From the Author
My book that follows, God for Non-Believers & Believers, Implications from What We Think We Know is too close to my heart and soul to put a price tag on it for brother and sister seekers of spiritual truth.
However, that being said, if you become inspired by what follows, at the End of the Book, there is a LINK that will enable you to contribute any amount you determine in order to support the distribution and promotion of the book.
I like to call this "Friend Funding" in the loving spirit of my/our multimedia company, Friend Ship Productions and Publishing.
My background is half-Catholic and half-Jewish, and I have explored other religions along my journey, and please know, this book is not exclusive, it's inclusive.
I hope you’ll read and be inspired by the book, and if you feel that my spiritual journey has contributed to yours, please pass it on to others who may also enjoy its stories and thoughtful musings about the great mysteries that lie within and beyond.
Richard R. Roller
RichRoller@att.net
Introduction
When Einstein was asked, “Do you believe in Miracles?” he said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Later in his life, he became convinced of the likely existence of some form of Universal Intelligence being the fundamental basis of Everything and Everyone, Everywhere.
I greatly admire and am fascinated by the fact that someone so supremely intelligent as Einstein, someone so versed in math and science, could also leave room for a belief in Divinity, though his belief was not based in assigning human qualities to God. He embraced a more cosmic view of the divine.
This is not a book to get anyone to believe in God, but rather a book that suggests that our intelligence comes from a series of Intelligences through an infinite sequence of Mothers and Fathers. Nothing comes from nothing.
Scientists tell us that Our Universe began as a concentration of Energy that can only Compress, Expand and/or Change Form.
We’re also told that everything and everyone that ever was, is now, and will ever be came from Energy compressed into an area probably smaller than an apple, floating in the Limitlessness and Timelessness of Interstellar Space, for an indeterminate amount of time, before it began its Infinite and possibly Eternal Outward Expansion.
Yes, our source goes all the way back to the Big Bang, which I think could be more accurately described as “A Spectacular Sprouting.” After all, an explosive bang is a destructive event, whereas a Sprouting is, by definition, both expansive and constructive.
If you’re already convinced that God is the Supreme Source, you will find plenty of ideas here to support your belief. However, on the other hand, if you’re an Atheist or an Agnostic, be assured, you will most certainly not be transformed into a “True Believer.”
My hope, at the very least, is that this relatively brief book will inspire you and others with an expanded sense of awe and wonder for the beauty and challenges we face together on this amazing Planet and Universe.
The original subtitle for this Book was – “Implications from What We Know.” I later realized that what we know, and think we know, is evolving, and so I changed the subtitle to: “Implications from What We Think We Know.”
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Table of Contents
(Please note: you can click from the contents below and jump to that section,
or you can just scroll down to start from the beginning.)
Part One - My Childhood Confusion and Loss of Trust
Part Three - My Crash and Awakening in Venice Beach, California
Part Four - Free Will – It’s Unique Gift, Uses and Abuses
Part Five - Examples of Misuses of Free Will in the Names of God or Sex or Race or…?
Part Six - Is God a He or a She or Both?
Part Seven - Why Father/Mother God Gave Us Humans Free Will
Part Eight - Amazing Past and Present Advances by the Positive Uses of Our Wills
Part Nine - Religion, Reframed and Reclaimed
Part Eleven – CEEM - My Absolutivity Theory
Part Twelve - The Big Bang – Which I Call “A Spectacular Sprouting”
Part Fourteen - An Intimate and Challenging Conversation with My Mother
Part Fifteen - Evolution, Creationism, Prayer & Meditation
Part Sixteen - The Marriage of Yin and Yang
Part Seventeen - My Outrageous Observation About Ones and Zeroes
Part Eighteen - Gene Roddenberry’s Warp Speed and Beyond
Part Nineteen – My Axiom of Change
Part Twenty-Two - I Leave You with This
Part One
My Childhood Confusion and Loss of Trust:
I was brought up in a mixed-up, well-meaning, religious family. My father was raised as an Austrian Jew, and my mother was raised as an Italian Catholic, and I developed into a rather confused and conflicted Half Jew/Half Catholic.
Me with my beloved father at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles where he was the manager for a time.
As a young child, I struggled with these opposing beliefs. Did I want to identify as a Jew and be one of God’s “Special Chosen Few,” who rejected Jesus as the Messiah/Savior, or did I want to identify as a Catholic and be spared from the flames of hell as a member of the “One True Religion”?
I could be a Jewish Matzo Ball or an Italian Catholic Meat Ball, and instead, over time, I became an angry atheist. I thought my family members were crazy, and if there was a God, I hated Him for all the horrible things he allowed us to do to ourselves, others, and our Home Planet.
Fortunately, along the way, life happened to me, and I had experiences and epiphanies that led to an expanded thinking about God, Good, Evil, Life, as well as my relationships with Family, Friends and these Temporary Forms of you and me.
My path to believing has been a long and sometimes painful journey, with many highs and lows, before becoming ultimately convinced that Intelligence is the basis of the Universe and possible Multiverses, and that it is also Intimately Personal.
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Part Two
Two Amazing Dream Experiences and My Evolving Thoughts About God (i.e., A Supreme Intelligence):
In the past, when asked, “Do you believe in God?” my answer was, “That depends on what you mean by God.” For me, the question requires much more than a simple yes or no answer.
Seeking the answer to that question for myself, along with others, is one of the main reasons why I’ve been compelled to write and share this book.
Sometimes the subconscious helps us along on our journey. What follows are two such instances where I believe my higher power was sending a message for me to learn to pay careful attention.
Dream # 1 - As I’ve mentioned, I had some significant confusion about whether I was a Jew or an Italian Catholic, and it certainly didn’t help matters when I felt compelled to serve as an Altar Boy for Father Francis at Sunday Masses. I didn’t want to do it! Therefore, I maneuvered getting out of that regular Sunday task.
Several years went by, and I was then about age fifteen or sixteen, having given up my Altar Boy duties five or more years earlier. The only time I set foot in church was occasionally when I was pressured to do so by my mother.
I was upstairs in my bedroom, taking a Sunday nap, oddly dreaming about my times with Father Francis. I dreamt of the ritualistic lighting of candles and responding to his sacred outpourings. In the midst of this dream, my mother suddenly called out and woke me up. “Richard, you’ve got a visitor, and you’ll never guess who it is.”
But, somehow, I already knew!
I came down the stairs, and there he was, Father Francis in the flesh. He told me that in the middle of mass that day, he’d had a strong memory of me and felt called to look me up and pay a visit. He had never been to my house before.
And, by the way, it needs to be said, there never was anything inappropriate going on with Father Francis and me. I was blown away by this dream visit that instantly came true out of the blue!
Dream # 2 - Around 20 years ago, I was having a series of recurring dreams. In them, I rescued two furless baby squirrels. One was a male, and the other was a female. I was so affected by that recurrence that I obsessively told and retold this bizarre dream to my wife and son, and it really weirded them out!
During the middle of a cold and windy month of March, I was leaving the house to go pick up my son at the bus stop from school.
My neighbor across the street excitedly called me over, “Richard, come see this!” On the ground was a tiny furless baby squirrel that had fallen from his palm tree in the wind. I picked the tiny creature up and realized that it was a female. In awe, I held her carefully in my left hand as I drove to get my son.
When I arrived at the bus stop, my son, Ian, got in the car and noticed the squirrel in my hand. Having been bombarded, along with my wife, about my recurring squirrel rescue dreams, he was frankly, freaked out.
We rode home in an uneasy silence. When we arrived, the neighbor begged me to come back again. There was yet another baby squirrel on the ground that had fallen from the same tree, and just
like in my dream, the second squirrel was a male! I took them both into the house and immediately called my engineer wife at work.
She thought I was pulling her leg. I assured her that I was not, and that one of the babies was a boy and the other was a girl, just like in my dreams.
I urged her to come home right away and help me care for them, which she did, after stopping at a pet store to figure out what these two babies needed to be fed.
We named the boy Will and the girl Grace. Unfortunately, early on, Will died; however, Gracie lived on with us, inside and outside our house for a few years.
After being seduced by a neighbor-hood squirrel, she became a very good mother of two litters that we had the honor to love and play with.
These two dream experiences profoundly affected me. I couldn’t come up with any logical explanation, so my mind drifted to the spiritual/mystical.
Part Three
My Crash and Awakening in Venice Beach, California
Allow me to take you back in time on my life’s journey, back before my recurring dreams about rescuing squirrels, and back to one of the lowest points in my life.
As an obese young man in my 20s, I found myself, during a period of desperation, on the second-floor ledge of a hotel in San Francisco unable to pay the bill. Inside my hotel room, I had two young freaked out boys and a wife who was, like me, mentally and emotionally disturbed.
Me at 340 pounds with my first son.
Standing on that balcony, the thought crossed my mind that at around 300 pounds, if I really wanted to kill myself, and not just end up with an agonizingly broken body, I would need to get higher … or get down.
In my despair, I thought of my father. He was a man I had always admired and whose love and approval I had always craved. I suddenly felt the overwhelming need to reach out to him for help.
I carefully backed off the ledge and back into the room and made a collect call to my dad in Houston.
When I told him the situation, he was calm and reassuring, “Stay where you are. I’m sending someone to pick you up and fly you here.” At this same time, one of my wife’s brothers arranged to have her and our boys picked up and brought to him.
As it turned out, my dad’s love for me was just the medicine I needed. With his loving support, I began my recovery.
Dad was the managing partner of the prestigious Presidents Health Club in Houston, Texas. The club was the unofficial in-town training center for the original seven NASA Astronauts. I actually got to meet a few of them, including John Glenn, Gus Grisham, and Neil Armstrong.
My father, David Roller, in his prime.
Under my father’s patient tutelage, I thrived in that positive and supportive environment. I passionately began working out, losing fat, gaining muscle and confidence. My dad, along with his business partner and members of the club, took note of my impressive and rapid transformation.
I became an exceptionally motivated salesman. I went out into the downtown Houston business community with my “before” picture, and I inspired a number of overfed Corporate Executives to join the club.
In a little over a year, my dad and his partner made me the manager of the Executive Men’s Club in downtown Dallas. It was an amazing metamorphosis this butterfly was going through! After a very successful year in Dallas, Dad bought into what was to be a club of his own in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.
I moved there to serve as his partner/manager. This was a serious opportunity for me to be in business with my dad, and it was one of the happiest times of my life. Being trusted and admired by him gave my life purpose.
From that positive position, I attempted to reconcile with my wife and boys. I arranged for them to come to Indianapolis and live with me in a nice condo I had leased with an option to purchase.
It was soon after my wife’s arrival that her mental condition worsened. She didn’t understand my transformation toward fitness, health and sanity. I felt she was threatened by my dramatic and positive changes, and I made the very painful decision to end the effort and send her and the boys back to her family.
Did I make the wrong move at that time to send her and the boys away? All I knew was that I couldn’t give them what they needed. I was still concerned for my own ongoing recovery, and at that time, I was not strong enough to fight for custody.
She’d made it clear that if I didn’t want to be with her, she would see to it that I would have no relationship with the boys. This part of my past haunts me at times.
So, I doubled down on my effort to turn the Indianapolis Men’s Club into a roaring success. My dad was elated and proud.
Then life, as it sometimes does, took a turn.
On my 28th birthday, on March the 28th, 1971, my dad was 56 years old, twice my age. He was piloting his plane from Florida to Indianapolis with a plan to be with me on my birthday.
As I eagerly awaited his call from the Indy Airport, the phone rang. It was my Uncle Nick, my dad’s younger brother. He was calling to deliver the news. Dad had encountered extremely treacherous weather. He had attempted to turn back and outrun the tempest, but was unsuccessful, and the plane went down into a rock quarry.
Both he and his passenger were killed.
Unfortunately, I never made the effort to learn who the passenger was. I don’t know why, and I regret that.
My life and world crashed along with my father on that fateful day. I felt destroyed and hopeless. My dad was my best friend who literally pulled me off the ledge and helped me build a new life, and now he was gone, forever.
The current owner of the Indianapolis Club decided that he had no use for me since my dad was gone. The deal was with him, not me, and I was cut loose with very little money. I quickly went into a tailspin. I began overeating, gaining weight, drugging and slowly running out of funds, friends, and family.
I realize now that if I had gone to my family, they would have taken me in with open arms, but at that point I was feeling immense shame.
It was as if, once again, I was on a building wanting to jump and put an end to my miserable life, but instead I used most of the money I had left to purchase a small barely livable van. In my zombie-like mental state, the van seemed to have a mind of its own which drove me west to Venice Beach, California, where I parked in the Venice Canals.
But for that van I was officially clueless and homeless.
It was there that I hit bottom again, but conversely, it was also there that my recovery and trust in a Universal Higher Power began. It was there that I began to realize that I loved and was lovable, and that I could forgive and be forgiven. It was also there that I was reminded of my love of creating and co-creating with others.
But all this did not happen right away, and in fact, the process is still developing as I devote myself to the work of channeling this book with the dedicated support of a dear friend.
Beginning to Wake Up and Heal in Venice:
Venice has long been called the place where "The Debris Meets the Sea," and that was truly the story of me. I was the debris! However, at that time, if you had to be homeless anywhere, Venice Beach forty-plus years ago was by far the best place to be down-and-out.
Every day the Hare Krishnas, or other gracious individuals or groups, showed up to feed us broken souls, and feed I did! I pounded down the plentiful grub with wild abandon and rapidly gained an abundance of body fat once again.
My gym body softened and expanded with amazing rapidity. It doesn’t take long when you’ve pretty much given up on life.
Venice Beach, in those days, was not high-level real estate, nor was it the massive tourist mecca that it is as of this writing. Back then it had a reputation as a rather dicey destination… full of losers, boozers, and desperate dropouts like me.
But there was also a small community of very creative artists and street performers. At that time, pot smoking was illegal but quite commonplace. The beach was also populated with a considerable number of drug addicts, drug dealers and other broken souls.
When I arrived in Venice, most of the upper income “fine folk” spent their beach time in nearby Marina Del Rey, and the hyper-active kids spent their time near the pier in Santa Monica, either surfing or working out in the Weightlifting Pen, which was on the boardwalk near the beach.
Soon after I landed in Venice an iconic trend began. A small storefront opened up on the boardwalk called Cheapskates. As a result, more and more kids from Santa Monica and Los Angeles came to roller-skate on the boardwalk, which helped upgrade Venice’s image to eventually become “The Cool Happening Place” that it is today.
You never knew who you’d run into on the boardwalk. While there I had the late-night pleasure of meeting and hanging out on a bench with Timothy Leary, the high priest of LSD and other mind-altering psychedelic substances, several of which I have experienced myself. Thankfully, because of a degree of fearfulness, I have never touched heroin.
At that time, housing was affordable, but I didn’t have enough money for even modest accommodations. My parking spot in the Canals was a roof, but I was a ship without a rudder or destination. For me, at that time, Venice was my world.
As I've said, most likely, my mother, sister, brother-in-law and other family members would have helped me if I’d only asked, but my brokenness and shame kept me from reaching out to them. For most of my time in Venice, my family had no idea where I was.
Encrusted in the hairy armpit of Venice Beach, I was always first in line with the Hare Krishna’s free food offerings. They even let me take food to go.
And yes, I lacked motivation to fend for myself. I should have pulled myself up by my bootstraps, of course, but my broken spirit needed time, and I was afforded that supportive healing time by the welcoming free spirit of Venice.
One day while in line for food, I met a kind soul named Tom. He was not homeless. He lived nearby, and he often helped an elderly man named Doc Compton who lived in the big beach house (pictured below) on the boardwalk.
At around 90 years old, rain or shine, in all seasons, Doc would go down to the ocean for his daily swim. He later became one of my most influential spiritual guides.
After a rainstorm, Doc would find tennis balls washed into the ocean from the rain gutters, and he would throw them to kids from this balcony of his house on the beach.
Tom noticed my ravenous assault on the daily food line and my excess bodily baggage. He asked – rather directly – if I had issues with food and life. I was taken aback by his bluntness, but after putting aside my initial resentment at his question, I admitted my misery and opened up to him.
Tom was a great listener. He told me how he had lost almost 100 pounds with the help of Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and that his life had been dramatically improved.
The next day, with a lot of skepticism, I walked with Tom to my first OA meeting at the nearby Methodist Church in Ocean Park.
The head of the church was the Reverend James Cohn. He later became a Santa Monica City Council Member, and eventually, he became the Mayor of Santa Monica.
After listening for a bit to the mostly women in the OA group, I perceived a heavy “Accept God and Jesus vibe,” and I found myself intensely turned off. I got up and began to walk out. Tom followed me, “Hey, what’s going on, Man? What’s the problem?”
I responded, “Yeah Man, I got problems… problems with the notion of God, problems with women, well… especially one in particular.”
I went on to say that if God exists, he must be a sadist for all the horrible things he allows. He took my father and best friend away, and my problem with women was with my wife who was even more crazy than me. She vowed to keep my boys from me if I refused to live with her in her world, which was, to my mind, even more insane than my homeless life in Venice.
I told Tom that I was a “survivor of religion” and an atheist with no belief in God, and if that’s what it took to succeed in OA, then it’s… No Way for Me!
Tom laughed and let me know that the primary purpose of the group was to support each other – not allowing food to control our lives. Our “Higher Power” could be as simple as the loving support of the group.
The only non-binding requirement for success was to admit that we had little or no control over how much food we consumed, and for many of us, no control over how badly we had managed our lives.
Thankfully, I stayed and kept coming back, and my recovery, with ups-and-downs, progressed. One of the Key Lessons I learned in OA, and other Twelve Step Fellowships in which I have participated, is that if we share our hurting and healing process with others in recovery, we can get better and help others along the way.
Finding My Life Purposes & Spirituality:
I devoted three days a week to the Overeaters Anonymous meetings, and the process was gradually working, both in terms of weight loss and inner peace. Surprisingly, I was slowly willing to absorb some of the “God” vibes from members of the group without angrily pushing back.
Around this time, I had the good fortune to meet Adrianne Prober, a celebrated, nationally known Venice Beach artist.
For some reason, I became her pet project. Many days and evenings, instead of insisting I go “home” to my lonely van in the Canals, she invited me to hang out with her and even snooze under her art table as she masterfully worked her brushes. All during that time, our relationship grew and was beautifully platonic.
Much of her art, like the canvas below, which she so generously gifted me, captures some of the colorful characters of Venice during that period.
The woman with the heart on her shirt was known as Angel, a name which fit her perfectly. The turbaned man was Big Brown, a self-appointed guardian of the boardwalk. If he liked you, he’d protect you with his life, but if he didn’t, watch out. The guy lying face down on the blanket was an alcoholic poet friend who went by the name Beethoven.
And below is Adrianne sketching in a café:
Image of Adrianne used with permission of her family.
With the support of Tom, Doc and Adrianne, I confessed my “sins,” as it were, and informed them of the shit that had led me to being homeless. Adrianne once told me, “No shit, no flowers. Everything that’s green and beautiful is due to shit. It’s just a matter of knowing what to do with it.” For reasons I could not see at the time, she believed that I had greatness in me that just needed some healing and loving support.
Adrianne was a dedicated Buddhist who regularly chanted “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō” three times a day. Though I had no idea what the words meant, my affection and admiration for her got me to go along. And even though it felt silly a lot of the time, the chanting inspired me to be calmer and more imaginative.
We came to love each other as best of friends. Her creativity (by example) and her love were opening up my mind to new ideas, including further sparking my quest for the spiritual.
There were so many unique and colorful characters who were part of my daily Venice Beach life. The following quote by Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities is fitting, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness.”
I told Adrianne about my childhood passion for writing and creating and co-creating, but confided that a career choice of being a successful writer always seemed so out of my reach. I grew up in a practical family, and writing as a career was not a practical choice, and yet here was Adrianne, following her passion for painting, making a living, and being happy doing so.
I told her how my writing bug sparked when I wrote an essay while in my Catholic High School titled, “Money – The Sinking Ship.” The nun who taught me asked if it was okay for her to enter my essay in a National High School Writers Essayist Invitation.
The piece was chosen as a featured finalist from California and published in a book of essays from across America. No one in my family bought the fifty-dollar book.
One day, after spending the night in Adrianne’s studio, I was walking the boardwalk, and my mind was perhaps more expanded than usual because of my supportive friendships. For the first time, I fully took in the wealth of raw talent being shared by local street performers.
I was suddenly struck with an exciting idea to produce a variety show series in the Church in Ocean Park featuring local street talent. I told Adrianne about my inspiration, and she enthusiastically exclaimed, “Richard, that’s your get out of jail free card. That’s one of the things I believe you are here to do!”
Adrianne told me the word “inspiration” was rooted in two words, “In” and “Spirit.” I was having a lot of profound conversations with her, Doc and Tom and was opening up more and more to the idea that there really may be a loving spirit in me, and that I was a Loving and Loveable Child of Life.
I arranged a face-to-face meeting with Reverend Conn to pitch my idea. He listened intently, then stood up and put his arms around me declaring, “You and your idea are surely God Sent. Count me in! Let’s do it!”
The Reverend Conn was a believer in supporting the arts. In the late 70s, there was also an acting class in the church. He believed the church’s connection to the arts, culture, and community was imperative.
I had a venue now, and I wanted to modestly be able to compensate the performers – somehow – yet I had almost no money. I figured out a plan, but to explain it involves introducing a new character to this story whom you don’t yet know. So let me introduce her now… Jeanea.
Not long before my exciting connection with the Reverend Conn, I was taking my dirty clothes into the local laundromat near the Venice Canals. As I entered, I noticed a very attractive young woman reading a magazine. She looked at me and smiled, and I returned the smile. Her name was Jeanea.
Jeanea worked at a nearby donut shop. It wasn’t very long before we moved in together in a little shack near the beach. That was still the time when Venice was the undesirable, scary low rent district.
I think her place cost somewhere around $100 a month, which she paid for. It would probably be about thirty times that now, but the shack is gone, and a high-priced multiplex stands in its place.
When I think now of my lifetime Angel/Friend, who became my girlfriend for a wonderful while, and will always be a true “Soul Sister,” I am filled with gratitude.
Each night Jeanea came home with unsold donuts and some food (mostly donuts). As a compulsive overeater, I indulged with a great deal of excitement.
Flash forward in my story to where I began thinking about the street performer show I wanted to produce. I had the idea of applying for Social Security Disability Compensation in order to have some money to moderately compensate the performers who would be in the "Big Show," and maybe even a little money for me.
When I met with the portly, no nonsense case worker from the Social Security office, she asked the nature of my disability, and why I should receive disability payments.
I’m not quite sure what possessed me to blurt out the absolute unfiltered truth, but I went ahead and told her that I had an aversion to holding down a job for money. She smirked at me and quipped, “You think I love my job?” She wasn’t buying it. Not one bit. She said, “I can submit this application, but between you and me, I can assure you it is extremely unlikely that this is going to be approved.”
Several weeks later, Jeanea and I were in the throes of passion when a knock came at her door. Out of breath, I threw on some clothes and answered. It was a psychologist or maybe another case worker sent by Social Security. Jeanea tripped into the room, disheveled, her hair wild. The inspector got a pretty clear picture of what he’d interrupted.
A little embarrassed, grinning from ear to ear, he said, “So, I understand you have an aversion to holding down a job for money?” I firmly responded, “Yeah! That’s true!”
He asked a series of questions, including what exactly had led to my homelessness, and I told him of my recent tragedies, including the heartbreaking death of my father. He was very efficient with his inquiries, didn’t stay long, and thanked us as he walked out the door. I looked at Jeanea and shrugged. She quipped, “Well, it was worth a try!”
Three or four weeks later, unbelievably, I got a letter that informed me that I had been approved for disability payments for a limited number of months. And boy, I was going to flow that money straight back into the community. I was on fire with the plan for the Venice Variety Concerts and feeling more alive than I had since I was working with my dad.
There may be many who think this is why our country is a mess and that I should not have received disability. And yes, it’s true that my answers to the Social Security worker and the house call inspector were certainly flippant. However, I had been working through a great deal of pain, and this money, which was only promised for several months, was truly a God Sent Gift which would be used in order to co-create.
As to whether or not, at this point, I truly believed in God, let’s just say I was leaving room for the miraculous, loving nature of the Universe and was confident that the concert would be a gift to the street artists, the church, the community and yes, to me.
I’ve always been a good salesman. I decided to sling a banner across the boardwalk to advertise the show, and I was able to induce local merchants to purchase ads in the program, which paid for promotional flyers and some additional money for me and my helpers and participating street performers.
I cajoled a few of the bikini clad beach goddesses on roller-skates to pass out show flyers on the boardwalk. Everything was coming together… beautifully.
Finally, the big night arrived. We had a huge eager line of people amassing to see the show. The church held, legally, about 250 people, and there must have been north of 350 waiting outside to get in. I could not believe it.
Let me tell you, there were a lot of unhappy folks who were turned away that day! But inside the church, there were at least 250 people who were having the time of their lives. That concert was actually the first of three such events I would eventually produce at the church.
Some of that man I was when working with my father took root in me again. As Adrianne had said, I was spiritually inspired. My bitterness had made me an atheist, but my re-indoctrination into my creativity had opened me up again to explore a Life Source that was beyond ME… something perhaps personal, while also being Universal.
Beautiful Venice Beach, Jeanea, along with Adrianne, Tom, Doc, Reverend Conn, and all the Artists involved were healing my wounded soul.
A Spiritual Transformation:
Eventually I rejoined polite society leaving my homeless days behind, started a business, which morphed into another related business, and I became a regular working Joe.
But, my mind was now exploded open and able to receive and ponder new ideas of the spiritual nature and vastness of the universe – things like free will, whether God is a man or a woman (or even Both in One), the far-out accepted science of the Big Bang, and Albert Einstein’s shift to the spiritual in the latter part of his life.
Let’s dive now into some of the God/Universe related ideas that I’ve been pondering since the ongoing process of my Social/Spiritual Awakening.
Part Four
Free Will – It’s Unique Gift, Uses and Abuses:
Like me, many of you may have seen the movie and even read the book for the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Jonathan dreams of being a high-flying, speed-diving bird-of-prey like eagles that don’t feed on leftover garbage like Jonathan and the rest of his low-flying, trash eating seagull friends.
Though I enjoy the author’s conceit for the sake of storytelling, I am confident that a seagull is more than happy to be a seagull, with no dreams of ever being an eagle or an astronaut.
Unlike other living creatures on the planet, we humans have the unique
ability and drive to dream big and achieve the amazing.
We have developed phenomenal technology – made visits to the moon, sent equipment to Mars, and it’s all but assured that, sooner or later, we will leave footprints and build habitable structures on that red planet.
However, fantastic exploration isn’t all. Consider Google Girl, Siri, and Alexa. They have satellite connections which give them an eye in the sky which can miraculously guide untold numbers of us and give us directions from almost everywhere on Our Mother Ship Earth.
Our ever-present digital friends are always ready to answer our questions on demand. Recently, while sitting in my comfortable recliner, I asked, “Alexa, who is smarter, you or Google Girl?” She replied, “Google Girl and I don’t compete, we are both here to serve you.” I’m not entirely sure I believe that one!
With the likely advancements of AI – Artificial Intelligence – our future could be a peaceful Utopian Paradise, where advanced robots take over the mundane tasks of our society, and those who are job displaced are, without resentment, given a living wage and allowed to peacefully pursue their passions.
This advancement could result in a Renaissance of human creativity and peaceful co-habitation amongst all members of the Family of Man.
On the other hand, the New World Order could be a Hellscape where nefarious people use the supercomputing of AI and Quantum Computers to scam the financial markets and commit acts of terrorism and even hack into weapons arsenals. ***DEVELOP THIS PART FURTHER. ***
Many experts think that the first potential dangers of AI will be humans using the tools reprehensibly, rather than some sort of scenario out of a Terminator movie where machines stage a takeover rebellion.
Just think how far we’ve come since recorded history, at least technologically. However, to measure how slowly we are evolving (if we are) at a loving soul level is worrisome. Pandora’s Box has been opened with AI and nuclear weaponry, and there is no turning back now.
In the world of today, I still believe there is a lot more good news than bad news. Unfortunately, good news is No News. If it Bleeds, it Leads. Since the Cold War and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there has been a dark specter always looming – the ever-present risk of an insane global nuclear war.
Should that happen, it would overshadow any good news for a very long time with a whole lot of very bad news.
Other non-human earth creatures have instincts and wills that operate within the framework of their design, and like us, they want to survive, thrive and reproduce. It’s apparent that many of them even experience love and affection and grief from the loss of loved ones.
Zoe Love’s Football Surprise:
Ever since I was a young boy, I had better relationships with dogs than with people. After all, Dog spelled backwards is God. The fact is – we are epigenetically linked with dogs, and our relationship with them goes all the way back to the days of Cave Men and Women.
Zoe, my second Australian Shepard, is my current Best Dog Friend. If I tell her to go to my RV in the driveway, she goes to the door and waits for me to come and let her in.
If I tell her to go to my car, which is parked out front, she goes to the back door of the car, sits, and waits there for me.
How does this relate to my God for Believers and Non-Believers book? This is just one amazing example of my premise that Intelligence is the fundamental nature of life.
Recently, I was in the bathroom doing my business on the toilet, and Zoe came in to pay me a visit. Out of the blue, I told her to go and get her cloth football, one of her many toys, and bring it to me.
In a minute or two, she arrived with the football in her mouth, and since we never had a lesson on what a “football” was, other than watching football on TV, needless to say, I was
amazed. I then told her to take the football back and put it in her crate.
When I completed my bathroom business, I went into the living room, and to my utter amazement, she had done as requested and put her football back in her crate.
our wills, we co-create varying degrees of heaven or hell for ourselves and others, and for our Dearly Beloved Mother/Father Ship Earth.
As humans, our gift of Free Will, coupled with intelligence, is the most significant difference between us and all other earthbound creatures that operate within the framework of their design.
As a result of how we individually and collectively use and/or misuse
Part Five
Examples of Misuses of Free Will in the Names of God or Sex or Race or…?
Let us consider now Manifest Destiny, our horrific excuse for the displacement and slaughter of Native Americans who had, for the most part, peacefully inhabited what is America for thousands of years.
While there was certainly occasional fighting amongst the different tribes, life within a single tribe seems to have been one that was fairly harmonious with nature. That harmony was later destroyed when their children were forced or kidnapped into government boarding schools, often church run. This was just one of the many injustices they faced.
Manifest Destiny, a doctrine created by humans, stated that it was God’s Will that America should be one country from Sea-to-Shining-Sea. The fervent adventurers who created it rationalized belief was that nothing and no-one should be allowed to stand in the way of this Divine Mandate.
As if that so-called “God Sponsored Atrocity” wasn’t enough, our not-so-distant ancestors believed that other races who didn’t look like us, such as in Africa, didn’t deserve basic human rights, and in fact, could be owned and treated as property.
With these horrendous self-serving beliefs, Americans went to Africa and forcefully trafficked men and women across the ocean, treating them as beasts of burden – or sometimes even worse. This was done to further support the expansion and exploitation of the country that, as we rationalized, God had given us to rule, plunder, rape and enslave.
Manifest Destiny created a powerful country, but also treated so many cruelly along the way and created so much inequality which persists even today. This is just one example of how we humans have misused and continue to abuse our individual and collective wills. And by no means are we Americans the only transgressors.
More recently, consider the men who commandeered three airplanes in order to punish us “Godless Americans” on 9/11. From their point of view, they were martyrs, crying out their God’s name as they carried out their suicidal attack on the World Trade Center. As part of their reward, they were each promised seventy-two virgins in heaven. God help them!
From the point of view of most of the World, the United States, and the families of those killed, this was just pure evil insanity. After all, the World Trade Center was not a military target. It was terrorism, plain and simple.
It is interesting – nay, devastatingly sad – how so much human behavior is motivated by belief in an all-knowing, angry God. Certainly, this God of vengeance is not a loving and forgiving creator.
I could go into other places on the planet suffering as of this writing, such as the Ukraine, Israel, Gaza. It seems that one must take sides, state a position in these conflicts, and whatever one says, there will be repercussions from those picking apart any statement that contradicts their narrow point of view.
For me, I see more than enough blame to go around, and therefore, while I support defending oneself, friends, family and country, I am firmly on the side of brotherly, sisterly and planetary love and peace.
We should all be adamantly opposed to unprovoked aggression, which should not be tolerated.
More than one thing can be true at the same time. One can recognize the right to defend one’s country, while fervently wishing that humans on both sides would find peace and the will to accept that we are all the children of this, our Father/Mother Ship Earth.
There is more than enough water, food, and land for us to live peacefully and happily together as brother/sister members of a United Human Family, looking out for each other, the animals, and our beloved Home Planet.
My final example, for now, is what men have done and are doing to women, and nowhere is this more troubling than in the Middle East. In 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini removed her hijab in Iran, which is under the strict religious laws of the Islamic Republic.
She was arrested and died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Hopefully, her death will have meaning as women claim their rights as humans to be treated fairly and equally.
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Part Six
Is God a He or a She or Both?
We are all the offspring of Female and Male human beings. Our lineage goes all the way back to other pairs of Male and Female humans for who knows how long.
Just sit and ponder that thought for a little while. Try and imagine your ancestors back 3 generations, then 12, then a 100.
Supposedly, there have been roughly (based on an assumption of 25 years per generation) 12,000 generations since Homo sapiens first existed here some 300,000 years ago.
Our ancestors through the years developed their concepts of Gods to explain the mysteries of the earth and heavens.
God is often portrayed as an All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Old Grey-Haired Bearded Man who looks like the famous Sistine Chapel painting by Michelangelo. Most of the major world religions believe that God, the Divine Source, has always existed without a father, a mother or a female partner.
However, according to Christian beliefs, God needed the blessed Virgin Mary to give birth to Jesus, his only begotten son, whose job it was to be crucified and sacrificed in order to redeem us sinful humans.
You’re born, you’re a sinner. It’s just automatic! Many devout Christians believe that if you do not accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are destined to spend Eternity in Hell.
But consider, just as there is Yin and Yang, and light and dark – God, the supposed Universal Source of Everything and Everyone, Everywhere – must also embody what it is to be all of us, both male and female. Therefore, if God alone embodies both Male and Female, then God must be Universally Androgynous.
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that women get the short end of the stick in society, stemming from the Old Testament and other religiously sponsored thoughts and writings about the so-called “proper” role of women.
Women got a raw deal right from the very beginning when Eve “took the rap” for ruining paradise. And what did she really do but endeavor to evolve her mind? But God was like, “You and Adam are my children. I am God! Don’t ask questions. Just be innocent and obedient.”
We should be thanking Eve, in her mythical female role, and Adam, her Life Partner. Thanks to her, and Adam too, who stuck by her as they were forced out of the garden of Eden, we now have the benefit of free will and aren’t under the domination of an angry, controlling and punishing God.
Saint Augustine wrote: “What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve, the Temptress, that we must beware of in any woman… I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of sex and bearing children.” Yikes!
In the Ten Commandments, which some states want to teach in public schools, women have been grouped in with the asses and oxen. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” Seems fairly clear the wife is property in this passage.
Women Demonized in Folklore and History:
The image of the Evil Witch below was painted by an artist friend of Adrienne Prober’s from my Venice Beach days. I like to call the character “Demonica.” She seems to symbolize the so-called evil woman who appears in myth and is then tragically persecuted in real life.
The Succubus, for example, is a sexually charged supernatural entity who requires male semen to thrive and slowly drains a man of his virile power.
Sirens, from Greek Mythology, were half female/half bird beings whose song was so beautiful that it caused passing male sailors to steer into the rocks and crash, just so they could continue to hear the powerful bitter-sweet music in the midst of their demise.
And then, of course, there are witches, mythical, traditionally evil humans who have made a pact with Satan in order to perform dark magic, but in 1692 in Salem, witches were thought to be more than mere myth. Fourteen women and four men were put to death in the Salem witch trials.
And, while their original accusers were young women, the men in charge carried out these misguided persecutions. From the Garden of Eden to present times, women have been demonized by angry, violent men who dominate the patriarchy.
Acceptance of the Female/Male God:
The devout believe that God wrote the Bible and/or the Koran, and other holy texts, through a male human vessel or vessels. There certainly is a global male bias, and as we move into the future, my personal hope is that we will fully embrace the female, the Mother, the Nurturer in the Divine and rise above the notion of a male, controlling and angry, female-limiting God.
Male energy has been and can be a force for great good. However, it has often been, and to a large degree still is, an aggressive force lacking in love, forgiveness, and mercy. With greater input from women, the positive female traits would serve to avoid further Unholy Wars and lead to a more peaceful and prosperous Family of Man & Woman Kind.
I am convinced that we will never have Peace on Earth until we establish a planetary balance in which women have equal status and power with men.
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Part Seven
Why Father/Mother God Gave Us Humans Free Will:
As I’ve said, it appears that all other life forms, other than us humans (such as our beloved canine companions), operate instinctually within the framework of their design. And in my opinion, our Father/Mother God has endowed us humans with the enhanced ability to do both great and loving deeds and also truly horrific acts.
When we humans seek to create anything, it’s natural that we strive to make our creations measure up to our vision. This even includes working with another human for the purpose of bringing a child into our lives and into the world.
So, for an expanded perspective, imagine that you are the Divine Male/Female Source of Everything and Everyone Everywhere (in other words, God/Goddess) and that you have the astonishing power to make all your creations, including us, turn out and function exactly the way you intend.
As the Infinite and Eternal Creative Duality (Male/Female Divinity), you know that you have always been and will always be, but something is missing. Just hanging out in the empty void for eternity might well get boring! So, you create, and everything and everyone comes into being. And we come into existence. We humans also have a divine love of creation, apparently, embedded in our natures.
Let us suppose that while God loves what He/She has created and could easily demand love and respect through fear… with infinite wisdom, there is a realization that being loved, if demanded, cannot be love. Therefore, let me propose that we are not compelled to love God. True love, after all, must be a free choice, or it’s simply not love.
Does God Have an Ego?
So, if true love cannot be demanded, let’s expand on this idea. Many believers in God contend that God Loves us, but that His love has conditions. For example, there are those who say that if we fail to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will then end up in the fiery pits of Hell for Eternity, regardless of our geographical exposure to this brand of Religiosity.
If this is true, then it seems to me that this version of God does, in fact, have an ego and a need, or at least a desire, to be worshipped and obeyed.
Love that is demanded is not love.
In this book, by now, I think I’ve established my belief in a Divine Intelligence, In and As the Universe, i.e., A Father/Mother God Source. I can’t say for certain if God has an ego, but the best I can do is speculate about what I believe to be true. I believe that Humility, Love and Forgiveness are fundamental laws of godliness.
If these laws are true, then it seems clear to me that God has no ego and is the epitome of Humility, Love and Forgiveness.
Are We Punished For Our Sins?
If God is love, then to the degree that we're in tune with love (and the other two principles, humility and forgiveness), is the degree to which we're in tune with God.
Some religions believe that we are punished for our sins, but I contend that we are not punished FOR our sins, but rather BY them. We're not punished by God, but rather by our own actions or lack of actions ... that go against the fundamental laws of love, humility, and forgiveness.
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Part Eight
Amazing Past and Present Advances by the Positive Uses of Our Wills:
I’ve written about the misuses of our individual and collective Wills, but without question our Wills have also been and can be a force for great good. There are, after all, men and women on this earth who have virtually reached “sainthood” status.
Four great examples of the power of the positive uses of Will are Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
Mother Theresa selflessly rescued suffering men on the streets of Calcutta, including desperate souls with diseases like HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis.
Mandela, who was imprisoned for speaking out and fighting against state sponsored racism, came out of prison, and instead of being angry and vengeful, he became a President for all and worked to unite black and white South Africans.
And then, of course, there was the slight in stature Mahatma Gandhi. Without the use of any violence on his part, and most of the millions of Indians who followed him, through peaceful protests and accepted beatings, they were able to shame their controllers and liberate their country from British domination.
None of these people were perfect. They were all flawed humans achieving greatness. Martin Luther King had a few peccadilloes in his closet, but he was an overwhelming force of good, bringing his dream of racial equality much closer to fruition, when many were not ready to listen.
Nevertheless, he persisted, and his will to inspire positive change cost him the ultimate price, and yet, amazingly, his resolution and vision has lived on and grown beyond his mortal coil.
Then there are the inventors and scientists who have changed our world. Einstein, the granddaddy of all scientists, blew our minds and rearranged our way of thinking with E=MC2, which explains the relationship between Energy and Matter.
Another complex and imperfect Will could be found in Thomas Edison who ushered in the Industrial Revolution with his inventions. His will was so strong that it pushed aside a brilliant man like Tesla who was working on similar and competing inventions. Edison patented more than 1,000 inventions, more than double that of his closest competitor, George Westinghouse.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were another dueling pair. At some point, thankfully, they must have realized that they were positive counterweights in their efforts to computerize the world.
The phones in our pockets and palms of our hands today have hundreds of times more computing power than the computers used to land men on the moon more than fifty years ago. At that time, the collective will of the nation under JFK propelled brave humans to the moon and back in a relatively short time.
Another controversial innovator of our day is Elon Musk. Like him or hate him (or somewhere in between), projects that he’s overseen are reducing our carbon footprint and taking us to the stars.
However, Musk seems, as of this writing, to be a man who has gotten distracted with the chirping chatter of the world and politics. Hopefully, he will be able to re-focus his Will for the further good of mankind.
These modern-day mega-stars, and their sometimes-bloated ego-centric Wills to create and amass great fortunes, have led to other problems – such as the slow vice grip squeeze on the middle class and the growing number of our fellow humans living on the streets.
I am convinced that there is too much money and power in the hands of too few of our fellow citizens. Trickle Down Economics has turned out to be Trickle Up! I hope that we can learn to use our collective Will to bring some balance to our economy and wealth distribution. After all, the founding Constitution of our country states that we are to be a government of, by, and for – We the People.
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Part Nine
Religion, Reframed & Reclaimed:
In this book, I’ve spoken of my spiritual journey from confused kid, pushed and pulled from Jewish faith to Catholic altar boy… and angry atheist after God took my father. Well, at least it seemed at the time that if there was a God, he was a cruel tormentor.
Then when I crashed, my Venice Beach community picked me up when I was down and out. My creative comrades and my own creativity gave me some idea, vague at first then becoming more clear, that maybe the Universe held many mysteries that I should open myself up to.
Some years passed after Venice Beach. I was back in the work force and had rejoined polite society. I had two more amazing children, before I met my lifetime partner/wife, Diane, at a party. We were immediately inseparable, and for better or for worse we are here with and for each other as life partners for over thirty-five years.
At some point, Diane tried to coax me to go along with her to her Unitarian Church, and I said, “Oh, I don’t believe in anything supernatural.”
“You don’t have to believe anything supernatural,” she informed me.
I gave it a try, and I found a community of free spirits I could really connect with. That absence of pressure to believe certain dogma -- or else! -- gave me the freedom to have discussions with fellow members and further delve into what I have come to really believe about God and the Universe.
A Little More About the Unitarian Church and Why I Was Drawn to That Particular Path:
Unitarianism grew out of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s starting in Poland and Transylvania. Just in case you’re wondering right now, Vlad the Impaler (aka the real Dracula) was thought to have been born in 1431. So, he was not a Unitarian!
The first official Unitarian congregation apparently began in London around the time of the Revolutionary War in America, and there were two early Presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, who counted themselves as Unitarians.
Thomas Jefferson as well was definitely “Unitarian-curious” when he wrote in a letter -- “I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States.” (Unfortunately, this has not been the case.)
The freedom that the Unitarian Church allowed fit well with the freedom that our fledgling America was striving to achieve at that time. For people who counted religious oppression amongst the reasons they left England, this was a very attractive religion for critical “thinkers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Unitarian as he developed his off-shoot Transcendentalist philosophical movement which was more nature based. “The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship,” said Emerson.
In 1961 two of the major sects of Unitarianism merged to become the Unitarian Universalists, which is what the church is currently called. Community over dogma is a key part of the Unitarian philosophy as well as a proclivity for tolerance.
The Unitarian doctrine might be defined as a religion based on reason and a belief that no one faith has a monopoly on truth. The church has a hopeful view of mankind rather than focusing on the so-called “original sin” and human imperfections.
Unitarians are often leaders of progressive thought, such as, anti-slavery (before the Civil War) and the vote for women (around the time of the Suffrage Movement). The church was offering gay marriages before it came into law.
Unitarians espouse no specific creed or doctrine, and are encouraged to study all other religions, while endorsing a quest for spiritual and social growth.
I've been very thankful to find my Unitarian community, which has led me to believe that, for better and for worse, we're all connected to each other on this Earth, and that by our true natures we are brothers and sisters.
As I further explore my Unitarianism, I am encouraged and not limited in this quest.
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Part Ten
Einstein’s Regret:
I love Einstein. Why? He seemed to possess the perfect mix of keen scientific inquiry and innovation as well as an appreciation for the unknowable and unlimited mysteries of the universe.
At one point in his life, Einstein was asked if he had any regrets. He said that he regretted what had been done with the relativity formula that helped to enable the ruthless and horrific atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
According to interviewer William Hermanns, Einstein stated, “If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula.”
Einstein made it clear that while he was the first to explain relativity, there were other scientists on the same path of discovery around the same time.
Despite being the consummate seeker of scientific truth, Einstein expressed thoughts that allowed for a reverence of something Unknown and possibly Unknowable.
Once asked at a party if he was religious, he said, “Yes, you can call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature, and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force, beyond anything we can comprehend, is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.”
Was Einstein a mystic – defined as, “One who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or one who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect”? His search for the deepest secrets certainly never ended.
Later in his career, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Einstein and others attempted to construct a Unified Field Theory in which electromagnetism and gravity would emerge as different aspects of a single fundamental field. They failed, and to this day gravity remains beyond attempts at a Unified Field Theory.”
One thing is for sure, the scientific community is fundamentally in agreement that energy can neither be created or destroyed. Were told that it can only Compress, Expand or Change Form.
This strongly holds, therefore, that Energy is Infinite and Eternal and is the basis of all temporary forms, including our Universe, the planet and even our bodies.
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Part Eleven
CEEM - My Absolutivity Theory:
CEEM stands for my Theory of Absolutivity, which suggests that Consciousness precedes Energy as Energy precedes and is the basis of all forms of Matter.
And, because of this theory, we can recognize our Universal Connections and further extrapolate that Everything and Everyone Everywhere is Relative to, and Entangled with, Every Thing and Every One that is Now, Has Been, or Will Ever Exist.
Through our dual male/female natures, we are all together the offspring of our mothers and fathers, going back and back in time to a common male and female source.
Our Mother Ship Earth is spinning on its axis at over 1,000 miles per hour, making one complete revolution every 24 hours. And, at the same time, we are traveling around the Sun, our Energy Power Source, at over 67,000 miles per hour, or 18.5 miles per second, with one trip every 12 months.
Hold on for Your Dear Life! We’re all hurdling through the universe, even as we calmly consider these ideas.
According to physicist, Brian Cox, just in our Milky Way Galaxy alone – which is just one of billions of known galaxies – there are untold trillions of stars. And from what has been observed from a sample mapping of these stars, we can estimate that there are probably somewhere around twenty billion planets in the Milky Way alone, which could support liquid water on the surface and therefore life. That’s twenty billion potential life-friendly Planets, just in our galaxy!
According to Cox, scientists strongly suspect that the universe of billions of galaxies is much bigger than what we can see, even with our most powerful telescopes. The ultimate truth may just fit the definition of the Universe being Infinite and Eternal.
For some, it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around infinite, or eternal for that matter. For them, being able to measure provides some degree of comfort. I, on the other hand, am actually more comforted by the idea of infinite and eternal because that leads me to what I feel to be a Divinely Conceived Infinite and Eternal Universe from which we came, in which we exist, and to which we return.
I am convinced that the Universe, and possible Multiverses, have always been Expanding, and will always exist. I believe that the Eternal Expansion of Life is the continuous journey of Everything and Everyone, Everywhere for Time & Eternity.
From my perspective, what else would Universal Intelligence (i.e., God) wish to do forever but expand its experiences, in and through us, in an Infinite and Eternal Field of possibilities with Unlimited Room to Grow?
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Part Twelve
The Big Bang – Which I Call “A Spectacular Sprouting”:
According to scientists, 13.7 billion years ago – give or take a few billion years – the Energy Basis of Everything and Everyone in this Universe (One Verse) had been suspended in the Infinity of Interstellar Space, just waiting around for untold billions of years to pass before something big began to happen. No one can say just how long this “energy basis of all forms” had been sitting there just waiting to begin.
We are told that this “cosmic seed” of infinite possibility was compressed energy smaller than the size of a Big Mac hamburger. Then, for reasons which science has no answer, there was a so-called “Big Bang,” which I define as “A Spectacular Sprouting.” After all, a “Bang” is by nature defined as a destructive event, whereas, as mentioned earlier, a “Sprouting” is, by nature, a creative blossoming.
Just add a little water (energy), billions of years, and voilà! – you’ve got a Universe. Supposedly, Everything & Everyone Everywhere that ever existed, evolved out of this one explosive Expansion of Infinite and Eternal Energy.
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Part Thirteen
Why There’s No Beginning and No End – Only an Infinite Number of Beginnings and Endings:
I’m in the ongoing process of challenging conversations with a friend, with whom I work, on behalf of this book. The conversations revolve around Beginnings, Endings and the Source of our Universe, or possible Multiverses.
Years ago, I was traveling in my RV, and I stayed for a while at Camp de Benneville Pines, a Unitarian Church Camp in the mountains of Southern California.
I had the wonderful good fortune to be there with several scientists, including two physicists. Boy, did we have some great campfire discussions!
I had two important questions for them, two very challenging questions. The first question was, “How long had this extreme concentration of energy, that is the source of all of us, remained dormant before it began its multi-billion-year expansion into what we know today as, well … Everything & Everyone?!?”
They confirmed that there is no tangible agreed upon theory. The universe can only be measured mathematically from a point in time approximately 13.7 billion years ago, the time of the Big Bang sprouting.
So, what are some theories of what may have come before? Mind you, these are only theories. Perhaps there is a “cycling” universe, with a time of Expansion, and then there’s a time of Contraction, and then there’s a New Expansion, and then it starts all over again and again and again for Time and, perhaps, for Eternity.
The “Internal Inflation Theory” is the idea that space/time was always around before the Big Bang and expanding unimaginably fast, creating these “bubbles” which became Big Bangs and then Universes, becoming Multiverses, and possibly even containing other life supporting planets like ours.
Consider, is there no intelligence here? Is it all just mindless chemistry at work?
The second question for the campfire scientists was – “If it’s true that you can’t get something from nothing, how did the tiny Concentration of Energy, that became us, originally come to be?”
The Question of All Questions is – what is the Source of Energy – which, supposedly, can only Compress, Expand or Change Form?
The answer of the scientists was – "We have no idea!" If Energy has no preceding source, then one could extrapolate that it’s Eternal with No Beginning and No End, just an Infinite and Eternal Continuum of Beginnings and Endings, Comings and Goings for Time and Eternity.
I’ve made a giant leap here into the acceptance of the Eternal, but it’s a leap that makes complete sense to me. In essence, we are all Temporary Forms of Eternal Energy that can only Compress, Expand or Change Form.
With our eyes and minds and memories, we recognize our inevitable bodily mortality, and that of all those we love and have loved.
From our standpoint, we see pregnancy and birth as the beginning of life, and death as the end. I take comfort in the idea that energy appears to be Eternal and is the basis of us and all other forms.
I theorize that there never was and never will be a time when there will be an outer boundary of Interstellar Space that will limit the possibility of old and new Universes. To imagine there being no intentionality behind all these scientifically agreed upon notions boggles my mind.
I’m convinced that the Source of Life Energy is Intelligence, and further, a duality of Eternally Outgoing Male Energy and Eternally Receptive Female Energy. If I am correct, I believe that these two co-creative intelligences are Intimately Personal and Infinitely Universal, and the source of us and all the male and female lives that have preceded and will follow us.
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Part Fourteen
An Intimate and Challenging Conversation with My Mother:
Several decades ago, when I had just begun my thinking about the matter of the existence or non-existence of God, I had a breakthrough idea.
This is my mother with my young daughter, Raina.
I went to my good Italian Catholic Mother and told her, “Mom, you and Dad are not the Source of me and my sister. You are Channels through which we came to be. You had sex, at least twice, once for each of us, and hopefully you really enjoyed doing your parts.”
This got me slapped!
Not to be deterred, that encounter
led to the following conversation, “Mom, our Source goes all the way back to all the childbearing couples, from the eternal past, all the way back to Adam and Eve, or maybe two turned-on monkeys.” This got me slapped… again.
After all, nothing comes from nothing. For me, this realization confirms that, for better and for worse, we are all related, and from the highest perspective, we are all the related children of Life. This realization gave birth to the following prayer, which I employ for daily guidance.
Father of All Fathers, Mother of All Mothers, Source of my Being and all Creation,
Grant me the Knowledge of your Loving Will, for my Will, For Today,
and the Power to Live, Love, Give, Forgive and Trust.
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Part Fifteen
Evolution, Creationism, Prayer & Meditation:
A few years ago, before I began my adventure in writing this book, I was asked, “Do you think there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe?”
My answer was – “I believe the Universe, and possible Multiverses are Intelligent Manifestations of Everything and Everyone Everywhere that ever was, is now, and will ever come to be. So, yes, I am convinced that the Universe not only contains Intelligence, but that the Universe is Intelligence.”
Unfortunately, we tend to think in terms of this or that, in a likely this and that Universe. A prime example of this or that is the argument between Creationism and Evolution which is, in my opinion, a bogus argument.
If we accept that science and a Universal Supreme Intelligence (aka, God) exist at the same time, it is entirely possible that Our Universe may have sprung from a divine design which has employed Evolution and Cosmic Expansion as the means by which one thing leads to another into the limitlessness of Interstellar Space.
We appear to be living proof that our individual and collective origin goes all the way back to the Big Bang/Spectacular Sprouting. Given what we know, it’s possible to extrapolate that nothing comes from nothing and that everything and everyone comes from Universal Energy that always was and will always be.
Our fathers and mothers, and all the mothers and fathers that preceded them, go all the way back to that concentration of Eternal Energy, from billions of years ago, which science tells us, can only Compress, Expand or Change Form.
So, if you choose to believe, as I do, that a Universal Intelligence created who and what we are, something that has evolved slowly over eons, then that is both Evolution and Creationism simultaneously, maybe not the one that evangelicals espouse, but a kind of creationism and evolutionism nonetheless.
How Can We Speak with the Universe?
I see us as the beloved children of our Father/Mother God Source. When we pray for specific outcomes, it’s like trying to turn our Divine Source into Santa Claus.
And if we pray to “win,” then oftentimes someone else has to “lose.” Perhaps the most wise and heartfelt way to pray, from my perspective, is for guidance and acceptance of what was, what is, and what may or may not come to be. And in this way, we can do our best for ourselves and our fellow humans.
Being that we are all inseparably linked to the Eternal, I find the regular practice of prayer and meditation leads to the power to create a calm, receptive inner state that can effectively guide our lives.
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Part Sixteen
The Marriage of Yin and Yang:
I believe the Chinese intended to communicate something significant with the Yin/Yang symbol. However, I’m not expert in the wealth of messages they may have intended.
That being said, I have drawn my own conclusions from the symbol. It’s fascinating from a purely visual standpoint. In the black portion, there’s a white dot, and in the white portion, there’s a black dot.
In these times of evolving gender definitions, we are coming to the conclusion that in every male (Yang) there’s some degree of female (Yin), and in every female (Yin), there’s some degree of male (Yang).
This symbol may graphically represent the Universal and Eternal relationship between Female and Male, or Yin and Yang.
When our fellow humans, male and female, exist significantly more on one side of the
male/female spectrum than on the other, the tendency grows in them to want to look and function more in harmony with their dominant natures.
On an energetic level, from my life observations, Yang (Male) is generally (but not always) more aggressive, outgoing and assertive, while Yin (Female) is generally more receptive, introspective and compassionate. None of this is to suggest that one way is better than the other or that these observations are absolutes.
Men can, of course, be equally receptive, and women can be equally assertive. In fact, balanced individuals and successful couples embody a balance between their outgoing and receptive natures.
We each live on a spectrum between the two genders. A balanced relationship between the two results in Happy Marriages of Yin and Yang. And just possibly, as I happen to believe, the Universe is also imbued with a balance of complimentary aspects of male/female energy existing together in harmony.
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Part Seventeen
My Outrageous Observation About Ones and Zeroes:
Taking this discussion to a different, but related basis of Yin and Yang, think of the two elements needed for binary code, the foundation of a computer’s “brain” even to this day. Binary code is variations and combinations of Ones and Zeros.
For example, every shade of every color can be represented by varying combinations of Ones and Zeros. Okay, here comes the outrageous part from my audacious brain. You have been warned! I find it interesting to note that the Digit #1 looks like an erect Penis (i.e., A Transmitter) and the symbol for “0” looks like a receptive Vagina (i.e., A Receiver).
This idea of transmitters and receivers got me thinking about the broader implications of Universal “Transmitters” and “Receivers.” Our Universe and our existence has examples of complimentary variances, light and dark, death and life, night and day.
I wonder if a Universal Transmitter/Receiver relationship (complimentary opposites) is the basis of our Universe, and maybe even Multiverses.
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Part Eighteen
Gene Roddenberry’s Warp Speed and Beyond:
The nearest star to us is the Sun, our life-giving power source. It is approximately 93 million miles away, and, at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, the light of the Sun reaches us in about eight and a third minutes.
If the sun were to burn out, like other stars that have and do, our near perfectly warmed and cooled animal and human friendly planet would go dark and cold, and within a few days, any humans above ground would die from the freezing temperatures.
It would take a little longer to kill certain species of trees, but they too would eventually die without our life-giving sun, and the rest of the Universe would not skip a beat.
Are we to believe then that if life was snuffed out on the Earth, that would be the end of intelligent life in the universe? Are we that arrogant to believe this? This vast expanse of matter and energy stretches outward, away from us, quite possibly into infinity, and we are the only big brains?
I am convinced that we are not the only sentient life in Our Universe and likely Multiverses. It’s almost certain, in my opinion, that all, or most, of the laws and elements that exist here, likely exist elsewhere. And the number of viable and potentially life-sustaining planets in the universe is astounding and likely unlimited.
As I’ve said earlier, it is believed that there are at least twenty billion planets in the Milky Way alone which could support liquid water on the surface. According to the NASA website, the observable Universe contains at least 100 billion galaxies.
You can’t tell me there aren’t other big brains out there who may have been evolving for millions or even billions of years longer than us!
Maybe they look like squids or some physical form we can’t even imagine. Maybe they’re made of gas! Think about this – we’re told that our sun is 4.6 billion years old, and that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. We Homo sapiens have only been here around 300,000 years.
The oldest star we know of, Methuselah, is thought to be as old as the universe itself; therefore, if there are stars out there which are roughly 13.7 billion years old, what if those stars have been giving life to blooming civilizations for potentially 8 to 9 billion years ahead of us!
Just imagine those civilizations and what they might have gone through to survive. Did they evolve, or did some devolve? Did they become supremely enlightened, even God-like with advanced technology we could only dream of, or did they destroy themselves at some point in their evolution, or were they destroyed by events beyond their control?
I love imagining that some of these multi-billion-year-old beings have evolved peacefully and are aware of us and have advanced beyond our science fiction imaginations.
With a Multi-Billion-Year head start, perhaps they’ve learned how to travel to us in an instant, controlling both space and time. They’d have technology, surely, which would allow them to be completely invisible to us if they so chose. Is E.T out there, just playing hide and seek?
Maybe they’re so far advanced that they have no wars and not even weapons. Maybe our weapons would actually scare them because they don’t have offensive or defensive technology anymore. They might have no use for it. We’d surely be like primitive creatures in a zoo to them … or just Juvenile Delinquents.
Maybe hard lessons have taught them the Axiom of Change (which I’ll discuss in the next part). Maybe they almost destroyed themselves at one point, but they were able to rise from the ashes. Are we connected to them by a common divine source? Have they become God-like themselves? Do they revere a Divine Source beyond themselves?
Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, introduced the idea of traveling at Warp Speed to popular culture. Warp Speed is the speed of light, and Warp Factor Seven would be seven times that. But how long does space travel actually take?
Kepler-443 b is a distant exoplanet which could potentially support life and is still in the Milky Way galaxy. At light speed (Warp Factor One) it would still take 2,541 years to get there!
It appears the only way that we could ever get beyond our Solar System is to spend generations in space. But perhaps these super-advanced civilizations have learned how to bend space/time and journey through multi-dimensional portals.
In Star Trek the crew of the Enterprise could teleport from space to a planet below. Could these super advanced beings transport from the “edge” of the known universe to here?
If these amazing advanced peaceful beings are watching us like we’re ants in an ant farm, maybe one day, if we become enlightened and stop having wars and killing each other, they may reach out to us.
And perhaps in the future, we too may gain the ability to teleport the matter which makes up our bodies from one place to another in the blink of an eye. Beam me up, Scottie!
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Part Nineteen
My Axiom of Change:
Life has taught me that change is difficult and sometimes painful, especially when it’s being resisted. From my experience, and the experiences of other twelve-step program friends and non-program friends, we have the highest probability of change when the Pain of Change is Exceeded by the Pain of Remaining the Same.
You may be wondering why I’m bringing up Twelve Step Program philosophy in this book. Well, the Axiom of Change is not only a formula for individual change, but I feel it also applies to entire civilizations.
The big question then is – how bad does it have to get before we learn how to peacefully live together on this, our Mother Ship Earth? Do we need a World War Three or Four? WW4 would very possibly be fought with clubs.
On a daily basis, I am learning the power of humbly embracing and balancing personal power and powerlessness, while realizing that I am not the source of Life, but rather an expression and expansion of it. This is why I frequently practice the prayer I wrote – my “Father, Mother, God Prayer” – in Part #14 above.
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Part Twenty
With All the Horrors Done in the Name of God, Religion, Race, Hate and Politics, Why Am I Still Convinced There Is a Divine and Loving Intelligence Which Is the Source of Everything and Everyone Everywhere?
The answer goes back to Part #7 above, about the gift and the positive/negative impacts resulting from how we individually and collectively use our Free Will, as well as how we individually and collectively can become agents of positive change (as presented in Part #19 about The Axiom of Change).
I believe and hope that, sooner or later, the pain of staying the same, or even getting worse, will lead us to come together in harmony.
I imagine that I will not live long enough in this form to have been proven right or wrong, but I believe that in a few hundred or a few thousand years ahead, there will still be humans on this planet, and we will no longer be killing each other or harming our Mother Ship Earth and all the other Life Forms here.
I don’t know how frightfully bad it will have to get before we individually and collectively realize that we are all interconnected travelers together – through many generations – on this miraculous life-friendly Space Ship Earth.
I am an Optimist who believes Love will prevail, and that our understanding of our Human Family will expand outward. We will collectively care for our Families, Friends, Fellow Humans, Animals and Planet. The Family of Mankind and Faith in the Divine Nature of Life will be the way we live together.
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Part Twenty-One
What the South Pacific Island Nation of Tonga Taught Me and My Daughter, Raina, about Joy, Love and a Higher Power:
I have a strong social/spiritual connection with the Polynesian people on the Island Kingdom of Tonga, which is made up of more than fifty small South Pacific islands, many of which are uninhabited.
Tonga is the only remaining Polynesian Kingdom with a King who loves the people and is loved by them. Much like the UK and Australia, Tonga is a Constitutional Monarchy, but on a much more intimate basis.
Many years ago, well after my “time served” as a homeless man in Venice Beach, I was toiling in the pest control business in Los Angeles and was introduced to a man who was visiting the US from Tonga. His name was Tamme Sio Lakai (which is pronounced “Tommy”).
At that time, Tamme spoke and understood very few words in English. We pointed and gestured and acted out playfully in order to communicate with each other. It was as if we were playing a marathon game of charades, and we did a whole lot of laughing and built a solid connection as brotherly friends.
One day, Tamme got excited when he noticed me with my old-time video camera. Back then cameras still had tapes which one recorded on. At his request, I began recording our exploits around Los Angeles including him and a Tongan friend of his. His intention was to take the footage home and share it with his village. In the video we shot, he spoke in his native language and threw in some broken English as well.
After a few more months in Los Angeles, before Tamme was to return to Tonga, our friendship had grown by leaps-and-bounds. When he returned again to the US, after about a year, his English speaking had gotten much better. He’d been taking lessons back home.
He told me our “movie,” which he had titled, “The Movie Adventures of Tamme Sio Lakai in America! Produced & Directed by Richard R. Roller,” was a big hit in his village! The video featured not just Tamme, but also some footage of the both of us, which had been filmed by his Tongan friend who had accompanied us on the shoot.
We had so much fun. Three brothers, from three mothers, being silly together around Los Angeles in locations like the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Most Tongans don’t travel much away from home, so this was rare for Tamme to have
made this journey two times. Tongans are, by and large, extremely friendly and welcoming people, and when it was time for him to return home once again, he graciously invited me to come and stay with him and his wife, Lupe, and their extensive family.
Tamme and his wife, Lupe.
I appreciated the invitation, but declined at the time, realizing the commitment to embark on this remote adventure would not fit in with my work schedule, and to tell you the truth, I was intimidated about going halfway around the world to his remote island village.
The following year, once again, Tamme returned to California on business. His trade was bringing Kava to sell to Tongans living in the Los Angeles area. Kava is a mild drug taken as a drink made from the ground roots of a plant found in the South Pacific. It has similar strength and effects as alcohol, but for Tongans, its use is spiritually ritualistic as well. Tamme would also buy items in the US that Tongans might want back home.
Once again, Tamme coaxed me to come and spend time with him in Tonga. This time I decided to take him up on his invitation!
It took me a few months to get my papers in order and to plan the complex trip in the pre-internet age. From Los Angeles, I would fly to Hawaii. From Hawaii to Tahiti (from my recollection), and from there to Tongatapu, the Tongan Capitol Island, and from there, take a small plane to a tiny airport on the island of Longomapu a few miles away from Tamme’s village.
At the Longomapu airport, Lupe and Tamme and a few of their children waited excitedly to greet me. Tamme had helped arrange much of my trip. We jumped in his old van and plunged into the dense jungle for another fifteen minutes to his little village and home.
The next week was wild. Little did I know that I was already a celebrity in Tonga! Why you ask? For the villagers, I was a big time Hollywood movie mogul who had made the “movie” starring Tamme.
I arrived with instant street cred, and of course, I wasn’t anything like a movie mogul back home. I was just a guy who did pest control and wrote screenplays with hopes of getting them produced.
Tamme and Lupe were the consummate hosts during my stay in Tonga. I remember when Tamme and I were walking around the village of about 600 people, and we’d run into someone, and Tamme would get to talking with them, and they’d suddenly realize that they were distant cousins!
The total population of Tonga was under 100,000 all through the 1980s, and some of the family connections go back for hundreds of years, and some can even go back thousands. I learned to love so much about Tonga, like the way they took care of each other, and the way the benevolent King-ruled government took care of the people.
When I arrived, for the first time, the villagers did not yet have electricity; they would use batteries and generators to power things. But healthcare, lodging and food were taken care of as basic human needs and rights.
If you got sick, you would go to the small local hospital, and they would care for you for whatever you could pay, and if you needed more care than their hospital could provide, the kingdom of Tonga would pay to airlift you to Australia or New Zealand for the needed medical care and fly you home at no cost when you were healed ... or, God Forbid, dead. Then your body would be flown back at the government's expense.
When a government cares for its people, first and foremost, and not corporations, this fosters, in my opinion, a highly advanced way of living together with and for each other. I don’t know if I thought a lot about that then, but I do think a lot about it now with our so called “higher standard” in America.
In Tonga, you could even have your own island … at least back then in the 1980s. With so many uninhabited islands, the deal was that if you could come up with (and fulfill) a reasonably acceptable development plan, you could be granted control of one of those islands.
On my third visit to Tonga, I was given the honor of a Tongan name by a Village Elder. My Tongan name is “Liceate,” which is pronounced Lee See Ah Tay.
My Daughter’s Fervent Plea:
Sometime after my third amazing trip to Tonga, I was hanging out with my teenage daughter, Raina. She was going through some hard stuff and was not happy in school.
Among other issues, she was struggling with her weight (like Father, like daughter). She was also being tempted by drugs, but at the same time, she had this romantic idea in her head about Tonga.
Raina had met and loved Tamme and Lupe when they had come to California and were staying with us. I had turned my garage into a comfy studio apartment for them. Raina listened with rapt attention whenever I waxed poetic about my exotic Tongan exploits, so much so that she dreamt of experiencing an adventure there of her own.
Out of the blue one day, she begged me to send her to be with Tamme and Lupe and their family in Tonga. “I’m so unhappy in school. I love Tamme and Lupe. Please, Dad, send me to Tonga!”
I know it may seem odd, but for some reason, I had no resistance to the idea. I actually thought it would be really good for her, and I had no doubt that Tamme and Lupe would welcome and protect her.
“Would Tamme and Lupe agree?” she asked. Knowing the two of them as I did, I was confident that the family would welcome Raina with open arms which, in fact, they did. The only real issue was Raina’s mother’s family who thought I was off the beam in agreeing to send her to Tonga, on her own, and I probably was.
Raina would be traveling by herself and have to make several connections to a destination halfway around the world. There were no cell phones in Tonga. Heck, in fact, at that time, Tamme’s village had only one phone, which most of the time was tended by one person, and if you called to talk to, say, Tamme, that person would run to his house and try to find him!
Well, we finally convinced Raina’s mom’s family (and a few members of my family) to get on board with the idea. Everything would have to go off without a hitch, but at Raina’s first destination stop, Hawaii, she fell asleep in the airport and missed her next flight!
I had to do a lot of begging with the people at the airport in Honolulu in order to have them reroute her trip. They wanted to just send her back to Los Angeles, which I firmly convinced them not to do.
I had to talk to the one person manning the phone in Tonga to have them run to Tamme’s house and let them know that Raina’s arrival time and day had been rearranged.
I was starting to think that I really had made a very foolish decision, but thankfully, Raina got there safe and sound into the loving arms of Lupe, Tamme and their children. And thank God, she was as protected and happy there as she could be anywhere else in the world... maybe even safer.
How does this experience of me sending Raina to the Island Nation of Tonga relate to this book, God for Non-Believers & Believers?
I cannot say enough about the inner beauty of the Tongan people and their island paradise. The famous, or perhaps infamous, Captain Cook, who “discovered” Hawaii, also found Tonga in October of 1773 and called it “The Friendly Islands.”
Cook was killed in 1779 by angry natives in Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii. Perhaps they weren’t so friendly there, or perhaps, he pissed them off by renaming Hawaii the Sandwich Islands.
With each of my trips to Tonga, I became more and more aware of their innocent and uncorrupted faith and trust in a Universal Higher Power.
In Tamme’s village, in Longomapu, there were three churches, from three different religions. I suppose each religion was looking to be the one to save the souls of these “primitive” Tongans.
Fortunately, the Tongans welcomed all three religions and didn’t argue over which one was best; they accepted all three equally, with no bickering about which one would most successfully help them avoid the flames of hell and get to God in Heaven. I think this easy tolerance that my island friends possessed, very much informed my evolving beliefs about a loving God and Religion.
When I returned to Tonga, after several months, to bring Raina back, she had dramatically blossomed and become a beautiful young woman, radiating love and self-mastery. On the one hand, she was so happy to see me, but on the other, she had mixed feelings about leaving her newly adopted family in Tonga.
My daughter, Raina
Being the only “Palange” girl in the village (which this means “white” girl), and the God-daughter of Tamme and Lupe, the villagers were very sad to know that “Queen Raina,” as she was referred to, was going to leave them and go back to America.
The villagers prepared an extravagant going away party for her, and for me, and for Tamme, who was leaving with us to go back to the States. I can honestly say, this was the best party I have ever attended.
They broke out the generators and cranked up some amazing music. There was a pig on splits. It was a huge feast. Raina and I were covered in flower leis, along with hugs and tears.
In my heart of hearts, I knew this would be an experience that Raina and I would cherish and take with us for our entire lives, thanks to the Love and Joy of the Tongan people, who cherished us as one of their own.
I will forever maintain a spiritual link with Tonga, which now just lives in my heart and soul, as I will not return at this stage of my life.
I can clearly see how Tonga enriched my spiritual journey and manifests itself in practices I maintain even today. The Tongan’s belief in the divine without a strict adherence to dogma mirrors my own regular practices.
I love to attend my local Unitarian Universalists Church and feel a binding connection with other members of the congregation, and yet, with regularity, I also enjoy hearing the Buddhist Monks melodic chants at their nearby temple in Los Angeles. I have no idea what they are saying, but I am drawn to the beauty and mystery of their sacred ritual.
And then on some days I drive to Malibu to visit the enchanting Self-Realization Fellowship Temple, which includes guided meditation services followed by an inspirational message from the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. The derivation of the beliefs espoused here might be described as the principles of Hinduism and Christianity meet Yoga.
My attraction to these various diverse methods of exploring spirituality, I believe, can be traced back to my personal journey from homelessness on Venice Beach, to my expeditions to visit my Tongan family in the South Pacific.
I still feel a divine loving friendship with Tamme (who has recently passed away) and his wife, Lupe, and all the pure hearted Tongans in the village of Longomapu who welcomed me, as Leciate, and my daughter as Queen Raina, with open arms and hearts.
Just some of the folks who came together
to celebrate the life of Tamme. His body was flown back to the islands at the Kingdom's expense.
A wonderful gift I received from Tamme and Lupe which was created by a local Tongan artist.
Part Twenty-Two
I Leave You with This:
With more behind me now than what lies ahead, at least in this physical form, I long for the answers to the ultimate questions. Sometimes, I believe I know the answers, but when the lights go out for good with this particular incarnation of energy, if it’s nothing, then I won’t have anything to worry about. It will just be nothing, and I won’t be around to lament the nothingness.
If it’s something that awaits… oh, I can’t wait to find out what that is! I mean, I can wait. I’d like to stay as long as I can. But when my time is up, I look forward to hopefully knowing for certain.
I believe there is an Intelligence behind all this… this vista in front of my eyes right now… and the vast expanse beyond. For myself and each of us, time will tell.
Thank you for allowing me to take you on this journey. And if you’re inspired, by all means, pass this book with its thoughts on to your friends and family.
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