Welcome to a story, part autobiographical and part fictional (to fill the gaps in my narrative memory), of a very real journey. This is a journey of the spirit, of the mind and of the body. A journey that if not made by all of us then our spiritual selves are not and cannot be truly our own.

My story begins with a moment, not too long ago, that set me on my journey and began what would change my entire grasp of life and my own personal self.

Let us begin...


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I do not believe in God. This was the scariest statement to say to anyone. What would they think? What would they say?

They, being my friends, my family, my entire social structure would judge me, look down on me, even... hate me. They would say that I was the devil, that I was a bad person, that I was unwelcome. Acceptance would be withheld. Connection to others would become brittle.

To say the least, telling my parents that I was an atheist was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. My father kind of sneered at the idea, telling me that atheists were a little bit stupid. My dad is not of a specific belief. He's spiritual to a very profound extent, believes in astral projection, signs and messages in everyday life, a sort of natural spiritual power higher than us humans. It took me a long time to really understand WHAT he was, and until I did all I could do was say what he was NOT. He was not a Christian, he was not a Pagan, he was nothing really describable. Perhaps that's why I told him what I was first. I expected more tolerance from him than I did of my mother.

My mother can only be described as a non-denominational Christian. She believes in the personal god, in the prophesy, in the "risen king." She was always the one that insisted that we visit church on a regular basis. She was a notorious church hopper, so in my life I had visited everything from Methodist to Church of Christ to the black Zionist churches. When I told her, she didn't seem to believe me. I remember the look on her face so clearly: incredulity. She actually chuckled and said: "No you're not."

When I insisted, the look of disappointment, of self-failure, was heartbreaking. My mother was disappointed in me, and herself.

In the end, my father was more accepting of my absence of belief. My mother got it into her head to drag me to church more, since I had long ago vetoed the weekly visits. She had me drive her to church as a way to give me more driving practice while I was on my learner permit. So she said.

Usually, I ended up drawing on the programs with the tiny pencils stuck next to the hymnal books at the back of the pews. Later on I started taking notes, jotting down verse numbers and questions I had about sermons. I didn't really mind going to church, I tended to learn more from watching the audience or the sign language interpreter than I did the pastor.

With my father, it seemed that our conversations about his odd form of spirituality increased and I began to actively try to understand his way of thinking, of believing.

Once I was comfortable enough with my position around my parents I began searching for others like myself. The internet was such a boon for me at this time. I found access to meetup groups where local atheists got together, socially, and watched movies, or just talked.

I was able to ask my dad to take me to these meetings where I connected with others, and was able to put a very real face with people like me. I think in some way I was searching for solidarity and an exit from a sort of self-imposed isolation. I needed assurance that I was not alone.

I got it from that initial group. But I think after awhile, and once I started college it became less important to go to these meetings because I got bored. I wanted more than anything to really explore the nature of atheism, but the people I met were content to really just chat and be people. Not that there was anything wrong with that, I was just at a point where I needed more.

One birthday I got a little bit of money and got the idea that I wanted to subscribe to an atheist radio show that talked frequently about science, atheism, the Bible, and religion in general. I told my mom what I wanted to spend part of my birthday money on and she objected. I was a little miffed, again reminded that my mom felt some measure of disappointment in me. I didn't stop in my mini-mission to subscribe to the website, I just didn't tell anyone. As much as banks infuriate me, it was nice to be able to just deposit my birthday money and subscribe online, quietly.

But in a way this wasn't really my beginning as an atheist. My beginning started when I was twelve-years-old and still considered myself Christian.

Between the ages of ten and sixteen I traveled with my family in a converted airport transit bus across the US, while my dad chased stories the publish in his online news magazine. The stories varied from interviews with musical artists to articles about national politics or policies.

At twelve I remember clearly sitting in the back of our converted RV staring out a window as rain streaked across the window, marring the view of the passing towns from the freeway. It wasn't uncommon for me to sit at the window and stare for hours on end, daydreaming, listening to the Star Wars soundtrack through a roughly recorded audio cassette on a Walkman. Occasionally I switched to the radio to listen to the local radio stations. It was a nightly ritual to find the public broadcasting station so I could listen to classical music or the random world and new age music shows late at night.

That night, with the sound of Leia's theme in my ear and Tchaikovsky's Firebird only a touch of a finger away I stared out the window and talked to God. At this point in my life, I talked freely to the father figure in the sky. He was the closest thing I had to a friend, besides my brother and the hundreds of characters manifested in my daily daydreams. He was supposed to be there, so my knowledge and learnings from Sunday school had taught me, listening and waiting for me to speak. So I spoke. He was intangible, and I never actually received an answer to any of my requests or questions, but I had that little thing called faith, and that was all I needed.

There was something in the air that night. That night when the rain blurred all sight, and drowned the sound under tidal waves of a sky-born ocean. Rain has always seemed to set me down and make me think. I don't know if it's something in the way that rain seems to create barriers between people, sounds. Even in an enclosed RV, with my family only a few feet away, blocked only by a shift of cloth, between living space and bed space. Living in a ten by twenty space with three other people never lends to much physical privacy, even psychological privacy where a wet cheek can be seen from the driver's seat and a sob from across a thin glass window.

But the rain, something about the rain made it all silent. Made people go into themselves and forget their surroundings. That rainy, rainy night, I closed in on that private world, created by the rain and enclosed only in my mind, and talked to God.

I asked a simple question, a question that we all suffer through: "What is my purpose?"

I wondered where I belonged in the schema of the world. In the life that we had, moving from place to place, with little names or numbers to call home. I felt that my life was for a time, meaningless, filled with dreams and daydreams. Thoughts and places melding together into a meaningless impressionistic painting of confusing colors and shapes.



What is my purpose?

Please if there is anything in this world that you answer please answer me this. What is my purpose? Where do I belong? Where do find my place in this world?


This question grew from a half-remembered memory. A memory of a picture taken decades before my birth. A picture of the Earth, round, blue, white, green and brown. Beautiful in a seeming simplicity but enormous in the minds of our human memory. Filled with people, ideas, wars, peace. Everything that we were and everything that we would ever be.

And in that memory, a seed planted, and grew quietly, but stayed in my memory for a very long time. A simple idea, that blossomed into a flower: the idea that I was meaningless on this huge planet, on this world where the screaming masses overwhelmed the cries of one. The idea that I needed to know my place or I would drown and sink to the ocean floor of life to become nothing more than a grain of sand, lost in a world where sand is all that you can see. A single grain means only a tiny fraction of a whole.

What is my purpose?

I knew that I didn't want to become a drowned out grain of sand. I wanted to become a mountain. I wanted to be big, strong, covered in snow, sometimes not clearly seen, but always there, a beacon from which people could find their way, know that they were close to home, know that I was always going to be there.

And in the rain silent solitude, surrounded by wordless music, I received no answer. No moment of inspiration hit me, no words or signs made themselves known. No father figure looked down on me and told me a path, a way, a guide.

Please, please, answer me this. Even if it's the last thing you ever do for me.

I was honest with myself. Even if God only answered this one question and never spoke to me again, I could live, I could find my way in the world. I could fight for my purpose earnestly and honestly.

I waited and got no answer. I waited. I waited.

And suddenly my father figure, that feeling of faith in his presence wavered.

Please. Please Please.

Please.

I held on as long as I could, my pleas unanswered, but soon, all too soon, the wave of tears would not stop. I who only wanted a way, a guideline, a simple path, received nothing. I curled into myself. My sudden loneliness abject and loud.

Please. I said one last time. And when nothing came, all that followed was sadness. I had never felt more alone. My friend. My friend who I depended on, was suddenly gone from my mind. He was not real. He was lost to me. My faith shattered then. And I was left with nothing.

My last words to Him, were: "I can't believe in you anymore."

I won't believe anymore.

I was 21 when I happened across a short essay by Penn Jillette that was written for a segment on NPR called "This I Believe." Penn, part of the sleight of hand and magic trick duo Penn and Teller, was a very outspoken atheist. The two devoted many episodes of the duo's show "Penn & Teller's Bullshit" to debunking modern religious myths, among other things.

He spoke very clearly about what he believed in, and in some small way it inspired me. I had spent much of my time under the label of atheist discovering and exploring aspects of my non-belief. But I hadn't really spent any time focusing on what I did believe in.

I didn't jump at a new search right away. I spent some time pondering the message in Penn's essay, exploring the idea of what it meant to believe in something.

I had spoken extensively with my dad about his beliefs, which had come to my aid in an odd way two years before. My dad was very involved in astrology, and happened across a program that calculated traits. We were exploring the program and inputed my information where my dad discovered in the astrological traits a strong indication of independence. He looked at me very intrigued by the traits. I don't know what it really meant to him, but I felt that afterwards he wasn't quite as much of a controlling parent. He seemed to ease up and let me do things my own way.

It was interesting to note that I was a very independent person. At seventeen I got sick of having to walk to the library two and a half miles away with someone else, either my brother or mother, through our sort of rough neighborhood and just started walking on my own without asking for permission. I felt that I knew the neighborhood well enough and I was certainly old enough to know to not get in the car of any strangers. Plus there was no guarantee that my my brother or my mom would want to stay at the library as long as I wanted.

Frustrated one day, when neither my brother or mom would go with me, I told my parents where I was going, and that was it. Dad didn't make much of a fuss about it. I think he accepted it as is, and perhaps when years later we looked at that astrological trait map, with so many indications of independence, he understood.

I take astrology with a grain of salt. Always have actually. There was a year or so when I was fourteen that I would intentionally look at my horoscope for the day in the newspaper and attempt to prove it wrong. I took great pleasure when at the end of the day, the horoscope was untrue.

My dad's involvement with astrology was odd to me, but I always listened to what he had to say, because I hadn't heard a lot about it or really knew where to go to get first hand experience.

At this point I had been going to church with my mom weekly, so I was always getting a dose of Christianity for pondering.

It was from my parents beliefs that I sprung from my state of non-belief to attempting to find my own words to form into what I believed. I started with the Bible. It was the only religious document that I really had any familiarity with.

Understandably, I had a few false starts with the book. The very beginning always got me irritated with the text and after a few begats I found myself distracted with other more intellectually stimulating reading. Eventually, upon discussing my desire to study the Bible with some focus, my dad suggested starting with something important to me in the book.

My experience with the Bible was gathered from casual reading, what I could remember from Sunday school, and the children's cartoons that my grandmother sent us on a regular basis


So with my father's advice on hand, I read the teachings of Jesus. I know that there is some contention at times about the meaning behind Jesus's words, but I always saw a vote of confidence in nonviolence. I had already done some extensive philosophizing about the concept of nonviolence. I had been deeply changed by the philosophical thought that I found in a very simple but beautiful Japanese anime called Trigun. It must be strange on some level that a show of all things could herald a significant change in my personal philosophy and self-concept.

In any case, I went on from the teachings of Jesus, to Martin Luther King, Jr. -- one of my favorite public figures in history-- and then to Ghandi. This all led me to Buddhism.