On March 2, 1984, at the age of 23, a spirit being I immediately recognized as Jesus, materialized in a room with me, radiated pure, unconditional love into my heart and soul and then left just as suddenly and miraculously as he had arrived.
Before I share the details of this story, I feel compelled to explain that although I recognized the being that materialized in the room with me as Jesus, he never actually introduced himself as Jesus. He simply appeared, imparted loving information, and then left as mysteriously as he came. That said, could it be possible that this being was someone other than Jesus? Absolutely. In fact, I have long wondered if this being was actually my higher self, or some future aspect of myself, projecting itself into this world from another time and dimension. In any event, what I am trying to say here is that the most important aspect of this experience to me, wasn't or isn't who it was that showed up that day, but the information that was imparted. Thank you. Now, here is the story of my amazing encounter:
After the Grim Reaper made his unwelcomed visit a year earlier in March of ‘83, I went on to complete my third year of University before entering the workforce as a freelance worker in film production. By February of 1984, I was “in between” jobs, having already completed three film projects when I awoke from a restless night's sleep remembering the following dream:
I am walking along the shoulder of a flat and straight rural highway, briefcase in hand, when a public transit bus approaches. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t seem to be concerned as I flag down the bus. The bus pulls onto the shoulder, the doors open, and I step up inside. Reaching into my pocket, I realize my loose change is in a compartment in my briefcase. I tell the driver I need to sit down to find my change. Although the bus is full of people, I am only vaguely aware of them as I step past the driver and move to sit down in the first open seat. But the driver calls me back before I can get there. I turn around to see what he wants and I see he is holding a gun and the gun is pointed at me. He has a powerful and wicked smile and I instantly recognize he is the devil. With the gun trained on my chest, he motions me to return to the front of the bus until my back is facing the open door (which seems to have remained open since I got on). As I stare into this evil man’s eyes, I feel scared and unsure what to do. I want to jump off the bus and run away, but I know I will be shot. Then it occurs to me, this would be a good time to faint and fall backwards out the open door. Unfortunately, he must have heard my thought, because he suddenly closed the door and then commanded, telepathically, “Go take your seat!” And that's when I woke up. And I recalled this dream and suddenly wondered why I hadn’t thought to wake up sooner than I did. Then I wondered if I had been sleeping at all – as if maybe this “dream” had been some sort of drama I was passively watching while awake with my eyes closed. I looked at the clock, saw it was 3:00 am, and went back to sleep.
That morning, on my way to the shower, the word “proselytize” suddenly popped into my head. I was very much into words at the time, having recently completed several “Word Power” books to improve my vocabulary. I also kept a word journal where I wrote down words I didn’t understand as I was reading. In any event, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what “proselytize” meant, and because I knew it would drive me crazy if I took a shower first, I did an about face and headed back to my bedroom for the dictionary. Under the word “proselytize” all it said was “proselyte.” Under the word “proselyte” was the following definition: “to convert from one religion, belief, or party to another.” As I read this definition, a chill ran up my spine, not because of the meaning, but because in that instant, I realized I had never looked up that word before. In fact, I was pretty certain I had never heard it used in conversation. It had simply popped into my head right out of thin air.
Intrigued, I headed to the warm comfort of my shower where no sooner did I relax, I suddenly remembered the evil bus driver dream. I had forgotten all about it after I went back to bed earlier that morning at 3:00 am. But just like that, it returned, along with a second set of chills that ran up my spine. And in that moment, I realized, between the restless sleep, the word “proselytize” and the dream of the evil bus driver, my subconscious mind was trying to tell me something. But what? Did I have a belief that needed changing? If so, I had no idea what it was.
For the purpose of context, as in, what my state of mind might have been like when I woke up that morning, I need to share a little background information. For one thing, in the months that followed the Grim Reaper's visit a year earlier, I suffered the most unusual eye pain. By the age of 22, I was already much too familiar with headaches and migraines, being a regular sufferer and taking fairly frequent doses of Tylenol, but this particular pain was different. Unlike my regular headaches, this brand of pain wouldn't subside with medication. And to make matters worse, after the Grim Reaper had left his mark, something else had developed in the region of my eyes. Namely, more than fifty percent of the time that I was engaged in conversation with someone, if I looked them in the eyes while I was talking, I suddenly felt as if I was going to break down and cry. Consequently, during most conversations, I found myself constantly looking away. It was the strangest thing, and it caused me many uncomfortable moments, and I wondered if perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I refused to share the truth of my encounter with the Grim Reaper with my friends, fellow students, and later, coworkers. That encounter had been a life altering event that had forever changed my understanding of the world – particularly the world of spirit – and yet, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to expose myself to judgement. Could it be that my urge to cry was connected to the act of withholding the truth?
Fortunately, the eye pain and the urge to cry diminished significantly once I finished university; however, it still occurred from time to time. And that’s pretty much where I was at a month after my devil bus driver dream when I woke up on the morning of March 2, 1984, with an idea for a short story that I immediately sat down to write. The story was kind of silly really, about a young man who goes to traffic court to fight two parking tickets issued at the exact same parking meter on different days. In his defense, the young man calls into question a technicality – namely, the reliability of the timing device in the offending meter. In the end, his line of questioning raises enough doubt that the judge dismisses the young man’s case as well as any cases on the docket that day involving parking tickets issued at expired meters. Though far from spectacular, being someone who fantasized about someday writing for a living, I was elated to have overcome debilitating self-criticism and self-doubt and actually completed something. However, no sooner had I finished, the negative self-talk immediately threatened to destroy that elation. If I could only find someone I trusted to read my story and tell me it was pretty good, maybe there was a chance that I would write again, and maybe even a writing career might one day be possible. Thus, unduly placing so much pressure on this one piece of writing, I called my father at his office and asked if he wouldn't mind having a read of my story.
I took the subway from my apartment and ended up at my father’s office in half an hour. As an adult, my relationship with my father was cordial, but we were never close. My father had suffered the tragic loss of his only brother in 1963 when I was three years old, and although my father had nothing to do with the circumstances, he unduly carried around the burden of responsibility for his brother’s death. Consequently, ever since, I don’t think my father was capable of true emotional closeness with anyone. Nevertheless, he was a successful director of film and television, and when it came to creative pursuits, I looked up to him and respected his opinion.
At my father’s office, we greeted each other warmly, I handed over the story, and then something unusual happened. As my father sat down to read, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to pray – the same urge I had felt a year earlier when I refused and thus set in motion the harrowing chain of events involving the Grim Reaper. After all that had happened as a result of that refusal, I wasn’t about to risk a repeat performance. Instead, I quickly excused myself to my father’s back lounge and kitchen where I shut the door and immediately got down on my knees to pray for the very first time in my life. I figured I would be done before my father finished my story, thus, he would never be any the wiser as to what I had been doing in his lounge. And that was the way I wanted it. My father never spoke about God, so I really didn’t know if he was a believer or not. However, he carried so much inner anger over his brother’s death, I imagined even if he did believe, he and God were hardly on the best of terms. Nevertheless, like it or not, my father was destined to catch me in the act because no sooner did I bow my head to the floor, I immediately began to weep while words spilled forth from my lips – words that surprised me because they did not originate from conscious intention, and yet, they came from my mouth. “Why are we so bad? Why are we so bad?” I cried, feeling terribly ashamed, but having no idea what I was ashamed about. All I knew was that I had bowed down to pray because an inner feeling had directed me to do so. And that was the extent of my understanding. In the meantime, since I was crying and releasing all of this apparent pent up shame, it felt good to let it out, though I began to worry that maybe my father would hear me and thus catch me on the floor praying and crying. I thought about getting up, but before I could do so, a firm hand pushed down on the small of my back rendering me instantly paralyzed. I tried to turn my head to see who was there, but I literally couldn't so much as move a muscle. I knew my father hadn’t entered the room because the door was shut and I would have heard it open. So who was there? And how was it that they were able to so easily immobilize me?
With my forehead pinned to the floor, and my mind confused as to what was happening, my head was suddenly grasped by two firm hands that lifted it off the floor and turned it to my right where I immediately beheld a sight I will never forget. There, on the floor beside me, a simply clothed, bearded man was kneeling like I was, and was gazing into my eyes with such compassion, I immediately knew that everything was okay, just as I knew this man was Jesus. Though he didn’t speak a word, his eyes spoke volumes, transmitting everything I needed to know in an instant before he suddenly turned away and bowed his head to the floor in prayer. In the moments that followed, the hands that had grasped my head and turned it to see Jesus, grasped my head once again, this time turning it away and placing it back to the floor to its original position -- the same position I had seen Jesus assume. And there I remained, paralyzed, and suddenly feeling fear for the first time as I heard the door open and my father’s voice asking me what was going on and if I was okay to which I vaguely remember responding with something like, “I don’t know. I’m stuck to the floor. Please call mom.”
Unlike my father, my mother very much believed in God and was very active spiritually. She had joined a spiritual group called Subud in the late ‘60’s and had been active in that organization ever since. Therefore, stuck to the floor as I was, it was obvious to me that if anyone was going to have an idea of how to help me, it was going to be my mother. And my father didn’t disagree. He asked if I would be okay while he went to make a call to my mother. I recall responding, “Yes. Please hurry!”
The moment my father left the room, my ears were suddenly overwhelmed by strange sounds – sounds that were definitely out of place in the safe and civilized environs of my father’s downtown office. Situated on the second floor of a renovated century home, my father’s office was a stone’s throw from one of Toronto’s busiest and most upscale shopping district – Yorkville – definitely not the kind of neighborhood where one would hear machine gun fire, women shrieking in terror, and wailing sirens. But that’s what I was hearing while in my mind’s eye I could see devastation in the street – blown out windows, fire ravaged cars, and snipers scurrying in the shadows. My city was suddenly a war zone, and I could see it and hear it as if it was happening right then and there. I believed I was having a vision of the end of the world, and I wondered how long I had to live before the world was going to collapse into the frightening state of chaos I was being shown. But there was no answer.
Meanwhile, in the other room, my father reached my mother at home, and told her I was having some sort of a strange episode. My mother told my father she would pray for me, and that she would also do a spiritual exercise for me called the “latihan” – an exercise that was a fundamental practice for members of Subud. Before she hung up, she told my father to call her back to let her know how I was doing. Well, her actions must have helped, because a few minutes later, the visions stopped and I found that I was suddenly free to get up from the floor. By the time my father returned, I was standing on my feet, probably looking a little dazed. My father asked how I was feeling, and I told him I wasn’t sure. He then asked me if I was well enough to talk to mom on the phone as she was very worried about me. I said I was.
As we made our way back along the short hallway towards the front office where the phone was located, I suddenly discovered I had a new problem: I was stricken with intense paranoia. So debilitating was this paranoia, the moment I saw the large windows in my father’s front office, I immediately collapsed to the floor, certain that one of the snipers I had seen in my vision was going to shoot me. The feelings were so intense, I remained crouched on the floor below the window sills and refused to move. Since the phone didn’t reach my position, when my father soon had my mother back on the phone, he had to give her the update himself.
Apparently, my mother recommended to my father that he drive me home to their house. In my mother's opinion, I was having some sort of spiritual crisis, and she felt that being home with her was the best place for me to be. The only problem was, I was afraid to stand up, let alone leave the building. After much talk, and a lot of patience, my father finally managed to convince me to leave with him. He told me to wait while he went and parked his car about ten feet away from the front door. He said he would then come back up to get me and would escort me to the car. I knew I couldn’t stay indefinitely in his office, so I decided to take him up on the offer.
A few minutes later, I remember making the hurried dash to my father's car. I was so sure I was about to be picked off by a sniper's bullet, but I wasn't. I made it safely into the passenger seat, reclined the chair back as far as it would go and remained there, slouched below the windows for the entire fifteen minute drive to my parent's house.
Unfortunately, I no longer remember when it was that I went back to my apartment. Somehow, I don’t think I ever did other than to collect my clothes. As I recall, I moved back home with my parents and remained there for almost a year until I finally moved into a rented house with the young woman I would later marry.
Although the intense paranoia I had experienced after Jesus had left subsided after a few hours, it was immediately replaced by an equally severe mania. For the next two days, my mind was a whir of constant thought about life and God, and all things between. I was a fountain of theories and formulas about the creation of the world and the demise of the dinosaurs – writing, drawing, thinking -- unable to sleep for two days straight. In fact, by the time fifty hours rolled around, I was so flat out exhausted, it literally hurt to think. The problem was, I had no idea how to switch off my brain. I remember finally crawling into bed, scared, exhausted, and desperately praying for sleep. When I awoke sometime later that night, I remembered having a vivid dream in which I had fallen asleep feeling like my head was going to explode only to awake to find I had developed a walnut-sized protuberance at the base of my scull. Back in my awake state, I slowly reached behind my head, afraid of what I was going to find, and quite relieved to find that it felt normal. Regardless, I was certain that the dream was telling me my brain had been altered in some way to prepare me for whatever it was that God had in store for me next.
The next day, I arose from bed after sleeping a combined total of sixteen hours. The mania was gone. The paranoia was gone. I felt stable again, except, I was worried about a relapse. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to me and why. Was it possible that I was some sort of reluctant prophet in training? I had no idea though it was the only answer I could come up with at the time. A few weeks later, I joined Subud and started a regular practice of latihan. After that, I felt secure that a relapse wasn't going to happen -- and it never did.
Incidentally, I no longer remember what my father had to say about that little story about the parking tickets. Either way, I never did write another piece of fiction nor did I ever find a way to make a living as a writer.
In the years that followed, I got married, had three kids, and continued to work in film production. Even though I often felt that something was terribly wrong with my life, that there was something I was supposed to be doing that I wasn’t, I didn’t know what that something was. So I carried on the best I could, hiding behind my work, until finally, in 1999, I had an epiphany one day when I realized as I sat and journaled, I could ask questions and receive answers from something I referred to at the time as my higher self. Whatever it was, it gave me a perspective on my life that I desperately needed. Thus, just like that, a whole new world suddenly opened up for me.
For the continuing story of my spiritual journey, please see this link.
For the beautiful insights that Jesus conveyed to me in our five second meeting, please see this link.
Before I share the details of this story, I feel compelled to explain that although I recognized the being that materialized in the room with me as Jesus, he never actually introduced himself as Jesus. He simply appeared, imparted loving information, and then left as mysteriously as he came. That said, could it be possible that this being was someone other than Jesus? Absolutely. In fact, I have long wondered if this being was actually my higher self, or some future aspect of myself, projecting itself into this world from another time and dimension. In any event, what I am trying to say here is that the most important aspect of this experience to me, wasn't or isn't who it was that showed up that day, but the information that was imparted. Thank you. Now, here is the story of my amazing encounter:
After the Grim Reaper made his unwelcomed visit a year earlier in March of ‘83, I went on to complete my third year of University before entering the workforce as a freelance worker in film production. By February of 1984, I was “in between” jobs, having already completed three film projects when I awoke from a restless night's sleep remembering the following dream:
I am walking along the shoulder of a flat and straight rural highway, briefcase in hand, when a public transit bus approaches. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t seem to be concerned as I flag down the bus. The bus pulls onto the shoulder, the doors open, and I step up inside. Reaching into my pocket, I realize my loose change is in a compartment in my briefcase. I tell the driver I need to sit down to find my change. Although the bus is full of people, I am only vaguely aware of them as I step past the driver and move to sit down in the first open seat. But the driver calls me back before I can get there. I turn around to see what he wants and I see he is holding a gun and the gun is pointed at me. He has a powerful and wicked smile and I instantly recognize he is the devil. With the gun trained on my chest, he motions me to return to the front of the bus until my back is facing the open door (which seems to have remained open since I got on). As I stare into this evil man’s eyes, I feel scared and unsure what to do. I want to jump off the bus and run away, but I know I will be shot. Then it occurs to me, this would be a good time to faint and fall backwards out the open door. Unfortunately, he must have heard my thought, because he suddenly closed the door and then commanded, telepathically, “Go take your seat!” And that's when I woke up. And I recalled this dream and suddenly wondered why I hadn’t thought to wake up sooner than I did. Then I wondered if I had been sleeping at all – as if maybe this “dream” had been some sort of drama I was passively watching while awake with my eyes closed. I looked at the clock, saw it was 3:00 am, and went back to sleep.
That morning, on my way to the shower, the word “proselytize” suddenly popped into my head. I was very much into words at the time, having recently completed several “Word Power” books to improve my vocabulary. I also kept a word journal where I wrote down words I didn’t understand as I was reading. In any event, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what “proselytize” meant, and because I knew it would drive me crazy if I took a shower first, I did an about face and headed back to my bedroom for the dictionary. Under the word “proselytize” all it said was “proselyte.” Under the word “proselyte” was the following definition: “to convert from one religion, belief, or party to another.” As I read this definition, a chill ran up my spine, not because of the meaning, but because in that instant, I realized I had never looked up that word before. In fact, I was pretty certain I had never heard it used in conversation. It had simply popped into my head right out of thin air.
Intrigued, I headed to the warm comfort of my shower where no sooner did I relax, I suddenly remembered the evil bus driver dream. I had forgotten all about it after I went back to bed earlier that morning at 3:00 am. But just like that, it returned, along with a second set of chills that ran up my spine. And in that moment, I realized, between the restless sleep, the word “proselytize” and the dream of the evil bus driver, my subconscious mind was trying to tell me something. But what? Did I have a belief that needed changing? If so, I had no idea what it was.
For the purpose of context, as in, what my state of mind might have been like when I woke up that morning, I need to share a little background information. For one thing, in the months that followed the Grim Reaper's visit a year earlier, I suffered the most unusual eye pain. By the age of 22, I was already much too familiar with headaches and migraines, being a regular sufferer and taking fairly frequent doses of Tylenol, but this particular pain was different. Unlike my regular headaches, this brand of pain wouldn't subside with medication. And to make matters worse, after the Grim Reaper had left his mark, something else had developed in the region of my eyes. Namely, more than fifty percent of the time that I was engaged in conversation with someone, if I looked them in the eyes while I was talking, I suddenly felt as if I was going to break down and cry. Consequently, during most conversations, I found myself constantly looking away. It was the strangest thing, and it caused me many uncomfortable moments, and I wondered if perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I refused to share the truth of my encounter with the Grim Reaper with my friends, fellow students, and later, coworkers. That encounter had been a life altering event that had forever changed my understanding of the world – particularly the world of spirit – and yet, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to expose myself to judgement. Could it be that my urge to cry was connected to the act of withholding the truth?
Fortunately, the eye pain and the urge to cry diminished significantly once I finished university; however, it still occurred from time to time. And that’s pretty much where I was at a month after my devil bus driver dream when I woke up on the morning of March 2, 1984, with an idea for a short story that I immediately sat down to write. The story was kind of silly really, about a young man who goes to traffic court to fight two parking tickets issued at the exact same parking meter on different days. In his defense, the young man calls into question a technicality – namely, the reliability of the timing device in the offending meter. In the end, his line of questioning raises enough doubt that the judge dismisses the young man’s case as well as any cases on the docket that day involving parking tickets issued at expired meters. Though far from spectacular, being someone who fantasized about someday writing for a living, I was elated to have overcome debilitating self-criticism and self-doubt and actually completed something. However, no sooner had I finished, the negative self-talk immediately threatened to destroy that elation. If I could only find someone I trusted to read my story and tell me it was pretty good, maybe there was a chance that I would write again, and maybe even a writing career might one day be possible. Thus, unduly placing so much pressure on this one piece of writing, I called my father at his office and asked if he wouldn't mind having a read of my story.
I took the subway from my apartment and ended up at my father’s office in half an hour. As an adult, my relationship with my father was cordial, but we were never close. My father had suffered the tragic loss of his only brother in 1963 when I was three years old, and although my father had nothing to do with the circumstances, he unduly carried around the burden of responsibility for his brother’s death. Consequently, ever since, I don’t think my father was capable of true emotional closeness with anyone. Nevertheless, he was a successful director of film and television, and when it came to creative pursuits, I looked up to him and respected his opinion.
At my father’s office, we greeted each other warmly, I handed over the story, and then something unusual happened. As my father sat down to read, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to pray – the same urge I had felt a year earlier when I refused and thus set in motion the harrowing chain of events involving the Grim Reaper. After all that had happened as a result of that refusal, I wasn’t about to risk a repeat performance. Instead, I quickly excused myself to my father’s back lounge and kitchen where I shut the door and immediately got down on my knees to pray for the very first time in my life. I figured I would be done before my father finished my story, thus, he would never be any the wiser as to what I had been doing in his lounge. And that was the way I wanted it. My father never spoke about God, so I really didn’t know if he was a believer or not. However, he carried so much inner anger over his brother’s death, I imagined even if he did believe, he and God were hardly on the best of terms. Nevertheless, like it or not, my father was destined to catch me in the act because no sooner did I bow my head to the floor, I immediately began to weep while words spilled forth from my lips – words that surprised me because they did not originate from conscious intention, and yet, they came from my mouth. “Why are we so bad? Why are we so bad?” I cried, feeling terribly ashamed, but having no idea what I was ashamed about. All I knew was that I had bowed down to pray because an inner feeling had directed me to do so. And that was the extent of my understanding. In the meantime, since I was crying and releasing all of this apparent pent up shame, it felt good to let it out, though I began to worry that maybe my father would hear me and thus catch me on the floor praying and crying. I thought about getting up, but before I could do so, a firm hand pushed down on the small of my back rendering me instantly paralyzed. I tried to turn my head to see who was there, but I literally couldn't so much as move a muscle. I knew my father hadn’t entered the room because the door was shut and I would have heard it open. So who was there? And how was it that they were able to so easily immobilize me?
With my forehead pinned to the floor, and my mind confused as to what was happening, my head was suddenly grasped by two firm hands that lifted it off the floor and turned it to my right where I immediately beheld a sight I will never forget. There, on the floor beside me, a simply clothed, bearded man was kneeling like I was, and was gazing into my eyes with such compassion, I immediately knew that everything was okay, just as I knew this man was Jesus. Though he didn’t speak a word, his eyes spoke volumes, transmitting everything I needed to know in an instant before he suddenly turned away and bowed his head to the floor in prayer. In the moments that followed, the hands that had grasped my head and turned it to see Jesus, grasped my head once again, this time turning it away and placing it back to the floor to its original position -- the same position I had seen Jesus assume. And there I remained, paralyzed, and suddenly feeling fear for the first time as I heard the door open and my father’s voice asking me what was going on and if I was okay to which I vaguely remember responding with something like, “I don’t know. I’m stuck to the floor. Please call mom.”
Unlike my father, my mother very much believed in God and was very active spiritually. She had joined a spiritual group called Subud in the late ‘60’s and had been active in that organization ever since. Therefore, stuck to the floor as I was, it was obvious to me that if anyone was going to have an idea of how to help me, it was going to be my mother. And my father didn’t disagree. He asked if I would be okay while he went to make a call to my mother. I recall responding, “Yes. Please hurry!”
The moment my father left the room, my ears were suddenly overwhelmed by strange sounds – sounds that were definitely out of place in the safe and civilized environs of my father’s downtown office. Situated on the second floor of a renovated century home, my father’s office was a stone’s throw from one of Toronto’s busiest and most upscale shopping district – Yorkville – definitely not the kind of neighborhood where one would hear machine gun fire, women shrieking in terror, and wailing sirens. But that’s what I was hearing while in my mind’s eye I could see devastation in the street – blown out windows, fire ravaged cars, and snipers scurrying in the shadows. My city was suddenly a war zone, and I could see it and hear it as if it was happening right then and there. I believed I was having a vision of the end of the world, and I wondered how long I had to live before the world was going to collapse into the frightening state of chaos I was being shown. But there was no answer.
Meanwhile, in the other room, my father reached my mother at home, and told her I was having some sort of a strange episode. My mother told my father she would pray for me, and that she would also do a spiritual exercise for me called the “latihan” – an exercise that was a fundamental practice for members of Subud. Before she hung up, she told my father to call her back to let her know how I was doing. Well, her actions must have helped, because a few minutes later, the visions stopped and I found that I was suddenly free to get up from the floor. By the time my father returned, I was standing on my feet, probably looking a little dazed. My father asked how I was feeling, and I told him I wasn’t sure. He then asked me if I was well enough to talk to mom on the phone as she was very worried about me. I said I was.
As we made our way back along the short hallway towards the front office where the phone was located, I suddenly discovered I had a new problem: I was stricken with intense paranoia. So debilitating was this paranoia, the moment I saw the large windows in my father’s front office, I immediately collapsed to the floor, certain that one of the snipers I had seen in my vision was going to shoot me. The feelings were so intense, I remained crouched on the floor below the window sills and refused to move. Since the phone didn’t reach my position, when my father soon had my mother back on the phone, he had to give her the update himself.
Apparently, my mother recommended to my father that he drive me home to their house. In my mother's opinion, I was having some sort of spiritual crisis, and she felt that being home with her was the best place for me to be. The only problem was, I was afraid to stand up, let alone leave the building. After much talk, and a lot of patience, my father finally managed to convince me to leave with him. He told me to wait while he went and parked his car about ten feet away from the front door. He said he would then come back up to get me and would escort me to the car. I knew I couldn’t stay indefinitely in his office, so I decided to take him up on the offer.
A few minutes later, I remember making the hurried dash to my father's car. I was so sure I was about to be picked off by a sniper's bullet, but I wasn't. I made it safely into the passenger seat, reclined the chair back as far as it would go and remained there, slouched below the windows for the entire fifteen minute drive to my parent's house.
Unfortunately, I no longer remember when it was that I went back to my apartment. Somehow, I don’t think I ever did other than to collect my clothes. As I recall, I moved back home with my parents and remained there for almost a year until I finally moved into a rented house with the young woman I would later marry.
Although the intense paranoia I had experienced after Jesus had left subsided after a few hours, it was immediately replaced by an equally severe mania. For the next two days, my mind was a whir of constant thought about life and God, and all things between. I was a fountain of theories and formulas about the creation of the world and the demise of the dinosaurs – writing, drawing, thinking -- unable to sleep for two days straight. In fact, by the time fifty hours rolled around, I was so flat out exhausted, it literally hurt to think. The problem was, I had no idea how to switch off my brain. I remember finally crawling into bed, scared, exhausted, and desperately praying for sleep. When I awoke sometime later that night, I remembered having a vivid dream in which I had fallen asleep feeling like my head was going to explode only to awake to find I had developed a walnut-sized protuberance at the base of my scull. Back in my awake state, I slowly reached behind my head, afraid of what I was going to find, and quite relieved to find that it felt normal. Regardless, I was certain that the dream was telling me my brain had been altered in some way to prepare me for whatever it was that God had in store for me next.
The next day, I arose from bed after sleeping a combined total of sixteen hours. The mania was gone. The paranoia was gone. I felt stable again, except, I was worried about a relapse. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to me and why. Was it possible that I was some sort of reluctant prophet in training? I had no idea though it was the only answer I could come up with at the time. A few weeks later, I joined Subud and started a regular practice of latihan. After that, I felt secure that a relapse wasn't going to happen -- and it never did.
Incidentally, I no longer remember what my father had to say about that little story about the parking tickets. Either way, I never did write another piece of fiction nor did I ever find a way to make a living as a writer.
In the years that followed, I got married, had three kids, and continued to work in film production. Even though I often felt that something was terribly wrong with my life, that there was something I was supposed to be doing that I wasn’t, I didn’t know what that something was. So I carried on the best I could, hiding behind my work, until finally, in 1999, I had an epiphany one day when I realized as I sat and journaled, I could ask questions and receive answers from something I referred to at the time as my higher self. Whatever it was, it gave me a perspective on my life that I desperately needed. Thus, just like that, a whole new world suddenly opened up for me.
For the continuing story of my spiritual journey, please see this link.
For the beautiful insights that Jesus conveyed to me in our five second meeting, please see this link.
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