Title: Discovering our spiritual roots

Gender: Male

Age: 64

Sun Sign: Taurus

Chinese Sign: Wood Rooster

Location: Sacramento, CA

I am a Presbyterian PK who was taught by word and example that Christianity is about bringing love and healing to a broken world and thought that was what the world is about until going to the American University of Beirut for my junior year of college. My life was stood on its head as I came home with a broken heart over  the Palestinians situation, & a Third World view of colonialism. I  found these subjects entirely unwelcomed by most Americans and experienced extreme cultural shock returning to my nation of birth. I attended Chicago Theological Seminary (UCC) as a professed athiest believing the world was on a fast track to its own distruction and wanting to know how to change that. CTS was the right place for me to delve these issues – learning our religious heritage in the best scholarship and free from dogma as calling us to stand before the “ultimate” & into moral actions to confront and heal the brokenness. We students were expected to be involved in the issues of the day – civil rights, civil liberties, peace and justice all so present in Chicago in the late '60s and indeed is was – up to my eyeballs! This was my Zealot experience.

After three years at CTS, I substantially agreed witht he social critique of the progressive left, but did not see the prevailing anger and stances against almost everything as a path to the necessary healing. I saw the problem as being not only in society, but within myself as well. Looking for the inner path, I joined a new age religious order based on universal and mystical understandings of the Christ and incorporating much of a disciplined life and meditation balanced with healing works in the world. I gained huge insight to the power of the Spirit, but left this group when I saw its leader to be a fraud. This was my Essene/Gnostic experience.

Everything since has been my attempt to systhesize my outer actions in the healing of the world with the inner loving, healing energies: a number of middle management jobs (ugh! I would not sell my soul.) Back to the land in WV, organic farming, environmental issues, Nuclear Freeze. Working in the gentle art of carpentry to earn my living last embodied as an owner/manager/rehabber of apartment properties.

A year ago, we moved to Sacramento from Cincinnati. I “retired” and started writing a book series similar to Lerner's Left Hand of God, found NSP and became involved. For years, I thought I was largely alone in my views. As I turn outward again, I am thrilled to find so many groups and people who see the need for a change in the world from the inside out. I have the rest of my life to dedicate to finding the best ways to move the world toward love and healing on all levels.

Member Since: Thursday, December 14 2006

Last Visit: 709 days ago.

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