I was asked questions by someone who was helping me describe what I wanted people to know the most, so the following consists of the questions and my answers.
Question: "What was your father like when you were a child?
Answer: "My dad was a brutally mean monster. He was the epitome of an old-time boot camp drill Sargent. He was always demeaning, never approving or nice or loving. He smacked me if I displeased him without telling me why. He never wanted me around unless to do some chore, and he acted as if he wished he did not even have to bother with that. He demanded absolute unquestioning obedience and fear. He was not an immoral man. He worked to provide what his family needed materially, but he consistently made it clear by his demeanor and actions how he hated having to do that concerning me. He made it clear that as soon as I was able to he wanted me out of his house. Even at 73, many years after his death, I am still very scarred by him. He was popular among his peers and they always complimented him on how quiet, polite and obedient I was. They did know that I was that way simply because I was afraid. I was, and still am, medically disabled so I could not even think of running away, and as far as I knew, no adult thought his way was wrong so I did not even think of talking to anyone else about it. Even though my mother acted as if there was nothing wrong with his behavior, she was not like him at all. She was not loving or affectionate, but she was not mean, and acted happy and as if I belonged with her, so when my dad was away at work, life at home was ok. My father was athletic and always much bigger than I, even in my teens, so I could never fight back until I began to lift weights at school. Finally I became muscular enough in my senior year in High School to make sure he knew he would pay a price if he tried to hurt me physically, so he stopped doing that. I left home as soon as I graduated in order to get away from him. This all sounds very bad and it was. But all the time it was happening, as far back as I can remember in my childhood, instead of harboring anger I just became deeply concerned about why people could be so bad. And in my mind my thoughts lingered there. Finally, when I was around 4 or 5, I was watching some children being mean to another child, and as I thought "why are people this way", a thought came into my mind like a voice from above me and said "Yes John that is the question and I want you to find the answer". My family was not religious, so I did not think about God, etc., but those "instructions" stayed with me at the back of my mind as I went on. Later in life when God Christ Jesus finally convinced me He was real, I understood that through all those childhood experiences it was God teaching me."
Question: "Who did you go to the Prom with?"
Answer: "Since I grew up in a four house camp high in the Sierras, far from the nearest town, those in that small town that were my peers so-to-speak considered me undesirable, untrustworthy, and incapable. They regularly let me know this. Because of the traumatic fear instilled in me by my father, I was very shy, and since I was also medically disabled on the inside while looking normal on the outside, all they saw was someone who was unwilling, or too stupid, to do what they expected. So that reinforced their disapproval of me. This occurred throughout my school years there, from Grade school through High School. So for me going to the prom wasn't going to happen. However, one of the popular girl's boyfriend decided to break up with her and go to the prom with someone else, so to shame him, she invited me to go to the prom with her. Now as I said about my experiences with my father's abuse, that God, though at the time I did not know it was God, kept whispering to me in my mind that this mistreatment was to show me that people have problems and that I should not be like that, the same thing was whispered to me about how my peers mistreated me. So I felt, even though I knew why she wanted me to go to the prom with her, that I should do so for her. It was a bit awkward, but it was good to give her some comfort."
Question: "What did you learn from your parents?"
Answer: "I did not learn much from my parents because my family was so dysfunctional, and my father so abusive, I was in constant fear. I could not trust what they said. And also they simply did not take the time to teach me anything other than what was absolutely necessary like how to get dressed. If you read my other writings you then understand what I mean when what I learned from my father was that people were generally abusively mean, selfish, and uncaring, like he was. What I learned from my mother was that there were people who were pleasant, enjoyed working, and were either oblivious to the abuse going on around them, or simply accepted that it was okay for people to be that way because they didn't abuse her. Neither of my parents expressed any love for others so I learned from them that people don't care about others. If it hadn't been for the voice whispering in my heart and head that we should love others and be kind and caring to them, I would have accepted my parents' way of life. But that voice that I later understood was God, was constantly there."
Question: "What do you think is the meaning of life?"
"Instead of just telling you now what the meaning of life is, I want to show you by telling you what I have experienced. When I was around 4 or 5 years of age, I was sitting by a fence inside a yard shared by a duplex of apartments. If you have already read what I have written before then you know that even as early in life as four years, I was not like a normal child just interested in playing, etc. Because of the dysfunction of my family caused by my abusive father, and because of my disability and not being able to play with others, I was serious, and contemplative. I had an older brother who was tasked with taking me along with him, even though I often could not participate in his activities. In this situation, he and other kids had discovered a new, big, metal toy truck that a neighborhood kid had left in this yard. Since the kid who owned the truck was not there, my brother and those who were there decided to destroy the absent kid's truck. They picked up rocks and pieces of rebar and used them to wreck the toy truck. As I, being unable to stop them, watched them, I was grieved by their behavior and contemplated in my mind why people were so mean, so uncaring. Then for the first time as far as I can remember, someone who was not there physically spoke to me in my mind. A deep, caring, authoritative voice spoke the words "Yes John, that is the question, and I want you to find the answer". Those words went deep into my heart and became the underlying purpose of my life. And it was not just to find the answer in the form of knowledge, but also, subconsciously, in the sense of finding who spoke those words to me. I have told you the negative aspects of my childhood, but now I need to tell you more about the positive aspects of my childhood. You see, not only did I have that whisper in my heart and mind regularly telling me not to be mean, selfish, and uncaring about others, God designed my childhood so that I spent my play hours almost entirely in the majestic, awesome, size, and grandeur of the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, USA. When you see pictures of giant, granite, mountain peaks, and waterfalls, and cascading, crystal, creeks; you are looking at where I played. The east side of the Sierras drops steeply down thousands of feet into a valley consisting of an astounding variety of landscapes, including varied colored canyons, lush, green, meadows, and desert. Then another, earthy, majestic range of mountains rises thousands of feet up on the other side of the valley. That was my view every day, through crystal, clear, blue, air, with various white, wisps, of clouds. It was a kind of paradise, that when my father was at work, so my mother said, kindly, "go play", that is where I went, mostly alone. The Bible says that even the rocks cry out that there is a great God, and though I did not know it consciously, those rocks were telling me the truth. My family did not talk about anything religious so my only exposure to such was "Christmas". Later in my childhood, at the beginning of High School, my parents must have decided that I should have some "safe" social contact so they forced me to attend church youth group meetings once a week in town. But I did not feel welcome or comfortable there. There was another boy there who did not want to be there and must have sensed I did not want to be there either, so he invited me to sneak out of each meeting and wander around town with him until it was time to "sneak" back before my parents came to pick me up. He was the first, and only, person to ever show any interest in spending time with me so I went with him. He lived in town but for some reason the most popular kids did not like him. He was friends with a lot of the "normally popular" kids, but none of them wanted to sneak out of the youth meetings. So he was the closest person I had to having a friend, even though when there was someone more acceptable to hang out with, he stayed with them and ignored me. I never found out why he was considered unacceptable to the most popular group. He never wanted to do anything I considered to be bad when we were together. Unusual, like playing ninjas, but not bad ninjas. It was the Vietnam war era so he was immediately drafted and forced to fight there right out of High School. So we did not hang out together anymore. Nobody cared whether we were gone from the youth fellowship. But one day, when it was getting close to Easter, the youth pastor came over to me before I could sneak out and paid me a little bit of attention. Then he told me he wanted me to play the part of Jesus in the upcoming Passion Play the church youth group was putting on for Easter. I was surprised and somewhat dismayed that he did this, but something deep inside said that this was very, very, important and serious and I should do it. So drawn to this task by this deep sense of purpose I got a Bible and poured myself into reading about Jesus. I fell in love with the story, and this Jesus. It confirmed everything the whispering deep in my soul had been saying about us, about who we were and how we should be. And this Jesus described in the Bible should be adored and respected above all for who he was and what he did for us. It became my purpose then to devote all of me to portraying Jesus in this Passion Play so that all who watched it could adore and respect him as he deserved. I thought that since these people attended this church, they would want that. So I put myself to the task of focusing as hard as I could to be this Jesus as I played my part. I did not pay attention to anything, or anyone, else while doing this. So I was unaware of what was really going on in the audience. When it came to the part where I was put up on the cross and dying, I took a moment to look at the audience so I could see their expressions of adoration and respect for Jesus. But what I saw kicked me in the gut instead. What I saw were blank expressions of apathy, or boredom, some giggling and pointing at us. I did not see anyone taking the message of the play seriously. This experience plunged me deep into my purposed rebellion against mankind and their society as I knew it. I had experienced a brief period of hope for mankind during the preparation of this Passion Play, but when all I saw at the end was apathy and disregard for its message, I lost that hope, and instead became bitter, and my anger became louder than the whispers I had been hearing all my life up until then. Don't misunderstand what I am saying. My anger did not overwhelm my conviction to be good. It did not convince me to be bad. It made me passionate about being good and being against being bad. And motivated me to be an activist, doing whatever I could to protest the bad and do something about it, like becoming a vigilante. Not a violent one, I strongly disliked violence, but if it was needed, then I would let it happen or become violent myself. One other positive characteristic of my childhood was that, even though my immune system disability severely limited my stamina, and I was petite in stature, my genes made me prone to athletic muscularity. All my childhood I could do considerably more pushups, sit-ups, and pullups, than others. And for very short distances I was faster. I was also very agile on my feet. Being disabled I was not allowed to attend the normal school physical education classes because I could not run as far as required. But this gave the school motivation to set up a weightlifting room for people like me. So I began bodybuilding exercises and became, even for my size, one of the strongest students in my school. These characteristics coupled with the adrenalin of my vigilante passion made me very fierce against bullies so I got away with my activist activities in the small town where I went to school. It also gave me the ability to let my father know he could no longer physically abuse me. The reason I point these things out is that the prevailing attitude of this small town was to beat up anyone who did not conform. My vigilant passion compelled me to defend those being bullied or teased. My activist nature compelled me to act and dress in ways the town considered inappropriate. I do not mean that I decided to act bad, I was passionately against that, even though anger inside me tempted me to do bad things. I found one day how bad I really could be if I let my anger rule. One day I experienced a very disturbing incident of rejection from someone I really admired and cared about. After the experience I was alone in a building that I knew I could escape to when I wanted to feel better. Then a person bigger than I and one I did not know came into the building and started to tease me. This time I felt too upset to manage my anger and I let my rage rule my actions. If someone else hadn't also walked into the building while I was attacking my teaser, the consequences of my anger would have been very dire. The second person had the seemingly supernatural ability to bring to my senses and I stopped my attack. Nothing else came of the incident other than me learning never to let anger rule, and I never forgot how the person who stopped my attack had to have had some kind of supernatural help to stop me since they were old and tiny compared to me. So I only allowed my activist and vigilante self do what was not the norm, but still was not bad. For instance I was the first, or at least one of the first boys who let my hair grow long, and wear east Indian style clothes. These were considered unacceptable in that small town, but I was "in their face" with it. I point all of this out so that you may see that, even though I did not know it, God designed my life to be what He planned, as He does with everyone. I was significantly limited, yet capable enough to be independent in attitude. In my case it was important to be able to independently make up my own mind about God instead of being manipulated by fear of others. The next event of my report concerning the meaning of life happens just out of High School. In my senior year I met a girl who had already graduated. She was walking alone looking forlorn so I decided to talk to her. We became friends and then lovers. Even though I was not a Christian, it just seemed right that such a relationship should be permanent. A marriage, even if not through the legal system. I counted our relationship as permanent, a marriage. But she eventually decided to break up with me. I could not go anywhere in the small town without being reminded of how much I loved her, so I decided to get out of town. The only place I knew I had a place to go to was on the other side of the mountains, and at that time it was the middle of winter and in the middle of the night. It was a long, empty drive with nothing to help me stay awake so I bought a box of No-Doze - over-the-counter pills that helped people stay awake and alert to drive safely. As I was driving, trying to stay alert and not focus on my pain, I took pill after pill until the box was empty. I had no idea that these pills were dangerous so that did not bother me. But as I drove I began to get high as if on drugs. Then my fingers and toes went to sleep. Then the rest of my body went to sleep. Then paralysis set in. I was driving up a long, steep grade that had curves and a cliff on one side of the road and a dropoff on the other side. I was headed for the cliff at 70 miles per hour and my body was paralyzed. I could not turn or brake. Then my mind began to fade. All I could see was the light from my headlights shining on the cliff ahead of me. Then the lights faded out and there was nothing but empty darkness. I was no longer aware of my body or anything physical, but I could still think. Then it became harder and harder to think, until it took all of my "might" to produce a thought. I barely realized that when I stopped thinking I was dead, so with all my "might" I pushed out the thought "God, don't want to die". Immediately, from the empty, dark, nothingness, big clay block letters spelling the word "BREATHE" came down from above me and gently crashed onto my head, and a voice spoke the same command. I instantly was aware that I was not breathing and forced myself to do so. Then consciousness returned to me and I could see that I was sitting in my car on the grade, and was alone. The car had somehow stopped before hitting the cliff, and yet did not roll backwards down the grade and crash that way. As I sat there breathing, the condition of my body quickly reversed until it was normal again and I could continue to drive. But as soon as I let my attention drift from "God" - I did not know who that was, the paralysis quickly started to set in. So I focused, as well as I could, on "God" who I had cried out to. I was far away from anyone and there was nothing but icy, winding, up and down, road between me and any town, so my only choice was to press on. I don't remember much of that drive except continuing to have to focus on "God" in order to stay conscious. I finally made it to the nearest tiny town and into its tiny motel parking lot. All I could do then was open my car door and fall out onto the ground. There was no one around. I managed to drag myself across the gravel to what appeared to be a tiny lobby. I was able to reach up and open the door and drag myself into the empty cubicle. There was a phone on a short table next to a small couch. I reached up to the phone and said help into the receiver. The next thing I knew a sheriff deputy was roughly nudging me, berating me for getting him out of bed to drag the likes of me to jail. I was barely conscious. He drove me to the next town where there was a sheriff's office. He pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the office, opened the back car door, and commanded me to get out. I weakly got out and started walking up to the sheriff office. It was still in the middle of the night. Then the door of the sheriff office opened and another deputy rushed out to get me. This one however was kind, compassionate, and eager to help me. He immediately rushed me to the tiny local hospital and the staff there said that if I fell asleep I would die. So they helped me walk up and down the corridor, pumping me with liquids, for hours. Finally they said I could sleep, and the sheriff deputy that took me there came back and got me. It shocked me when he told me he knew who I was, not because of my driver's license and stuff, but because he also knew who I was going to go see. I had not told that to anyone. He let me sleep in an unlocked cell that had a bunk. When I woke up he fed me a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs he had actually cooked. I was flabbergasted. He called the people I was going to see and they came and got me and helped me drive my car to their place in the San Francisco bay area. They took care of me for weeks while I recovered from my ordeal. As I recalled the experience I realized that on that steep, curving grade where I became paralyzed and almost died in my car, my body had become stiff in just the right way to keep my car from continuing forward, or drifting backward. My car had an automatic transmission which means if my foot hadn't stopped pressing on the accelerator, I would have crashed into the cliff. Yet, my foot had to have stayed pressing on the accelerator enough to keep the engine running enough to keep the car from rolling backwards off a cliff. I did not have a foot on the brakes. This whole experience was a miraculous one in many ways. Too bad the effect of the drug on my body numbed me from realizing that at that time. Now I was with people I knew and in the famous San Francisco area. Remember, I was straight out of the mountains. Very quickly some Haight/Ashbury flower people, real hippies, got a hold of me and took me in and I became one of those late 1960's Flower children. "If you're going to San Francisco, you should wear a flower in your hair". The hippie movement started as a seemingly good thing. A bunch of people like me were throwing off the mean, selfish, ways of society and creating our own where we treated each other equally and kindly, shared everything, and discarded greediness and materialism. But I soon learned that that is not the nature of human beings. The reality is that for almost everyone work has to happen. You don't just get to do, or have, what you want all the time. Because of our flawed human nature, the ideal that there will always be someone who is happy to do what you don't want to do, so everyone can just do what they want is a myth. Sacrifice and suffering is what we have made out of life. I was happy to work because I liked the job I got. I was happy to drive people to where they wanted because I like to drive. And for the first time in my life people liked and respected me. But the people who had so happily accepted me into their lives just played all the time. Eventually I wanted to play as much as they did, so I quit. Suddenly I was no longer popular. How dare I quit my job! Now they had to play less and find ways to make money. My car broke down and since it is very expensive to own and drive a car in San Francisco, I decided to get rid of it. Now I was not welcome anymore. How could I do such a thing to them! This kind of reality pretty much destroyed that flower children movement. I found out that many, if not most, of the hippies were from wealthy, seemingly upstanding families who were supposedly good, successful people. Yet these "good" people were unable to satisfy their children. San Francisco was a marketplace of just about every religion, philosophy, and practice, that promised one could reach a state of complete, perfect, peace, and even ecstatic joy, if one worked hard enough to achieve these things. There was a lot of supernatural seeming power there that people,if they worked hard enough at it, could get in order to achieve personal miracles like levitation, feeling no pain, going without food or drink, or an ability to tune everything out and lose all troubling thoughts or feelings. But it all was selfish. I saw people who seemed to have reached a state of heavenly peace and fulfillment by disciplining themselves to tune out all troubling reality. They were only interested in making themselves happy and the only help they desired to give to others was to try to work as hard as they did at their seIf-centered focuses. Monks could seem to levitate, or poke needles through their skin without pain, or dance themselves into an ecstatic frenzy, while they were oblivious to the even life threatening needs and sufferings of those around them. What good is levitating and feeling no pain, or ecstatic dancing, when it does not feed the hungry, or clothe the cold, or stop the crimes committed against others. All those practices were self centered and just different forms of mankind's bad nature. I left San Francisco more disillusioned and bitter about life than I had ever been. I concluded there was no hope for humankind, and I would never have a place in society. I gave up on religion, or philosophy, or finding really good people. And along the way I realized that I also had the same character problems as everyone else. So it was obvious to me that since I grew up alone in beautiful natural surroundings, then that is where I belonged. I fervently decided to go back to the wilderness and be a hermit and not talk to anyone. I never had a problem in nature and knew how to survive and enjoy it. It was being with people that caused problems. I had heard many stories about places in Canada where people like me went to live apart from society. I packed my backpack and started hitchhiking north. But the path I chose took me across a large, empty, area of desert that had a minimum of traffic. That did not scare me, I had spent a lot of time in the desert, and there was a highway that went through this one toward Canada. Hitchhiking back in those days was problematic, but I, even in my hippie style, looked more like a troubled, runaway kid, than someone dangerous. So I, almost always, got a ride. If I had to spend a night in the desert, I loved it. But all the other male hippies I knew looked dangerous so getting a ride while hitchhiking with them did not work well. In my upset state of mind I just wanted to get to the Canadian wilderness as soon as possible. I felt that since I was by myself I should not have much of a problem getting through that desert. The one highway going north through that desert was the only one to do so and so it was built for making a fast trip. This means that anywhere where it met with another road, it went over that road on an overpass so that traffic would not have to stop at the cross sections. This meant that to change from this highway to another road, one would have to go down an off ramp. And if changing from another road to this highway one had to go up an on ramp. The first ride I got, at the south side of the desert, only took me to the middle of the desert because the driver who gave me the ride switched there to a road going east. I was not concerned because I was alone, for miles as far as I could tell, and I almost always quickly got a ride when I was by myself. But as I walked down the off ramp to cross the road going east and walked up the on ramp to continue hitchhiking on the highway going north, I saw that there was a big, unsavory looking character up where the on ramp connected to the highway going north and he was hitchhiking. If you haven't yet understood from what I have been sharing, what my experiences taught me about the meaning of life, then what fellows should make it clearer to you. Seeing that big, evil looking man hitchhiking where I planned to do it stopped me in my tracks. I did not want to talk to ANYONE! Especially one who could be trouble. Sure generally speaking I could handle most situations, but, being of small stature, there was always the chance that a situation could occur that I could not. And here I was many, many, miles away from any help or even place to hide once I let that big, evil looking man know I was there. One thing that had always been consistent in my life was that, except when I was alone in the wilderness, evil people seemed always around ready to prey on someone. Still I had to admit that my life seemed to be enchanted somehow because something always seemed to prevent me from being physically harmed seriously by anyone but my abusive father, and that even stopped once a became powerful enough to prevent it. I often, either by ignorance or bravery, put myself in dangerous situations. There were even a few times when I was ganged up on beyond my power to defend myself and some much larger and muscular man than I would mysteriously show up to protect me. In this situation my choices were to either stay away from that man, which would mean staying out of sight under the overpass hoping that he would get a ride and move on, but him getting a ride soon was not likely because most people would avoid him. And I would have to hope that he would not come down to the underpass for any reason, and there were many reasons why he might come down under the underpass. He could just want to take a break from the desert sun and under the overpass was the only place of shade for miles. I could have walked in the desert, out of sight, around him until I could go to the edge of the highway further north and hitchhike there. But something inside me compelled me to take the chance and walk up the on ramp to him. So I did. When I got close enough to see each other we were both stunned in surprise. Here, many, many, miles away from anywhere we had ever been to, and after a long time of not hearing or seeing one another, out here in the middle of this empty desert was the one person I would ever have been open to having a conversation with or spending any time with. He was that one person in High School who had asked me to spend time with him, the one who did not want to stay in the church youth meetings so had asked me to sneak out with and run around town with during the youth meeting time. And he was obviously upset and needed company. Immediately after he got over his surprised shock, he told me he was going to visit his brother and asked me to go with him. I didn't want to but because he was the one person who was the closest thing I had to a friend in High School, I felt I should accompany him on his way to visit his brother. Then I could continue my plan to become a hermit in Canada from there. So from there we hitchhiked to his brother's place. I knew of his brother since we had gone to the same High School, and he went to the same church youth meeting. But he was 2 years older and 2 years ahead in school so I only knew of him, but at least I knew enough about him to know he was one of the normally popular kids in High School so that meant he wasn't one of the meaner ones. Which was good because he was very big and very smart. I think he was about 6ft. 6inches tall, and a lean and fit 245 lbs. He also could do amazing math in his head that normal people could not do. By this time he had gotten married and had a good job. I think he had a disability with his eyes so he could not be in the military. During this time period in our society there was a very big difference between normal citizens and hippies. Normal citizens adhered to standards of conduct and appearance that were much more conservative and stricter than the very obviously loose standards of hippies. So almost always normal people did not associate or approve of hippies. Since my "friend's" brother was a strictly normal society person, I did not know what to expect when he and his wife encountered me, the hippie. By this time the seriously searching, idealistic flower children who wanted a better society had been replaced by mobs of simply rebellious people who simply wanted to discard the limitations of morality in order to live a life of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. When most of my hippie peers traveled to places of normal society, they were run out of town, or beaten, or thrown in jail, or any combination of the 3. I escaped such treatment because I looked more like a runaway, troubled, 14-year-old kid, instead of my actual age - that or I simply had help from above. 99 percent of the time though, even though I was not beat up, or thrown in jail, I was "helped", and strongly encouraged, to move on for fear I would be a bad influence on other children. There was no "safe" way to let a hippie stay around long enough to tell if we wanted to be good, so just get rid of us. I had experienced, at times, people who would for the moment take me in and meet my physical needs to make sure this "troubled kid" wasn't going hungry or lacked proper clothing. But that was only momentary until they felt that they, in good conscience, could let me "move on". They never let me into their lives. So I expected to be asked to "move on". What happened was completely the opposite. I, for the first time, was welcomed with warm, kindly, uninhibited love and caring concern that said "you belong here". It was as if I were their lost child who had just returned home. I had learned by this time that such people did not exist. It was impossible for us humans to be this way. And yet this couple acted the way that the whisper I had heard so long ago in my heart kept telling me was the way we should be. I was wonderfully shocked and confused. All those years as a kid experiencing and watching how badly people treated each other, and hearing in my heart the way we should be, and having been given the quest to find the answer to this problem, then searching for the answer and finding none, and giving up on it. And now meeting people who obviously had somehow found the answer. How else could they be this way. It was unnatural. Even the best of those before who had temporarily taken me in to make sure I physically had what I needed, did not approve of my way of thinking and feeling. And were not interested in why I was the way I was. They were only interested in making sure I could live in order to have time to come to my senses and change my ways and conform. But this couple did not ask me to change my ways. They did not show any disapproval of me. They just let me know that they completely loved and accepted me the way I was. And even more of a miracle they trusted me. They did not expect me to be bad. They seemed to understand that I had no intentions of being evil and did not want to be evil. My mind reeled wondering about this. They did not know me. How could they know my real inner desires and intentions? And they asked me to stay there with them, which I did. I stayed with them, and after several more days, when I expected them to change their attitude toward me, they didn't. I had to find out why they had the power to overcome our evil human nature. They treated me like their trusted son. They let me drive their car. They took care of me and did not ask me to change my style. They did not ask me to get a job. They just took care of me and let me watch them live their lives. And they prayed in Christ Jesus's name and read the Bible. And I, for the first time in my life, comfortably strived to be good, the way I believed in being, because I was with people who also believed in living that way. They were acting the way others and I as flower children had envisioned people should act. Everyone I had known, including myself, had been unable to be the way they were for very long. They continued to work and carry on their responsibilities, yet they were still so happy to just serve me and show me how they lived. When Sunday and Wednesday came they went to church. After a couple of more weeks they simply asked me if I wanted to go to church with them. I said yes, relishing the idea to rub my hippieness in the face of the church. Back in those days people like me were not welcome in any of the churches I knew of. If we appeared on church grounds we were told to come back when we straightened out, and we were escorted off the property. So when Sunday came I maxed out my most outrageous hippie costume and went to church with them, barefoot. At the church I stepped out of the car and marched up to the big ushers that always seem to guard church doors, and waited for the expected rejection. I was shocked when instead, the big usher put his arms around my shoulders and warmly invited me in. I continued going to that church and made a real nuisance of myself. I debated their beliefs. But I could not get them to change their "Christ-likeness". And it became clear to me that that way of living was how the Bible told us to live. And I began to think that the God of the Bible might actually be real and was the one show had been talking to me all of my life, the whisperer, and the mental voice who told me to find the answer to mankind's problem with our evil nature. Still, I was too hard hearted to believe in Christ myself. I finally rationalized that this particular couple and their church were different because these people had never really seen the brutal side of life like the rest of us. They were so lucky to have had their "leave-it-to-beaver" lives that they could believe in their fantasy. But I had seen the real world and knew that outside of this little group people were not as happy or nice. God must have told this to the Youth Pastor of that church because one day before church he told me that instead of going to church he wanted to take me somewhere else. I went along with him and he drove me to a little beach house. He said he would drop me off and come back for me after he finished his church duties. I was really curious and agreed to his plan. I left the car and headed for the front door of the cottage. I opened the door and was shocked to find the living room full of hippies! I stood at the door wondering what the Pastor was up to. Then I realized that these were the happiest hippies I had ever seen! And there were no drugs, music, alcohol, or sexual things going on. These people seemed to glow! Then I heard them talking about Jesus. I was stunned. They were praising God and talking about how wonderful He was! At first I felt betrayed. These were my people! They knew what life was really like in this world! But I could not doubt their sincerity. It was obvious they meant what they said! So, bewildered, I snuck over to a chair in the most remote corner of the room I could find, so they couldn't talk to me. I watched, amazed that they were just like the people I was living with, and their church. I could not fathom why. Then the front door opened and the most forlorn, disturbed, unhappy figure of a man I had ever seen walked into the room. My heart broke as I looked at him. He was obviously very depressed and hopeless. He looked like shadow itself. The "hippie" Christians began to reach out to him with the perfect love of Christ. They began sharing with him the gospel how God, because He loves us so much, left the splendor of Heaven to be born as a man. Then God-man Jesus Christ, after revealing the truth, took our punishment of death upon Himself and died on the cross so that we can believe, repent of our sinful ways, be forgiven, and have real life in Christ. These Christians obviously had experienced what they were describing. They were overflowing with peace, joy, love, contentment, and genuine, selfless, kindness, and compassion. In contrast the man they were ministering to was like death in the shell of a body. I wanted so badly for him to have what they had! But he was resisting! I didn't speak out loud and interrupt, but in my mind I began to desperately plead with him to believe what they were telling him. It was obviously the truth! Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I was sitting in a chair against the wall so no one could be behind me. I knew who it was. I looked up in my mind and listened. Jesus simply said to me in my mind "Why don't YOU give me a chance and believe?" I knew then that He was what I had been searching for all my life, and had been resisting so much. I simply said in my mind "Jesus, if you are real, I really want you". I opened the door to my heart, soul, and mind, and invited Him to come in. In my heart I repented of my unbelief and surrendered to His efforts to convince me to believe in Him. And He convinced me. Immediately I literally felt a gentle stream of honey mixed with oil pour gently onto my head. It poured into my body filling me up inside starting from my feet. As it filled me up, every sorrow and pain floated up on its top surface, leaving the part of me under that surface refreshed and cleansed from everything! It filled my whole body up until it flowed out over the top of my head. As it overflowed, gently flowing down over the outside of me, it carried away all pain and sorrow, leaving me clean, refreshed, completely satisfied, and full of joy and happiness I did not know one could experience! Christ Jesus indeed convinced me He was real and was all He claimed to be. At the same time all of this was happening in my mind, I was also dimly aware of what an arrogant, egotistical, prideful fool I had been. I was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk to anyone right then, so, barely able to control my joy, I struggled to restrain myself, and stiffly left the cottage. Once outside I could no longer restrain myself and I ran, leaping and jumping, to the beach where I dropped to my knees and began to praise and thank God out loud! Later I began to remember all of the miraculous coincidences of my life. It was God, as described in the Bible, who commanded me BREATHE when I was paralyzed in my car. And who made sure my foot became paralyzed in just the right position on my car's accelerator so that the engine ran just powerfully enough to keep my car from rolling backwards off the cliff behind me, yet not powerful enough to crash my car forward into the cliff ahead of me. And that is how I was convinced that God, as described in the Bible, is real, and is the one who has the power to change us into the good people He created us to become. Now I knew that He was the answer to mankind's problem with our evil nature. I committed my life to believing in Him, Christ Jesus, and as He instructed I repented of my "sins", meaning I committed myself to do what He says and not do what He says not to do. And I realized that that was the difference between the people I had had bad church experiences with, and this couple and their church. When you really believe in someone you believe in who they are, and if you believe they are God, then you trust that they are telling the truth so you choose to actually live by all that they say. God says in the Bible that if we believe in Him He will forgive us and transform us into His likeness. He is perfectly good and I saw that transformation revealed by the behavior of this couple who really believed in Him. And then from that time on I began to experience His process of transforming me into His likeness. I'm not perfect yet but He keeps working on me and I get better and better at being good. And I know because He says it in the Bible, that when my life in this body is over, God will instantly finish His perfecting process and I will be with Him as friend and family, with Him as my Lord, Father, Teacher, and the one who empowers me, forever in His Kingdom. Finding all this, receiving it, and helping others is the meaning of life. And you can have it too."