PART ONE
A Wanderer's Path:
Finding a Way
Wanderer, the road is your
footsteps, nothing else;
Wanderer, there is no path.
You lay down a path in walking
In walking you lay down a path
and when turning around
you see the road you'll
never step on again.
Wanderer, path there is none,
only tracks on the ocean foam.
ANTONIO MACHADO
Like many baby-boomers, I grew up with the sense of entitlement that comes from
being one of a large, privileged generation. Everything-from the Barbie dolls
of our youth, to present-day TV commercials that play "Louie, Louie"
instead of ad copy, from Volkswagen bug's (original and revived versions) to
rock 'n' roll church music-has been targeted to those of us born after World
War II.
When my generation began to come of age in the late '60s, we suddenly became aware of the power in our numbers. Our student strikes could shut down most of the universities in the country. Our flowers in "their" guns could stop a war. We turned a cynical cold shoulder towards any institution that hinted of repression. The Establishment-schools, governments, religions-would not ruin our lives for us. We would not be held back by any authority! We would create a way of life in which we could be the free spirits we knew ourselves to be! We would do things differently.
Many of us have tried our best to do just that. In some
areas we've succeeded, or so it seems. We keep an eye out for injustice, and,
in our own minds (if not in practice), try to keep ourselves slightly left of
center. But we've also been seduced by the sort of success we never thought
we'd want as idealistic flower children. When we were growing up, we were so
widely indulged with the benefits of middle-class life, it wasn't too hard for
Madison Avenue to convince us as grown-ups that our greatest freedom and ability
to make a difference lies in having whatever we want and feeling good about
it. After all, as one cosmetics ad reassures us, we deserve it. And so we've
figured out how to have it all-a conscience and a fat stock portfolio!
In other domains it seems we've succumbed to a more confined
lifestyle than we dreamed possible. We can identify more with our parents' middle-aged
frustrations, with the compromises inherent in trying to be good parents and
providers. Our black-and-white principles have faded somewhat, and we've resigned
ourselves to living more or less in the gray areas of life. We are constantly
tied up in traffic, slaves to our cell phones. We thought we could change the
world, and it turns out just answering a days' accumulated e-mail feels like
an accomplishment.
In our spiritual lives, however, the longings of our
youth refuse to be assuaged. No matter how effectively we may have distanced
ourselves from the spiritual reality glimpsed in earlier days, the urge to find
spiritual fulfillment persists. The quest for spiritual realization has been
like a thread running through our lives; even when we've not been aware of it,
it forms the very fabric of our existence. We can think of that thread as our
unique spiritual path. Our rediscovery of its meaning puts us directly in contact
with the deepest reasons we have to live our lives and truly impact the world
of the present and the future.
My purpose in telling you about my own path is twofold.
First, to help you know who it is that lived the life which yielded the conclusions
leading to the creation of what I've called the New Church. I have no doubt
that many others have walked their version of the meandering spiritual path
that drew me out from a devout Catholicism to an angry rejection of the Church,
finally leading me to moments of profound mystical experience. Like so many
others of my generation, I sought to understand what was happening to me, occurring
within me. To a large extent, my perception of the need for a new church grows
out of my personal search for meaning, and so I share my process of realization
to give a background for the assertions I make regarding the problems with the
Old Church, and for the claims I make about the possibilities of the New Church
I describe.
But, perhaps more important than this, I hope to help you reconnect with your
own spiritual experiences; for the New Church is based, not so much in what
you were taught to believe, as in what you've experienced. I believe your inner
life and your unique experience of the Divine form the most important and vital
link to spiritual fulfillment you will ever find. In sharing my story, I want
to help you validate your own inner life so you may trust where it will lead
you to go in order to be who you really are.
As you read about my path, you'll see that I never became
a scholar in the academic sense. The highest degree I've earned in an institutional
setting is an Associate Degree of Science in Nursing. However, you'll discover
I have a full roster of degrees in experience; as is true for most of us, Life
has been my greatest Teacher. For twenty-five years or more, I have learned
that to be a disciple of one's own life it becomes necessary to trust in the
process of that life's unfoldment, in the meaning that can be attributed to
the events within that life. The most beautiful thing about developing such
trust is that an inner authority arises that, when claimed, becomes the access
to an abundance of originality and creativity.
I hope you won't find this sharing to be too narcissistic or arrogant. Since I have certainly not yet transcended my personality I know that I have the capacity to be both. In my reality, I have come to view the extraordinary events in my life as neither personal tragedy nor personal triumph-but instead as a demonstration of possibility, whether negative or positive. With that in mind, I hope accounts of my personal foibles will help the reader to discern "how-not-to" lessons, even as the tales of miracles contained within the story might give you an idea of "how-to."