when I moved there from Syracuse the week before. Driving to Murphy’s after work, I had pondered whether or not it was a mistake to take the job. It never did feel quite right. At least not the position. My new boss didn’t exactly fill me with warm fuzzies, either. But I had been living at home for six months after graduating from college (electrical engineering), and GE’s offer was the best one I had received. Actually, it was the only one I had received. As well as the one I was least interested in.

But I needed to move out of my parents’ house, needed to start working. And Ohio sounded like an interesting place to start, even if it was only temporary. But I didn’t feel all that excited about it after having just spent my first day there. The atmosphere seemed stale to me, and most of the people I met seemed stiff and uncomfortable. I hadn’t met a single person that I clicked with right away, which kind of bummed me out.

Perhaps there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air – maybe the air filtration system wasn’t working right. Or maybe the managers had managed to “manage” the personality right out of everyone. Who knows. But whatever it was, the place was too quiet, too still. I prefer motion, energy, some liveliness, an occasional burst of laughter or someone yelling at their computer for locking up again. Something.

Unfortunately, I was stuck there for at least two months - I had paid ahead two months rent. But don’t get me wrong, I had no reason to believe the job would be all that bad. It was just a tough first day, that was all.

And it was that tough first day that brought me to Murphy’s, which is where I met Harry for the first time.

And the second time.

And the third time…

Chapter Eighteen

“So what do you do, Harry?” I asked him the next time I saw him, once again at Murphy’s. It was a Sunday evening, several weeks later.

“A number of things,” he answered evasively, smiling as usual. Harry smiled a lot.

“Such as?” I prodded.

“Oh, whatever the moment calls for, I suppose.”

Harry was reading when I came in this time. Our previous meeting had been a fluke - he’s not a video poker junkie. Every other time I found him at Murphy’s, he was reading. Rarely talking. Except to me.

I wondered if perhaps he would prefer to keep reading whatever it was he was reading, so I just offered a quiet laugh, nodded, and let it go at that. Much to my surprise, however, Harry continued.

“I used to teach,” he said.

“Really? Teach what?” I asked.

“Science. Eighth grade,” he said.

“Ah, science! My favorite subject,” I said, glad that we had a common interest.

“Well, I said I used to,” Harry continued. “I don’t anymore.”

I wondered why not, but I didn’t want to ask. “So what now?”
Harry shrugged. “As odd as it may sound, I don’t really know.”

I laughed. “Doesn’t sound odd to me. I’m sitting here talking to you because I took a job that I didn’t really want, in a town I’d never even heard of. So I don’t really know what I’m doing, either.”

Harry thought for a moment. “I’m not sure which one of us has it worse. I suspect you do!”

“Yeah,” I said, “I vote for me. At least you’re not spending your afternoons drinking stale coffee to stay awake and trying to figure out how to make the time go by faster.”

“No, I’m not,” Harry concurred.

“So what do you do? You don’t work at all? A rich ex-teacher? What, did you win the lottery or something?” I asked, smiling.

“Something like that,” Harry laughed. “I actually do feel like I’ve hit the lottery, in a way. But rather than sitting on huge amounts of money, I’ve got a vast new ocean of potential.”

“A vast new ocean of potential? Sounds good to me. Where can I get one of those?” I asked with a smirk.

“You already have one, at your disposal,” Harry answered. “You just have to decide that it’s there.”

I sat pondering what Harry had just said. There was an ocean of potential at my disposal, and I simply had to decide that it was there. “And once I decide that it’s there, I have access to it?” I asked.

“Well, you’ve always had access to it. You’ve been drawing upon it all along. But if you know it’s there, then it feels like you’ve won the lottery. An ocean of potential. Unlimited.”

Now, I had no idea, really, what Harry was talking about. But the words he was using were very clear to me, like I understood what he was saying far better than I should have. I’d never studied philosophy, religion, or any of those things. No interest. I never got anything out of it, and I always found that stuff boring.

I was definitely not a spiritual person, and the words he was using, such as “ocean of potential”, would have turned me off under normal circumstances. But for whatever reason, I was comprehending completely what he was saying. The idea of an ocean of potential, feeling like winning the lottery, was very clear to me. I could feel it, and I knew exactly what he meant. It was a weird sensation, easily comprehending something that, at face value, should have meant little or nothing to me.

That was the first time I noticed that I’m a different person in Harry’s presence. My mind seems to work better. Whether talking or listening, I find it easier to find or interpret words and ideas during my conversations with him. It’s like there is an extra current of intelligence running through my brain or something. I would notice it again and again in the years to come. And I would later realize that I had been permanently affected by the interactions I had with Harry.

Now, Harry would insist that he was not the “cause” of such effects, but only perhaps a “catalyst” for them. He would insist that I had chosen to place him in my reality to tell me what I already knew. And he would, of course, be right.

Harry gave me a crash course during the five months I lived in Ohio. Not that I asked for it, and he certainly didn’t view it that way. But just by being around him, you learned things. You were taught by his approach to life, his way of handling things, his way of questioning things. And of course his near-incessant observation of the meaning behinds things, the reason for things to be the way they are, the beliefs we are expressing at any given moment.

Harry was a walking assessment of reality, and he spewed his ideas and observations like an old fountain with no shutoff valve. He was full of it, alright. And it flowed.

And thank God it did, because I learned a lot from Harry during those five months. Just as anyone who spends time around Harry does. It can’t be helped. He seems to exist to do just that: express himself, and in particular share his understanding of things with the rest of us.

It would take many years for me to fully appreciate the gift he gave me, just by being himself. He didn’t set out to teach me anything. But I believe he intended to be helpful. He told me on a number of occasions that this was his underlying intent, even if his enthusiasm often led him well off the path of helpfulness. But Harry, and his view of things, awakened a seed in me that would later bloom into something beyond anything I could have imagined.

Something that would eventually spread to the minds and hearts of people all over the globe.

Sound farfetched?

A little “over the top”?

I would have thought so, too.

But tiny seeds can grow into very big trees. And the one that Harry awakened in me would grow to be a very large tree indeed.

I often saw Harry as an old, weather-worn gardener, hunched over in his overalls, watering can in hand. Harry watered seeds, and sent them on their way. He returned from time to time to check on our progress (or, more precisely, we checked in with Harry to see how we were doing).

Other than that, Harry was just who he was.

And he helped me to be who I am.

That’s just what Harry does.

He is a gardener.

Chapter Nineteen

The next time I ran into Harry, he invited me over to his place. I showed up on a Friday evening with a case of beer. He was sitting on his front steps when I arrived.

“Yo!” I yelled as I got out of my car.

“Good evening!” Harry yelled back. He stood up and walked down his front walkway. I popped open the trunk and took out the beer, looking around at the neighborhood.

“What’d you bring?” Harry asked as he arrived at the curb.

“Summer wheat, baby,” I answered, handing Harry the case of beer. “Already cold.”

“Perfect,” Harry said with a smile. “Come on in.” I followed Harry up to his house and in the front door. We walked into his kitchen, where he opened the case, took out two bottles, and put the rest in the fridge.

“Come on, I want to show you something,” he said, and motioned with his hand for me to follow him. We walked down a hallway, through a small room with a washer and dryer, and out the back door. We walked down a few steps and stopped on a concrete patio on which was arranged a table with an umbrella and four chairs around it. There was a propane grill to the right and a bench to the left. And straight ahead, at the back of the property, was a pyramid.

I say pyramid, but it wasn’t pointed on top like pyramids usually are. This was flat on top, with curved sides. “Wow, look at that,” I said as I stared at it. It was big – almost as tall as the house. I started walking toward it. Harry followed.

As I got closer, I saw that the structure was covered with brick steps. At the top, it looked like a chimney was sticking up out of the middle of it.

On the grass around the bottom of it were small statues, ranging from a foot to three feet tall. There was a Buddha, a Hindu god of some sort, one of Jesus Christ in a robe and sandals. There was what looked like a totem pole at one corner, and several other small shrine-type things that I couldn’t identify. These were arranged neatly at the corners and along each side. The entire scene was quite powerful to look at, everything neatly arranged. I immediately wanted to climb to the top of the structure, whatever it was.

“What do you call this thing?” I asked him.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t really given it a name. I guess I refer to it as my mound.”

“Well, it needs a name,” I said. “This thing is amazing. Can I climb to the top?”

“Go for it,” Harry said with a nod. I put my right foot on the first step. The bricks had been perfectly placed. Each row was straight and level. Harry, or whoever had done this, had known what they were doing and had put a lot of care and attention into it.

I counted the steps as I went – three deep steps, seven shallow steps, and three more deep ones. I arrived at the top and turned around. The view was amazing – I could see over Harry’s roof and all the other roofs around. I could see the building where I worked a half mile to the north. I could see the sun toward the west. It was early evening.

“Harry, this thing is awesome,” I said.

“I agree!” Harry said smiling as he arrived at the top next to me.

“You built this?”

“Yup.”
I thought about it a moment, then asked, “Why?”

Harry squinted at me, still smiling. “Hard to say. Lots of reasons.”

I nodded, and took a sip of my beer. “Like what?”

“Well, I wanted a better view of sunsets, for one thing.” I nodded again. “And I like to sit out here and read, ponder. Two of my favorite activities.”

I looked at Harry. He was facing the sun. For the first time I realized that there was far more to this guy than I had thought. There were things going on inside him that I knew I couldn’t possibly understand. I could picture him sitting up here on his mound, watching the sun move across the sky, perhaps a book in his hand.

What I had thought was a chimney was a column of bricks, two feet square and about my height. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing to it.

“It used to hold up a flagpole. But I use it as a back rest. Like this.”

Harry sat down and leaned back against it. I sat down and leaned back against an adjacent face.

“Ah,” I said, “I see.”

We sat there quietly for a moment. Then I noticed my bottle was empty. “I need another beer,” I said.

“Me too,” Harry agreed. We stood up and walked back down to the ground. Once inside, Harry filled a cooler with beer and ice and then we went headed back outside and up onto the mound.

We spent the rest of the evening up there. Sometime after sunset, the moon rose. It was a spectacular sight. I hadn’t watched the moon rise like that before. It was huge, a few days past full.

Harry and I talked about everything – sports, politics, even religion, which as I said was of very little interest to me. But Harry brought it up in reference to the situation in the Middle East, and he even managed to tie it into sports, though I can’t remember exactly how or why.

By midnight, I could barely walk back down the steps without stumbling, and I decided to crash on the couch in the living room. I awoke the next day with a splitting headache, left a note on the kitchen table, and somehow managed to drive home despite dizzying nausea.

And that was my first evening at Harry’s. My first time up on “the mound”. I would return many, many times over the next four months. At least once a week, and sometimes three or four nights a week, Harry and I sat atop the mound and talked, and talked, and talked.

I will share a few of those conversations with you because they were, quite frankly, life-changing for me. My perspective of myself, of the world, and of my reason for being alive changed dramatically during those four months, and perhaps you will find what I recount for you here as helpful and stimulating for you as it was for me.

So sit back, relax, make yourself comfortable.

And let me share with you what Harry told me.

Chapter Twenty

Between mid-April and mid-August, Harry and I had regular discussions atop his mound. Our conversations covered everything from religion and spirituality to politics and social issues, from schools and education to celebrity and entertainment. Harry had insights on any and every subject, and not once was he stumped by my many attempts to catch him off guard.

Harry always used to caution me, however, that anything he said was only relevant to the present moment, to his understanding at that point in time.

He used to say, “Don’t ask me next week or next year about something I say today. I will have changed a thousand times in a million different ways by then.”

So the discussions I present here are in no way an accurate reflection of his understanding now. They were what he was thinking and feeling at the time, and chances are he has learned more and understood more since then.

April 21st – Thursday evening, unseasonably warm, slightly overcast

Paul: OK, tell me about all these little statues around the base of this thing. Why did you put them there, where did they come from, and what do they mean to you?

Harry: I found them in many different places. Each one means something different, of course. They represent the major religions and spiritual paths that mankind has developed throughout our recorded history.

Paul: And what do they have to do with this mound?

Harry: Well, in a way they have everything to do with this mound. When I originally came up with the idea for it, I was in the midst of the lawsuit.

Paul: What lawsuit?

Harry: Three years ago, I tried to sue God.

Paul: Sue God? (this caught me way off guard)

Harry: Yup. I sued God. Or at least, I tried to sue God. It didn’t work, though.

Paul: Alright, hold on. Start from the beginning. Why did you do this?

Harry: To be honest, I’d rather not go through all the details. It was an interesting experience that went about as far as it could. There’s not much more to say about it.

Paul: Well, did you win? And what did you sue Him for?

Harry: No, I didn’t win. Though technically, I didn’t lose either. The case was never heard, and I ended up dropping the whole thing after a few months.

Paul: But you have to tell me why you did it.

Harry: Well, I did it because the human race is ridiculously confused about who God really is, what God really is, whether or not God really exists, what it is He expects of us, how we really came to be here, what happens when we die, which religions are right, which ones are wrong. Shall I go on?

Paul: No, no, that’s enough.

Harry: Indeed. So I really did it to prove a point, which was that we need to figure all this out once and for all. Because if we don’t, we’ll probably end up destroying ourselves, in one way or another. We’ve got terrorism, global warming, disease, poverty. And underneath it all, everyone thinks that their religious beliefs are right and that any opposing beliefs are wrong. And worst of all, we have radical fundamentalists who feel that there is a war of ideology to be fought in the twenty-first century, and they all want to prove that their side is right. It’s ridiculous, and chaotic, and God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. So that is why I sued God – to get Him to straighten us out once and for all.

Paul: And how was He supposed to do that?

Harry: Well, I asked him to send us one more messenger.

Paul: Ah, one more messenger. Good idea. One more guy for people to worship.

Harry: Well, yes, I had thought of that. But then again, why do you think it would be a guy? Maybe He could send a woman this time.

Paul: Oh, I’m sure the Muslims would love that!

Harry: Indeed! But that’s a good point: would anybody believe that this “messenger” was the real deal? How would we know it? Would he or she walk around performing miracles? How would people know that this person was a messenger of God?

Paul: That’s a good question. I have no idea. How did people identify the others?

Harry: Oh, every religion has their stories about their messenger, their prophet, their messiah. I don’t think we need to go through all that again. And besides, they all lived during other eras, other periods.
Some would say they have little relevance today because the world is not what it was then. All the major religions were founded over a thousand years ago. And it’s their lack of relevance today that has the human race so screwed up. Or so I thought.

Paul: Or so you thought?

Harry: Or so I thought. These are all things I was wrestling with back then. They are why I decided to sue God.

Paul: But you don’t feel that way any more?

Harry: Nope.

Paul: Why not? Isn’t the world just as confused now as it was then?

Harry: Yes it is. But I’m not.

Paul: Really? Why not?

Harry: Because I have begun to awaken.

Paul: Awaken? What, have you “seen the light” or something?

Harry: You could say that, yes.
Paul: Oh, great wise one, sitting atop your mound in your backyard in Ohio, please share your wisdom with the rest of us!

Harry: I’d be happy to! What would you like to know?

As an aside here, I have to say that at that particular moment I saw Harry change, at least in my perception. As I sat there looking at him, he seemed for a moment to be much older than he usually did. It could have been my imagination, but the way he was smiling at me, his odd confidence, made him seem like a different person than the guy I had met in a bar a few weeks before. That quiet guy playing video poker was not at all who I had originally thought he was. How many other people sitting in bars, or in libraries, or on street corners, are like Harry? How many people have silently attained a state of inner peace but have no need to draw attention to themselves, choosing rather to enjoy their lives and share their perspective whenever asked to do so? I wonder…

Paul: OK, let’s see. What’s the meaning of life? We’ll start with an easy one.

Harry: The meaning of life is life itself.

Paul: Huh? That’s not an answer.

Harry: Of course it’s an answer.

Paul: But it doesn’t say anything.

Harry: I respectfully disagree.

Paul: OK, look, if you’re going to give me non-answers, then you don’t really know any more than I do.

Harry: I agree. I don’t know more than you do. The major difference between us, perhaps, is that I know less.

Paul: You know less? Less than I do?

Harry: Indeed. I have unlearned much of what you still know. Therefore, I know less than you do.

Paul: And how, exactly, did you unlearn it?

Harry: By realizing that it isn’t true.

Paul: What isn’t true?

Harry: Much of what I knew.

Paul: Oh. Okay, I see. So you unlearned the things you used to know but that weren’t true. But where does that leave you now?

Harry: Less cluttered. Less confused. Truth is quite simple.

Paul: I’ve heard that. But why do we always see scholars and spiritual seekers pouring over teachings in an effort to learn?

Harry: Much of what they are learning, if they are making any progress at all, is that most of what they “know” is not actually true. There is tremendous freedom in releasing false knowledge.

Paul: Now you’re sounding like a wise old sage. I like that: there is tremendous freedom in releasing false knowledge. So if I am going to learn anything from you, it is going to involve unlearning. Would you agree?

Harry: I would agree with that, yes. Your willingness to let go of your limiting beliefs and ideas will produce the clarity and balance you desire.

Paul: I think I understand.

Harry: Good!

Paul: And now my brain is tired. Let’s talk about something else.

Harry: Fine with me. How are those Red Sox looking this year?

Chapter Twenty-One

April 24th – Sunday afternoon, sunny and warm, beautiful blue sky

Yesterday, a suicide bomber killed 48 people somewhere in India. I decided to see what Harry thought about it.

Paul: So what are your thoughts on the attack in India yesterday?

Harry: Ah, suicide bombings. What’s to say about them? Lots, I suppose. They are the release of pent-up anger, wouldn’t you say?

Paul: Yeah, definitely. But from a spiritual standpoint, what do they mean? Where is God in all of that?

Harry: Where is God in all that? Yes, that is certainly a good question. Most suicide bombers seem to believe that God approves of what they are doing. And even wants them to do it.

Paul: Do you think they really believe that? That God wants them to kill people?

Harry: Some of them probably do. Others probably want to be heroes. Its hard to say. It does appear, to me at least, that they are used as instruments of war more than anything. Like objects.

Paul: So they are being used.

Harry: Indeed. But they are allowing themselves to be used.

Paul: But why?

Harry: Because they are confused.

Paul: No kidding.

Harry: Are you?

Paul: What? Confused?

Harry: Yes.

Paul: Sure, about some things. But not about everything. I know not to blow people up.

Harry: That’s nice to know! But you acknowledge that you are confused about some things.

Paul: Of course.

Harry: Well, that puts you in the minority. Most people would probably insist that they are not confused about anything. Most people feel that they know what’s right and what’s wrong.

Paul: That’s definitely true.

Harry: And a suicide bomber is no different. He (or she) is absolutely convinced that they are doing the right thing when they walk into a marketplace and blow themselves to pieces.

Paul: Now, see, that’s where I’m baffled. What kind of mindset makes one think like that?

Harry: That’s the power of beliefs. When you believe something, and believe it strongly, it is a fact for you. There is no questioning. And so for some people, it is an unquestionable truth that certain others should be put to death. Whether it’s Islamic fundamentalists, supporters of the death penalty, or anyone else who sincerely advocates killing or harming another being. When you believe something, it is truth for you. It is fact.

Paul: But isn’t there an absolute truth? A truth that doesn’t depend on what any particular human believes?

Harry: That’s what God is supposed to be. That’s why people are always claiming that God approves of their choices. God is supposed to be absolute truth. And when you want to prove that you are right, you point to some scripture or doctrine to prove that God agrees with you.

Paul: Well, is anyone ever right? What does God want?

Harry: Ah! Isn’t that THE question? What does God want?

Paul: Yes!

Harry: Indeed, and that is one of our most fundamental dilemmas: we can’t agree on what God wants. Everyone interprets God in their own way, and everyone thinks he or she is right.

Paul: Well, wise one, tell us! What does God really want?!!

Harry: Well, look at it this way: Is there a difference between who God really is and who you perceive Him to be? Assuming of course that you believe in God’s existence.

Paul: Is there a difference? I suppose, yes. If humans perceive God in different ways, than we can’t all be right. So yes, there must be a difference between God as He really is and God as we perceive Him.

Harry: Or Her.

Paul: Or Her.

Harry: Now, you said that we can’t all be right. Are you sure?

Paul: Am I sure? Well, yes, I don’t see how it could be any other way. How could two people perceive God in totally different ways and yet both be right?

Harry: I’ll tell you how: because when a person turns their attention to God, they are actually turning their attention to their perception of God.

Paul: Okay, that makes sense.

Harry: So one could say that you cannot perceive God directly, you can only perceive Him from your perspective, your vantage point. You can only perceive God through your beliefs. And since your beliefs are not necessarily the same as someone else’s, you cannot actually perceive God in exactly the same way. Are you with me so far?

Paul: Yes.

Harry: Okay. So our religious problem as a race is that we are not distinguishing between God and our perception of God. We are assuming that there is some absolute Truth regarding God, and some people are aware of this Truth while others are not.

Paul: Right.

Harry: But in fact, no one is actually perceiving the Truth. No one is actually perceiving God directly.

Paul: And why is that again?

Harry: Because your perception of God is always filtered through your beliefs. Through your understanding. Through your ideas of God. Your perception of God is filtered, and no two people are filtering in exactly the same way. So we can never agree on who or what God is, or on what God actually wants, because we are each perceiving God in a unique way.

Paul: But what about those who want to perceive God in the right way? In the way that God actually is?

Harry: That is what the spiritual path is: the journey toward seeing God in a less and less distorted way. And I would agree with that, to a certain extent. But this brings us back to what we discussed on Thursday: the spiritual path is as much about unlearning as it is about learning. You’re not learning about who or what God is, you are unlearning what you thought God was. You are clearing up your distorted beliefs about what God is and what God wants. You must begin with the assumption that all the things you previously believed may, in fact, be incorrect. Otherwise you are stuck with a crystallized, unbending perception of God, and you can never get to a clearer understanding.

Paul: This seems to contradict what so many religions claim. They seem to claim that they have the Truth. It’s in their scriptures, their doctrine. Are they all wrong?

Harry: No. They are not wrong. They do have the truth. Their truth. Where they are wrong is in assuming they have the Truth. Everyone’s Truth. Absolute Truth. What they have is their truth. They have what is true for them. They have a perception of God that feels true to them. And it is true for them. That is the way they are perceiving God, and it is their truth. But it is not everyone’s truth. That is where they are mistaken.

Paul: I’m quite sure many people would disagree with you.

Harry: Indeed. From their perspective, I am wrong. From their perspective, they are right. And they are right. Within their perception, they are right and I am wrong. The only difference between them and myself is that I am aware of the relativity of truth, and they are not.

Paul: The relativity of truth?
Harry: Indeed. Truth, with a lower-case “t”, is relative, because when you believe something, it becomes true for you. And your perception is filtered through that belief, reinforcing it and convincing you that it really is true.

Paul: Can you give me an example?

Harry: Certainly. Two people go to a Broadway show. The first person has been to many Broadway shows, and has even seen that particular show done previously. They are not the least bit impressed. The lighting is poor, the singing and acting are sub par. The entire thing is a disappointment. The second person has never been to a Broadway show. They have never even been to New York. They are overwhelmed by the lights, the sounds, the atmosphere. They love the show, which they have never seen before, and the entire experience is incredible and exhilarating for them. Afterward, these two people strike up a conversation on the sidewalk out front. The first person is absolutely convinced that the show was awful. Within their perspective, it was a waste of time and money. The second person is still buzzing from such an incredible experience. Now, these two people witnessed the same show, did they not?

Paul: Yes they did.

Harry: And yet their perception of the show was completely different. It is almost as if they saw two different shows, that is how different their perception of it was.

Paul: I see. So the show was the same, but their perceptions of it were completely different.

Harry: Correct. And the same thing applies to any experience, up to and including God. Two people can perceive God just as differently as our two friends at the Broadway show. To one person, God may be judgmental, punishing, and vengeful. To another, God may be accepting, unconditionally loving, and a source of indescribable joy. Which one is right?

Paul: I see. They are both right.

Harry: They are both right. Because they are not actually perceiving God directly, they are perceiving God from their own unique perspective, with their own beliefs and experiences coloring that perception. And both are right. Both are experiencing God the way they believe God to be.

Paul: So instead of being so fixated upon God, we should be focusing instead on our perception of God. Because it is our perception of God that we are experiencing.

Harry: Very good! Our perception of God is true for us. We will see evidence of it all around us, because our perception of everything is unique to us, just as the two people at the Broadway show seemed to experience two different shows. Same show, different perceptions, each of which was valid for that person.

Paul: And the same goes for God, then. Everyone is perceiving the same God, but their perception and experience of God is unique.

Harry: And valid.

Paul: So the suicide bomber?

Harry: He or she is right. Their perception is real. Their picture of reality is real. Their beliefs are true for them. They may not be your truths, but that does not make them invalid. They are real and true for them.

Paul: But where does that leave us? If each of us is walking around with our own truths, we’ll never agree on anything.

Harry: We don’t have to agree. Who said we have to agree?

Paul: Well, we have to agree on right and wrong to have a society, don’t we?

Harry: No. What we have to do is allow each person to believe what they choose to believe. And that is something that we, as a race, have been struggling with. It is at the heart of our religious dilemma. Many people refuse to allow others to believe what they choose believe. Or they refuse to accept that any beliefs which differ from their own are valid.

Paul: So that’s the solution then? To accept that all beliefs are valid?

Harry: Indeed. All beliefs are valid. When you believe something, it is true for you. And your perception will be filtered through that belief, reinforcing it.

Paul: And we don’t have to agree?

Harry: No! That would be a disaster!

Paul: It would?
Harry: Yes! What kind of society would we have if everyone agreed on everything?

Paul: Uh, a peaceful one?

Harry: A boring one.

Paul: A boring, peaceful one.

Harry: Yes!
Paul: But that seems a lot better than what we have now.

Harry: What we have now are people struggling to learn how to accept. And as you look at the news and note all the conflicts and disharmony around the world, what you are seeing is a race trying to learn how to accept.

Paul: It doesn’t look like we’re learning very well.

Harry: Looks can be deceiving.

Paul: But we’re seeing violence and animosity everywhere.

Harry: Yes, because that’s what gets the most attention. No one pays attention when one more person finally realizes that acceptance is the answer. You don’t see the news ticker at the bottom of the television screen describing how thousands of individuals across Iraq are realizing that differences are okay, that people don’t have to believe the same things or think in the same way. What gets attention are the acts of people clinging tightly to separation, to conflict, to insisting that their side is right and the other side is wrong and must be defeated. What gets attention are the loudmouths and the suicide bombers, the people who are so immersed in anger and revenge that they can’t possibly consider the idea of acceptance. They are not there yet.

Paul: So even though we can’t see it, some people are beginning to accept?

Harry: Indeed. More that some. Lots. Thousands. Millions. More people each day. But you won’t hear about it on the news. There are no explosions or deaths to mark the emergence of acceptance. And yet acceptance grows. And eventually, gradually, it is emerging as the core value that will provide the foundation for our race.

Paul: Well, forgive me for being pessimistic, but I think that may be a long way off.

Harry: And that would be your perception!

Paul: True.

Harry: But if you begin to look for it, you will see it. You’ll see a news story here or there about a person or group of people who have decided to reach out across dividing lines of one sort or another. Across religions lines, ethnic lines, racial lines. It’s happening. It’s just not getting many headlines. But if you really want to see it in the world around you, begin looking for it within yourself.

Paul: Within me?

Harry: Yes. Try to notice each time you find fault with someone for thinking or believing something different from you.

Paul: That won’t be hard – the world is full of idiots, isn’t it?

Harry: Within your perception, perhaps! But remember, you’re not seeing the world as others see it, you’re seeing the world through your own perception. And if you’re perceiving idiots, that says a lot more about you and your perception than it does about others.

Paul: Oh, man, I never thought of that.

Harry: Perhaps you should.

Paul: I will.

Harry: Good!

Chapter Twenty-Two

May 7th – Friday evening, warm

I met Harry at Murphy’s after work. When I arrived, he was sitting with a gorgeous woman whom I had never met before. She had dirty blond curly hair, a radiant smile, and wore a tight blue sweater that distracted me for the rest of the evening.

As I approached the two of them, Harry stood up and introduced us. Her name was Anne. Anne stood up and shook my hand. She gave me a firm handshake and a very warm smile. I had the immediate and uncharacteristic urge to give her a hug, but she offered her hand before I had a chance.

I sat down to the left of Harry, and Anne sat to his right. You may be wondering why I am giving you so many details, and so I will tell you: it was the first time I met Anne, and it has remained vivid in my memory to this day. I was immediately attracted to her, quite strongly. In fact, I had a very hard time paying attention to anything Harry said while Anne was around. And it would be like that every time the three of us got together.

After a few beers, we all went back to Harry’s and spent the evening sitting on lawn chairs on top of his mound. It didn’t take long for Anne and I to make a connection, and soon it was as though we had always known each other. As the evening wore on, I tried to sense what kind of relationship the two of them had.

I could see by the way Harry looked at her and listened to her that he was very fond of Anne. He smiled when she talked, agreed with her more than he agreed with me, and I noticed that his eyes followed her whenever she moved. Of course, it was hard for me to notice that since my eyes were following her as well. But I needed to know where they stood. And if there was nothing significant going on between them, I wanted very much to get to know her better.

As nightfall arrived, the three of us were having a merry old time on the mound. I decided I needed to find out what the deal was with the two of them.

Paul: Anne, you haven’t told me how you and Harry know each other.

Anne: Well, I was his attorney a few years back. That’s how we met.

Paul: You mean for his lawsuit?

Anne: Correct.

Harry: She helped me sue God.

Anne: I helped Harry sue God.

Paul: Wow. What a way to meet!

Harry: She was the first and only lawyer I talked to who understood what I was doing. Or trying to do.

Anne: And he was the most interesting client I’ve ever had.

Paul: I would imagine so. There aren’t too many people like Harry.

Anne: No, he’s one of a kind. Aren’t you, dear?

Harry: I suppose.

Paul: So what happened afterward?

Harry: What happened with what?

Paul: With you two. (I was trying to find out if they became anything more than friends)

Harry: We stayed in contact.

Anne: For a while. And then Harry disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Paul: Really? Where’d you go, Harry?

Harry: Oh, I’ll never tell. (big smile)

Anne: He hasn’t really told me either. Come to think of it, it’s time you did. Tell me Harry, where were you? How long were gone, two years?

Paul: Two years? You disappeared for two years?

Harry: I didn’t disappear! I was somewhere.

Anne: But where? See, Paul, about six months after we gave up on the lawsuit, Harry told me he was going away for a while.

Harry: I think I told you I was doing some traveling, or something.

Anne: Right. You said you were going to visit some friends out west somewhere.

Harry: Except I didn’t really have any friends out west.

Paul: So you lied?

Harry: No, I didn’t lie. I assumed I would be making some friends out west. And those were the people I intended to visit.

Paul: So you were going to visit friends you hadn’t met yet.

Harry: Exactly.

Anne: It’s kind of a lie. Or at least, it was a bit misleading.

Harry: Call it what you will. I was in a weird place back then. And it didn’t really matter why I was going. I just had to go.

Paul: Why?

Harry: Well, I guess you could call it a soul-searching mission.

Paul: Ah. You were heading west to find yourself.

Harry: Pretty much, yeah.

Paul: And did you?

Harry: I did.

Paul: And where did you find yourself? Where were you hiding?

Harry: In Jasper.

Paul: Jasper?

Anne: That’s what I said, too. Harry, you never did tell me what Jasper was.

Harry: Jasper is a town. In Indiana.

Anne: Really? I never heard of it.

Harry: Neither had I.

Paul: And what did you find in Jasper, Indiana?

Harry: Myself. Like I told you.

Paul: And what were you doing in Jasper? What part of you was in Jasper?

Harry: Look, this is a long story. There’s not nearly enough time tonight to tell it to you, and I need to think it all through before I can describe it in a way that will make sense to you.

Anne: Oh, boy. Gee, Harry, you’re so deep and mysterious. And your life if so complicated, I don’t think Paul and I could possibly understand.

Harry: Come on, that’s not fair.

Paul: Well, why can’t you just tell us about your “lost years”? Give us the Cliff Notes version.

Harry: I’ll tell you what, the next time the three of us get together, I’ll tell you all about what happened in Jasper. Okay?

Anne: Fine.

Paul: Fine?

Harry: Fine!

Chapter Twenty-Three

The next time I met up with Harry was the following Friday. I went directly to his place after work. I picked up a pizza and some chicken wings on the way.

Harry was sitting on his front steps when I arrived. He was wearing a white golf hat and looked rather festive. He was sipping some sort of frozen drink, a margarita perhaps.

Anne arrived later. Harry and I were sitting in the living room when she came walking through the front door, a bottle of wine in her hand. She put the wine on the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes. Then she plopped down on the sofa next to me.

“Hey boys,” she said playfully. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Waiting for you,” Harry answered with a big smile. “What took you so long?”

“Who cares? Would one of you open that wine for me?”

Harry and I both stood up, looked at each other, then Harry sat back down while I walked into the kitchen to grab a corkscrew.

Anne looked around the room. “What are you doing inside? It’s gorgeous out.”

“As we said,” I called in from the kitchen, where I was rummaging through the drawers. “We were waiting for you.”

That wasn’t true – we weren’t waiting for her. At least I wasn’t. I had no idea she would be stopping by. But for whatever reason I wanted her to think that she was on my mind.

“It’s in the cabinet with the glasses,” Harry called in. I opened the cabinet in front of me and found the corkscrew. Then I opened the bottle Anne had brought and poured her a full glass. It was a Chardonnay. I took a quick sip before walking back into the living room and handing it to her.

“Here you are.”

“Thank you, dear,” Anne said and took a sip, then another sip, and then a few full swallows.

“Ah, much better,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Harry and I must having been staring at her, because she looked at the two of us and laughed. “Yes?” she asked with a tilt to her head.
Harry stood up and walked into the kitchen. “I’ll load up a cooler and meet you guys out back.”

Anne stood up and slipped her shoes on, then the two of us walked down the hallway, out the back door, across the lawn - which needed very much to be mowed - and up onto the mound. The lawn chairs were still there from the week before, and the two of us sat down.

“So how was your week?” I asked.

“Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it. I was in Dayton all week, and I don’t think I ever want to go back there again.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah. Well, I guess the city itself is okay. But they were five of the most boring, unproductive days I’ve spent in a long time. Probably forever. So I’m ready to let off some steam.”

I nodded. I noticed that she was wearing makeup, which she hadn’t the week before. She was wearing black pants and a red blouse with several top buttons undone, revealing a thin gold necklace.

I tried to look interested in our conversation, but I was mesmerized by her. Did I mention that she was attractive? More than a little. I tried to think of something else to say. My mind raced, but no words came to me. Luckily, she wasn’t at a loss for words. Apparently, she wasn’t as distracted by my presence as I was by hers.

“What is it you do?” she asked. “I don’t think you told me.”

I was relieved. “I work in R&D. For GE. I help design and improve electromechanical devices, computer assisted motion, stuff like that.

She actually looked interested. “Like what? Tell me about something you designed.”

I thought for a moment. None of what I did seemed interesting enough to describe to her. Luckily, Harry came walking out the back door at that moment. Anne and I looked over in time to see him stumble down the back steps, almost dropping the blue cooler he was carrying.

“Careful!” I yelled.

“Right,” Harry said without looking up. “Careful.”

Harry walked across the lawn and up the steps to the top of the mound. He put the cooler down and plopped into the chair between Anne and I. Then he opened the lid of the cooler and took out two bottles, handing one to me.

“Another beautiful Friday evening,” he said.

“Sure is,” Anne agreed.

Harry then told us about his neighbor whom he had noticed peering over the fence at him from time to time. This nosey neighbor seemed to think that everything anyone did was her business. She was the gossip queen of the block, and from time to time she would stop Harry on the sidewalk to tell him about something inappropriate that someone had done to their house, their property, or their family.

Harry was amused by the old woman, and he told us how he loved the challenge of listening to her without judging her. Most of us, to be sure, would find such a person annoying and petty, and would probably do their best to avoid her. But not Harry. Harry saw her as an opportunity. An opportunity to practice accepting, and an opportunity to be helpful to her.

“At first,” he told us, “I thought she was just a miserable old bag who spent her time judging and criticizing everyone around her. But then I realized that I was judging her. But I didn’t realize it at first. To me, it seemed obvious that she was being ignorant. But eventually I saw what I was doing. I was judging her for being judgmental.”

“Wow,” said Anne. “so perhaps you were the one being ignorant?”

“I was judging the judger.”

“So you weren’t any better than she was,” I said.

“Exactly. There I was, feeling that I was better than her because I was a more accepting person. I was comparing myself to her and concluding, without knowing it, that I was better than she was. And in doing so, I was doing exactly what she was doing.”

“That’s interesting,” Anne said. “I bet we do that all the time.”

Harry nodded. “Indeed we do. I find myself doing it a lot. And other people too. If you pay attention, you’ll catch yourself judging the judger.”

“Well, what’s wrong with judging?” I asked. “Who says I have to agree with what other people say or do?”

“Nothing,” Harry answered. “You’re free to judge or not judge, however you see fit. But this is a perfect example of how we tend to notice and find fault in other people for doing the very same things that we do. We just don’t realize it.”

“So why do we do that?” Anne asked.

Harry paused for a moment. “The answer is far more interesting than you would think, and not easy to explain quickly. But the short answer is that people mirror things back to us. We tend to draw to ourselves the same kinds of things that we ourselves express. So greedy people tend to draw examples of other people being greedy. Racists tend to see racism all around them. And you can be sure that the person who is always screaming about racism is a racist themselves. It’s the way it works. They are seeing themselves mirrored in the world around them.”

“I can see that,” I said. “But why does that happen? How do you draw those people to you? How does anyone draw anything to them? You mean like a magnet?”

“Exactly, just like a magnet. Think of yourself as a magnet, and whatever you express, or think about a lot, acts like a magnet that draws a matching expression to you. So my nosey neighbor must be obsessed with her own faults, because she is constantly noticing the faults of others.”

“Wow,” said Anne. “I’ll have to think about that some more.”

“It’s a very handy tool, I’ve found,” Harry continued. “Whenever you find yourself finding fault with someone about something, stop immediately and turn your attention back to yourself. What is this person mirroring back to you? What are they showing you about yourself?”

“Hold on,” I interrupted. “So every time I notice someone being an idiot, that person is mirroring that back to me? Does that mean I’m an idiot?”

“Well, we already know the answer to that question!” Harry said laughing. Anne smiled.

“But you know what I mean,” I went on. “I work with a bunch of imbeciles. Not all of them, but many of them. They drive me nuts.”

“Then you must be driving yourself nuts,” Anne said.

“Or more specifically,” said Harry, “You spend a lot of time thinking about your own faults, your own stupidity, and your coworkers are reflecting that back to you.”

“Do you?” Anne asked me.

“Do I what?” I responded.

“Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your faults?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” I asked.

“Most of us do,” Harry nodded. “And most of us find lots of faults in others.”

“And so most of us complain about other people,” Anne said. “I do it. I just spent a week with some very annoying people. I could sit here and complain about them for the rest of the evening. But, fortunately, my glass is empty. And I have to use the little girls’ room.”

Anne stood up and walked back down the steps and across the lawn. Harry and I sat quietly, watching. After she went in the back door, we looked at one another. Harry shrugged. I shrugged. We grabbed two more beers and waited for Anne to return.

Chapter Twenty-Four

May 19th - Wednesday, chilly but clear and breezy

I arrived after work to find Harry and Anne already out back.

Anne: Good, you’re here. Harry is going to tell us about his lost years.

Paul: Wonderful! I was starting to think he never would.

Harry: I had to wait until you were ready.

Anne: Yes, Harry. We weren’t ready for such powerful information.

Paul: You had to cultivate our receptivity first.

Harry: Hey, I have better things to do than sit here and be insulted.

Anne: Oh, but we don’t! Please tell us your story!

Paul: Yeah, come on uncle Harry, please?!!!

Harry: Alright kids. Make yourselves comfy.

(Anne and I ran inside and brought out a cold bottle of wine she had brought and three glasses. While we were opening and pouring, Harry began his long-awaited tale)

Harry: Okay, it all started three years ago. The lawsuit had gone nowhere and we had given up trying. Anne, you were dating what’s-his-name.

Anne: Bill.

Harry: Right, Bill. So we weren’t talking much anymore.

Anne: But not because of Bill. You just weren’t much fun to talk to.

Harry: I was a bit distracted. I built this mound. That was in the late summer. Then my neighbor Bob died. And he left me a bunch of money.

Paul: Really? Your neighbor left you money? In his will?

Harry: Yup. Lots of money, actually.

Paul: Wow! That’s incredible!

Harry: Indeed. So now I had more money than I needed, and I certainly didn’t need to find a job, which I had been worried about.

Paul: Wait, why did your neighbor leave you all his money? Didn’t he have any relatives?

Harry: He had kids. He didn’t give me all his money. He gave me about half.

Paul: And why was that?

Anne: Because Harry was the only person who paid any attention to him before he died.

Harry: Bob and I became very good friends for a few years before he died. We would hang out three or four times a week while the weather was warm. So anyway, he died, and he left me several thousand dollars, so I paid off the mortgage and the car and everything else, and I ended up with a big lump of change in the bank and no need to really do anything. So I hit the road.

Anne: One day he called me and said something like, “Anne, I’m leaving for a while. Talk to you when I get back.” He didn’t say where he was going, though he may have mentioned something about California.

Harry: Perhaps. So I packed a few bags, paid ahead on all my bills, and left.

Paul: And how long were you gone?

Anne: He was gone at least two years. I didn’t see him again until last Christmas.

Harry: I actually came home a bunch of times to collect mail, pay bills, flush the toilets. Did you know that toilets get really nasty when you don’t flush or clean them for a few months?

Paul: I never really thought about it. I’ll try to remember that.

Harry: Yeah, you better. It took me three hours to replace the inside parts and get it working again. After that, I drained the toilet every time I left.

Paul: What about the pipes? Did they freeze in the winter?

Harry: I kept the heat on, barely, in the winter. I never had a problem. So anyway, I hit the road. In October, I think.

Anne: It was just before Halloween.

Harry: Yes, Halloween. I brought my camping gear, and I spent some time camping and hiking and just taking my time. It was a beautiful autumn. I was far more affected by the changing leaves than I had been before. Gradually I worked my way west, spending a few days here or there, camping, sightseeing. I enjoyed stopping in small towns for lunch when I was on the road. Small town diners are the best. You meet the simplest, most perfect people in diners.

So eventually I made my way through Ohio, down into northern Kentucky, and along the bottom of Indiana and Illinois. I decided that I would get a hotel room when I got to St. Louis. I’ve always wanted to visit the blues clubs in St. Louis.

Paul: You’re into blues? I didn’t know that.

Harry: Well, I’m into pretty much everything. So as I got closer to St. Louis, the idea of sleeping in a hotel room sounded great. And eating in a nice restaurant. Total contrast to the campgrounds and diners I had been experiencing.

Anne: Now how long after you left home did you get to St. Louis?

Harry: It was about a month, but I never made it to St. Louis.

Paul: You didn’t? Why not?

Harry: I remember thinking afterward that I was turned aside by the Gateway to The West. Like it wasn’t time yet.

Paul: So you never went beyond St. Louis? Never further west?

Harry: Nope. I stopped at a historical spot just east of St. Louis called Cahokia. Ever hear of it?

Anne: Nope.

Paul: Never.

Harry: Well, Cahokia was a Native American city eight or nine hundred years ago.

Paul: A city? I didn’t know Native Americans lived in cities.

Harry: Oh, they did. This was one of the biggest in North America. Long before the Europeans arrived. I had read about it before, so when I saw a sign for it I decided I would stop and check it out. I parked at the visitor’s center and walked around for a while. The place is very cool. Kind of spooky in a way. There are mounds everywhere. Some are small, some are bigger. The biggest is called Monk’s Mound.

Paul: Any of them called Harry’s Mound?

Anne: Yeah, this one!
(we all stomped our feet and laughed)

Harry: No, there was no Harry’s Mound. But Monk’s Mound is huge. It’s the biggest in North America.

Paul: And why is it there? What was it for?

Harry: I think the chief lived on top of it. There was apparently a large building on the top that overlooked the city. So anyway, I walked along a path that wound around the outside of the park. There was one rather odd and amazing thing that happened. I was walking alone along the path, on the south side of the park, and as I was walking I felt a presence. Now remember, this place just felt odd. Like there were ghosts all around. So I stopped walking, and turned to my left, and there was a huge deer just standing there and starring at me. A buck.

Anne: How far away was he?

Harry: He was about 30 feet from me, I’d say. I was actually startled when I saw him. He was standing perfectly still, staring at me. And the weird thing was, he was missing half of his antlers. On the one side he had this huge rack, and on the other side there was nothing. The whole scene was surreal. There I was, standing in the midst of all these ancient mounds, feeling like I was surrounded by ghosts, not another person within sight, and staring at this huge buck missing half his antlers.

Anne: Wow.

Harry: Yeah, wow. My adrenaline was racing because he startled me. I never saw him move. He was just staring at me when I looked at him. After a moment, I got a little nervous. I thought he might charge me.

Anne: Do deer do that?

Harry: I don’t know. He looked like he might, though. So after a few seconds I just started walking. And then he turned around and ran back into the trees behind him. But the whole scene left me shaken for a few minutes. It just made the place seem that much stranger. So I kept walking, and the path eventually led around the park and up to where a road passes through it, right in front of the big mound. I crossed the street and began walking up the steps. The mound is tall, and it took several minutes to walk all the way to the top.

Paul: What’s it made of?

Harry: Dirt, I guess. Maybe rocks inside it, but it’s covered with dirt and grass. So I climbed and climbed, and then at the top I turned around and I could see all the grass-covered mounds spread out below. It was incredible. I tried to imagine what it would be like to look out eight hundred years ago and see thousands of people spread out in front of me. I could see St. Louis in the distance.

Paul: How many people lived there when it was a city?

Harry: I think they estimate it was as much as 40,000 people.

Paul: Really? That’s huge. I had no idea there were cities back then.

Anne: Well, they were probably more like towns than cities.

Harry: You have to be pretty organized to have that many people living so close together. So it was a complex society, for sure.

Anne: So you climbed to the top of Monk’s Mound. Then what?

Harry: Well, I sat down on the top step and took in the view. Down at the bottom of the steps, I saw a woman walking along the road. She was carrying something, and when she got to the bottom of the steps she stopped and looked up at me. She looked right at me, and then she started climbing up the steps. Immediately, something didn’t feel right.

Paul: In what way?

Harry: She just seemed out of place. She didn’t look like a tourist. She was wearing bell-bottom jeans and a zippered sweatshirt. As she climbed higher, I saw that the object in her hand was a bottle in a paper bag.

Anne: Oh my God!

Harry: Yeah. And she kept stopping every ten or fifteen steps to catch her breath. I tried not to stare at her. She kept on climbing, and she looked up at me from time to time. I was actually getting kind of nervous.

Paul: Why?

Harry: I don’t know. I guess I just felt out of place. I was out of my element. I was having this surreal experience, in a place I had never been to before. And here was this very odd looking woman with a bottle in her hand struggling to climb this huge set of steps and staring up at me every few steps.

Anne: I think I would have been freaked out, too.

Harry: She finally got to the top, after maybe ten minutes, and she sat down next to me and said hello.

Anne: How old was she?

Harry: She looked like she was in her mid-twenties.

Anne: Was she drunk?

Harry: She didn’t seem too drunk. She was slurring her words a bit, but she was also out of breath so I couldn’t tell.

Anne: So then what?

Harry: So she asked me where I was from, and I said Ohio. And she said she didn’t believe me and asked to see my driver’s license.

Paul: Really? Did you show it to her?

Harry: I did.

Anne: God, what was going through your head at that point?

Harry: I think I was actually shaking. I felt totally disoriented. I took out my wallet and showed her my license. I didn’t know what else to do.

Paul: Then what?

Harry: Well, she seemed surprised that I really was from Ohio. Why, I don’t know. But she kept looking at my eyes. She was smiling a lot. I realized that she was being flirty. She asked me what I was doing there, and I told her I was checking out the park. She seemed oblivious to the fact that we were sitting on an archeological wonder. To her it was just a big pile of dirt, I suppose.

Anne: Probably.

Harry: So then she suggested that we go into St. Louis together.

Anne: Really? Oh God, she was a hooker!

Harry: I think so, yeah.

Paul: Holy crap. You got propositioned!

Harry: Yup.

Anne: On Monk’s Mound!
Harry: Oh, I never thought of that. On a mound named Monk, I got propositioned.

Paul: Cool! So did you take her up on her offer?

Anne: Paul!!! Besides, Harry said he never made it to St. Louis.

Harry: No, Paul, I didn’t take her up on her offer. First of all, I wasn’t the least bit attracted to her. Second of all, spending an evening with a prostitute is not on my list of things to do in this life. And third of all, I was totally freaked out. I was actually scared at that point.

Paul: Why?

Harry: I had never been in a position like that before. It was probably the most disoriented I’ve ever felt. It occurred to me that the place where I was sitting could be a meeting place for that sort of thing, and that perhaps I looked like a potential customer.

Anne: That’s probably what it looked like to her.

Harry: Exactly. And I realized that. So I said no, I wasn’t looking for any companionship. She looked surprised at first, but then I think she realized I was actually there to see the site. So we sat there for a few seconds saying nothing, looking out over the mounds below and over toward the city skyline. The city looked incredible. The mounds below were casting shadows to our left. And then we started talking.

Anne: About what?

Harry: At first, we talked about where we were from. I told her that I used to teach. She wanted to know about that. I told her about the lawsuit. And then she told me that her father used to be a preacher.

Anne: A preacher? And she was a hooker?

Harry: Apparently. She never actually confirmed that she was a hooker. Maybe she was just being friendly.

Paul: Right!

Anne: She was a hooker.

Harry: Probably. But once we started talking, my impression of her changed. She became warmer, and I became more relaxed. And before I knew it, we were having a great conversation. She said her dad was a pastor of some sort, and that he had given up a few years ago and moved away.

Paul: Did she say why?

Harry: She did. Apparently, he started to feel frustrated with his own church, and his congregation. And he was increasingly disillusioned with his own religion.

Paul: You got all of that from a drunk hooker?

Harry: Her name was Rachel.

Anne: Rachel? Rachel the drunk hooker.

Harry: You guys are brutal! She didn’t actually seem drunk as we talked, and she didn’t seem like a hooker. So let’s call her Rachel, and show her a little more respect, okay?

Anne: You’re right. Sorry Rachel!

Harry: She said her dad was sort of a hippie, and that she used to walk to church with him when she was a little girl. She said he had long hair, which was very odd for a preacher. But apparently he was very popular for a while. But then he started bringing some ideas into his sermons that were outside of typical Christian topics, and the congregation started to challenge him on some things.

Paul: What kinds of things?

Harry: The one thing Rachel kept mentioning was energy. He apparently talked about everyone and everything as if it were energy.

He talked about people being energy, emotions being energy. Energy and vibration. Everything was made up of energy, and that energy vibrated. And everything that we experience happens because of our energy, our vibration. Well, his congregation was baffled by all of this, and eventually they became split between those who supported him and those who wanted him gone.

Anne: That’s really weird.

Harry: Yeah. So eventually he just decided to leave, and he moved away from the city and quit preaching.

Anne: And Rachel stayed?

Harry: Rachel stayed. She was in her late teens at that time, and she didn’t want to leave her friends. So she stayed behind and moved in with her uncle.

Paul: And where did her dad end up?

(Harry paused and smiled at Anne and I)

Harry: Any guesses?

(Anne and I looked at each other and shrugged. Then Anne suddenly sat up straight and looked at Harry)

Anne: Jasper!

Harry: Jasper, Indiana. That’s correct.

Paul: Holy crap! That’s how you end up in Jasper?

Harry: Indeed.

Anne: Wow! That’s so cool!

Paul: You went to visit Rachel’s dad? Why?

Harry: I can’t really tell you why. I just knew I had to. I realized as I sat there at the top of Monk’s Mound that I had come there to meet Rachel and to find out about her dad. And the next day I drove back to Indiana and found him. As if I had somehow planned the whole thing.

Paul: What’s his name?

Harry: His name is Albert. But people call him John.

Anne: Why John?

Harry: Because he doesn’t look like an Albert. At least, that’s what Rachel told me.

Anne: So you ended up in Jasper, Indiana. And what did you do there?

Harry: Well, John has a farm outside of Jasper, on the edge of Hoosier National Forest. And that’s where I ended up. It was the day before Thanksgiving when I drove down his long, winding driveway. His house sits way back from the road. The driveway winds through trees and up over a hill. The property is huge, with fields and woods and ponds and a stream. And it borders on the park, so you can walk for hours and even days without seeing anyone or anything besides nature.
Paul: Sounds incredible.

Harry: It is.

Paul: And how long did you stay?

Harry: That first visit? Seven weeks.

Anne: That’s incredible. You just met this guy, out of nowhere, and you stayed for seven weeks?

Harry: It didn’t feel like I had just met him. It felt like I had always known him. In fact, if I didn’t know any better I’d swear he recognized me somehow when I arrived. I pulled up to his house and got out of the car and there he was, sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch. He didn’t look at all surprised to see me. Happy, yes, but not surprised.

Anne: Were you nervous?

Harry: A little. But I felt like I already knew him after talking to Rachel the day before. He invited me up onto the porch and told me to have a seat in the chair next to him, and he offered me a sandwich and a glass of iced tea. I told him I had met Rachel, and he just nodded and smiled. Really, it felt like I was telling him something he already knew. He had a gleam in his eye that reminded me of Santa Claus. In fact, he even looked a little like Santa Claus. He had a bushy grey beard and was even wearing suspenders. He was quite comical to look at. And he smiled constantly. He was always smiling. He made me feel so comfortable, I didn’t want to leave. And so I stayed. For seven weeks.

Anne: It sounds like you were suppose to go there.

Harry: I think I was. I’ve thought about it many times since, and I’m absolutely convinced that I left home that fall to go find John. And I found him. In a most amazing way.

Paul: Well, finally, we know about Jasper, Indiana.

Anne: Yes! I’m glad you finally told us.

Paul: But you haven’t really explained why you stayed for so long.

Anne: Or why you kept going back.

Paul: For two years.

Anne: For two years.

Harry: Well, for that you’ll have to tune in next time!

Anne: Oh, Harry! Why do you have to be like that?

Paul: Got to keep us waiting.

Harry: No! Well, maybe… But hey, I can’t tell the whole story at once! I have to let my audience think and ponder and wonder what happens next. Right?

Anne: No. You have to respect your audience and tell them your story rather than playing with them and keeping them waiting.

Paul: I agree.

Harry: Well, I don’t! Besides, I’m tired of talking.

Paul: Okay, if we’re going to change the subject, then I have a question for you guys: I was offered tickets for the Cleveland Indians game Friday night. Do you guys want to go?

Anne: Sure!

Harry: Absolutely!

Anne: I haven’t been to a baseball game in ages.

Harry: Me neither.

Paul: Alright then, it’s a done deal. Who’s driving?

Anne: I’ll drive. What time should I pick you guys up?

Harry: Pick me up at five. We’ll swing by and pick up Paul and we should get to the park in plenty of time.

Anne: Okay. Five o’clock. Be ready.

Harry: I will.

Paul: Me too!

Anne: And don’t forget the tickets!

Paul: I won’t!

We spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about childhood trips to various sporting events. I was getting to know both of them better, and we were quickly becoming like old friends. Unfortunately, we lost track of time and wound up talking until after midnight.

I finally bid the two of them farewell and headed home. As I drove home, I wondered whether Anne would end up spending the night at Harry’s. I never did find out whether their friendship was anything more than it appeared to be. Part of me said it didn’t really matter. It was their business, not mine. But another part of me, a much more insistent part of me, wanted to know for sure.

Throughout our conversation that evening, I noticed that Anne had a tendency to put her hand on my arm every time she got excited about something. And every time she did, I felt energy run through me. Despite Harry’s interesting story, I found myself paying as much attention to her and her expressions as I did to Harry and his tale.

Over the previous weeks, I had gotten to know Anne quite well. My first impression of her had given way to a deep appreciation. She was funny, sweet, and beautiful. She didn’t take herself too seriously, was quick to joke about most things, and didn’t seem to have anything particularly bad to say about anyone, that I could tell. From all appearances, she was a balanced, fun-loving person. Who wasn’t currently seeing anyone, as far as I knew.

So by the time I arrived back at my apartment and parked the car, Anne was firmly in my mind. Her face, her voice. Everything about her was vivid in my mind. And as I pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened my door to get out, I froze with a realization that was both startling and exciting:

I had most definitely, without question, fallen in love with her.

I couldn’t wait to see her again.

I was looking forward to Friday night.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Anne and Harry arrived at my apartment a few minutes after 5 pm. The ride up to Cleveland took several hours, during which Harry and Anne pointed out the various places along the way which held importance to one or both of them. Both had lived in central Ohio for most of their lives and, as one might imagine, the region held lots of memories for both of them.

I felt somewhat left out during their trip down memory lane. I had grown up in central New York and had never previously been to Ohio. So none of the places Anne and Harry talked about had any significance to me.

We arrived at the ballpark at seven o’clock. There was a warm breeze blowing. Indians fans were decked out in their jerseys and hats. Spring was in the air. We parked the car and followed the hoards of fans toward the gate. I hadn’t been to a Major League baseball game since high school, and it felt wonderful to be back. Everywhere I looked I saw ten-year-old boys with caps and gloves, eagerly walking ahead of dads and families. Ah, the ballpark in the spring.

Just before we arrived at the gate, an apparently homeless man caught our attention as we passed by and asked if we could spare some change. Anne and I paid him little attention, smiling politely as we walked past but making no effort to give him any money. Harry, however, stopped and walked over to him.

Anne and I stopped walking and turned back toward Harry. “Oh, great,” Anne said with a sigh. “Harry’s been hooked.”

I nodded.

We watched as Harry walked over to the man and squatted down next to him. Anne shook her head. “I hope he doesn’t give him any money.”

"Why?” I asked her.

“Oh, come on,” she answered. “You know he’s just going to spend it on booze.”

I nodded again. I did know that. Everyone knew that.

After a brief exchange, Harry stood up, smiled, patted the man on the shoulder, and walked toward us. “All set,” he said.

The three of us continued on toward the gate.

“What was that all about?” I asked Harry.

Harry smiled. “Just connecting with one of my lost brothers.”

“Lost brothers?” Anne asked. “Homeless men are your lost brothers?”

“No,” Harry answered. “All men are my lost brothers. But some are more lost than others.”

Anne and I exchanged puzzled glances but said nothing. We arrived at the gate, I handed them their tickets, and in we went.

Our seats were excellent, on the right field line just beyond first base. We stopped and picked up hot dogs and beer on the way to our seats, and with ten minutes to spare we were comfortable and ready to watch a little baseball.

“This place is beautiful,” Anne said. Harry and I agreed.

“I was up for a playoff game five or six years ago,” Harry said. “The fans were great. I do love this park.”

The home team took the field and the first batter for the visitors strolled out to home plate. The Boston Red Sox were in town, a team I had seen play in Fenway Park up in Boston on numerous occasions. I had an uncle who was a huge Red Sox fan, and he used to take me to games every summer until he died when I was in tenth grade. I hadn’t been to a game since then.

The sounds and smells of the ballpark brought me right back. I guess most Major League ballparks have similar sounds and smells.

The game itself was relatively uneventful. There were a few runs scored by each team in the first few innings, then things slowed down and we ended up talking as much as we watched. Every few innings either Harry or myself would walk up to the causeway for another round of beers and something else to eat. The park was almost full, but the lines weren’t too long.

By the sixth inning, the three of us were feeling jovial and talkative. Anne in particular had more to say than usual. She seemed to be feeling the lagers and the spring air even more than I was. She was seated in the middle, and at one point she put an arm around each of us and thanked us for being such wonderful friends. I smiled and wondered whether or not she would be okay to make the two-hour drive home. I glanced over at Harry and could see that he was thinking the same thing.

But we were having a wonderful time, and there was no place else I would have rather been at that moment. I sat watching the Indians bat in the bottom of the sixth and thought to myself how lucky I was to have met such incredible people in the short time I had lived in Ohio. It had only been several months since I had met Harry in Murphy’s after my first day of work. And there I was, attending a baseball game with two people who felt like old friends. Like we had always known each other.

By the seventh inning stretch, we agreed that we would need one more round of beers. Harry volunteered to pick up the last round and walked back up the stairs. After a rousing version of Take Me Out To The Ball Game, Anne and I sat back down and waited for the bottom of the inning to start. At one point, I felt Anne’s head come to rest on my left shoulder.

I froze. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to move. I felt like a teenager, adrenalin surging through me. I was tempted to lean my head against hers, but thought better of it. And before I had any more time to think about it, she lifted her head off my shoulder and turned toward me.

“Know what?” she asked.

“What?”

“I’m having a great time.”

“Me too,” I agreed.

“Thanks for the ticket,” she said smiling.

I was about to answer when suddenly the crowd around us leapt to their feet. Anne and I looked up in time to see the ball fly over the left field fence. The Indians had just hit the go-ahead home run.

We jumped to our feet and threw our hands in the air. The ballpark was in pandemonium, and then something happened that has remained vivid in my mind every since. I turned toward Anne, and as I did she threw her arms around me. I returned the hug and the two of us embraced for the very first time.

Then we pulled back and looked at one another. Perhaps it was the beer we had drank (in fact, I know it was the beer we had drank). She looked almost serious for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face. And without warming she leaned in and kissed me.

It wasn’t a quick little kiss, either. It was a real kiss. I don’t know how long it lasted, but for a second or two the ballpark disappeared, the sights and sounds disappeared. My eyes closed, and we were all alone. And then a familiar voice brought me back to reality.

“Well, I certainly didn’t see that one coming.” It was Harry.

Anne quickly pulled back, and the two of us turned to see Harry walking down the last few steps to our row, three beers in his hands.

Anne didn’t seemed the least bit fazed. “We hit a home run!” she yelled, taking two beers from Harry and handing one of them to me.

“I know! I saw it as I came out of the tunnel!” Harry said joyfully.

I was totally disoriented, and I remember being surprised at how quickly Anne and Harry moved on. Apparently, Anne didn’t feel at all awkward about Harry having seen our kiss. And Harry didn’t give any indication that he did, either. In fact, it seemed as though it hadn’t even happened. Just like that, they were back in their seats and their attention was on the next batter.

I sat down slowly, trying to figure out what had just happened. Maybe it was no big deal to Anne. She didn’t act any differently, nor did Harry. But I was in a completely different place. I kept reviewing the hug and the kiss over and over in my mind. But each time I looked over at Harry and Anne, it was as if none of it had happened.

I spent the rest of the game in a somewhat bewildered state, caught between the euphoria of having been kissed by the woman I now fully admitted I was in love with and confusion stemming from the fact that she was acting as though it hadn’t happened. Maybe it really was no big deal to her. Or maybe she was covering up whatever she was feeling. Either way, I was in a daze for the rest of the game.

The Indians ended up winning the game, 5-4. On the way back to the car, we once again passed the homeless man we had seen before the game. And once again, Harry walked over to him, this time producing a soft pretzel he had apparently stuffed in his jacket pocket. Harry then reached into his other jacket pocket and handed the man what looked like dollar bills. Then he stood up and walked back over to us. None of us said anything, and soon we were back at Anne’s car.

Anne announced that she was too tired to drive, so Harry took the keys and got in on the driver’s side. Anne climbed in the back seat and I sat up front with Harry. There wasn’t much conversation on the way home. I think we were fairly well worn out by the game, the food and drinks, and the excitement of the evening.

Half way home, I looked back and saw that Anne had fallen asleep. Harry and I talked for a while about his teaching days, and I shared some memories of my college years. It was an uneventful two-hour drive, but we had had enough excitement for one evening. I, for one, had plenty to think about.

By the time Harry dropped me off after midnight, I was half falling asleep. I had to be up early the next morning for a breakfast meeting at work, and I was looking forward to my bed and my soft pillow. Anne woke up enough to smile and say goodnight, then let her head fall back against the seat.

It had been a wonderful night, one to remember. As Harry drove away, I waved and turned toward my apartment door. But deep in the back of my mind, I was struggling to figure out what had happened between Anne and myself. Did it mean anything? Would she even remember it?

Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was the beginning of something. Once again, I felt like a teenager.

As I finally climbed into bed, I stumbled at last upon a thought that felt good: It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what Anne was thinking, and it didn’t matter if anything ever came of it.

It occurred to me, as I lay there in the dark, that Harry was beginning to rub off on me. It was the kind of thing Harry would say - it didn’t really matter how things ended up playing out. They would play out however they played out, and there was truthfully nothing to do about it. Just let things unfold, and enjoy the experience. Harry had said that to me more than once, and now, for the first time, such advice was actually helpful.

The moment I realized that it didn’t really matter how things played out, I felt better. The stress dissipated, and I was free to reminisce about the wonderful moment I had shared with Anne that night. I no longer struggled to figure out what it meant. It didn’t mean anything. It just was.

And that felt wonderful.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Let me tell you about Harry’s library. He has a room in his house, which would normally be a bedroom, but which Harry had converted into a library. There are shelves lining three of the walls, with a couch along the fourth wall, a coffee table, and a recliner in the corner next to the window.

There is a small stereo with a collection of CDs and cassette tapes. In the corner opposite the recliner is an artificial tree adding a touch of green to the room.

In amongst the bookshelves are historical and cultural artifacts of various kinds. There are Native American items – North American, Mayan, Olmec, Inca, Aztec. There are European and Mediterranean objects – Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, Phoenician, Celtic. And there are Asian objects – Persian, Assyrian, Chinese, Hindu, Japanese. I may have missed some, but he had most of the major cultures represented in one form or another.

One day in June I spent a Saturday afternoon in Harry’s library, pulling books off the shelves and settling into the recliner. Harry had put on some music for me and then left the house to run some errands. I told him to take his time, and he did – he was gone at least four hours, during which time I scanned dozens of books, examined some of his many artifacts, and caught another glimpse into the mind of Harry Phillips.

Most of the books were religious or spiritual in nature. There were shelves for each major religion, as well as smaller sections for lesser known (to me) spiritual paths. In addition to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism, there were also volumes of works on some of the more esoteric branches of these religions – Gnosticism, Sufism, Cabbalism, Zen, and many others.

One shelf was full of books on subjects I had never even heard of. I spent the last hour before Harry returned looking through the books on this particular shelf. Most fell into what you would call the “New Age” category. Books about reality, metaphysics, psychic abilities, etc. I was most intrigued by a number of books that were apparently channeled. I had heard of channeling, but I didn’t really know what it was.

I pulled a few of these particular books off the shelf and plopped down in the recliner. The music was soft and meandering, mostly piano and stringed instruments. Sun streamed through the window, falling on my legs and the books on my lap. I opened the first one and saw that it was channeled by someone named Jane Roberts. According to the book, Jane was a woman who lived in Elmira, New York, and during her life she had channeled an entity named Seth. Harry had a number of books written by her and her husband, all supposedly channelings of this Seth.

What intrigued me most about these books was that Harry had them in his library. Lots of them, in fact. As I said, he had an entire shelf full of New Age materials – a hundred books or more. I was curious as to why Harry had so many of them, and what they were all about.

I scanned through the Seth book and the others on my lap over the next hour. I found the whole premise hard to believe. These people were supposedly going into a trance somehow and allowing people, dead people I suppose, to speak through them. Or type through them. And then these “channelers” were taking the material and publishing it. And people like Harry were buying and reading it.

At first, I was astounded that Harry was reading this stuff. My impression of this sort of thing had always been one of skepticism. I had played around with a Ouija board as a kid, and I had memories of sleepovers during which my friends and I lit candles and pretended that we were talking to ghosts. It was all very spooky and fun, very much in the spirit of Halloween.

Normally I would have dismissed books like these as whacky New Age games and delusions. But I had come to respect Harry, probably more than anyone I had ever known. And the fact that he had dozens of books supposedly written by channeled entities confused and intrigued me. I had to find out what this was all about. I intended to ask him about it when he arrived back home, but in the meantime I wanted a taste of what was in these books.

I read several chapters of the Seth book, and despite what I viewed as a ridiculous premise – that these books contained communications from dead people – I was astounded by what I read. Not only was the information “down to earth”, but it was fascinating. This Seth character was describing how we “create” our reality, and he was doing so in extremely precise terms. There was a logic and cohesiveness to the material that caught me off guard.

I had been expecting more of what I had always heard from psychics – predictions, the future, one’s “destiny”, the Age of Aquarius, things like that. But this Seth book contained nothing of the sort. It was about how we create our reality. According to Seth, we create what we concentrate on. Somehow, our thoughts and our attention are configurations of energy, and this energy somehow coalesces into our physical reality and our experiences.

I found the first book thoroughly engrossing, and I intended to take it home to finish reading it. I scanned through several more books and materials from a number of other non-physical entities – Elias, Kris, Tobias, Saint Germain, Kuthumi, Emmanuel, Aaron, Abraham (not the one in the Bible), and many others. I freely admit that I was still quite doubtful these writings were actually coming from dead people. The premise was absurd, and I wondered why people would go to such efforts to publish books claiming to come from such a source. And yet there they were, an entire shelf full of them, from sources of all kinds, written by all sorts of people, many of them with PhD’s after their names. The whole thing intrigued me, and by the time I heard Harry come in the front door, my curiosity was at full pitch.

“Harry,” I yelled when I heard the front door open. “Come back here.”

In a moment, Harry appeared in the doorway. “What?” he asked.

“What’s with all these books from dead people?” I asked.

Harry smiled and turned back toward the kitchen. “Books from dead people,” he said with humor in his voice as he walked back down the hallway. “What about them?”

I stood up and carried the stack of books I had been holding on my lap out into the hallway.

“They’re not really from dead people, are they?” I asked. I walked into the kitchen, put the stack of books on the table, and opened the one on top. “This one says it’s from someone or something called “Oneness”. What the hell is “Oneness”?

Harry laughed. “Don’t expect me to explain everything to you. Some things you have to figure out for yourself.”

“But why do you have all these books?” I persisted. “Did you read all of these?”

“I did,” Harry answered as he put away groceries.

“Why?”

“Because they’re interesting to me.”

“But do you believe that they came from dead people?” I was incredulous that Harry actually took these books seriously.

“I doesn’t matter what I believe,” Harry answered, “It matters what you believe.”

I shook my head. “There’s no way I can believe that people are able to channel dead people. Please tell me you don’t believe they can.”

“Why not?” Harry asked.

I was shocked by the question. This was Harry talking, perhaps the most rational, balanced person I had ever met.

"Well,” I said, “Because they’re dead. Dead people don’t talk. They don’t move their mouths. Their vocal chords are decayed. They’re under ground. Come on, Harry. Be honest.”

“I am being honest,” Harry said sincerely. “You have to decide what you believe. I can’t tell you what to believe. I’ve read all of those books in there, many of them more than once. And I got a lot out of them.”

I thought for a moment, then said to him, “So you don’t really care whether or not the writers of these books are making the whole thing up?”

“Nope.”

I was baffled.

“Look, Paul,” Harry continued, “I’ve learned that the information itself, and what I get out of it, is far more important than where the information comes from. It could have come from a frog, for all I care. If I get something out of it, then it has value to me. Regardless of where it supposedly came from.”

I nodded. “I guess I can see that. But the premise of the whole thing just seems absurd to me. Why would people go to the trouble of pretending that their books are coming from dead people? I don’t get it.”

“Well, my friend,” Harry said, “then you have a dilemma. You have come upon something that your rational mind won’t accept.”

“Exactly.”

“And yet you won’t just let it go.”

“I won’t just let it go because you have a bookshelf full of books by people claiming to channel dead people. And you don’t seem to have a problem with that.”

“Why would I have a problem with it?” Harry asked. “It’s my bookshelf!”

“Oh, I give up!” I said finally. I was frustrated.

“Good,” Harry said with a smile. “Cause you’re not getting anywhere anyway.”

I sat at the table and said nothing for a minute or two while Harry finished putting his groceries away. “Well,” I said finally, “if you don’t mind, I think I’ll borrow one of the Seth books. I already read a few chapters, and despite the fact that this Jane woman claims to be channeling a dead person, it seems pretty interesting anyway.”

Harry nodded. “Good choice. Seth is a wonderful place to start. That’s where I started.”

I looked at Harry. He had a slight smile on his face, and his eyes were sparkling.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he had planned all this somehow.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

June 25th – Friday afternoon, first hot day of summer – 92 degrees, high humidity

I had a dentist appointment in the early afternoon – a root canal, which wasn’t as bad as I expected, though I was told not to eat for an hour. So what did I do? I went to Murphy’s!

Tina was in rare form behind the bar – her boyfriend had just returned from National Guard duty in Arizona. The two of them were leaving later that afternoon for a weekend trip to Niagara Falls, and Tina was talking non-stop.

I listened politely to her for a few minutes while I softened the dull ache of my dental work with a pint of pale ale. She had the jukebox turned up extra loud, Fleetwood Mac echoing through the bar and out the front door. Tina had put a few tables out front, as she often did on hot days, and I considered going out and sitting in the sunshine for a while. Tina told me to go ahead out, and she would bring me another round in a few minutes.

I walked out the front door and sat down at one of the tables. Murphy’s was located on a fairly busy street, and there were plenty of interesting pedestrians to watch. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the day despite the heat.

I felt a sudden and deep appreciation for the town I was living in. In the three months since I had arrived, it had begun to feel like home. The grocery store, the restaurants, the gas station and drug store I frequented. The mall ten minutes away. Everything I needed was close by. The center of town hosted all sorts of events, including a small arts festival in late May and outdoor music every Friday evening.

My attention turned to my job, and I immediately felt my enthusiasm dip. I wasn’t thrilled with my job, not that I had really expected to be. I thought back to that first day, the one where I had formed such a negative opinion of my co-workers and the atmosphere around the office. The place ended up not being as bad as that first impression, but it still bored me.

I am a creative person, and I thrive on new ideas and new projects. Most of what I was working on involved long-term projects with very little movement from day to day. I spent most of my time writing proposals and managing petty details. Very little hands-on stuff, which I very much preferred.

Tina brought me out another beer, and I took a sip. Nothing like a cold ale on a hot summer day. I suddenly thought of California, for no apparent reason. I had always wanted to visit the West Coast, and I had even considered researching job possibilities in the San Francisco Bay area. I had several college friends who were now living out there, and I knew I had a couch to sleep on if I ever wanted to go out for a visit. Perhaps I could go out for a week and snoop around a bit.

But then I looked around and thought about how much I had come to appreciate where I was. I had made two very good friends, I was earning a decent paycheck, and I didn’t really have anything to complain about, other than a lack of excitement at work. And yet something was drawing my attention toward the West. There was something extremely enticing about California. I needed to go out for a visit, at the very least. Just to see what it was like, to see why I was feeling such a strong draw.

“Well look at you,” I heard Harry’s voice coming from my right. I looked over and there was Harry, all decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals.

“Oh, boy. Harry’s in rare form today,” I said shaking my head.

“You’re darn right!” he said in a raised voice. “First Friday of summer – let’s celebrate!”

Harry ducked inside and returned a minute later with a pitcher of beer and a glass.

“How’s the mouth?” he asked as he sat down across the table from me.

“Better now. The Novocain wore off, but I’m self-medicating now,” I said, smiling and raising my glass. “To summer!”

Harry finished filling his glass and raised it up to mine. “To summer!”

We spent the afternoon discussing my work situation and California.
Harry firmly believed that I should take a trip out to visit my college buddies and check out the area. He said that my strong draw toward the coast was meaningful, and that I should follow my impulse. Even if I later decided it wasn’t for me, the draw I was feeling was something to pursue.

“Oh, by the way,” I said, changing the subject, “ I finished the Seth book.”

“Good!” Harry said with some excitement. “What’d you think?”

“I really enjoyed it,” I said. “I understood everything he was talking about. It really made sense.”

“Excellent,” Harry said.

“So, we’re creating our reality, huh?” I asked.

Harry nodded.

I thought for a moment. “I can see that in some ways,” I continued. “I can see how people tend to experienced the kinds of things they think about a lot. I can see it at work. There’s this one woman, Melanie, who is constantly complaining. She complains about everything – her job, her boss, her husband, her kids. I usually end up walking away, because she’ll talk your ear off if you let her. So I can see how her attention is always on how much people bother her, and she seems to find problems everywhere she looks.”

Harry nodded. “We can learn a lot by watching the people around us. The tricky part is turning your attention back to yourself and noticing where you are doing the same thing.”

“True,” I agreed. “Self honesty can be a challenge.”

“A huge challenge. Most people can’t do it. Most people are so focused on other people and their faults that they never turn their attention to themselves. And yet many times, what they are noticing in others is something that they themselves are doing, only they don’t realize it.”

“We’ve talked about that before. So yes, I can see that. I don’t think that’s really anything new. But some of the other stuff Seth talks about is pretty out there.”

“Like what?” Harry asked.

“I was most intrigued by how he described the mechanics of reality creation. About how our thoughts are configurations of energy, and how those thoughts combine to create bigger thoughts, which eventually gain mass and descend in vibration until they enter the range of vibration that we are focused upon. See, that makes perfect sense when I think about it, but when I take a step back it seems absurd.”

Harry looked curiously amused. “Why does it seem absurd?”

“Well, because our brains produce thoughts. They are a result of synapses firing, and stuff like that. I’m no neuroscientist, so I can’t explain it. But Seth is saying that we exist primarily as non-physical entities, at a higher vibration, and that what we are perceiving is being created through our perception. As if it doesn’t really exist the way we think it does.”

“And yet,” Harry said, “we look around us and clearly it is all real. This glass in my hand is real. This chair under my butt is real. And I hope it stays real, or I’ll be on the sidewalk.”

“Right,” I said. “So this idea that physical reality somehow doesn’t exist except through our perception, that’s a tough one for me to swallow.”

“Allow me to clarify what Seth is saying, or at least how I interpret it. He’s saying that the world we perceive is made up of ideas, of thought-patterns, and that these thought-patterns exist at a higher vibration, a higher frequency, than what we are perceiving. This entire world exists first and foremost as a world of thought. Every object you perceive, including your body, consists of thoughts, of ideas.

“Now, when you create a physical focus, a physical life, you do so by focusing exclusively on a particular range of vibration. Your brain somehow keeps you focused on just this range of vibration that you see around you, and it filters out everything above and below this range. So your five senses are tuned in to this frequency range. Everything above and below is filtered out. So this is all you see.

“I’ve also come to understand that when we first initiate a new lifetime, as an infant, we haven’t yet learned to filter out all the other data. So infants are perceiving all sorts of things that we are not. And it’s the same with the transition out of this reality as well – many old folks begin to perceive objects and people and experiences that fall outside of our normal range. Sometimes we call it senility. But it’s possible that they are simply no longer filtering out all the data that the rest of us are filtering out.”

“Wow,” I said with astonishment. “And crazy people, too?”

“Some of them. It depends on the situation. But some of the people we label as crazy are just perceiving thoughts and thought-forms and events that fall outside of the range that the rest of us are focused within. And because we’re not seeing or hearing what they are, we call them crazy.”

“That’s incredible. I never thought of it that way before.”

Harry smiled. “Most of us haven’t.”

“But why not? Why don’t we know this stuff? Assuming its true, of course. I’m not yet convinced that reality actually works this way. But it is interesting. It certainly has piqued my curiosity.”

“And that’s really all that matters,” Harry said. “You’ve been stimulated to look at things in perhaps a different way, to consider other possibilities. An unexamined life is not worth living.”

“I’ve heard that,” I nodded.

“But to answer your question as to why nobody knows this stuff, it’s primarily because we’ve been exploring not knowing.”

“Not knowing?”

“Right. We as a race have been exploring physical existence in a state of not knowing. We have been creating the experience of perceiving ourselves as physical beings and nothing more. And despite our many religious beliefs that claim our souls continue to exist after death, the vast majority of us still believe that at least for right now, this is all we are. We may go on to something else after this life is over, but while we are alive this is all we are. A physical human being on a physical planet in a physical universe. It certainly appears that way, and that has suited our purposes just fine. Until now.”

“Until now?” I asked.

“Until now,” Harry said. He smiled and drank the last swallow of his beer.

I looked at him for a moment, waiting for him to say more. But he apparently had nothing more to say on the subject.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I flew out to California the second week in July. During the flight, I sat next to an elderly woman who was going out to visit her niece, a student at Berkeley. We had a pleasant conversation, though we had very little in common. I was most interested in her thoughts on growing older – she was approaching 80 and had been attending funerals every few months for as long as she could remember.

By the time we touched down at the San Jose airport, I was immersed in a very different view of life – one that gave me a strange sense of urgency. This woman had told me about the many adventures she had experienced during her 80 years, and about many of things she wished she had done when she was younger. I realized that I was really only just beginning my life, and that the many adventures to which she was referring were still in my future. Or so I hoped.

And thus I stepped off the plane with a feeling of purpose. I knew I had come to California to learn something, to discover something. I didn’t know what that something might be, but I was determined to remain alert to any and all possibilities.

I rented a car at the airport and drove to the home of a friend living in Santa Clara. It was a Sunday afternoon, and traffic wasn’t too bad. I was struck by how different everything felt in California – the people, the places, the voices on the radio, the weather, the landscape, the air. It felt as though I had stepped into a different world altogether. I would be hard pressed to explain exactly how everything was different – it was all feel and no specifics. But for a while I felt completely out of place, albeit very alive and alert.

I found my friend’s house without any problem – a one-story, two-bedroom abode with a very small front lawn. The adjacent houses were no more than twenty feet to either side. There was a small courtyard in the back. Regarding the house itself, I was most amazed by the thinness of the walls – they seemed nothing more than drywall. I was accustomed to the thick, insulated, winter-resistant walls we built back east, and these seemed so thin that a misplaced fist could easily find the outside.

The friend I was visiting was named Ravi, and he had been my roommate during my senior year at Syracuse. He was now working for an electronic equipment manufacturer in the Bay area, earning twice what I was earning back in Ohio. He was out front waiting for me when I arrived, and after a short tour of the house we went out for dinner – authentic Mexican food, the best I ever tasted.

Over dinner, we caught up on all the things each of us had experienced in the year since we had graduated. Ravi seemed excited at the possibility that I might move out to the coast. He said he could easily get me a position in his department if I was interested. I told him I might take him up on his offer, depending on how things played out.

I spent the next few days seeing the sights and getting a feel for life along the California coast. Ravi took a few days off from work and we spent a day up in San Francisco, drove down Rt. 1 to Santa Cruz, and back up through the mountains.

On Thursday I went into work with Ravi and he introduced me to his boss and a few of his coworkers. It was like night and day, the contrast between the environment there and the one I was growing tired of back in Ohio. The next morning I flew home. This time, there was no elderly woman to talk to, and I was left to ponder whether or not to make the move to the coast.

I reminded myself that all things are temporary, and that there was certainly no risk in moving out for a year or two, just to see where it might lead. I had received a tentative job offer from Ravi’s manager, and it seemed there was no reason why I shouldn’t take it. And so I did. The next day I called and informed him that I was interested in the position. And just like that, my life took a left turn and I was headed to California.

It was agreed that I would start in five weeks, the second Monday in August. Ravi offered me his spare bedroom in return for half the rent (which was still more than I was currently paying in Ohio). But my new salary would more than cover that, and leave me with plenty more to save or spend as I pleased.

I met up with Harry over the weekend and told him about my plans. He was thrilled for me, and told me that he would someday make the trip out to visit. We got together Saturday evening for a barbeque, along with Anne. Anne seemed a bit taken aback when I told her the news, though she quickly congratulated me and wished me luck in my new endeavor. I did, however, have five more weeks to spend with them, and I was determined to make the most of them.

That evening, Anne and I managed to get Harry to tell us more about the time he had spent in Indiana and about this mysterious John character he had stayed with. After dinner, we sat atop Harry’s mound and listened with interest as he told us about John.

Harry: As I said, his name is actually Albert. And as I said, he does not look like an Albert.

Anne: But what does he look like?

Harry: Well, do you remember the television show The Dukes Of Hazard?

Paul: Of course.

Anne: Sure. I watched it as a kid.

Harry: Indeed. And do you remember the movie Charlie And The Chocolate Factory?

Anne: The original or the remake?

Harry: The original. With Gene Wilder.

Anne: Yes.

Harry: Well, John looks and acts like a cross between Uncle Jesse and Willy Wonka.

Paul: Wow! That’s quite a combination.

Harry: You’re telling me. I didn’t know what to make of him at first. Long, white hair pulled back in a pony tail, overalls, bare feet – much like Uncle Jesse. But he moves around like Willy Wonka – light on his feet, a sparkle in his eyes. He often sings or dances, for no apparent reason other than the joy of being alive. He is the most unique person I’ve ever met, though for the first few hours I was sure he was either insane or on drugs. But neither was true.

Anne: But how do you explain his behavior? You said he was a minister. Was he always so eccentric?

Harry: I don’t think so. Perhaps he always was on the inside, and eventually he couldn’t keep it in any longer and that’s what finally drove him away from the church. It’s hard for me to imagine him standing in front of a bunch of people in their Sunday best sitting quietly in pews. But apparently that’s what he did, for many years.

Paul: Okay, so you showed up at this guy’s place at Thanksgiving. Then what? What did you do there? What was it like?

Harry: The property around John’s house is like an outdoor modern art museum. That was my first impression. The house stands in a clearing, surrounded by a ring of weeping willow trees. There are rows of flowers lining the driveway and on either side of the walkway that leads to the front porch.

Hanging from the branches of the willow trees are all sorts of objects. There are colored glass spheres hanging from the upper branches, and shiny metallic objects of various shapes and sizes down near the ground. All of them are hanging from fishing line, which you can’t see from a distance, so it looks like these objects are floating among the trees. I was a bit disoriented by them when I first pulled up to the house. They really do look like they’re floating.

Paul: And what about the house?

Harry: The house is two stories, small, with a chimney. Inside there is a living room and a kitchen on the first floor, and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. I stayed in one of the bedrooms most nights, though we spent a great deal of time camping down by the stream.

Anne: And it’s a big property?

Harry: Huge. Many acres, I’m not sure how many. It’s actually a farm, though most of the fields are overgrown. There is a barn several hundred yards behind the house. And a big fenced-in area with a pit in the middle for bonfires. John is big on bonfires. There was least one each week during my stay. It’s not in Jasper proper, but several miles to the east. There are lakes nearby, which we visited sometimes. Staying with John is a very outdoor experience. He spends very little time inside, except during the winter.

Paul: Alright, so it’s an interesting place, and John sounds like an interesting guy. But why in the world did you end up staying there for so long?

Harry: Because part of me was already there.

Paul: Where?

Harry: At John’s farm.

Anne: Which part?

Harry: The part I had forgotten about long ago. The part I had sent ahead to wait for me.

Paul: What does it look like, this part? Be specific.

Harry: Let me back up a bit. (pause for effect) When we come here, to Earth, when we’re born on this planet, we only bring part of ourselves with us. Who and what we truly are is far too enormous to fit into one body, one personality, and so we select certain aspects and preferences and highlight them. The rest of us remains in the background, somewhat dormant, although it is all available to us. But we are focusing our attention very narrowly as physical beings.

Anne: Alright, so what part of you was in Jasper, Indiana?

Harry: The rest of me.

Anne: The rest of you?

Harry: I’m speaking figuratively, of course, since all of me was available all along. But it was at John’s farm, in John’s presence and with his help, that I began to let more of me in.

Paul: Was this your plan all along?

Harry: Yes.

Anne: What, you planned all along to meet up with John?

Harry: Yes.

Paul: Weird. Did he tell you all this? Is he like a cult leader or something? He sounds like a cult leader.

Anne: Paul! Don’t be an idiot.

Harry: No, that’s a legitimate question.

Paul: Of course it is.

Anne: John sounds more like a guru than a cult leader.

Harry: Well, that’s much closer to the truth. But actually, he’s not my guru, nor would he ever agree to such a thing. The days of gurus are coming to an end.

Anne: What do you mean?

Harry: I mean gurus were helpful and sometimes necessary when the human race was still asleep. But it’s waking up now.

Paul: The human race is waking up?

Harry: Indeed.

Paul: I don’t know, it still looks pretty much asleep to me.

Harry: Well, what do you look like when you first wake up in the morning?

Paul: Like crap, probably.

Anne: Yeah, me too.

Harry: So wouldn’t you expect the human race to look pretty groggy and disoriented as it wakes up? And keep in mind, we’ve been asleep for a very long time.

Paul: I suppose. Sure.

Harry: Looks can be deceiving.

Anne: So did John tell you that the human race is waking up?

Harry: We talked about it. Very often, in fact. But I don’t need anyone to tell me. I can see it quite clearly for myself.

Paul: See what?

Harry: That the world is waking up.

Paul: I still don’t know what you mean by ‘waking up’.

Anne: In what way is the world waking up, Harry?

Harry: Individually and collectively, we are widening our awareness to include more of who and what we are. Up until now, we have been exploring a very narrow awareness.

Paul: On purpose?

Harry: Somewhat. Is a five-year-old a five-year-old on purpose?

Paul: That’s a weird question.

Harry: Well, what do you think?

Paul: I don’t think the expression ‘on purpose’ applies. He’s just five.

Harry: Right. And in much the same way, our narrow awareness just is. Or was.

Paul: So what, are we like graduating?

Harry: That’s one way of looking at it. In a way, we are. But not from high school.

Anne: From what, then? How far along is the human race?

Harry: Oh, I would say we’ve been in kindergarten, and now we’re in the process of graduating to first grade.

Paul: What?! Come on, Harry. Look at our society. We’ve got the internet, space travel, fast food. We’ve got it all! How can you say we’re only in kindergarten?

Harry: Oh, sure, we have lots of things. Children are very infatuated with things. But we have only really been playing with toys all this time. Although our toys are very sophisticated. But they are still only toys.

Paul: Well, what else is there?

Harry: You tell me. What else is there?

Anne: Spirit. Love.

Harry: Indeed!

Paul: But we’ve had religion all along.

Harry: We sure have. And how far has it gotten us?

Paul: Well, I’m not a religious person, but if you ask a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a Buddhist, they’d probably tell you they have found spirit, they have found love.

Harry: And truth.

Paul: And truth. They have found truth.

Harry: And have they?

Paul: I don’t know.

Anne: Judging by the disharmony in the world, I’d say no.

Harry: Why do you say that?

Anne: Because leaders frequently claim that God is on their side. And that the other side is evil.

Harry: And so their truths seem to conflict with one another.

Anne: Yes. So is anyone right?

Paul: I Doubt it.

Harry: I agree that they have found truth, but not the truth. They haven’t found Truth, with a capital T.

Anne: Is there such a thing?

Harry: Funny you should ask.

Anne: How so?

Harry: Because I’ve begun writing a book, and it’s going to be about truth. And Truth. And the difference between them.

Anne: You’re writing a book? Harry, that’s wonderful!

Paul: I knew you would. Or, I thought you should.

Harry: Me too. And so I’m doing it.

Anne: And it’s going to be about truth?

Harry: Yup.

Anne: Well, good for you. I can’t wait to read it.

Paul: Are you going to be a famous author?

Harry: I hope not.

Paul: What, don’t you want people to read it?

Harry: Of course. I want everybody to read it. Everyone who’s interested in it, anyway.

Paul: Well, if a lot of people read it, you’ll be famous.

Harry: Not necessarily.

Paul: Why not?

Harry: Well, I have no need or desire to be in the spotlight. So after I’m done, perhaps I’ll disappear.

Anne: Disappear?

Harry: In a sense. Retire.

Paul: But why? Couldn’t you be helpful to other people?

Harry: The few people who could actually benefit from contact with me will be able to find me.

Paul: How?

Harry: You can tell them where I am.

Anne: Where are you? Or where will you be?

Harry: I’m sure you can figure it out.

Anne: Oh, right. Indiana.

Paul: So let me get this straight: You’re going to write a book, publish it, and then move to John’s farm?

Harry: That’s the plan.

Paul: And if someone needs to find you, you said I could tell them where you are? Why would anyone ask me where you are?

Harry: Because you are going to publish it for me.

Paul: I am?

Anne: He is?

Harry: If you are willing.

Anne: Are you, Paul?

Paul: This is weird. What kind of plan are you hatching here, Harry?

Harry: A good one, if you ask me.

Anne: I understand. Harry wants to write his book and share it with the world, but he doesn’t want the world pounding on his door. So he’s going to disappear, remain anonymous.

Harry: Sounds about right, yes.

Paul: Hmmm…

Anne: So what do you think, Paul?

Paul: I’ll do it if you help me.

Anne: Me? Sure, I’ll help. Do we get paid?

Harry: Oh, more than you could possibly imagine!

Paul: I like the sound of that.

Harry: So it’s a deal then?

Paul: Sure. It’s a deal. You too, Anne?

Anne: Absolutely.

Harry: Wonderful!

Anne: Let’s celebrate. (raising her glass) To Harry and his book!

Paul: To getting paid!

Harry: To Truth!

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Okay, enough from those two. It’s my turn.

My name is Anne.

And before I get started, I want to compliment Harry and Paul on their contributions to the story. Are you enjoying it so far?

The guys have given you some of the details of our early years together. It was important that you get a feel for what things were like back then, because what comes later had its beginnings, in many ways, in Harry’s backyard.

There was a magical quality to our many conversations atop Harry’s mound, and that magical quality would eventually grow into something big. So while the three of us were busy laughing and telling stories, we were putting into motion something that would come to fruition many years later.

Okay, so let’s get started.

First of all, I am nothing like Harry and Paul described me. Well, maybe they were right about a few things: I am reasonably attractive (though I’ve now got some wrinkles around my eyes, and I’m not as pleased with some parts of me as I used to be).

I’m also very talkative at times. That’s one of the reasons I pursued a law degree – I love to discuss, argue, examine perspectives, things like that. When I first started working as an attorney, I was in heaven. It was exactly what I had envisioned, and I met and worked with the most amazing, intelligent people I have ever known.

Twelve years later, I was done with law. Unfortunately, I was still a lawyer. And I didn’t have any other interests that appealed to me. At least not enough to pursue in earnest. But you’ll never guess what saved me. You’ll never guess what came along at just the right time. Actually, you’ll never guess who came along at just the right time: Paul.

That’s right. I fell for Paul like I’ve never fallen for anyone else. You might not have realized it from what he told you, but Paul is a sweetheart. Probably the sweetest man I’ve ever met. Yes, he can be rather blunt and sarcastic. But so can I. And, in fact, those are two of the qualities that drew me to him in the first place. But underneath, he is very sweet and generous.

Paul told you about his trip to California. Well I, too, have always felt a draw to the West Coast, though not to California specifically. I am more drawn to the north, to Oregon and Washington and British Columbia. Perhaps I was once a Native American living in that area. That’s the only explanation I’ve been able to come up with for the strong draw I have always felt to that part of the country.

Let me give you a few more details about myself, while we’re on the subject (of me). I’m 5’ 8” tall, of average weight. I have dirty blonde hair, which I sometimes color either darker or lighter, depending on my mood. I think I look better with darker hair, but sometimes I need a change and, when I do, I go blonde. Not totally blonde, but almost. Particularly in the summer, if I have time to work on my tan.

I exercise once or twice a week, I enjoy hiking, kayaking occasionally, and I love a good game of volleyball at summer picnics. Growing up, I had lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, and we were always going to outdoor gatherings and family reunions. My family was big on parties, and most of my childhood memories are of playing with my cousins, shooting off bottle rockets, making whirlpools in Uncle Ed’s pool, and riding go-carts in the field behind his house.

I had a wonderful childhood, despite having a Mother who drives me crazy. She is the kind of person who has an opinion about everything, and she never hesitates to express it. That’s where I got my talkative, opinionated nature from. I love her dearly, but I can’t spend too much time around her. Just little doses, short visits, and everything is fine.

So back to Paul. A week after he returned from California, I received a phone call from him. I don’t think we had ever spoken on the phone before, and I was very surprised to hear his voice when I picked up the phone.

He had told me the previous weekend that he had received a job offer in the Bay area and that he would most likely be moving out in August. I remember feeling sad, but I tried not to let it show. I was, by then, quite fond of him, and had even gone so far as to kiss him at a baseball game, as he told you. And now, with the knowledge that he would soon be leaving for California, the appreciation I had begun to feel for him grew even stronger.

When he called, I was thrilled. My heart jumped in my chest, beating a mile a minute. We talked about his job offer, about his friend Ravi, and about all the things he did during his trip. I was jealous, though not of Paul. Of Ravi. I wished I had been the one driving down the coast with Paul, or having lunch with him in San Francisco.

I know, I sound like a little girl. But you know what? I am a little girl. I’m not afraid to admit it. There is a little girl inside of me. I think there is a child within all of us, one that we rarely let out. It comes out when we’re really happy, or sad, or drunk, or scared. But it’s there. It never really goes away. It just gets locked away, covered up.

So one of the ways Paul affected me was that he brought out the little girl in me. He inspired childhood fantasies that I had long since forgotten about – my prince, my knight in shining armor. He’ll probably gag or roll with laughter when he reads this, but it’s true. I can’t explain it, but it’s absolutely true.

So where did all this lead? What happened as a result of my infatuation with Paul? Was it temporary? Was it a schoolgirl crush?

No, it was not a schoolgirl crush. It was just as intense, but I was no longer a little girl. At least not on the outside. I was a successful professional, in her mid-thirties, and I was ready for the next phase of my life. I was through with the dating game. I never found anyone that way. Blind dates, double dates, arranged dates. Ugh. It was awful. I had met plenty of nice men over the years, but nobody I strongly connected with.

The first man I ever really connected with, in a deep and meaningful way, was Harry. And Harry will always have a special place in my heart. I was attracted to him, and I still am. But our relationship never became romantic. It probably could have, if either of us had brought it up. But we never did. Nonetheless, he is by far the most interesting person I have ever known. By far.

My relationship with Harry is unique. There is a comfort between us, one that I can’t really explain or describe. When I’m around Harry, or talking to him on the phone, I’m in a different place. There is an energy to our interaction that makes me feel alive and inspired.

So Harry and I have a deep friendship, one that does not require any kind of description or specifics. It just is. Harry and I are connected, and there is no need whatsoever to define that connection. I think we both know that.

And then Paul came along. I knew he was drawn to me, from the beginning. There was rarely a moment that I looked at him when he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes seemed to follow me everywhere. And at first, I assumed it was just because he was attracted to me. And who could blame him? I’m quite the catch! (she said with a sarcastic wink)

But after a while, I came to realize that he was an extremely open-minded and insightful person who was genuinely interested in what I had to say, and that his appreciation for me went beyond physical attraction. He really was fond of me, and I quickly grew fond of him as well.

So at the end of our phone conversation, after we had talked about California and job offers and various other things (we talked for well over an hour), I took a chance and asked him if he would like to have dinner with me some night before he left for the coast. He quickly said yes, and we agreed to meet at a local restaurant the following weekend.

I remember hanging up the phone and dancing around my apartment. I was happier and more excited than I had been in many years, probably since passing the bar exam. I was on a high that lasted for days. Weeks, actually.

Paul and I went out and enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and then we had lunch together three days later, and just like that we were a couple. We kept it from Harry at the beginning, though. Which was Paul’s idea. He was convinced that Harry had some sort of undying, unexpressed love for me, and that he would be heartbroken when he found out we were dating.

I felt no such awkwardness, and finally, after deciding the whole thing was rather silly, I called Harry and told him about Paul and I. Harry was thrilled at the news, and said that he had suspected all along that we would end up together. I immediately called Paul and told him about my talk with Harry, and in the end there was no awkwardness at all. Everything felt right.

So I finally had myself a man. One that I felt a deep affection for, unlike anything I had felt before. All my previous relationships had remained on the surface. I was never really myself around the others.

This was my fault, I know, and perhaps it took me until I was well into my thirties before I was ready to truly be myself around others. And maybe Harry had something to do with that. Maybe being around Harry helped me to come out of my shell. As I said before, he had that effect on me. I was myself around Harry, and perhaps that helped me to be myself around Paul. Harry provided the safe place I needed in order to peel away the facade I had always carried around with me, to finally be myself.

So that summer I found happiness. However, I had very little time to bask in it. I would soon face my first hurdle, my first obstacle to maintaining such happiness.

I guess that’s how life works sometimes: you finally find what you’ve always wanted, what you’ve always hoped for… you finally find someone who brings out the best in you, who inspires you to feel the kind of joy you’ve always yearned for…

And then he moves to California.

Chapter Thirty

Harry started writing his book at the end of July. He said it was going to be about truth, which we had recently discussed.

According to Harry, truth, or what we commonly refer to as truth, is relative. He says that we all assume that we know the truth about any particular subject, but that such truth is always related to our perception at that time. I won’t try to explain it any further, since I am no expert on such things. You’ll just have to read his book yourself.

Harry designated Paul as the person who would handle the publishing of the book - acquiring an agent, submitting it to publishers, working with the editor, choosing the cover, etc. And Paul was more than happy to play that role – he had grown increasingly interested in what Harry had to say, and the two of them talked often about the various subjects to be included in the book.

As July turned into August, Harry continued to make progress on his book. And Paul began packing for his move out west. Paul and I spent more and more time together, and I ended up staying at his place almost every night until he left. I helped him pack, I cleaned his bathroom and kitchen, I filled in nail holes and shampooed the carpet.

And all the while I felt a growing sadness. Soon he would be gone, and I would have a decision to make. As I said before, I was ready to move beyond my career as an attorney. I wanted to begin something more meaningful, whatever that might be. I was inspired by my conversations with Harry – his desire to teach others about themselves, his desire to contribute in some way to the betterment of the world, of our society. That had been part my original motivation for going into law, and although my passion for the legal system had waned in recent years I still had a strong urge to help the human race in some way, to help move it forward.

One afternoon, as I sat on the couch sewing a button on a pair of Paul’s shorts, he caught me off guard with a proposition.

“Come to California with me,” he said.

I stopped sewing and looked at him. I didn’t say anything at first. The truth was (there’s that word again), I had thought about going out to visit him once he got settled. But I didn’t want to impose, and up until that moment I wasn’t sure if he would be interested in my coming out.

“Really?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

Did he mean for a visit? Or did he want me to come out and live with him?

“When?” I asked, hoping he would give me some indication as to what he had in mind.

“Whenever you want,” he said. His answer wasn’t very helpful.

“For how long?” I asked.

He looked at me for a moment without answering. Then he slowly walked over and sat down next to me. “Come out and live with me.”

I was speechless. Images flashed through my head – leaving the firm, packing up my belongings, saying goodbye to my mother.

“Where would we live?” I asked.

“I’ll find an apartment once I get out there, and then you can move out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I’ve been thinking about it constantly. You’ve been saying over and over that you’re ready for a change. Well, here’s your chance.”

I looked at him. And just like that, I knew it was going to happen. I felt it, I saw it all in my head.

“Okay.”

Paul stood up quickly, pulling me up by my hands. “You will?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He wrapped his arms around me and we held each other.

“I can take a week off and drive out with you next month, then move out for good this fall,” I said.

“Can you? What about work?”

I laughed. “I’ve already decided about work. And many of my associates know that I’ve been thinking of leaving. They won’t be shocked.”

“So you’ll ride out with me? The two of us, riding across the country? This will be great!”

“I can stay for a week or so,” I said. “If your friend has enough room.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine. Ravi has plenty of space. And I should be able to find us our own place by the end of the month. How soon do you think you can move out?”

“My lease is up at the end of September, but I don’t have to wait until then. As soon as you find a place, I’ll move out.”

Paul looked at me for a moment. “Will you be okay driving out by yourself?”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done so much traveling by myself over the years, this is no big deal. Just a little longer than I’m used to.”

Paul didn’t look convinced. “I won’t be thrilled about you traveling alone.”

I smiled. “Maybe Harry would be willing to ride out with me.”

At that, Paul smiled and looked relieved. “You know what? I bet he would. Let’s call him right now and ask him.”

I walked over to the phone, picked it up, and dialed Harry’s number. He answered, and I told him about my intention to move out with Paul. Harry sounded happy for us, though I thought I caught a hint of disappointment in his voice. But not only did he insist that this was a great idea, he himself offered to ride out with me before I even had the chance to ask him.

“I’m sure I’ll need a break from writing by then, and a trip cross-country is something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

So it was agreed: I would ride out with Paul in August, fly back and begin packing, and then Harry and I would drive out some time in September.

I hung up the phone, gave Paul a kiss, and left for my apartment. I was shaking with excitement. And nervousness. This was a huge change. And I hadn’t made any major changes in my life for over a decade. My head was spinning with details, and I knew I needed to slow down.

Things were moving fast. And yet it all felt right. As if things were going according to plan in some way. In recent years, I had been thinking increasingly of change. Dramatic change. I was ready for the next chapter of my life to get underway. And here it was, the change I had been hoping for.

A new relationship. A new outlook. And a future that seemed wide open, for the first time in a long time.

Chapter Thirty-One

Harry and I left Ohio on September 24th, a Saturday. I had managed to pack all of my belongings into the back of my car and into a U-Haul trailer I had rented for the move. A friend had put a tow hitch on the back of my car, and now I had to get used to driving with a trailer, something I had never done before.

I took the first leg of driving, through Ohio and Indiana. We took the northern route, up I-74 to I-80 in Davenport. Harry and I took turns driving after the first day, four hours per shift. I had my entire music collection with me – tapes and CDs and MP3s. For the first few days, the two of us took a trip down memory lane, musically speaking. We listened to songs neither of us had heard for twenty years or more- music from the 80’s that we had grown up listening to.

By the time we got to Wyoming we were done with our intense musical journey and had settled into long conversations about everything under the sun – including the sun. And the moon, and galaxies, and the universe itself.

Sometimes we played a little game in which one of us would select a topic, as mainstream or obscure as we liked, and the other had to immediately talk about that topic. Harry stumped me with some good ones, but I couldn’t stump him at all. He had something to say about everything, which, I realized after a while, was one of the things I loved about him. He didn’t insist that he was right about anything, but he certainly had something to say about it.

By the third day, we were making good progress through Wyoming. But we weren’t in a hurry. Not at all. In fact, it was the first time in many years that I was not in a hurry. Harry had no need to get back home and he wanted the trip to take as long as I allowed it to. He was taking a break from his writing, and he wanted to simply enjoy what each day brought, no expectations.

We had a rough plan: we were going to keep driving until we reached the coast, probably in Portland, and then make our way down to San Francisco. But we had no specific time line, no place we insisted on visiting. Just the general intention of driving until we reached the coast.

However, there was one place I did want to check out, if possible: Oregon. I mentioned previously that I have always felt a draw to Oregon, and so I really wanted to spend some time there. I had some camping gear from when I was younger – I used to go on hiking and camping trips during high school and college. So we were prepared to do some camping if we had the opportunity.

Sometime near the end of our first week we spent the night in Boise. And the next day, we crossed the state line and entered Oregon. I was so excited, just crossing the border. I had made it! We picked up a state map and began to scrutinize it. We decided to head north and spend some time along the Columbia and Deschutes Rivers.

What a beautiful place! It felt like home to me – a home far away from home. We did some camping along the Deschutes River, not far from Mt. Hood. Neither of us was particularly interested in fishing, but we did cook up some steaks over a fire the second night. We had picked up a few real estate booklets at a gas station, and that night we talked about how much we both enjoyed where we were.

“You know what would be great?” I said to Harry as we sat around the campfire that night.

“What would be great?” Harry answered.

“It would be great to buy some land up here.”

“How much land?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess a few dozen acres.”

Harry pondered the idea. “It would be a good place for a retreat of some sort.”

“Yes! That’s kind of what I was thinking. Like a spiritual retreat. But not religious. Spiritual.”

Harry nodded. “It certainly feels spiritual. The river, the mountains. It’s so peaceful, yet full of life.”

The two of us were quiet, listening to the river gently flowing by. The moon was half full. Stars filled the sky. It was an incredible scene.

“I’ve got it,” Harry said finally. “I’ll sell my house, and we can use the money to buy some property up here.”

I looked at him. “Sell your house? Why? Are you going to move out here?”

Harry shook his head, laughing. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I haven’t considered it. But maybe. Who knows?”

I thought perhaps he was just kidding, so I went along with it. “You could run a spiritual retreat. You could teach. People could come from all over the world. You could finally be that cult leader I always thought you could be!”

Harry and I laughed hard, and he gave me the funniest look.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s a deal. I’ll sell the house and send you the money. You buy the property, get some cabins built, and I’ll be out when everything’s ready!”

The thought of Harry walking around in a long robe, preaching to the people, had me in stitches. I rolled off the log I was sitting on, nearly finding my way into the fire. Harry grabbed my shoulder to keep me from burning myself.

“I’m saved!” I said between fits of laughter. The chardonnay we were drinking had me feeling giddy and playful.

Harry and I slept out under the stars that night.

We woke up early the next morning, and after a small breakfast we packed up and hit the road. We spent the morning driving around and surveying various areas and properties. We made it to Portland by mid-afternoon and had a wonderful afternoon and evening in the city. Then we rented a hotel room downtown and spent the night visiting some of the night spots.

The next day we began our drive down the coast, finally arriving at Ravi’s place on Monday, October 10th. Our journey had lasted sixteen days, and by the end of it I knew Harry better than probably anyone else in the world. I was convinced that he would someday move out to the coast as well, though I knew he was not yet ready to do so.

Paul had already found a small house for us to rent, and Harry helped us move in. Then the four of us (including Ravi) spent a day and evening in San Francisco, and the next day Harry flew home.

It had been a beautiful, perfect trip from Ohio to California, one that I will always cherish. I hoped that Harry would come out for another visit before long. I drove him to the airport and bid him farewell, assuring him and myself that we would see each other again soon.

That, however, would not be the case. It would be almost three years before I would see him again.

And by that time, things would be very different.

Chapter Thirty-Two

In early November, I discovered I was pregnant. Two weeks later, Paul and I decided to get married. In early December, I miscarried. By Christmas, the wedding was off.

I don’t feel the need to describe such events in detail, and they are not terribly relevant to the story. However, they did change me. How could they not? It was an emotional roller coaster like I’ve never experienced before or since. To say that it triggered some soul searching on my part would be an understatement.

I never told Harry about any of these events, and I couldn’t have even if I had wanted to. Harry had immersed himself in his writing, and we never talked long enough to get to such details.

We spoke on the phone several times in the weeks immediately following my move to California, but after that there was no contact between us. Harry’s not really a phone person, and to be honest neither am I. So I wasn’t terribly bothered by our lack of communication. But it would have been nice to have someone else besides Paul to talk to.

As the new year began, Paul and Ravi started their own company. Paul has always been a whiz with small electronic devices – miniature cameras, microphones, stuff like that. Keep in mind, I am not into these things and never really paid too much attention to what they were doing. But Paul was always playing with his little electronic toys, and Ravi was an expert with software. And when the two of them got together and started brainstorming, their enthusiasm was boundless.

So Paul and Ravi quit their jobs and started up a company that designed devices and software for capturing and analyzing audio and video. That’s pretty much all I knew about it at the time. Ravi is by far the most organized, motivated person I have ever met – and I have met some organized and motivated people in my life. But Ravi was incredible, and his drive, coupled with Paul’s creativity, led to almost instant success.

By late spring they had lined up clients and begun working with a contract manufacturer to produce their devices. As I said, I paid little attention to what they were doing at that time, as my attention was elsewhere. While they were busy designing things and filing for patents and talking up their product, I was moving in a very different direction.

The changes and events I had experienced since the previous fall – the drive out west with Harry, the new living environment, the beginning and ending of my pregnancy and potential marriage to Paul (which would happen eventually, by the way) had caused me to reflect upon and delve into the deepest parts of myself. I struggled to make sense of all that had happened over the previous eight months, and I needed to find some meaning in all of it. I needed to feel that it was all leading somewhere, that there was some purpose behind it. I needed to know that I wasn’t just drifting aimlessly, that I wouldn’t end up smashed upon the rocks or washed up on the beach. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

So this was my soul searching phase. And I got down into it. Deep down into it. And who did I talk to about it? Nobody. I had nobody to talk to. The one person who could have helped me had dropped out of my life. He was living two thousand miles away, and he didn’t answer his phone. In fact, he no longer had a phone number. It had been disconnected. For all I knew, Harry had somehow lost his mind, gone crazy, and would never again be a part of my life.

Things were bad. I hit the bottom. I was experiencing what Harry had often referred to as “the dark night of the soul,” which I had always rolled my eyes at. It sounded like more of Harry’s dramatic spiritual jargon. But those months in California, I finally understood what he meant. I was in my dark night, alright. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Do you know what it feels like to be rudderless? To wonder who you are and what you are doing here?

Excuse me for being dramatic, but I’m trying to convey something that I have since understood to be not only common, but necessary. Necessary? Yes, necessary. Let me explain.

When life is working for us, we tend not to question. When we feel good about where we are in life, about our circumstances and our future, we don’t ask big questions. We don’t wonder about such things.

It’s only when the game breaks down, when life “stops working”, that we take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Perhaps it’s out of necessity, in an effort to continue living, that we search for a wider perspective of our lives, of ourselves. I had always thought that this was the role of religion – to tell you who and what you are, why you are here, what your purpose is. But several years earlier, Harry had told me that religion can only take you so far. It can lead you to a doorway of sorts, but it will not take you through it.

You have to make that journey on your own. You have to pick up your cross and bear it. Jesus can’t carry it for you.

I remember being somewhat taken aback when Harry spoke so bluntly about the distortions within Christianity and the other world religions. According to him, the vast majority of people who follow a religion are unaware of the deeper meaning within their own religion. I’ll see if I can accurately convey what Harry told me, and I apologize if I misrepresent his points.

According to Harry, the core truth at the heart of every religion is the same: each of us is an extension of the Creator, which is the source of everything and everyone. There is a source, which some call God, some call All That Is, and there are many other names. And apparently, this source chooses to experience itself in infinite ways, from infinite perspectives, as individual parts. Each of us is one of those parts, and each part contains the whole, the source, and is that source, expressing itself through each part.

Harry called this the divine dichotomy – that each of us is the whole, the source, while being separate from it at the same time. Or at least perceiving ourselves to be separate from it.

And so all religions, according to Harry, are providing information in order to lead the individual to the realization that they are already one with their Creator, and that there is nothing one needs to do to experience that union other that to realize it. And the process of realizing that you are one with your Creator, that you are the Creator, expressing itself through you, is the spiritual path.

Now, please keep in mind that I am paraphrasing here, and that I may have thoroughly distorted Harry’s perspective on all of this, but these are the things I pondered during the dark times through which I struggled during my first year in California. I had moved out there in anticipation of joy and a new beginning, and within a few months I was tossed into a very dark place.

But there is good news! I did come out of it. I did survive. And in the process, I learned far more about myself than I ever could have otherwise. I came to realizations that I can’t possibly describe in words. You’ll just have to figure them out for yourselves, if you haven’t already. Those who have gone through the process I am describing and have come out the other side know what I am talking about. And those who haven’t, well, maybe your path will be different.

But this was my path. And as hard as it was, I now see it as having been necessary. I had been so rooted in what I thought I was, in what I thought this world was, that the only way to get beyond it was to bring it all crashing down around me, to see it for what it really is: an illusion.

I came to understand that I am not really a confused human being, struggling to get by in a harsh world. I am a manifestation of the Creator, joyfully translating spirit into matter, into form. And from that perspective, I can see that I have embarked upon a glorious journey - a gift to my Creator.

This is some of what I learned during my first year in California. And like most people who have emerged from their own dark confusion and found a clearer picture of who and what they are and why they are here, I resolved to help others find such realization for themselves.

I wanted to tell Harry what I had been through, what I had come to understand, and at first I was frustrated by his lack of accessibility. But then it occurred to me that I, myself, was choosing in some way and on some level to separate myself from him, at least temporarily.

Perhaps Harry knew that it was time for me to “get down into it”, as he would said. Perhaps he knew that I had to find my own two feet, spiritually speaking, without running to him every other day and asking him to explain exactly what I was feeling and going through.

I don’t know for sure, and we never discussed it. It’s even possible that he was going through similar things back in Ohio. He may have cut himself off from the outside world for similar reasons. But whatever the case may be, I had arrived at a perception of myself which stood in stark contrast to the way I had seen myself previously. I was no longer looking for things outside of me to define who I was, to point out the direction I was to move in next. I had found a source within myself that did not depend on anything outside of me. I was becoming a sovereign being, less and less affected by the winds and storms that we call the drama of life.

My next step was to somehow harness my new enthusiasm for life and for the human experience. Not only did my recent spiritual progress awaken within me an intense appreciation of myself, but it also sparked a passion for my fellow human beings. Everywhere I looked I saw amazing, masterful creators who were complete unaware of who and what they were. They were still seeing themselves as I used to see myself – as lowly human beings struggling to exist and to make some sort of sense of their existence, struggling to please themselves and the people in their lives and perhaps even God – the God they believed was watching and judging their every move.

Or worse yet, the people who did not believe in any sort of existence outside of this earthly one. Those were the people who could benefit the most from a wider perspective, from the knowledge that there is more to us than what we see here.

I am trying to convey to you what I began to feel back then and what I continue to feel to this day. It is that enthusiasm which inspired and motivated me to pursue the project Harry and I had talked about up in Oregon: a retreat, a place to go to talk about these things, to ponder these things, to dig and discover what lies underneath our human existence.

The religions of the world are all pointing to this same thing, and I was beginning to share Harry’s desire to stimulate and inspire others to discover the truth within themselves. And the idea of creating a place where people could do such things, in an open minded and creative way, filled me with joy.

By the time spring rolled in, I knew why I had moved to the West Coast. I knew where I wanted to direct my time and energy. I now had a purpose, and I was happier, by far, than I had ever been. And it wasn’t a happiness based on circumstances, or on what others thought of me, or on something I had accomplished. It was based on nothing more than my excitement about who I am and about the potential and the desire that is within me.

Have you ever felt that?

Have you ever felt intense joy simply because you exist?

Some of you are nodding your heads and smiling with recognition.

Others are shaking their heads and wondering what in the world this woman is talking about.

Either way, you are exactly where you should be at this time. It’s like Harry has often said:

Your path is your path, and there is absolutely no hurry.

We have all of eternity, you know!

Chapter Thirty-Three

In order to understand the events of the next several years, I need to briefly describe what Paul was up to during this time. Please keep in mind that I am in no way a technical person, and most of what I relay to you here may very well be distorted. If it sounds complicated, I apologize. I don’t really understand how any of it works, but I do understand the end result, which is quite relevant to our story.

Paul’s company designed miniature devices used to record audio and video, as well as software to analyze what was recorded. Tiny cameras and microphones, which could be hooked to your ear or attached to a pair of glasses, sent data to a storage unit attached to your belt. The data could then be transferred to a computer and analyzed using their software.

Early on, the software simply converted spoken words into text. One could then read a transcript of all clearly spoken words on the audio. But as the company began to grow, some very talented minds found their way into the organization. One person, in particular, specialized in what Paul referred to as object identification software, which apparently was able to identify objects in recorded video.

But the real key to the explosive growth of the company was what they called “process recognition” technology. This was a program that could analyze video data and identify processes taking place within the video, such as closing a door or petting a cat. So a person could walk around with a tiny video camera attached to their ear or to a pair of glasses, and later transfer what they recorded to a computer to be analyzed. The program could then go through and identify everything you did during that time, quantifying each process.

For example, one could wear their video glasses all day and later transfer the data to their computer. They could then look through a list of all the processes they engaged in that day – making breakfast, driving to work, etc.

One of the things that excited Paul the most was that the program actually learned, with your help. As you went through the data collected, you could pause the program and tell it what you did in a particular segment. Perhaps you tied your shoe, and the program did not recognize it. So you could specify that the process taking place from the 6.2 minute marker to the 6.8 minute marker was “tying shoes”, and the program would learn that. Then, the next time it identified the same objects being manipulated in the same way, it would identify that process as “tying shoes”.

In this way the program learned, and the more time you spent teaching the program what each process was, the more accurate it became in identifying a wide variety of processes. Most employees at the company began wearing glasses equipped with cameras, and they all transferred their video data to the same database. Then each employee would go through and identify the processes within their video footage.

As the months went by, their program learned many processes, which could be combed through and analyzed the way any database can. Paul and Ravi knew that there were many possible applications for the devices and accompanying software they were developing.

The entire package, which they dubbed PIT, for process identification technology (PIT Technologies became the name of the company), could be used by students in class and lectures, by law enforcement, coaches and sports analysts, and many others. The possibilities seemed endless, and the buzz surrounding the company steadily grew. They filed for and acquired many patents, and they began to receive buyout offers from some very big companies.

It was a very strange time for Paul and I. We had lived in California for a year by then, and I was not the least bit involved in Paul’s company. My attention was on the retreat I planned to create up north. I had started with a very vague idea of what such a project might involve and gradually, as time went by, I began to identify more specifics.

During this time I traveled to a number of established spiritual retreats and facilities throughout California. Some of them you may have heard of, others probably not. The people at most of them were extremely nice and very motivated. Most had a very definite direction, whether it was a specific religion or practice such as Zen Buddhism or Christianity. There were many that fell into what one might call the New Age category. Some were very progressive, focused upon the development of psychic abilities and awareness.

The variety I found was astounding. I had no idea that so many people were pursuing such a variety of spiritual interests, and I was extremely inspired by most of what I saw. I say most, because there was one place I visited that was veering dangerously close to a cult of sorts, though the people there would certainly deny that. I won’t describe that particular experience in detail, partly because it was somewhat disturbing. Suffice it to say that the people there had dedicated themselves to their teacher in ways which, from my perspective, appeared to be not only disempowering but even dangerous.

That experience taught me one important thing: the emphasis of any sort of teaching or spiritual involvement must be on the individual, on the empowerment of the individual. I saw firsthand how cults can take shape: people can become so enamored with their teacher or leader that they begin to see him or her as infallible, as the conduit through which a greater power flows. They gradually see this person as more than themselves, as an authority figure whose knowledge and power far exceeds their own. I’m glad I witnessed such circumstances, because I would later learn to be very vigilant when dealing with the tendency of some people to hold their teacher above themselves.

So as we passed into our second year in California, two things happened: Paul and I became officially engaged, and Paul and Ravi sold 20 percent of their company. And do you know what that meant? Suddenly, after scraping by for the better part of a year, we had more money than we knew what to do with. Just like that. I won’t tell you how much, but it was certainly enough that I didn’t have to go find a job, which had been a distinct possibility before then.

So now we had some money, and I began looking for a site for my retreat in earnest. I also began making wedding plans. However, I did not have a desire for a big wedding. I knew most of my family and friends back home would not travel to California, so I decided on a small reception, 60 people. The wedding was held the following summer, in July, and the only sadness I felt was that Harry was not there. I had not spoken to Harry for more than a year by then, and to be honest I had begun to suspect that I never would again.

So Paul and I got married, and afterward he and I spent an amazing week in Barbados. The day after we returned, we received a package in the mail that immediately changed everything. It was from Harry, and it was the manuscript for his book. It was called The Relative Truth, and there was a brief note attached asking Paul and I to read through it and make any changes we thought appropriate.

There was also a check for $10,000 included, to cover any publishing costs. Harry indicated that we could self-publish, if no publisher was interested in it. His note said that he would be in touch with us at some point, but that we could go ahead and publish the book without any further directions from him.

After I read the note and glanced through the manuscript, I sat on the couch in our living room and thought about Harry. To be honest, I was a little annoyed. Yes, Paul and I had agreed, several years before, to publish Harry’s book. But I felt we, or I, deserved more than a quick note and a check for $10,000.

I wanted to grab him by his ear and ask him what his problem was. Why did he have to be such a hermit? Why the seclusion? My annoyance lasted into the evening, and when Paul arrived home I pointed to the manuscript and note on the table. Paul read the note, but much to my surprise he was not the least bit annoyed by Harry’s actions.

“Aren’t you bothered by this?” I asked him. “He hasn’t spoken to us in over a year, and now we’re supposed to drop everything and do this for him?”

Paul smiled at me, and I suddenly realized I was missing the bigger picture, whatever that might be.

“I think we should read it first, before we vilify the guy,” Paul said.

I didn’t respond, but I knew he was right. There was a lot I didn’t understand about Harry, but the bottom line was that, other than secluding himself and being a hermit, he hadn’t really done anything wrong. He had simply chosen to keep to himself for a while. I decided that I would take Paul’s advice and read Harry’s manuscript before deciding how I felt about the whole thing.

So the next day I began reading The Relative Truth.

And before long, I began to see myself, and my life, in an entirely new way.

Chapter Thirty-Four

One day, as Paul was reviewing some video he had recorded the day before, he noticed something that astounded and shocked him. He called me into the living room and pointed to the computer screen.

“Honey, look at this.”

I walked over to his chair and leaned over his shoulder. “Look at what?”

“You see this elephant?”

There was an elephant on a billboard Paul had passed on the way home from work.

“Yes, I see that elephant,” I answered.

“Now look at this.” He pulled up a list of times over the past three days that elephants had appeared in his video data. “I’ve seen six elephants since Tuesday.”

I looked at the list he was pointing to. The program had identified six instances in which an elephant had appeared in the video data he had collected. I’ll mention here that Paul had begun wearing a pair of glasses equipped with a miniature video camera, pretty much all the time. I thought he was nuts, but he was pursuing his passion so I refrained from expressing my opinion.

On Tuesday, there was an elephant on the television. In fact, I now remembered seeing that one. On Wednesday, three elephants had appeared within Paul’s video data, and now two more on Thursday.
“How about that?” I said curiously. “That’s a lot of elephants.” I turned and began walking back into the kitchen.

“Wait,” Paul said as I walked away. “Don’t you think that’s strange?"

We continued the conversation while I peeled potatoes in the kitchen. “What, that you see a lot of elephants?” I asked.

“No, that I’ve seen so many this week.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “maybe you have a thing for elephants. Are you sure you don’t always see them? Maybe elephants are your spirit beast or something,” I said half-joking.

“Yeah, maybe,” Paul said. “But I queried the database, and I’ve only seen one other elephant in the past two months. And now I’ve seen six in three days.”

I agreed that it was kind of strange. But I saw no need to think much further about it. “Keep your eyes peeled,” I said, smiling at the reference to the potato in my hand. “See if you notice any more.”
I
n fact, Paul didn’t see any more elephants. It seemed that once he noticed them, they stopped showing up. And I wouldn’t be telling you this, except that the following week it happened again. Not with elephants, but with Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond?

That’s right. Paul realized one day that he had seen Neil Diamond twice in the same day, and when he looked back at his data he saw that Neil Diamond had shown up, either his name or a song, five times over the previous two days.

Now, I really wasn’t very affected by all of this. To me it was odd coincidences, and nothing more. How could it be more than coincidence? What, was Paul being communicated with by spirits or something? Elephants and Neil Diamond? It was a bit of a stretch.

But Paul was extremely affected by it. He went back and started analyzing all the objects and sounds and processes that his program had identified, and what he discovered startled him. According to his search results, there were frequent episodes of a particular object or name or animal or event showing up and recurring a number of times. There were all sorts of interesting trends, and Paul pointed some of them out to me.

I’ll admit I was intrigued by what he was finding, but I didn’t really see the significance of it. But Paul did. And what’s more, what he was finding was very much in line with one of the topics in Harry’s book. (which was no coincidence, I’m sure)

Harry discussed coincidences in his book. He also talked about how each of us has a language that we use to communicate with ourselves, a language we have developed over lifetimes and that we use in both the dreaming and awake state to communicate with ourselves.

Apparently, Paul had stumbled upon or begun to notice bits and pieces of this language, and he was beyond excited. He was ecstatic. It was the first time he truly understood that he was creating his reality, and that there was meaning behind the everyday events and objects in our lives.

I, on the other hand, was not so sure. It was all too strange for me. I wasn’t yet ready to consider the possibility that everything I was experiencing and had ever experienced was being created by me. I had heard of the idea that we create our reality many times, and I came across the concept over and over again as I visited some of the spiritual retreats around California. But up until then it had been what I would call a New Age idea that didn’t really have any concrete meaning to me.

I readily acknowledged that people influenced their lives, and that positive people tended to create opportunities and success for themselves while negative people did not. But I could also see that many things which happen to us are out of our control, and that no one would ever choose to be a victim or to starve to death or any of the millions of other unpleasant and unfortunate predicaments that are part of the human experience.

But Paul was quite ready by that time to fully accept the fact that he was creating his reality, every minute aspect of it. All that was left was for him to learn exactly how he was creating it. And that’s what Harry’s book was about. Paul finished reading it long before I did. In fact, he read it twice before I had made it all the way through. And he couldn’t wait to share it with some of this friends.

I won’t go into great detail regarding the contents of the book– you can certainly read it for yourself – but I will say that it is not for everybody. For those of us who are comfortable with the way we currently see the world, there is no need for material like this.
The book presents an entirely different way of viewing yourself, your life, what it means and how it is occurring. This was something that was much more appealing to Paul than to me at the time, though admittedly I have since come around and now appreciate the information that Harry is providing.

Paul was quite anxious to get the book published and make it available, and he took charge of contacting potential publishers. Within six weeks we had chosen a small publisher and scheduled production. The editing process was quite easy, as Harry had obviously gone to great lengths to make the material grammatically correct and easy to read. And within three months of receiving the manuscript from Harry, there was a release date scheduled and a book cover chosen.

The Relative Truth was released late in the fall, to absolutely no fanfare. We had unfortunately chosen a small publisher that did very little beyond make the book available to distributors and online. Our excitement at the release gradually faded as we realized that there was not yet much of a market for such a book, and nobody seemed interested in reading it. Either that or we weren’t doing the things necessary to get the book into people’s hands. But we weren’t marketers, and our job was simply to publish it and make it available. Which we did.

Paul was discouraged, but I was not. I wasn’t as excited about the book as Paul was at that point, and I hadn’t really expected much to happen with it. So I wasn’t disappointed when only a few dozen copies had been sold after it’s first month.

That would later change, and eventually people all over the world would read and be deeply affected and inspired by it.

But, for the time being at least, the world was not yet ready for Harry Phillips.

Chapter Thirty-Five

I found a property up in Oregon that seemed perfect for the retreat I had in mind. It was 85 acres (though I eventually wanted something bigger). It was mostly wooded, with several clearings, a spring fed stream, and a few small hills. It was surrounded by many square miles of property that were also for sale, and I was told that they would be available for purchase if things worked out and we were ready to expand.

Paul and I spent a weekend camping on the property, and we both knew that this was the place. We visualized a ring of cabins built in one of the clearings, and a vegetable garden in another. There was a third open spot, at the base of a hill, that was perfect for a labyrinth. Have you ever been to a labyrinth? I had seen one at another retreat the year before and had experienced such a positive feeling as I walked through it that I knew I would have to build one of my own. But more on that later.

So we went ahead with the purchase of the property, and over the next several months we traveled up once a month to survey the land and decide what to build where. I also spoke with a number of builders, finally selecting one and ironing out the details. We planned to build ten cabins, each equipped with solar panels on the roof. The electricity generated would power a well pump and provide modest lighting and running water in each cabin.

The biggest challenge would be access. The property was several miles from the nearest main road, the only access being an overgrown dirt road, if you want to call it that. It was important to me that the retreat be as isolated and secluded as possible, and I planned to let the dirt road become overgrown once the construction of the cabins was completed. Visitors would have to walk along a long trail to reach the cabins.

Despite the inconvenience of such difficult access, to me it was worth it. I didn’t want to hear cars. I didn’t want people who didn’t really want to be there dropping by. The quiet seclusion was important to me – it was part of why I fell in love with the property. For visitors, the drive to Oregon and the hike to the site were part of the journey. I wanted people to leave their usual lives behind.

By early summer, the cabins were built, the solar equipment installed and operational, and lights and running water working well in one of the cabins. I began staying there for weeks at a time, with Paul coming up every other weekend. It was a long drive, but we were growing to love the place. And so the many hours in the car back and forth were a small price to pay.

I spent the summer planting perennials, clearing an area for next year’s vegetable garden, and building my labyrinth, a classical seventh circuit design. If you don’t know anything about labyrinths, I suggest you look into them. And visit one, if you can. Don’t take my word for it.

I intended to open up the retreat each spring, probably in mid-April, and close it for winter sometime in late fall, depending on the weather. So the retreat would be open for six months a year, and the rest of the year I would spend down in the Bay area, which I had grown to appreciate over the previous two years.

During my tour of California retreats I had made many acquaintances, a list of whom I had accumulated. I kept in contact with them via email, and there were many people who were interested in visiting once I had everything up and running. By the end of the summer, I had created a website with photos and a description of the property.

I became quite friendly with a number of people who were interested in being involved with the project. One person in particular, a woman named Beatrice (whom everyone called Bea) had been holding workshops for many years, all around the country. And after getting to know her, I came to realize that her feelings and thoughts regarding spirituality were very similar to my own.

Bea and I talked for hours and hours about our ideas for what a spiritual retreat should or could be. And eventually we arrived at a mission statement of sorts: our intent was to provide an environment that encourages contemplation and celebration. A place where individuals and groups can go to explore themselves, to explore ideas, and to pursue their spiritual interests. No specific denomination, no creed or doctrine, no specific purpose for being there, other than to be in an environment that is conducive to such activities.

I was questioned over and over again as to the reason for establishing such a place. People wanted to know why I was so passionate about it, what my purpose was, what would take place there. And although I answered somewhat differently each time, the common element of my responses was that every individual had their own reason for traveling there, and that it was not my place to specify what would take place. I was simply motivated to establish an uplifting and stimulating environment in which to interact or pursue or expand or celebrate, or all of the above.

I envisioned gatherings, perhaps yearly, of various kinds of groups. I saw workshops and other organized meetings, and I saw individuals who traveled alone, who knew no one there, and who may or may not interact with others during their stay.

My motivation was very open-ended, and I think that was part of what excited me so much – I didn’t know what would take place. I didn’t know exactly how things would develop. I am not a teacher, or a director, or anything of the sort. I am simply a person who desired to create an atmosphere of exploration and community. Beyond that, I had no expectations. And I think such openness is what allowed things to unfold the way they did.

By the fall, I had brought several small groups of friends up to Oregon with me. Among other things, we completed the labyrinth, added some decorative touches to the cabins, and established some rock-lined paths through the woods to the stream and to the various hills on the property, each of which had a unique and beautiful view of the surrounding area.

When November rolled around, we prepared the cabins for winter and bid farewell to the place until the following spring. There were six weekends already reserved for the following year, the first one in early May, and it was my intention to go up in mid-April to open things up and prepare for our first season.

There was, however, one thing that had yet to be resolved: a name. None of the ideas we had come up with so far had stuck. But that would change the following spring, when Paul and I went up in April to begin getting things in order. We spent a week cleaning up the cabins, tilling the garden and planting seeds, and planting the flowers we had brought up with us.

In the middle of the week, Paul suggested that we spend part of the day hiking through some of the surrounding areas. I agreed, and we packed a picnic lunch and got an early start. It was a beautiful spring morning, though rather chilly.

As we walked, Paul broke the news to me that he and Ravi had agreed on a buyout offer for the rest of the company. I grabbed his arm and turned him around to face me. I could tell by the look on his face that he was hiding something, and the gleam in his eyes told me that it was something good.

“How much?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. He just smiled. I realized that it didn’t matter how much, that whatever the offer was, Paul was going to take it. He and Ravi had known all along that they would sell the company eventually. Neither one of them was very interested in running it. Their passion was the development of their product, not the marketing of it. Once they had created what they set out to create, it was time to move on and let others do their part.

Paul took my hand in his and we began walking again. “If all goes well,” he said, “we’ll be able to buy as much of this land as we think we might need.”

My heart raced. It was really happening! Not only was I on the brink of opening the retreat I had been thinking about and planning for the past three years, but it appeared that we would have the resources to run it and to grow as much as we wanted or needed to. I was on a high unlike any I had felt before.

I thought about where I was at that moment, hiking through perhaps the most beautiful place I had ever seen or even imagined, on a cool spring morning, holding the hand of someone I loved dearly. I marveled at how incredibly wonderful life could be. Never in all my years had I felt such joy. Paul and I walked for a while without saying anything, just taking in the beauty and losing ourselves in our thoughts.

I pondered the path that led me to that place, to that moment. I decided that the turning point had been my willingness to give up my career and take a chance. A chance to pursue something meaningful in my life. It all began with my desire to move on, to change, to find my passion and to pursue it. We all have passions, and I felt grateful beyond words that I had decided to pursue mine. And I hoped that what I was building would provide an environment in which others could identify their own passions and decide to pursue them. That was definitely part of my intention.

At one point, Paul let go of my hand and stopped walking. I turned around to see what was wrong and noticed that he was looking up and to his left. I followed his eyes and saw that he was looking at a large hill that rose up from the clearing we had been walking across.

“What is it, honey?” I asked him. But he didn’t answer. He began walking toward the hill, and I followed him. It was an odd moment. I had never seen Paul look so intense.

He stopped at the foot of the hill and looked back at me. “There’s something about this place,” he said.

I realized that I felt something too. The way the hill rose up from the flat clearing, the shape of it. It was perhaps 80 feet tall, maybe a little less, and it appeared to be almost perfectly round. It looked as though someone had picked it up from someplace else and just dropped it in the clearing. Paul began to climb up the side of it. I followed.

The slope of the hill was fairly steep, maybe 35 degrees. It was covered with rock outcroppings and tufts of grass and weeds. It took about five minutes to climb to the top. When I arrived, Paul was already there, turning around and taking in the view. It was amazing. We could see for miles in all directions, all the way to the nearest peaks of the Cascades.

“Is this on the property that’s for sale?” he asked.

I nodded.

“We have to buy it.”

I nodded again.

Paul continued, “And we have to create something here.”

I looked at him. “I agree, but what?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “A mound.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline run through my body. This may sound odd, but my entire body felt like it was vibrating. The feeling had started at the bottom of the hill, just slightly, but now it was strong. I don’t know what it was, and it startled me a bit, but I held my gaze upon Paul’s face.

He looked at me. “Like Harry’s.”

And just like that, it all became clear. I could see it. I saw the platform on top, I saw the steps leading down four sides of the hill. Not just one level, like the mound in Harry’s backyard, but many levels, leading all the way down to the base of the hill.
I saw it all. And as I looked at Paul’s face, I could tell that he did too. I think he may have seen it the moment he saw the hill ten minutes before. We sat down and pondered the possibility.

“I’m shaking,” he said with a smile.

“Me too,” I replied.

And I have to tell you, the thoughts and ideas and connections that ran through my head over the next few minutes startled and excited me at the same time. I had the rather odd thought that the previous three years had been leading me to that hilltop in some way. That all the plans and preparations, all the searching and organizing and implementing, had been a gradual movement toward the realization that I was now having.

“It needs a name,” Paul said.

“I agree,” I said.

“Soul Mound.”

I looked at Paul. “Soul Mound?” I asked. I said the words in my mind several times. “Soul Mound,” I said aloud again.

“Soul Mound,” Paul repeated. We sat quietly and let the name sink in.

“Okay,” I said. “And you’re in charge of building it.”

Paul smiled. “I’ll start right now.”

He stood up and walked several feet to his left. He bent down and picked up a flat rock, perhaps a foot across and two or three inches thick, and carried it back to where I was sitting. He placed the rock on the ground next to me and motioned for me to sit on it. I moved over onto it and looked up at him. He was smiling.

Tears formed in my eyes, and soon they were streaming down my cheeks. I can’t explain the emotion I was feeling. I can only liken it to perhaps seeing land for the first time after being out at sea for a very long time.

The place I was sitting felt like a safe harbor, a place where the fears and uncertainties within could fall away, leaving you with nothing but the surest feeling that you were right where you were supposed to be.

I looked out over the trees to the mountains in the distance. Something had changed in the last few minutes. Something big had fallen into place.

I finally knew for sure why I had been so drawn to Oregon all those years. I had found what I came there to find.

And then, an even more exciting thought crossed my mind:

Wait until Harry sees it.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Anne is such a sweetheart! And I loved the way she described the beginnings of what would eventually become known as Solfield. My name is Beatrice, by the way. You can call me Bea, if you’d like. Most people do.

I will be handling the storytelling for the next stage our tale. I will be telling you how a plot of land in the middle of nowhere turned into an internationally known and often visited destination. A new Mecca of sorts.

I’ve done a great deal of thinking as to why Solfield eventually grew into what it did. First, the name: Solfield. Anne and I had gone round and round about what to call the place. Paul had dubbed the hill Soul Mound, which was what people would eventually call it, though Anne and I, and Paul, and many of the people who would come to make the place their semi-permanent home, often referred to it as Harry’s hill. Which has more of a ring to it, if you ask me.

So when we were contemplating what we should call the entire property, two themes kept coming up: the soul, which had obvious importance in what we were doing, and solar, which refers both to the sun and to one, or unity. So we went back and forth many times before stumbling upon a name that seemed to capture all of the above: Solfield. And the moment we said it out loud, it felt right. So the name of the place officially became the Solfield Spiritual Center.

In the years to come, people would travel from all corners of the world to visit Solfield. And it’s my job to tell you how, exactly, that came about.

I didn’t meet Harry until the following year, but I did read his book. Now I have to tell you, I’ve been around a long time. I was part of the early wave of New Agers, metaphysicians and the like, in the 1960’s. I pursued Eastern meditation, studied Zen Buddhism and Taoism (which is still my favorite of the mainstream paths), and immersed myself in the many channeled teachings given to mankind over the past forty years. I would consider myself an old school spiritualist, if the term has any meaning to you.

So when I read Harry’s book, I pretty much knew all that he was discussing, and there were no startling surprises contained within it. What I experienced while reading it, however, was another story. During my life, one constant fixture of my spiritual path was the relationship between the teacher and the student. It was a common assumption that at some point a serious seeker had to find their guru. It was almost a right of passage.

That, and spirit guides. They were a staple of New Age spirituality: your guides were there helping you, looking out for you, handling the behind-the-scenes work for you. I knew many people who referred to their guides frequently, even by name. Some even bragged about how many guides they had. All of this may seem somewhat odd to some of you, particularly to those who have remained aligned with the more traditional paths – Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the like. But this was all part of New Age spirituality – gurus and guides.

And then along came Harry’s book, in which he challenges that notion outright. According to Harry, the age of the guru is over. And I must admit, I was extremely taken aback at first by such an assertion. I knew many respectable people who took the role of a guru quite seriously, and who considered the guru as supremely necessary to the spiritual path. I, myself, had been taught for 14 years by a person of knowledge and wisdom, someone without whose teachings and guidance I would have made little or no progress along my path.

So what did Harry mean when he said that the age of the guru was over? According to him, such authority figures were necessary throughout history because of our limiting mass beliefs. In layman’s terms, he means that our society was so ignorant and so resistant to empowering ideas that a guru was necessary as a role model, as an anchor, as someone to emulate. Society did not have such role models in public, and it was only through emulating an established and respected master that one could progress toward self mastery.

But now, as part of the ongoing shift in consciousness being engaged by the human race, affirming beliefs are beginning to take hold and proliferate in the collective consciousness of the human race. As this happens, there is less and less resistance to achieving balance, clarity, insight, and understanding. And this is alleviating the necessity of the guru – we no longer need to apprentice ourselves to some authority figure in order to climb out of the pit of ignorance.

It is becoming increasingly possible to “be your own guru”, as Harry and others have said. We are emerging from the age of authority figures, and each individual is on the path toward the realization that he or she is, in fact, their own authority figure - that no one is more of an authority on what is best for you than you are.

We are collectively dismantling, sometimes aggressively and sometimes slowly and carefully, the belief system of authority figures. But because this will be perceived as an attack upon and an erosion of society’s foundation (which it is not, but fear will cause people and old-energy institutions to view it that way), we must move slowly and carefully and respectfully.

Harry discusses this topic with much more clarity and detail in his book, but I wanted to point out to you one of the things that truly resonated with me as I read it. I was motivated in many new and intense ways, particularly as it pertained to the establishment of Solfield and what it was to become.

We intended from the very beginning to place the emphasis on the individual, on the value and importance of the individual, and the name, Solfield, seemed to capture that well.

So there is a little background on my participation with the project, the initial source of my enthusiasm and inspiration. I felt from the start that we were creating something new, something that was moving beyond old structures and old approaches. Solfield was to be an entirely new creation, carefully and lovingly breaking beyond old limitations and fostering an inspiring and creative environment in which individuals could thrive and grow.

That is why I got involved, and that is what we set out to create.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Our first season at Solfield was full of challenges, to say the least. Fortunately, we began the year with absolutely no expectations. Literally. Anne and I decided not to charge any fees, as the facilities were barely operational (and quite unreliable) and we still had virtually no overhead – Anne, Paul and I were doing almost everything, at least until mid-June, when a group of folks from San Diego came up to begin working with us.

Quite a few friends of mine had heard about Solfield through the grapevine and were anxious to see the property. One of them was a sculptor, an old friend of mine named Michael Edwards. When Mike climbed to the top of Harry’s hill, he knew he would be involved in the carving of it. He and Paul spent hours up there, measuring and surveying and scraping away soil.

It turns out, the hill was made almost entirely of rock covered with a foot or more of dirt and weeds. Paul had already determined the dimensions for the top platform and the first level of steps leading down from it. In speaking with them and overhearing their many conversations, I knew that the completion of Soul Mound would take several years. The plan was to keep the project ongoing, and to allow visitors to assist in the carving of it if they so desired.

The design was modeled after a mound that Harry had created in his backyard in Ohio. I could see from Paul’s drawing that each level was to consist of three deep steps at the bottom, followed by seven shallow steps, and then three more deep steps leading to the next platform. Because they were going to carve the steps directly into the rock, it was going to take quite a long time. Mike purchased a dozen heavy duty chisels and hammers, which he kept in a weather-proof tool cabinet on the top of the hill, along with other supplies.

That first summer, Mike and Paul made modest progress. They began by clearing away the dirt from the top of the hill and carving out the flat surface of the top platform. It was square, ten feet per side, and they used some of the more rectangular rocks they had cleared away to make a chimney-shaped structure in the center of the platform. This, according to Paul, was a feature Harry had placed atop his little mound in Ohio. For some reason, Paul believed it was important to have one on Soul Mound as well.

As Paul and Mike continued their work, Anne and I were busy developing other features around Solfield. Anne had a thing for labyrinths, which I have always enjoyed and appreciated as well, and so creating labyrinths was a special project that she and I enjoyed, probably more than anything else.

We used some of the stones that Paul and Mike cleared away from the top of the mound to trace out several seventh-circuit labyrinths in small clearings throughout the property. Anne had purchased a wagon with large inflatable tires, and each day we climbed up the hill, threw and rolled stones down the slope to the ground, and carted them to whatever labyrinth we were working on.

The main labyrinth was large, more than fifty feet from one side to the other. We worked on it all summer, mostly in the mornings. It was a wonderful way to begin each day, tracing out the path that we had completed so far and adding another ten or so feet. We often worked in silence, and we could feel the space growing more peaceful as we progressed.

By September, the main labyrinth was completed and the first three steps at the top of the mound had been carved. There was still a long way to go, but the process had begun. And the platform at the top was now a viable gathering spot.

We hosted a dozen gatherings at Solfield that first season – most consisting of ten people or less. Visitors came to see the place, to help out while they were there, and to participate in the beginnings of Solfield.

There were other guests, too – a half a dozen individuals came for initial visits and then returned throughout the summer and fall to contribute and to just be there. Solfield had already begun to take on a distinct feel – it was becoming a place you were reluctant to leave and anxious to return to. And all of it without any real structure. Each of us just seemed to know our role, our part to play.

There was no central authority or planning at Solfield. No one was “in charge”. Even the visitors seemed to know what to do while they were there. Each person was in charge of themselves, and there always seemed to be someone nearby ready to assist you if you needed help with something.

We tended to eat together in the morning and evening. And each night we gathered around the campfire that was situated in the center of the ring of cabins. For the rest of the day, however, people were on their own. Some hiked and wandered, some worked in the garden. Some traced the labyrinth, some carved out stone atop Soul Mound. Some worked hard all day, while others did no work at all and instead spent time wandering through the woods.

There was a small stream that ran along the west side of the property, and someone had built a series of small footbridges every several hundred yards – large logs and tree trunks that they had dragged across the stream and tied together. All around Solfield, there were little touches being added that made the place more and more hospitable and unique.

By the fall, the cabins were in full working order. Each one had solar equipment on the roof which accumulated power for interior lighting. There was a well pump which supplied running water to all the cabins as well, although there were no toilets in them.

Instead, we built a small bathhouse behind the cabins that contained four shower stalls and four toilets, half for the men and half for the ladies. If you’ve ever been to a campground, you know the kind of facilities I’m describing. It wasn’t a hotel, but it wasn’t exactly roughing it either. We had also dug holes and built outhouses in many areas around the property – two at the base of the mound, one by the gardens, and several others.

These were the kinds of projects we pursued that first season – digging, building, clearing, carving. It was hard work, but it was by far the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done. Every task was a meditation in itself. I saw everything I did as a sacred action, “planting seeds”, as Mike would say. I knew that people would be benefiting from the work we were doing for years to come, and I felt honored and privileged to be part of it.

As autumn rolled in and the weather grew colder and the leaves began to change, there was a sense of completion in the air. We were tired, to be sure, and I think we were all looking forward to returning south for the winter. Despite all the sacredness and peacefulness, we were ready to rest. We needed to take a break, to return to the outside world for a while, to simplify our lives at home a bit. We had each put our normal lives on hold while we performed our labor of love up in Oregon, and those lives were now calling us.

Mike and I and many others left Solfield before Halloween, while Paul and Anne remained a few weeks longer. And by the time they left in mid-November, the place was shut down for the winter. We would return in early April and begin the process of preparing for our first “official” season. We had already taken many reservations for the following year, and the schedule was almost full through July. So it appeared that things were on course.

It was an amazing year for all of us, one that I’ll never forget. In the years to come, the process we had begun would continue and expand. Solfield was on its way to becoming much more than we could have guessed.

The seeds had been sown.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I remember clearly the day Harry arrived at Solfield. It was the day after my birthday (I had just turned sixty-three), June 18th, a Wednesday. There were two group retreats going on that week, and a large team had assembled to work on the mound. So it was appropriate that Harry would show up that day.

There had been a rumor going around that he would be coming, but that had been several weeks prior, and we had all forgotten about it. So that morning I was out at the mound as well, rolling and throwing cleared rocks down the side of the hill while a crew carted them over to a pile at the edge of the clearing.

A woman named Jill, who had been staying at Solfield since May and did much of the cooking, came climbing up the side of the hill to tell us that Harry had arrived and was on his way to see Soul Mound. We all stopped working and walked down to the ground to await his arrival. And sure enough, in a few minutes Harry emerged from the edge of the woods and stopped, staring.

What I remember most clearly were his eyes. They gleamed and moistened as he took in the view in front of him. There were perhaps twenty of us gathered at the base of the mound, and I watched Harry’s face as he looked at us and then slowly lifted his gaze to the top of the mound. We had almost completed the first set of steps leading down from the top platform by then, and the white limestone shone brightly from the top of the hill.

Anne was next to him, and once he had taken it all in the two of them walked toward us. Paul, who had been working with the group, walked over to greet him, and then the rest of us as well. As I said, this was the first time I had met him or even seen him, and my first impression was memorable.

He had a full and rather scraggly beard and shoulder length hair. He wore a red hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans with holes in the knees, along with a pair of brown hiking boots. But the most distinct aspect to his appearance was his smile. I had never seen such a genuine, childlike smile on an adult before. His face was full of wonder, and joy.

Harry said nothing at first when he arrive at the base of the mound, and then he worked his way through the group of us, introducing himself and listening as we each told him our name. He hugged each of us and congratulated us on our achievements at Solfield. There was an energy around him, and it affected all of us. In the span of a few minutes, the atmosphere around us had gone from quiet and calm to charged and electric.

He began to climb the side of the hill, and we all climbed with him. I had just met the man, and yet I already knew him. Maybe it came from reading his book, or maybe he was just so open that I could feel his energy. I suppose you could call it a mystique, but it was an unimposing mystique. I was not at all nervous in his presence, but I was energized.

The group seemed to glide up the hill and arrived easily at the top. Harry stepped up onto the platform and walked over to the column of stones in the middle. Then he turned and looked out over the trees and to the mountains beyond.

The view from the platform was extraordinary, and each day I looked forward to climbing to the top of the mound. There seemed to be an expansion that took place within as I stepped onto the platform and turned around to take in the view. And I could see that Harry was experiencing the same thing that day, for the first time. His eyes were moist with tears, his smile broad. Paul and Anne stood on either side of him, and he put an arm around each of them.

It was an extraordinary moment, and I know that my words fail to convey the intensity of it, but hopefully my description did it some justice. My point is that Harry’s arrival did something to all of us and to Solfield itself. His enthusiasm and appreciation for the place, for the people there, for all the work that had been done – he understood it all, and he felt it all, and he projected it onto the rest of us.

From that day on, I saw Solfield in a very different light. Yes, it had been an incredibly beautiful and peaceful place, from the very beginning. But once Harry arrived, it became bigger. Much bigger. In a few short moments, Solfield went from our own little project to something huge and important. That’s the only way I can describe it. Solfield got bigger when Harry arrived. And because I felt part of it all, I felt bigger as well.

I think we all felt the change that took place that morning, and it never went away. We spent the rest of the day doing the kinds of things we did every day, but it all felt different now. It was as if the whole world was watching. And the heavens. Solfield had become more sacred, more important. Like a beacon. It was becoming a beacon, and Harry had arrived to light it. And now that it was lit, the world would soon know about it.

That weekend we had our first official summer solstice celebration. Two more large groups had arrived, the cabins were full, and there were many tents set up in the clearing around Soul Mound. Some folks from Portland had heard about Solfield in recent months, and they had driven out for a visit. Jill counted 81 people there that weekend, and our solstice celebration was wonderful. We set up a fire ring at the base of the mound the night before, and we arose early the next morning and gathered at the top of the mound for the sunrise.

I had been part of solstice and equinox gatherings before, as I’m sure some of you have as well. And those who have know what an intense moment it can be. The group of us sat on the top platform and on the steps leading down from it and watched in silence as the sun broke through the horizon. It was quiet and peaceful. A slight fog hung in the trees below. An occasional bird flew past us. The sky filled with pink, and then orange.

There was music – guitars and percussion and the like. We danced at sunrise, and again at sunset, and again around the fire that night. It’s impossible to describe, but perhaps you can imagine the atmosphere. And underneath it all was the feeling that we were launching something, birthing something that would continue to grow in the years to come.

And grow it would. Later years would see much larger gatherings, but that first one would always be my favorite. I love beginnings. I love the earliest moments of a party or a performance or a ceremony. I love beginnings, and that summer was a beginning.

Harry had arrived, and Solfield had grown, almost imperceptibly, into something bigger. There were more groups coming up for retreats and gatherings. More steps were completed on Soul Mound. The vegetable garden was expanded, as well as the flower gardens. A recreational hall with a kitchen in the back was built at the edge of the cabin clearing. It was looking more and more like an established facility, though it’s isolation allowed it to retain its rustic atmosphere.

The rest of the season saw larger and larger groups arriving, and word had begun to spread through various circles that there was a place up in Oregon, a place called Solfield, that was worth a visit. And though the drive was long, and the hike from the main road took a few hours, people were finding their way there. One or two here or there, and occasionally small groups of three or four, hiked in unexpectedly, set up a tent or two, and stayed for as long as they wanted.

Some people brought extra food, which they left behind when they departed. And virtually everyone who visited Solfield embarked on some sort of project to contribute to the place. Everyone, at some point, climbed to the top of Soul Mound, grabbed a hammer and chisel, and helped carve out another step. The energy of every visitor was deposited atop the mound, and the feeling of simply being up there was something to experience in and of itself. There were always people on Soul Mound, either chiseling or talking or meditating or singing or just pondering.

So Solfield was now officially established, and running, and self-sustaining. There was really nothing that any particular person had to do to keep it running. All reservations were done on the website that Paul had set up. And everything else was taken care of somehow. Everyone knew their role, and they performed it.

So that is how Solfield got up and running. The basic approach to it would not change in the years to come, only the size and scale. More cabins would be built, though many visitors would prefer to bring tents and camp wherever they chose. Paul and Anne would purchase more property, allowing Solfield to expand.

Soul Mound would grow more and more each year, following the original pattern – three steps, seven steps, three steps, down to the next platform. More labyrinths would be built, in various remote clearings throughout the property. More gardens would be cleared and planted. And all the while, Solfield would retain its isolated feel. Nobody was interested in turning it into a resort. It was supposed to be rough, natural. The point was to live among nature, not to conquer it.

Solfield grew organically, with no real organization other than each person doing whatever they were inspired to do. Everyone had their talents and passions, and they expressed them freely and energetically. And so Solfield grew, and grew, and grew. It grew far beyond what any of us had envisioned, and word of it spread as well.

Paul had done much to the website, including posting a number of excerpts from Harry’s book. In the years since it’s publishing, the book had sold thousands of copies, though it was still relatively unheard of in mainstream society. But many people had read it, and most found their way to the Solfield website. There they learned about Solfield, and Soul Mound, and some of them decided to make a visit.

Eventually, people came from all over the world, usually in pairs or small groups. The primary gathering was the summer solstice, which grew bigger every year. As I said previously, there were 81 people present for the first one. The next year there were more than two hundred, and we estimated there were almost a thousand attendees for the third annual summer solstice celebration.

By then, Soul Mound had three levels including the top platform. Hopefully you can visualize what it looks like - the pattern of steps causes each flight to appear curved, starting gently, then becoming steep, then gently arriving at the next platform. A thousand people easily fit up there, and oh what a sight it was!

Harry had, by this time, become somewhat of a celebrity around Solfield. He spent every summer there, from late-May to early-October, returning to someplace in Indiana for the rest of the year. Each spring a large group of us would arrive to open up and clean the cabins, clear and till and plant gardens, fix what needed fixing, etc. And by the time Harry and others arrived at the end of May, the place was up and running and in good shape.

I’ve probably told you all you need to know about Solfield at this point, so I’ll leave it at that. It was my job to tell you how it all got off the ground, and I think I’ve done that. There are more changes to come, but I will let Paul tell you about them.

He will tell you about what happened when the rest of the world discovered Solfield. You see, this isn’t just a story about some people who started a spiritual retreat somewhere in Oregon. It’s about what can happen when one or more people decide that it’s time to move forward, that it’s time to unleash some of our potential.

As Harry would say, there is divinity lying dormant within each of us, and within the collective. All that is necessary to bring that divinity to the surface and to begin to express it is the acknowledgment that it is there, and that it has been there all along.

So enjoy the rest of the story.

Perhaps some of you will understand what it is really about.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Okay, this is Paul again. Bea did a wonderful job of conveying the sense of excitement we all felt during the first few years up in Oregon. And by the time Harry showed up, it was well on its way to becoming a place of tremendous energy and importance.

But there was one more surge in creativity that would come to define Solfield as much as the mound and all the other features.

Harry had gone back to Indiana for the winter, but he flew out to California to visit Anne and I in mid-January. One afternoon, Harry and I sat in my living room discussing his life back in Indiana. Harry was telling me about his library, and pondering what to do about it.

“The problem is, I’ll be gone for half the year now. And you know me – I like to read.”

“Oh, I know,” I agreed. “But can’t you just bring a bunch of books with you each spring when you come out? Enough to last you until you head home?”

“No, for several reasons. First of all, I don’t know ahead of time what I’m going to be inspired to read. I open two or three dozens books a week. I may read a sentence, or a chapter, or an entire book. But I don’t know ahead of time where my interests and inspiration will lead me.”

“Okay, I see. So without your library at your disposal, you don’t have many options.”

“Exactly. Now, I suppose I could get by for six months of the year without reading, but it would be my preference to have a variety of reading materials available. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well,” I said, “Could you bring the library out west?”

Harry shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. But I don’t know where I would keep that many books. And besides, there are dozens of people back home who use them.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your life back in Indiana. How are things on John’s farm these days? And what is it you guys do there?”

Harry seemed excited by the question. “All sorts of things. It’s like a town in and of itself, in many ways.”

“How many people are we talking about?”

“Oh, I’d say there are probably 30 to 50 people there most of the time. Some of them live nearby, but many of them live on the farm itself.”
“What is it, like a commune?”

Harry laughed. “No, not really. More like a small town, as I said.”
“Is it a bunch of hippies?” I asked, smiling. “Be honest.”

“No, not really. Some of them, perhaps you would call hippies. But not really. Unless wearing your hair long or dressing in interesting and creative ways makes you a hippie. But these are just interesting, creative, and oftentimes spiritual people who desire to spend time together. And most of them don’t wear long hair or interesting clothes – just some of them.”

I wanted to know more about the place. “What do people do there?”
“Well, it’s not that different from Solfield, actually. But on a much smaller scale. Some of the people are farmers, and they love working in the garden. Some are artists, and they create all sorts of wonderful works of art. Brilliant, if you ask me. There are musicians in the group, and music can almost always be heard somewhere on the property. Some people spend most of their time in the library. Some go off alone to meditate. There is a great deal of conversation. Lots of recovering philosophers there.”

“Recovering philosophers?” I asked with curiosity. “And what is a recovering philosopher?”

Harry laughed. “Someone still struggling with the fact that philosophy is dead.”

“What?” I asked loudly. “What in the world does that mean?”

Harry smiled. “It means that we’re moving beyond it. Beyond philosophy. In fact, maybe that will be the title of my next book.”

“But what do you mean, beyond philosophy?” I persisted. “How exactly is philosophy dead?”

“Well,” he answered, “what is philosophy? The love of knowledge? The love of truth? The search for truth? But what is truth? What is true?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I’m asking you.”

“Philosophy is a head game,” Harry continued. “It’s a game of the intellect, trying to figure out reality.”

“Okay, I guess I agree with that,” I said. “But why is it dead? There are millions of philosophers out there who would have something to say about that.”

“Oh, they’ll come around. Give them time. They’re still immersed in their intellect, bound by their insistence on a somehow perfectly logical world. Reasoned argument can only take you so far. And in fact, it hasn’t actually taken them very far at all, has it? 2,500 years of reasoned argument, and what have you got? Tell me? Where are the philosopher kings? Where is Utopia? What is truth? Hmm?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“You see,” Harry went on, “the truth can’t be found with the intellect. That’s not what the intellect is for.”

“Well, what is the intellect for, then?” I asked.

“The intellect is a tool, an interpretive tool. It’s function is to make sense and to organize whatever you are imputing into your mind, into your awareness. But philosophers have always placed the intellect in the driver’s seat, put it in charge. They have been lost in their own intellect, playing with ideas and symbols. Playing a game. A very fun and fulfilling game, but not nearly as important as they have viewed it to be. You can’t find truth with the intellect.”

“Well then, how do you find truth?”

“Through experience.”

“Experience?”

“Indeed.”

“I’ll have to think about that for a while,” I said.

“You do that,” Harry said smiling. “In the meantime, I have to figure out what to do with my library. Does it stay in Indiana, or does it come west?”

I knew the answer to that question. “It’s coming west,” I said with confidence.

“Okay, where?” he asked.

“Well, you said the farm in Indiana is a lot like Solfield, only smaller, right?”

“Right.”

“So would those people come out to Oregon?”

“Who?” Harry said. “The people living on the farm? Or the people who visit?”

“Both,” I answered. “And we can build you a library.”

“Well now, that’s an interesting idea,” Harry said. “I wonder how the folks in Indiana would react to that.”

And suddenly, I had an idea. A big idea. An idea that would change Solfield forever.

“How about this,” I said, standing up. I felt a surge of adrenaline. “Oh, man, Harry, I have an idea.”

“What? Tell me.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Remember back in Ohio, you had all those statues around the base of your mound?”

“Sure,” Harry nodded. “I still have them.”

“Well, since Soul Mound is a large scale replica of your mound, it seems to me that we need to incorporate your statues somehow. So it’s a true representation of what you originally created. You said you put them there because they represented many of the spiritual paths.”

“Right. To symbolize my understanding that they are all after the same thing.”

“Exactly!” I said. I was trying to contain my excitement. “So let’s do the same thing at Soul Mound, only bigger.”

“Bigger statues?”

“No, even bigger. Temples!”

“Temples?” Harry said, standing up as well. “You want to build temples?”

“Yes! Around the base of the mound. Lots of them. A church, a mosque, a Jewish temple, a Buddhist temple. Whatever you think we need.”

Harry thought for moment, and then he began to slowly pace around the room. “How big?” he asked.

“Oh, not that big. Maybe a thousand square feet, maybe two. Big enough for people to go in and sit, pray, read, whatever they want to do. And we could keep your books in them.”

A light seemed to go on in the back of Harry’s mind. His face lit up. “Each temple could house the books pertaining to that religion or path.”

“Yes!” I rubbed my hands together and joined Harry in his pacing. “A climate controlled room, in each temple. For the books. Harry, we can do this.”

Harry stopped pacing and turned toward me. I could see that his mind was racing. “What about the cost? This would be expensive.”

“Money’s not an issue,” I said. “Do you know how much we sold the company for?”

“No,” Harry said. “You never told me.”

“A lot.” I said. “More than I could ever spend. It’s burning a hole in my pocket. And we have plenty of stone. We’ve been removing slabs of it from the sides of the mound for three years. And there are more limestone deposits on the property.”

Harry continued staring at me. And then, gradual, the intensity on his face turned into a smile. “I’m on board if you are.”

And that’s how it started. A moment of intense inspiration, of trembling excitement. I saw it all: a ring of temples encircling Soul Mound, each with hundreds and even thousands of books, all available for visitors to peruse or even take outside and up onto the mound to read.

The two of us were so excited we drove to the store and bought a bottle of champagne. When we returned home, Anne was there. We told her about the temple idea.

“Wow, that is a great idea. That will change the whole clearing. Yes, I can see it. Lots of temples, right? Not just a few.”

“Maybe a dozen or so, I would think,” I said. “We want to represent the major religions, as well as some of the lesser-known spiritual paths."

Anne nodded. Then she turned to Harry. “What do you think? This is definitely your department.”

Harry smiled. “I’m almost speechless!”

“No, not you!” she said.

“Well, no, I suppose I’m not entirely speechless. But I’m thinking. I’m pondering the meaning of it all.”

“How so?” I asked him.

“Well,” Harry said, “you mentioned the statues I had placed around the original mound in Ohio. Now, my thinking back then was that all religions and spiritual paths are really moving toward the same thing, the same realization. They all lead to our source, to Truth, to God. Whatever name you’d like to use. But all paths lead there eventually. So now I’m seeing Soul Mound as representing the mountain of Truth, of source. It represents God. And the unity of God’s creation.

“So we build these temples, and they all face this mountain of Truth, but each from its own angle. Each temple, each person, sees the mountain from their own unique vantage point, but they’re all facing the same mountain. And the problem with the human race has been that, for the most part, we haven’t known that we’re all facing the same mountain.

“Each religion, or the followers of that religion, seem to believe, whether they admit it or not, that their approach to the mountain is the right one, and that those who follow different paths are wrong in some way, or at least off the mark.

“But by placing all of these temples around Soul Mound, there is a statement that is being made: All paths lead to the same place, to the same source. All of us are looking at the very same mountain, but we each have our own perspective of it. We’re each looking at it from our own angle. But rather than judge and compare and find fault with each other’s approach to God, we can not only accept but even celebrate the diversity of angles from which we are viewing God.

“So how about that?” Harry asked us, his eyes gleaming.

Anne and I looked at one another, then we lifted our glasses toward Harry.

“Here’s to the mountain of Truth,” I said.
“To the mountain of Truth,” said Harry.

“And all the other stuff Harry just said!” said Anne.

And so we toasted our newest venture, our latest, and perhaps greatest, idea. One that would eventually come to define Solfield as much as any other feature.

I couldn’t wait until spring.

Chapter Forty

Construction on the first three temples began that spring. We decided to address the three monotheistic religions first, primarily because those were the ones with which we were most familiar. We spent the
rest of the winter looking at various architectural styles of churches and temples and mosques, finally settling on a design for each one.

Harry decided to fly out early, and when we arrived at Solfield in mid-April he and I began surveying the clearing around Soul Mound to determine the best place to build each temple. It was Harry’s idea to have the mosque face toward Mecca, with the church and Jewish temple on either side of it.

We had also met with Mike numerous times over the winter, officially hiring him and his crew to do the building. The stones for the temples were quarried and shaped right on the Solfield property itself, and Mike had gone up before us to begin scouting out the best limestone deposits and to choose the best paths leading from them to the mound clearing.

Building got underway soon after we arrived, and Harry and I did almost nothing. Mike and his crew handled everything. All we did was draw up plans, specify where within in each structure the climate controlled book room would be located, and designate the position and orientation of each temple. The rest was taken care of by Mike.

I funded the entire project with my own money, of which I had plenty, as I said. It occurred to me one morning as I watched the builders and stone cutters work their trade that all of this was possible because of the sale of my company, a company which I had started, in many ways, because of Harry’s influence on me.

Many years earlier, soon after I met him, Harry had described a series of experiences he had back in Ohio during his teaching years. He told me about a stretch of time during which a series of uncanny and slightly unnerving coincidences occurred to him. According to Harry, this was the time of his trouble with the school board and the infamous homework assignment which eventually got him fired.

I bring this up because the story had remained in the back of my mind long after, and when Ravi and I first started brainstorming about our process identification system, I thought often about Harry’s experience. In fact, my curiosity about what Harry went through was part of my initial motivation. I wanted to see for myself whether or not there were things happening in our day-to-day experiences that we were missing, connections and coincidences that perhaps meant something but that escaped our notice entirely.

When Ravi and I first started playing around with our recording equipment and processing software, I did notice things. And the things I noticed, which I will not enumerate here because I really don’t remember many of the specifics, piqued my curiosity over and over again. And it was through that process that I began to see our product, what we were doing, as important and groundbreaking.

In retrospect I can see that it was that passion that I felt, that both Ravi and I felt, that led to the success we eventually created for ourselves. And that success resulted in a big payout when we eventually sold the company.

So somewhere in there was Harry’s influence. He managed to plant a seed in me, in my mind, that would eventually blossom and fund Solfield.

I pondered all of this as I watched the first of the structures – the mosque –begin to take shape. It also occurred to me that Anne had been very much affected by her time with Harry as well, and that it was reasonable to assume it was Harry’s influence on her that led to her initial inspiration to create a spiritual retreat. So once again, Harry had planted a seed, this time in Anne, that would later grow into something significant.

As I thought about these things, I happened to glance up at Harry, who was standing up on the side of Soul Mound, a flight of steps down from the top. He was standing still, silently staring out over the trees as I often saw him do. I don’t know what goes on in that guy’s head, but I assume it’s either something big or something simple. He was always talking about big things or simple things. At least that was the impression I got.

The crew made fast progress, and the mosque was finished by early June. There were at least fifteen men and two women working long days, and you could see the progress each day. I could tell that most of them enjoyed being at Solfield. For the sake of efficiency, we had set up heavy duty tents in the clearing so that they could stay right there at the site. It would have taken several hours to travel back and forth to a motel from there, which wouldn’t have made any sense, and so they gradually fell into the rhythm of Solfield, a place with a rhythm of its own.

Most of the crew members quickly acclimated themselves to Solfield and participated in many of the events that were held daily and weekly. And when it came time for the solstice celebration, most of them were part of the family. That year, we had upwards of two hundred people for the celebration. We decided to stop construction for the week to give the crew a chance to go home for a break. All but three of them chose to stay and participate.

It was an exciting week, with visitors examining the completed mosque and the just-begun church and temple, which were being built at the same time. The crew had streamlined its approach to the point where they could keep two projects running simultaneously.

There was a buzz in the air as visitors talked excitedly about the ring of structures that would encircle the mound. Many planned to return the next year with books to donate to the libraries, and Harry and I realized that we were going to end up with a lot more books than we had anticipated. Harry’s eyes were glowing with the thought of having thousands of volumes available to anyone who visited. But we knew we would need to have more structures built by next year’s solstice, particularly the Buddhist temple.

Many visitors were particularly fond of the Buddhist path, and it appeared we would have hundreds, and perhaps thousands of books arriving the following year. Harry pulled me aside during the celebration to express his excitement about the entire project, which I also shared. It’s hard to describe what we felt as we watched hundreds of people climbing around Soul Mound, sitting or standing in small groups and discussing whatever it was they were discussing.

There were people streaming in and out of the mosque. There were people climbing over the others foundations. There were people sitting silently on the mound steps, meditating or praying or reading. There were groups of people gathered at various spots around the clearing playing music. Some were dancing. Anne and I walked around Solfield that day and quietly took in all that we saw. People walking through the labyrinths, people pulling weeds out of the many flower and vegetable gardens throughout the property. People walking in pairs or groups or by themselves, wandering through the woods or along the stream.

What we felt was beyond words, and we really weren’t able to talk about it with one another. Just a glance and smile said more than words could. I’m trying to describe it to you, and I know that I can’t. You really have to be there to feel it. You need to travel to Solfield and spend some time there to know what I am talking about.

Perhaps you will someday.

Chapter Forty-One

Later that year, in the fall, we began discussing the need for some sort of meeting center. Nothing too fancy, but something to accommodate sizeable presentations. There were many groups of visitors who wanted to present materials of various kinds during their stay at Solfield, and we had no facilities to do so.

So in discussing this need, Harry suggested a partially enclosed pavilion with the ability to be entirely closed if that was required. We talked a great deal about how big such a structure would need to be, what seating capacity would be appropriate. The pavilion idea was perfect because it gave us the ability to have additional seating outside if necessary.

From there, the idea of a small amphitheater arose. Eventually it was decided, with tremendous excitement, that we would construct a pavilion somewhere on the property, one at the base of a slope which would be terraced into amphitheater seating. We played with that idea for a few weeks, sketching out possible designs and scouting out locations.

All that remained was to decide where to put it. There were a number of small hills on the property that held potential, but the problem was that none of them were adjacent to a flat area on which to build the pavilion. A slight tinge of discouragement crept in as we searched and sketched and scouted, to no avail. For the first time since the founding of Solfield, we felt a sense of resistance. Something wasn’t right. I felt it, and I know Harry and Anne felt it as well. Mike’s silence in response to the sites we showed him fed our negative feeling, and for a time it appeared as though we wouldn’t be going through with the project.

One morning in October I got up early and walked to Soul Mound. There were a few people there already, but each was sitting quietly somewhere on the mound, which was nearing completion. The work had continued throughout each of the past three seasons, and the steps now extended down to within one flight of the ground. The mound now had the appearance of a large pyramid, with the exception of the curved steps leading from one platform to the next.

I climbed to the top of the mound and sat on the edge looking down to the ground below. The first three temples were pretty much complete, with only cosmetic work left to be finished. Mike was planning to bring up a crew early in the spring to finish the detailed work and begin digging the foundations for the next three temples to be built.

I found myself pondering the exact location for the next temples to be built when I noticed that the clearing surrounding the mound was not entirely level. There was one particular area, almost directly north, where the ground fell away as it disappeared into the woods. I didn’t remember noticing it before, which surprised me because I had spent countless hours there over the previous four years. How could I not have noticed that?

I peered down toward the edge of the clearing and, without meaning to, I visualized a rounded pavilion with it’s back to the forest and its front facing the mound. It had a roof jutting out over a stage and rows of benches. I saw more rows of benches carved into the slope leading down to the pavilion. I saw people milling around. I heard music. I smelled food, and incense. I felt a tremendous surge of energy, so strong that I sprang to my feet. It was as though someone had just turned on a spigot inside me.

I suddenly understood why none of the other locations we had considered for the pavilion felt right. It was to be here, at the base of Soul Mound. In my mind it was already done. It already existed. All that was left now was to allow it to come into being.

My heart raced as I walked back down to the ground. I made my way over to the spot where the pavilion would be built, and I felt it in the ground under my feet. It was a very odd sensation, one hard to explain. I was feeling the energy of what would eventually be there.

I ran back to our cabin and woke Anne to tell her. Within the hour, there was a group of us standing atop Soul Mound visualizing the pavilion that would be built the following year. And everyone knew it. It was wonderful.

What we were visualizing was not just a pavilion. It wasn’t just going to be a bunch of stone and wood and some audio and video equipment.

Some of the most well known and respected spiritual teachers and leaders on the planet would eventually speak on that stage. Some of the most talented musicians and vocalists and dancers and poets would eventually perform on that stage.

Of course, we didn’t know that at the time. But I think I felt it. I felt the energy that would eventually be expressed. It was already there. It was already in the ground, and in the air. In fact, I believe I had felt that same energy many years before, when Anne and I had walked through that clearing one cool spring morning.

Long before there was a pavilion, or temples, or Soul Mound, or even Solfield itself, it had just been acres and acres of beautiful, unblemished landscape – woods and fields and streams and trees and birds and creatures of the forest. Yet somehow, the energy of what was to come was already there.

I can’t explain it – that’s more Harry’s department. But I have come to understand that the energy was there all along. Some people experience something similar when they are looking for property on which to build a house, or a business, or a garden. They can feel it, what it will turn into. Somehow, it’s already there. You just have to build it.

And so we did. The following spring, we built Soul Pavilion. And as I said, in the years that followed, a long list of powerful talents and personalities and spirits would grace that stage, and hours upon hours of performance and presentation and inspiration would echo up the hill and all the way to the top of Soul Mound.

In addition to the pavilion, we would also complete three more temples that following year – a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple, and a structure dedicated to the various Native American traditions. At the end of July, Harry traveled back to Indiana to pack up his library and bring it out to Oregon. He timed his trip to coincide with Strassenfest, a German street festival held each summer in Jasper. Anne went with him, and the two of them returned two weeks later with two truckloads of books and fourteen people that would eventually become full time residents at Solfield.

By the end of that year, all six temples would be completed , with a small climate controlled library within each one. Harry began the monumental task of organizing and categorizing the thousands of books he had brought, along with several thousand more that were donated by visitors to Solfield and by other folks around the planet that had not yet visited but wanted to contribute books.

As we closed up Solfield for the winter, there was what could best be described as a trembling excitement for the following season that hung in the air. I could see it in everyone’s face. We all new that the following year was going to be huge. We already had much of the season booked, and there were more than a few prominent authors and speakers scheduled to appear on the pavilion stage. It was going to be challenging to manage the growth that was taking place, and we talked about that very subject all winter long.

Harry’s book had been growing in popularity that year, and his website was a beehive of activity and discussion regarding all things metaphysical and spiritual. Harry had posted updates and photos detailing the many projects at Solfield, and so the cat was now out of the bag (if it had ever really been in one).

One thing we discussed during the winter months was the need for more accommodations. We had built more cabins each year, and there were now over a hundred on the property that were rented out on a first come first served basis. Most of them were already reserved for every weekend and almost every week for the upcoming season.

One of our priorities in managing the growth of Solfield was to keep the focus upon coexistence with nature. The only buildings on the property were the cabins, the mess hall, the pavilion, and the temples. And the general consensus among us was that it would be unwise to do much more building. It was decided that we had expanded as much as we could without compromising the openness and natural feel of Solfield.

There would be no more cabins, no more buildings. Visitors could bring tents, which most of them already did anyway. There were more than enough fields and clearings throughout the property to accommodate many thousands of visitors. There were outhouses. There was a spring fed stream along the west side of the property, and we had since discovered two other springs that provided all the necessary drinking water.

Visitors brought their own food, and often donated what they did not need to the mess hall, which was then used to feed the building crews and for the various celebrations that were held throughout the year. In fact, we consistently ran a food surplus because of all that was donated by visitors, and this resulted in great feasts held every Saturday in the late afternoon.

Saturday evenings were always exciting, with large groups congregating around the mess hall to eat and then joining in a mass exodus to Soul Mound to enjoy the sunset and evening entertainment atop the mound or down in the pavilion. Saturday evenings were often the highlight of many visitors’ stay.

Are you getting a feel for what it’s like to be at Solfield? It’s very hard to put into words, though I did my best. It’s sort of the point of the whole story, though many readers may get something else from it. But in my opinion, Solfield is the whole point.

You see, once word spread about Solfield, and about Soul Mound, and about the temples and the pavilion and all the amazing things that were taking place there, people wanted to see it for themselves. They wanted to be there, to feel the energy and to contribute their own energy to it. Perhaps you feel that way as well.

When people come to Solfield, they come to enjoy a particular speaker or performer that is scheduled to appear. They come in groups to hold workshops or discussions. They come alone, to pray or to meditate upon Soul Mound, or to read a few of the thousands of books housed within the temples, some of which are rather rare.

But most of all, people come to feel the energy of acceptance and of celebration. Solfield is an environment in which one can interact with those who share similar beliefs and with those who hold very different beliefs. The mound itself symbolizes the mountain of truth, of reality. It can be viewed from many directions, many angles. It can be put to many uses. Or it can just be.

People come to Solfield to learn about other spiritual paths, or more about their own. People come to open themselves up in a safe place. They come to restore their balance, their enthusiasm, their reason for being on Earth.

There are as many reasons for visiting Solfield as there are visitors. Each person has their own priorities, their own reason for being there. But they all have one thing in common: the understanding that we’re all looking for the same thing.

And what is that thing that we’re all looking for?

Oh, I’m not the one to tell you. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself. And the answer may change over time. But what lies behind the answer never does.

So that is where we stand.

And that’s about all I have to say, so I will leave you now. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to share my perspective on all of this, on what took place not only in Oregon, and in California, but also back east, in an average town in Ohio. That was where I met Harry. That was where you met Harry.

And that was where Harry told God that we needed one more messenger, one more voice that could help us straighten out the mess that we’re in. I think I get it now, and perhaps you do, too.

There is, however, one more thing to tell you about. Harry’s adventure did not end with the completion of Solfield. In fact, that was really only the beginning.

Creating Solfield was our job, mine and Anne’s. And all the others that participated, of course. But as I told you much earlier in the story, it was my role to present Harry’s message to the world, to turn it into something that would last. And I did that by publishing and promoting his book, but more so by participating in and funding Solfield. Harry never would have done that. He is a simple person, a one-on-one kind of guy. If it were left to him, he would have helped and taught and influenced a limited number of people. And that would have been fine, except for that part where he decided to sue God.

You see, Harry really meant it when he asked God for another messenger. And although it took many years for Harry to realize it, God had, in fact, agreed to do so. God did send the world another messenger.

His name was Harry.

Chapter Forty-Two

One day, as Harry sat atop Soul Mound, he realized that he had gotten a bit off track. He had lost sight of his passion, though no one around him would have guessed it.

When he was much younger, a quiet and contemplative twelve-year-old boy, he had begun to understand what he really wanted to do in his life: help those who were lost. He had felt lost once upon a time. For many years, in fact. And once he finally realized who he was, and why he was here, he set about assisting others in coming to such an understanding for themselves.

Then he got involved in a silly little lawsuit, and he met some wonderful people, and together with those wonderful people he went on to create something big.

But creating something big was not his original intention. His original intention was to help those who were lost. And despite the fact that thousands of people were visiting Solfield every year, there were many more for whom a visit was simply not feasible. And most people around the planet had never heard of it anyway.

So Harry sat atop his mound and he thought. He thought about all that had taken place in his life up to that point, and he thought about where else his life might lead him. He thought about whether or not he was on the right track, whether or not this was all he wanted to accomplish.

He decided it wasn’t. And then he had an idea.

Paul had informed him in recent months that many people who visited Soul Mound from the far corners of the world had begun to build their own mounds, similar to the one Harry had built in his backyard in Ohio many years before.

Harry smiled as he imagined people all around the world covering piles of dirt with bricks or stones. He saw in his mind small groups of people sitting atop their mounds in Thailand and Zimbabwe and Jordan and Sweden and Uruguay, talking or praying or meditating or reading, just as he himself had done a thousand times or more.

Suddenly he realized that the mounds people were building for themselves were Harry’s true accomplishment, his true contribution. Apparently the little mound he had covered with bricks in his yard, the one he had begun with enthusiasm, the one that had rescued him from the dreary depression he was wrestling with at that time, was far more than he had realized.

Harry began to finally put the pieces together. He had asked God for one more messenger. But instead of sending a prophet or a messiah of some sort, God had inspired Harry to build a mound. A small mountain. So Harry had built his mountain. And now, many years later, people all around the world were building their own mountains. It had grown far beyond Harry himself. In fact, most of the people who were currently sitting on mounds around the world knew nothing of Harry or that first mound he had built in his backyard in Ohio.

And what was the purpose of all these mounds? What was their significance?

Harry decided that the significance of the many mounds around the world, as well as all the mounds and pyramids that had been built throughout human history, depended upon what took place on and around them. It depended upon what meaning each structure held for the people who congregated there, who looked at or sat or walked upon them.

Harry had always seen them as a place to ponder and contemplate, but also a place to share and converse and celebrate, just as he and Paul and Anne had done many times before.

Harry found himself wondering what all these mounds around the world were being used for. And then another piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was one of those “aha” moments that Harry has always been so fond of.

Harry realized that he wanted to visit some of the many mounds that people were building. He wanted to find out what the people were thinking about, what they were pondering and contemplating and discussing and celebrating atop their mounds.

And then he had an idea. An idea that would unleash his true intent in this life. He would take a journey. A journey around the world. He would visit some of the many mounds and the people that were building them, and he would sit with them and talk with them and celebrate with them.

Harry felt his heart begin to beat faster. He felt a surge of joy and excitement. He stood up and looked out over the trees to the mountains in the distance. Then he looked down to the clearing below and at all the people milling around or sitting or talking or any of the other things people did on and around Soul Mound.

Harry climbed down the many steps and platforms until he reached the ground. Then he hiked back to the cabins to find Paul and Anne. When he found them, he informed them that he had decided to take a journey.

He told them about his thoughts and feelings and inspiration, and they were thrilled. It was decided that Anne would accompany Harry for the first part of his journey, and then she would return home and Paul would meet up with him for part of the trip as well.

Harry didn’t know how long the journey would last, or where it would lead, and that was fine with him. In fact, he didn’t care. He wanted to wander, to allow his impulses and inspiration to lead him wherever they might. He had no particular destination, no agenda, other than to connect and to share and to celebrate.

He felt as though one final weight had been lifted from his shoulders, one last curtain pulled aside. And he had the vague sense that everything that had transpired in his life up to that point had been in preparation for the journey he was about to take.

Harry was flooded with excitement and anticipation as he began to ponder where and when he would begin his journey. Later that same day, Paul placed an article at the top of Solfield’s website describing Harry’s intention and asking for those who had built or were building a mound of their own to post a short description or story about it, including their location. Soon there were postings from all around the world, many with photographs and detailed descriptions. And as a result of the many postings, even more people were inspired to build mounds of their own. Harry designated June 22, the second day of summer, as the day that he would begin his adventure.

A phenomenon had been set in motion, and Harry was thrilled and baffled by it. Hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of mounds - many looking just like the one he himself had built in his backyard many years before - were appearing all around the world. Was this really happening? Harry marveled and pondered.

And then one afternoon, several weeks later as he sat once again atop Soul Mound contemplating the journey he was about to begin a few days later, one more piece fell into place: Harry realized that he had already delivered his message.

The mound on which he sat was his message.

Chapter Forty-Three

Harry began his journey in Southeast Asia. A woman named Linh Truong, who had been born and raised in Vietnam but who now lived in Los Angeles, visited Solfield the previous year. She was overwhelmed by her experience, and she wanted to share that experience with her friends and relatives still living in Vietnam.

Linh had taken many pictures of Soul Mound during her stay. And she had picked up a copy of a diagram Paul had created and made available to visitors which showed the dimensions of the mound. Linh took the diagram with her when she went home for a visit later that year, and over the following three weeks she and some friends and relatives carved out a small-scale replica of the top of the mound on a hill outside her village.

Harry contacted Linh after seeing her story and photographs on the Solfield website, and he decided that her village would be the perfect place to start his adventure. So after the summer solstice celebration, Harry and Anne, along with four other people, flew to Vietnam. One of the women in the group, Edith, had been a travel agent for many years. Edith took care of all travel arrangements - she acquired passports for everyone in the group, made all airline reservations, and planned the travel route.

The group flew into the southern city of Ho Chi Minh and stayed in a hotel that night. The next day, they awoke early and began their two-hour journey to Linh’s village, which was located near the Dong Noi river not far from the town of Da Hoa. When they arrived, Linh was there waiting for them. She had informed everyone in the village that Harry Phillips, the man who had built a mound just like theirs in America, was coming to visit and to see the mound they had built.

Harry and his group arrived on a beautiful summer morning. It was, in fact, the first time Harry had ventured outside the continental U.S. The entire trip from Portland had been a whirlwind for him. Harry had always been strongly affected by the way various places felt, the energy and environment and climate and so on. So when he stepped off the plane the day before, and particularly as he got out of the van and walked into Linh’s village, the experience was both exhilarating and disorienting at the same time.

Harry’s disorientation faded quickly, however, when he saw the faces of the children who ran up to greet him. He kneeled down and exchanged handshakes and even some hugs with the children, ignoring the many curious adults who kept their distance and watched quietly. Harry knew then and there that his journey, wherever it led, would have as much to do with the children he met as it would with the adults. Harry is and was and always will be a child at heart, and the choice between polite greetings with cautious grownups and playful hugs and smiles and games with their children was an easy one for Harry to make. He was there to play, first and foremost. But he didn’t know that until his first morning in a small village in South Vietnam.

Over the next year, a similar scene would play out over and over again: Harry arriving in a town or village and immediately being drawn to the bright smiling faces of five- and eight- and twelve-year-olds running to see who this strange man was that had come to visit them. It took until that first morning for him to finally realize that it was the children that would be leading the human race forward. It was the children who still remembered the playfulness and joy of spirit. They would be the ones to find the way forward, not the skeptical, frustrated adults who thought they already knew what life was about.

Harry spent that first day touring the village, visiting homes, sharing food and drink with his hosts, and talking about what life in the village was like. After lunch Linh led the group out across a field to the mound they had built. Linh and Harry walked at the front of the group, followed by Anne and Edith and the rest of the Solfield crew, along with 30 to 40 villagers, most of whom were children.

As they approached the mound, Harry could see that it was slightly smaller than the one he had made in his backyard. It was lined with stones and pieces of colored clay. As he walked closer, he saw that the colored pieces of clay had been placed in patterns on the vertical surfaces.

Harry stopped walking when he was twenty feet away and stared at the structure before him. He had thought about this moment for weeks, wondering what the mound would look like, what sorts of unique touches the people in this part of the world would add to it. Harry grew tearful as he turned and looked back at the villagers standing behind him. The children ran past him and up onto the mound, climbing triumphantly to the top.

Harry wanted to say something to Linh and to the rest of the villagers, but no words came to him. Linh seemed to understand. She smiled and motioned for Harry to climb onto the mound. Harry walked over and placed his foot on the bottom step. He looked down at the blue and red and yellow and green pieces of pottery arranged in simple patterns and shapes and spirals. The joy he felt was unlike any he had felt before. He climbed the rest of the way to the top of the mound and joined the children who were already there. He sat down next to them and they all looked down at the adults standing together down below.

Harry realized that there were many more uses for such a structure than he had thought. All along Harry had viewed Soul Mound as a place for adults to immerse themselves in contemplation and prayer, meditation, spiritual discussion, reading, etc. But as he looked at the faces of the children sitting to either side of him, he realized that those were his ideas, his priorities. But each person had their own priorities, and so there were unlimited uses and meanings for such a structure. And he was seeing that now.

Harry and his group spent several days at the village, eating and talking and playing and singing. Linh served as an interpreter, allowing Harry to converse with those who spoke little or no English. He found that the adults were very curious about the mound, the reason he had designed it the way he did. They said they felt tremendous power in it, in its shape, and many of them told him they felt a strong draw to it each morning.

Harry told them that he had been inspired to convert a pile of dirt in his backyard into a place where he could sit to watch the sunset, or to read, or to just “be”. They understood what he meant by just “being”, and they agreed that their mound had become their favorite place to do so.

So there it was: Harry confirmed to himself that the mound was his message. And he hadn’t even been the one to deliver it. Linh had delivered it to her village. Soul Mound had delivered it to her. Paul and Anne and everyone at Solfield had built Soul Mound. All Harry had done was play with bricks and dirt in his backyard. And now he was in South Vietnam, looking at a colorful replica of what he had created.

Their last evening in the village, Harry walked by himself to the mound and climbed to the top. The villagers had placed a small tower of flat rocks in the center of the top platform, true to the diagram Linh had shown them. Harry sat down and leaned against it, just as he had done so many times in Ohio. He closed his eyes and let the sounds and smells envelop him. He allowed his thoughts to drift away. He felt peaceful, serene. There was no place in the world he wanted to be other than where he was. He was as satisfied as he had ever been.

Chapter Forty-Four

Somewhere in the darkness, a phone was ringing. Harry wondered how a phone could be ringing in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

He felt something pressing against his forehead. The phone rang again. It was loud. Incredibly loud.

Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes. Confusion swept through him. Where am I? he thought.

His eyes adjusted to the light. The phone rang again. He was sitting at his kitchen table. In Ohio.

Harry looked around, struggling to make sense of his surroundings. He could still smell the damp earth of Vietnam. But he was sitting at his kitchen table. In Ohio.

Harry looked over at the phone. Not knowing what else to do, he stood up and walked over to it. His head was spinning. Dumbfounded, he picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he asked tentatively. He felt like he was dreaming.

“Harry, it’s Barbara.”

Barbara? Harry’s mind reeled. Barbara?

Harry struggled to speak. “Uh, hello Barbara,” was all he could come up with.

“Harry, change of plans. Dr. Mercer was in a car accident on his way to school this morning. He’s in surgery now. Head trauma, primarily, with lacerations to his face and possibly broken vertebrae in his back.”

Dr. Mercer? Harry hadn’t thought of him, or Barbara, for many years. At least, it felt like many years.

“Harry? You there?”

Harry rubbed his eyes and leaned against the wall. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He was in Ohio.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he finally said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry answered. He was beginning to forget about Vietnam. The memory was fading quickly. “So Dr. Mercer will be out of commission for a while?”

“Yes. So I’ll be running the meeting this morning. And as you know, I don’t share Dr. Mercer’s opinion about your situation. This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. I’m going to tell the board you completely agree that it was a bad choice on your part. I’d like you to write a brief letter stating your reasons for doing what you did, and I’ll give a copy to each board member and each parent. Bring the letter in by noon. You can have the rest of the day off. Your substitute is already here. I’m confident this whole thing will blow over, Harry. But you’d better not try anything like this again.”

“Oh, that won’t be an issue, Barb. I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Good. I’ll give you a ring later to let you know how the meeting went. In the meantime, do something to get your mind off of all this. You sound terrible.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll do that.”

Harry hung up the phone and slumped back into his chair. His disorientation was fading quickly. And he felt a sense of relief. His job was safe after all. But he had just had the most amazing dream.
The details were hazy. He had been sitting on a hill. There was a field nearby. And trees.

Other images flashed through his mind: a farm, some sort of pyramid, and people - lots of people. He was in a very strange mood. As if he had just been somewhere else. And for a very long time. It felt odd to be sitting in his kitchen, as if he didn’t belong there. As if he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Gradually his confusion gave way to relief. His job was safe. He thought about Dr. Mercer and his car accident. The timing was amazing. A coincidence, perhaps? Harry didn’t know what to think of it all.

But it appeared as though he was off the hook. He still had his job.

And then an odd thought occurred to him: did he still want his job?

Did he still want to teach science to teenagers? In the back of his mind, he felt the answer. He heard the small, still voice, deep within him. Softly, the voice was saying: no.

“No?” Harry said aloud to himself. “No?” And he knew the answer was the right one. He didn’t want to teach science to teenagers anymore. There was something else calling him. There was something else to do with his life. But what?

Harry walked out his front door and sat on his top step. He realized he had been contemplating that very question for months, if not years. What were his passions? What did he want to do with his life?

And yet the tension that had always accompanied such questions was gone. The question itself felt wonderful, freeing.

Something had happened. While Harry had slept at his kitchen table, tears drying on his cheeks, something strange had occurred. And whatever it was, it had caused the tremendous weight he had been carrying around for so long to fall away.

Something had changed. Another door had been opened. But this door was different. This time, there was nothing on the other side: no expectations, no goals, no pressure, no anxiety. Nothing.

He could go on teaching, or he could stop teaching. He could stay where he was, or he could travel. He felt limitless. With an ocean of potential at his disposal.

As he sat there on his top step, he noticed the neighbor’s cat walking though his yard. The cat crossed in front of him and disappeared around back.

After several minutes, Harry felt the sudden impulse to follow the cat. He stood up and walked down the steps and around the side of the house. When he reached the back corner of the house, he stopped walking and scanned the backyard for the cat. There was movement in the back corner of the yard, and Harry watched as the cat emerged from under a pile of bricks with a mouse in his mouth.

“Well, good for you!” Harry called to the cat. The cat then proceeded to carry the mouse across the yard and up onto the pile of dirt that stood at the back of the property.

Something about the scene struck a chord in Harry. He experienced a sense of déjà vu and felt the undeniable urge to climb to the top of the dirt pile himself. He started to walk toward the pile when he realized he was still wearing his slippers. It would be difficult to climb to the top of the pile in slippers, he thought to himself. Too bad there wasn’t a set of steps leading to the top of it.

Without thinking, Harry glanced over at the pile of bricks.

“Hey, now there’s an idea.”

He walked over to the bricks, selected a few good ones, and carried them over to the dirt pile. When he got to the pile, he bent down and pressed the bricks into the soft soil at the bottom.

“There,” he said. “It’s a start.”

Harry stood up and surveyed his work. “Yes,” he said with a smile. “This will work. This will work just fine.”

Then he turned and went to get more bricks.

Blue Monkey Island

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Religious Authority

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