|
It was the fourth of July, 1970, when I
reached my bottom. My drug-filled life had brought
me to my confused state of despair, but it would be
a few more years before I realized that. I threw
myself to the ground and pounded the earth. I
considered suicide for a moment and the shock of
even considering such an action made me realize I
had to find a new way.
A friend of a friend
was reading a big blue book which had impressed my
friend. I thought I might visit this fellow, Ralph
Smith, and ask him about God. When I told Ralph how
troubled I had become he suggested I go to a
mountaintop and meditate on some aspect of God.
I drove up the coast
to Ventura County and headed for the mountains. I
spent the day hiking and, at the summit, meditated
on the triune God concept that Ralph had described
from the Urantia Book. It was a wonderful day, but
as I drove back down the coast highway for my home
in Topanga, I realized nothing had changed. I was
about to return to my same ragged life.
The next day I had an
amazing experience. In the middle of a conversation
with a friend, I suddenly announced, “I know what
I’ll do!” and proceeded to describe a short-term
plan of action that would get me out of my bind. The
amazing thing was that even as I spoke the words, I
did not know where the ideas behind them were coming
from. I was actually listening to the words as they
poured out of my mouth. It was a fairly elaborate
plan, yet during the minute or so that I spoke I was
completely aware that I was not speaking these words
in any normal way.
The plan that came
forth was a good one, so I proceeded to act on it. I
believed then that this experience was somehow
related to my earnest prayers of the day before and
perhaps was designed to show me the reality of God.
This religious experience truly lifted me and
propelled me towards recovery. The experience was
then, and remains today, a mystery and one that has
never occurred again.
I began reading the
Urantia Book along with other texts on God, from St.
Thomas Aquinas to the Bhagavad Gita. I was
open-minded but skeptical of the Urantia Book for
many years. I suspected that someday I would
discover it to be a work of fiction or fantasy.
After years of
intense scrutiny, I began to relax my defenses and
allow it to work in my life.
|
