

### TIDBITS FROM AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR

By

Richard E. Kuykendall

Copyright © 2015 Richard E. Reich

All rights reserved.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

POETRY

PHILOSOPHICAL POEMS

DREAMS

JOURNAL EXCERPTS

ARTICLES

Spiritwind

The Three Phases of My Life

Cults of Personality

Different Kinds of Love

Tuby Longline and the Bimbay Fleet

SONG LYRICS

POSTSCRIPT

End Notes

# INTRODUCTION

I thought I would tell you some things about myself because I am an unknown writer to most readers. It seems as though as a writer I have surrounded myself by an assortment of other unknown authors rather than best sellers. For instance there was Raoul Fajardo who wrote, _The Creative Constitution of the Universe_ and others. Then there was Bryce Yourd who wrote, _An Ocean Awaiting Discovery_ and more.

Then there were two women in their 90s: Nellie Condon who wrote poetry and Dorothy Slack who wrote her autobiography.

Louise Schnur wrote her book, _From Darkness to Light: An Autobiography of a Battered Woman_ and Stewart Rawlings wrote his _Another Messiah, Delusions_ and others.

My friend David Osborn has written a number of books; none of them have even been self-published. And my friend Pat Bergman starts writing new books almost every day and never finishes one.

What do all of these writers have in common? They have either been self-published or never published. I too have self-published several books but my only book that was ever published by an outside publisher was my book, _Liturgies of the Earth_ which was published in 1992 by Educational Ministries, Inc.

Anyway, in writing this I provide the reader (if any) to glance at tidbits of many of the things that I have thought, dreamed and sang about. And so with this, let us begin.

# POETRY

Heartbreaks are heavy on a boy of sixteen

And his heart is easily broke.

Hell may weigh heavy on the song he does sing

And his mind they bind and choke.

Surrender to the human race

Or go out and find yourself a place—

To hide yourself from all your fears—

Bury your life in a lake of tears.

But I'm not afraid of anything

Except my imagination and what it will imagine.

And the only bells that ring—

They ring not for me but for my image.

There are dogs in the street—

There's a man in your room

And I fell in love with a sound.

I see you all now;

You stand by my bedside.

You touch my warm brow;

The tears in your eyes you can't hide.

I don't know why I'm here anyway!

I don't know why I'm here anyway!

I looked through a window

And saw the one I loved.

We kissed each other through this window

But the cold glass touched my lips—

It chilled my toes to my fingertips

And my face slid down the cold glass to the floor.

And a breeze blew in from under the door—

A breeze blew in from under the door.

Oh, that my head were a funnel

In which I could pour knowledge like water into a bottle.

I'm dying of thirst!

"As a hart longs for flowing streams,

So my soul longs for knowledge!"

Oh, that all libraries could be made fluid

And I could pour their contents into my head.

There is never enough time.

"Of the making many books there is no end

And much study is a weariness to the flesh"—

"The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak!"

There's got to be a better way!

Oh, that my mind were inflatable!

Sometimes however I feel

That my mind cannot stand another drop.

My head is almost ready to pop!

Like putting a balloon on a faucet and turning it on full force.

Like shoving a hose down your throat and letting the water fly.

"He who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

"Do not make yourself overwise—

Why should you destroy yourself?"

There is a saturation point—

A natural or imposed boundary line.

Thus far and no farther!

Oh, that my eyes were made of glass

and I could see things as they really are.

I reveal myself in degrees

Like the moon—never fully.

The moon is never really full to us.

We can never see the whole at once.

Our sight is limited.

We see only that which faces us—

What is caught by our senses.

I reveal myself in degrees.

With an acquaintance I share only a thin crescent of light.

For a friend I pull the curtain back further.

For my lover the curtain is pulled yet further—

But rarely is the curtain drawn aside completely.

And besides the light of the full moon,

There is the dark side as well

And few have seen it.[1]

Few want to see it.

I reveal myself in degrees.

_We_ reveal ourselves in degrees.

I asked for bread

But I got a stone instead!

Have you ever tried biting into a stone?

You'd think your teeth would break.

Mine did!

Both were immature.

They never grew up.

They never became strong.

They just couldn't take the pressure.

And so you know what's worse than biting into a stone?

Try having one dropped on your head!

A "gift" from above.

"Crush the head of the serpent!

You'll only bruise your heal.

And you'll leave it with a mark"—

The mark of the real Beast—

Not on the forehead though—

On the back of the head

Covered by hair where no one can see it.

They won't know you're marked

But you'll know it's there.

You'll have to live with It.

Yes, I asked for bread—

Why was I given a stone instead?

I shake my fist at the evening sky—

I couldn't care less if I live or die.

I grope in the dark but no one is there—

The words of my mouth fad fast in the air.

And when I have no more tears to cry

I'm left with a word and the word is "Why!"

This emptiness does always abide—

When I say it is gone I know I have lied.

Life is an irritant to me

I am an open wound that never heals

I have no scars

I only have open wounds

And there are no bandages to cover me

Life is an irritant to me

But whereas an oyster takes an irritant and makes a pearl

My irritants to not make anything of worth

I allow them to lay waste to my feelings

With anger, complaining and negative thinking

I look at the world through shit covered glasses

Who wants someone like that?

The world is an irritant to me

While there are beautiful children playing

Instead I focus on the children who are starving

While there is beauty in the world

Instead I focus on wars and genocide

While there are beautiful creatures in the world

I focus on those creatures that kill

Like sharks that attack people

Like lions killing gazelles

And while there are kind and honest people

I focus on killers and big money people

Who are in it just for themselves.

"O wretched man that I am!

Who shall deliver me from this way of thinking and being?"

We pass each other.

Your body calls me—

Bidding me to perform an ancient ritual—

A ritual which stages an illusion of life and oneness.

We strip off our clothes—

Mimicking our desire to be absent from the body—

Pure spirit.

Part of me hardens

In an attempt to convince me of the reality of my body.

It fills with blood

In an attempt to prove the presence of life.

It yearns to bury itself deep within you

And thus simulate union

A caricature of oneness.

And you—

Part of you melts, it softens and opens

In an attempt to convince you

That you really are open to me—

That you really do want me to be in you.

It moistens in an attempt to prove

That you will not hinder my approach—

My entrance.

And then in rhythmic motion—

Approximating the rhythm of life—

The beat of the heart

The ebb and flow of the sea

The change of the seasons

The movement of the spheres—

We progress; we evolve

Towards the moment where you and I

Convulse in an intensification—

A localization of that rhythm of life

And I fill you with the warm; living "water of life."

We embrace.

Our hands and feet clenched

As if to suggest that we do not want

This illusion to pass—

This illusion of life and oneness.

For soon one becomes two

And this illusion of life gives way to

The illusion of death

And we fail to see the whole point—

That this ancient ritual

Is only an illustration—

A physical example of what we really are

"In spirit and in truth."

# PHILOSOPHICAL POEMS

### ALL IS ONE IN PROCESS

Everything we see

Though separate it seems

Is really a unity.

Through abstraction

Our minds categorize.

They make separate reality.

Things seem fixed

Including ourselves;

Unchanging so they seem.

But this is illusion

For all is changing.

The process is a stream.

The universe

Is not a collection

Of separate things undone.

Things can only be seen

In relation with others

All things together make One.

Descend into anonymity

See yourself within the whole.

Cease to see the separateness

Fall into the greater whole.

### EX NIHILO

Creation from nothing is an impossibility;

For out of nothing, nothing comes

This is reality.

Matter must have always been

Just as time and space.

For if there ever was nothing

There'd be no time or space.

Ex nihilo, nihil fit

Out of nothing, nothing comes.

Out of something, something comes.

Ex nihilo, nihil fit.

Beginning is only relative.

Matter is energy.

Space and time are measurements

For the things that be.

Everything is in a process

Of being and becoming.

But though the process is random

There's an order to everything.

Ex nihilo, nihil fit

Out of nothing, nothing comes.

Out of something, something comes.

Ex nihilo, nihil fit.

### NOTHING IS SOMETHING

All things are expressions

Of the same reality.

Things will pass and change

Thus other things will be.

The ultimate cannot be separate

From its manifestations.

Its nature is to proceed in countless relations.

There is really no nothing

All is energy.

There is really no matter

All is energy.

There is a field from which

Things arise then dissolve into.

In fact, a thing is a place

Where this field is denser through.

Why is there something

Instead of nothing?

What caused something to be?

Something is everything.

There is really no nothing

All is energy.

There is really no matter

All is energy.

### THE PHILOSOPHER'S SONG

First we have the pre-Socratics

Thales and his world of waters

Anaximander and his "Boundless"

Pythagoras and his numbers.

Anaximenes knew his air

Heraclitus' "All" was change

Parmenides saw things different

Pluralists will now exchange.

Anaxagoras knew the seeds

Empedocles—earth, wind and fire.

Leucippus and Democritus—

Atomists 'till they expire.

Then came Socrates and Plato

Antisthenes and his Cynics

Aristotle built on Plato

Pyrrho introduced the Sceptics.

Spicurus liked his pleasure

Like the poet named Lucretius

Zeno founded Stoicism—

Epictetus and Aurelius.

Augustine had a mistress

Abelard was mutilated

Anselm argued from ideas

Aquinas was then celebrated.

Occam's razor was so sharp

Descartes split matter and mind

God was all to poor Spinoza

John Locke's mind is hard to find.

Leibnitz knew his monads

Hume hardly knew anything

Kant looked for the numina

Hegel's pro and con could sing.

Schopenhauer was pessimistic

Comte pushed Positivism

Mill said its utility

Next came Existentialism.

Thanks to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

Life gets harder every day

Then came William James and Dewey

Working the pragmatic way.

Whitehead saw all in process

Wittgenstein played language games

Heidegger's ontology

Are we free as Sartre proclaims?

This might all seem meaningless—

All these many, many names

But it is still so important

It's not just a name game.

# DREAMS

Around the year 2000

Background: Isis was the Egyptian Goddess and wife of her brother Osiris who was the God of the underworld. Their son Horus was depicted on her lap as the original Madonna and child. Isis and Osiris in turn were the children of Nut, the sky Goddess and Geb, the earth God.

In my dream Nut is arched over and facing me below her.

She is stretched like a rainbow above me.

I see her breasts and vulva and we are dancing together.

It is truly awesome!

December 23, 2009[2]

I am somewhere—I think at a minister's retreat.

I have done something wrong—I think I have taken some papers and pictures with images of the devil on them.

But then God comes and we dance!

God is slender, black and in tribal dress.

When a woman at the retreat finds out that I have danced with God instead of being rebuked, I say that all my life I have been told what I have done wrong but here God has not even mentioned what I have done—he just dances with me.

All is forgiven.

Then I pack the papers and things I have taken in a thin briefcase and start walking to my car.

But now my brother is with me.

It turns out that we didn't turn when we should have and so we have to go all the way around a very big building.

We also pass through a beautiful valley.

When we get around the building, there is an escalator going up very high.

A woman is driving a truck that has lifts that go on the escalator.

Because she looks like she is going to run into us, we climb up a ledge—it seems we are up high.

A big wave of water comes in and I'm afraid it will wash us away.

I tell my brother to hold on.

We do but are now hanging from the ledge by our hands.

My brother can't move, so I tell him to get on my back.

He does so and I am carrying him on my back as we are hanging from the ledge.

We are moving hand over hand on the ledge.

When I think I can go no further I drop to the ground and find that we were only a few feet from the ground.

We go to the escalator.

There is a bar at the foot of the stairs but I don't get a drink; instead I go up the escalator with my brother who is still on my back.

I see an old friend from seminary.

He knows that I have come here and he has been looking for me.

He asks me where the stairs lead and I say, "Weimar"—a Seventh-day Adventist health institution near where we live.

The escalator comes to a spa area where people are swimming.

There is an exit here, or I could continue up the stairs that go up two more levels.

But the stairs are too steep for me—I just can't do it.

So I am at the spa.

My seminary friend has taken my brother on his back and they are continuing up the escalator.

I am now naked but not ashamed or embarrassed.

A woman comes and tells the people that it is time for them to get out of the pool.

When they get out I see that they all have bathing suits on and I remember this is Weimar—of course they would not be nude.

I am looking for an elevator or an inner staircase to go up.

The woman is now on her hands and knees cleaning the floor.

I trip and fall; straddling an open space that goes down very far.

The woman reaches out to grab me from falling but grabs me by the penis...

January 8, 2010

I'm in a library looking for a Mid-Eastern philosopher who lived in the last two hundred years.

I don't remember his name and so as I look through philosophy books, I'm hoping I will recognize his name when I see it.

I never do find him.

I am also intrigued by a Catholic display in the lobby of the building across from the library—there are crosses, pictures of saints and relics.

My daughter Leah is with me and she is about ten years old.

We are with a guy from the University I attended called, "God."

His father had been a major donor at the university but he has been dead for some time.

God's mother asks me what connection I have with her son—I say I worked with him at the University.

The three of us are trying to see my father.

When I'm going through the philosophy books, Leah and God go off somewhere.

When I recognize they are gone, I look all over for them.

I can't find them so I decide to go back to the library by another route.

I go through the buildings and end up in someone's bedroom—I try to find a way out through a secret passage but don't find it.

I go out front and find there are many clothes racks in front of the house with underclothes—I'm climbing through the clothes and am embarrassed that someone will see me.

When I finally get back I see my father, but no sign of Leah or God...

Thanksgiving 2012

My wife Ava takes me to what I think is a retirement community which we are considering to live in.

When we are there looking around I get separated from Ava.

At first I think she is off looking at another part of the complex.

After she doesn't come back for a while I start looking for her.

I look everywhere and find that I am lost.

I also notice that everyone I see is mentally ill.

It is then that I realize that what has really happened is Ava has committed me into a mental health facility and I will never get out.

Then a male nurse injects me in the neck with Thorazine.

I try to wake up but keep waking up only in the dream.

When I finally wake up I am terrified!

February 21, 2013

I am with my favorite niece Christy, my son Andrew, some children and two women about my age.

We are in a car with a blanket on the seat—going to a Church Conference of some kind.

When we get to the building where the conference is being held, not only is it on the ocean but the water is chest deep going up to the entrance.

Andrew is first in the water and he walks up to his chest in water up to the entrance of the building.

I decide I am not going in.

Not only do I not want to go through the water but I am concerned because I have seemed to have lost my wedding ring, my cell phone, my credit card and my meal card.

I want to go back and look through the car.

Suddenly a woman comes out and tells me to come in—that I am the vice-scientist and I need to come in to respond to questions.

I tell her about what I have lost and tell her that finding my things is my priority.

When I look in the building I see the woman presiding over the conference who seems shocked at my behavior.

I tell her I am leaving.

As I walk away, at first I think this is going to cause me to lose my job and take an early retirement but then I think, they can't fire me because I'm already retired and I can do as I please!

April 13, 2013

I am going to a Buddhist center at the other side of town to ask them about speaking at Spiritwind, my study group for spiritual adventurers.

When I get there it is just before they close for the evening and I am going in as employees are coming out—it seems almost like they are coming out of a tunnel.

They say that they are now closed and continue to walk out.

I say I just wanted to ask a question.

They brush me off and I think because I am just wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, they think I am a homeless man asking for money.

As they continue to leave the building I keep asking them to let me just ask a question but now they seem violently disturbed by me.

I say, "If you knew who I was you wouldn't be doing this—just read the paper tomorrow. An article is coming out in the paper about me and my Spiritwind study group."

They continue to walk across the street.

I go to get into my small truck and as I do one of them starts to threaten me with an aluminum baseball bat—he starts hitting the car and breaks a window.

I try to get into the truck by they are trying to stop me from getting in.

I finally do get in and then they start spraying a thick foam onto the truck's windshield so I can't see to leave.

I start the truck and put it into reverse—there is a man on top of the truck and as I speed backwards he slips off.

I don't know what became of him...

February 4, 2014

I'm at the University I attended and two of my former professors are there to meet with me about my book, _To Ways To Lose Your Faith_ which I dedicated to them.

One is very angry with me and I tell him that I was only trying to be open about what he taught me.

They point out that my book is selling there and the conservatives are putting negative bumper stickers on their cars labeling them as liberals.

I studied with one Ancient Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy and Philosophy of Religion—and I tried to be open to all that he taught me.

With the other I studied Systematic Theology and he introduced me to all of the modern and contemporary theologians—again I tried to be open.

But now though no longer a believer I did appreciate all that they taught me.

(In waking life I sent each of them a copy of my book and neither of them ever even thanked me despite the fact that unlike the dream my book was not selling there or was anyone actually putting bumper stickers about them on their cars).

March 31, 2014

I'm in a second story class room sitting towards the back of the class.

The class is full and when the teacher comes in to the front of the class she is a witch dressed in a red flowing dress.

When the teacher starts talking, some of the students in the front and middle of the class start heckling her because she is a witch.

In response the witch starts spewing fluid of some kind out of her mouth upon the students, though it doesn't come to the back of the class where we were not heckling her.

Then the students who were spewed upon run out of the class, so the witch runs out to the balcony of the class and starts pouring water over the side on the students who have run out and she also is throwing wood on them. When I look out the window I see a person hanging from the front of a building by their feet, an owl tethered by its feet on another building and another animal tied by its feet on another building.

Then I go back into the class room waiting for the teacher to come back and my son Darryl is sitting beside me.

On the side of my seat I have a knife that is about 10' long and has teeth on it like a saw.

I had just found it on the ground and took it—I do not have it in order to harm anyone.

After we wait for some time someone tells us that the teacher is not coming back...

May 19, 2014

I am at some kind of gathering in a building and we are talking about sexism.

Then I bring up Wicca[3]—none of them seem familiar with this and particularly when I speak of Dianic Wicca.

I tell them that in Dianic Wicca not only are only women allowed but only "women born women" are allowed—this means that men who have undergone sex changes are not allowed.

I tell them that I feel that this is very sexist as well and they agree.

Then we go outside and I am talking with them about the difference between Wicca and Ceremonial Magic.

There is a guru there with dark skin and long dreadlocks—he seems both Hindu and French and seems to be interested in the dark arts.

He asks me about the darkness.

I talk to the people and the guru about what I call, "Mythical Polytheism" which means recognizing that all the Gods and Goddesses are only myths but how you can use the energies they represent to do magic.

I say that for example the Devil or Satan is not a literal being but is rather a symbolic representation of the darkness within us and in the world—hatred, anger, war, genocide, etc.

That if we can rid ourselves of hatred and anger and then help others to do the same then as in a domino effect we and the world would slowing be rid of darkness.

Then the guru and I are sitting on the ground when he sees that I am wearing a partial plate.

He asks me if he can take it out—I say he can and he does.

Then he put his fingers in my mouth and pulls out my upper right canine tooth and I think, I'm already missing enough teeth as it is.

I think that he will put it back in but instead he shows me that it is now in his mouth...

June 12, 2014

Ava and I are living in a large house which we used as a church while they were building a new one.

Upstairs there was a landing where I preached from and the people sat on the floor below.

The house was old with cracks in the walls and next to the landing was an area which slanted down and had a railing around it.

The railing needed repair and while I was working on it a family of the church came by and two of their children came up to where I was working.

I told them not to come down where I was because I feared they might slip and fall through the railing, but they did anyway.

The young boy who was just three or four started slipping down and I was trying to get him back up to level ground but his sister who was probably about eight slipped on through and down to—I didn't know where.

I was in a panic and called 911 but everyone else was seemingly not as upset as me.

And when a police officer came in some antiquated vehicle he didn't do anything either.

Then I looked at where the landing dropped down to the bottom floor and it seemed there was an area beneath the landing which was next to an elevator that had no window and I wondered what was in it.

I was afraid we were going to have to tear into the side of it and it would cost a lot to be fixed.

I tried to find a way into the space and finally found a small door—Ava and I went in.

When we went in we found there was a huge room with foreign art work—paintings and sculptures and a huge banquet table as if for some secret society.

The girl had fallen down into this room and was fine.

When I came out of the hall I was in another world.

I had no memories and all I knew was Ava.

I didn't know where we were or anyone.

Something had happened in the world as if its inhabitants had become infected with an incurable disease.

Ava took me to a house where I thought we were going to stay.

The house was full of men, women and children.

I had to urinate and so Ava was going to take me—someone told us where the bathroom was but said be ready for a wait.

And so when we made our way there we saw a line of people waiting to use the restroom and we took our place in line.

In all of this I feared getting separated from Ava for I feared that if we became separated I would truly be lost without a clue as to where to go or what to do.

After going to the bathroom we began to tour the huge house and as we went from room to room it was like a virtual freak show.

There were rooms with people playing music, others selling art and there was nudity everywhere.

On one floor there were showers and I saw that Ava went into one so I went into another.

In the shower I had an erection and all of the sudden Ava into the shower where I was and she was angry with me because of my having an erection.

She said that these were coed showers and anyone could have come in.

I tried to tell here I was sorry but it was what it was.

Finally at some point Ava and I were sitting in a large theater watching the world that we were in and all of the sudden someone stood up and yelled, "This isn't Maleficent!"

And then another said the same and so we walked out on the movie.

Next we were in some kind of meeting and they ended the meeting with certain hand gestures similar to what we do at Unity with the "Prayer of Protection."

As we were leaving they were handing out fliers and I took some to prove that we were there.

Then we start trying to find our way back to our car and I put the fliers in my coat pocket.

As we are finding our way to our car two men jump us.

One grabs me from behind and I just jump on my back, crushing him beneath me, the other I break his neck—Ava thinks that this was extreme on my part but I was just trying to protect her.

Next thing I know we are in our bed at home and we are ready to make love...

August 20, 2014

I am climbing up a tall ladder to go up on a roof at a family gathering.

Somehow when I do this the whole roof ends up collapsing on my family below.

When however they get them all out from under the fallen roof they have them wait in a fancy hotel while they find out what to do next.

When I approach where my family is sitting, they totally shun me—even my brother Dennis and I know that they all think that I ruin everything I touch.

So I leave where they are all sitting and go out into the hallway.

Then Dennis comes out and lets me tell him what I thought happened—I feel that at least he is willing to hear me out.

Then we are in a church and I am ushering and everyone is still shunning me.

When I pass the plate to the first row, there is a wealthy man who just puts a nail in the plate and then as I pick it up to pass it to the next row he takes the nail out.

There are a couple of children sitting in the next row.

When I pass it they don't give anything and Ava says something about how their parents should have given them something to put in the plate.

Then the wealthy man starts questioning me about the accident and I explain that I am afraid of heights and when I saw how high I was going to have to go I must have did something to make it happen.

Then my daughter Leah comes down to where I am at the front of the church with a syringe and a EM and I say that I don't need it, I was just trying to explain that it was all just an accident—but she gives me the injection im my right arm saying that it will help me relax.

Then I know that they all think I am crazy and that they are going to put me in a mental institution...

September 9, 2014

I'm at my father's house.

I'm going to go to the local community college and see if I can get my car.

It's behind a bunch of other things so my Dad says to just ride the motorcycle.

I have missed the first day of school.

I know I have registered for two classes, I think one is a philosophy class but I'm going to have to go to the registrar to find out what my classes actually are—where do they meet and at what time.

On the way I see a New Age store and I see some witches going inside, so I stop to talk to them.

I meet the one who I believe is the High Priestess and I give her a hug and tell her that I have been a witch for thirty years and out of those years I only practiced with a coven for eight years.

I tell her how glad I am to connect with other witches!

Though when I talk of doing rituals with them I find out that they are Dianic which means only women are allowed.

I said that I totally understand that I had even done ritual with Z. Budapest (the founder of the Dianic tradition) in a non-Dianic setting...

October 1, 2014

I have been preaching in a large auditorium with a stage that goes around the auditorium like a square.

I am saying everything they don't tell you in church and the young people are loving it.

My former Youth Director, Diane Gilbert is telling me that I should go in this direction with my work.

After I am done speaking I go out near the beach where it drops down steeply to the water.

I see that there is a ladder of sorts that has been made for going down to the bottom—though I am normally afraid of heights I have no fear descending.

When I get to the bottom however it is not the shore but rather I am on a ledge of a very high mountain.

As I look up I have no idea how I'm going to be able to go back up because it is so steep.

But then I see the ladder that I came down on and I begin to go up it, this time however I am pulling a lawnmower with me.

When I make it to the top I decide to go to the restroom to clean up a bit.

There are just plastic tarps for doors on the bathrooms and men and women are coming to the same place.

Every time however I start to clean up another man comes up asking if he can use the room first.

Finally I have the room to myself but just when I pull my penis out of my pants, a woman walks by, and seeing me she throws herself at me.

I say I don't want anything with her as I think of Ava.

And as a number of people are walking out of the place and she is trying to hold my hand I say, "No, can't you see that my mother-in-law is here as well as church members?"

# JOURNAL EXCERPTS[4]

November 3, 2010

I took an early retirement from the last church I served because of problems with my rebellious staff. The church was First Congregational Church of Auburn, CA.

Going back nearly eight years one of my church members was a woman names, Ava. We were almost immediately attracted to each other. My position of minister was such that I would never dare act on our attractions. But over the years we interacted in a friendly way—she came to my Spiritwind: A Study Group for Spiritual Adventurers and then became part of the Dream Group I led where we worked on each other's dreams twice a month.

Then we began to bond at socials and parties at her and her husband's home, and they even had private birthday parties for my birthday the last few years I was at the church.

Then, finally the last year or so that I was there she became our "Church Visitor." Normally I visited all of those who were in the hospital, as well as those who were in retirement homes, skilled nursing facilities or simply homebound. In this capacity Ava worked closely with me. It was becoming clear that our relationship was close to crossing certain boundaries.

So when I left Auburn to move down to southern California where my wife wanted to live to be near her daughter and be the nanny of her daughter's first child, soon as I got down there I thought to myself, "Oh my God, I can't be this far away from Ava!" And so it was we started texting each other back and forth and we were definitely in love with each other.

Thanksgiving 2010

I'm beginning to question the uniqueness of our predicament. Countless millions of people through the ages were in love with someone other than their spouses. And they handled it in different ways. Some slept around secretly behind their spouse's backs—and sometimes they got caught and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes their love fizzled over time, but sometimes it grew even stronger moving couples to leave their spouses or even in a few cases to actually murder their spouses in the most desperate of moves. Is love stronger than death?

But in the back of my mind I kept running over what is known as the Wiccan Rede: "And it harm none, do what you will." Or you could take Jesus' "Golden Rule:" "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." Or even Immanuel Kant's "Categorical Imperative"—simply said, that we act in such a way that we would have our action become a universal law.

The ethics of relationships can become very murky. Is the goal never to harm anyone? If so, what if in the process of not harming your spouse, you harm yourself? If you are to harm none, then shouldn't yourself be included? And the Golden Rule—are we always supposed to focus on others, never doing anything that we would want them to do to me. Such as I'm in love with your wife—and that's the big tenth commandment—to not covet your neighbor's wife. So how would I like it if someone was in love with my wife? At this point it would probably be great! But I get the point. And Kant's Categorical Imperative: that if I could will to have my action become a universal law, then all would be chaos with people loving all sorts of people that didn't "belong" to them. And isn't that a bad word, "belong?" That is possessiveness, harkening back to women as property?

The bottom line is that though all of these rules declare love for others than your spouse breaks the rules; that the rules are totally unnatural in terms of how our emotions actually function. You cannot will yourself to love someone, nor can you will yourself not to. We love people in different ways. We love our parents in one way, and our children in another way, we love our best friends in one way, and our spouses in still another way. And then we have Platonic love relationships with others—which this is supposed to be. We are deeply in love, but not acting out physically or sexually. Is this wrong? Is it wrong to be romantically in love with another person who is not your spouse? Is that how one breaks the coveting commandment?—even if you do not act out sexually? That is our dilemma. We don't want to hurt our spouses but neither do we want to hurt ourselves. We want to love one another and spend time together, without crossing the sexual line.

February 2011

I no longer live by the Ten Commandments. Most do not even know what they teach. As for the first four commandments, these only work if you believe in the Judeo-Christian God—which I don't! The other six commandments teach things that most good Jews and Christians would never agree with. Take a look at the rest of the commandments:

Honor your father and mother... Mosaic Law allowed parents to put to death their children if they offended their parents. "He that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death" (Exodus 21:17). Then we have Thou shalt not kill. This surely allowed killing for capital offenses and in war—not to mention the killing of gay people and witches.[5]

Then there is my personal favorite, Thou shalt commit adultery. This commandment did not preclude polygamy, in fact the culture produced these commandments presupposed it. More than this, men could also have sex with their slave women. Adultery did not forbid having many wives, or concubines, it only forbade taking another man's women (read "property").

Thou shalt not steal did not cover the taking of the spoils of war—riches, animals, women and children. Apparently all is fair in war (but not in love?).

Then you have Thou shalt not bear false 2witness, which originally meant not lying in court—being a false witness. But there are times when lying is the most loving thing to do. Take for example you are in Germany during World War II, and you are harboring Jews in your attic. If the Nazi storm troopers were to raid your house to see if there were Jews hidden there, would you say, "I cannot lie; there are Jews in our attic"? No, I would lie and say there were none here.

And finally the last of the commandments and without a doubt the most absurd, Thou shalt not covet. This means that you should never want anything someone else has—you can't say, "Oh, I would really like a car like that." Or "We need to get a house like this." And God forbid that you should say, "I wish I had a husband or wife like they have."

Rumi, the Persian mystic and poet wrote, "Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing, and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there." And the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a book titled, _Beyond Good and Evil_... I believe that this is where Ava and I are...

March 2011

Ava believes that whatever happens is what is supposed to happen. I'm not as optimistic. Having been a minister a great part of my life has been caught up with prayer. I prayed public prayers every Sunday and at every meeting held at the churches I have served. I have prayed at the bedside of many people in the hospital and sickroom. I have prayed prayers of healing, guidance, forgiveness and for the fulfilling of physical needs—"Give us this day our daily bread"—and I have always doubted the point of prayer.

If whatever happens is what is supposed to happen, then why pray? Isn't the reason why we pray because we are asking God for something that we are hoping to receive? I wanted to live my life with Ava and this time I prayed, "Not thy will, but my will be done!" I know that many would think that it was a negative prayer and not according to God's will. God is the God of love though I plan to leave my wife for Ava. This is coveting another man's wife; this is a form of adultery or at the least serial monogamy. Whatever it is I don't care, I just want to be with Ava!

Ava put on Facebook that day: The pattern of scars on anyone's soul determines who they are. Sometimes it enriches the spirit and sometimes it breaks it. The secret to life seems to be surviving the damage and wearing the scars well." Hopefully Ava's husband and my wife (whom I have already filed for divorce with) will learn to wear their scars well.

May 5, 2011

Finally, after six months of being separated by hundreds of miles we are now together for the rest of our lives! Yesterday I loaded up a ten foot moving van with all of my earthly possessions. Before I left I told my former wife I thanked her for everything that she has been for me. Her comment was, "Apparently it was not enough." So I drove away and took the five hour drive up to my sister's house where I was going to store my things until Ava and I could get our own place.

When I got to my sister's house my brother and his wife met me there, and my brother and sister helped me unload the van. After we were done my sister cooked tacos for dinner—the day before Cinco de Mayo! We had a nice visit and I told them all about Ava and me—our love and our plans for a future life together.

At 9:00 p.m. I excused myself to go to bed, but really I wanted to talk to Ava. As it turned out Ava and I were so excited about being together, this time for ever, that we couldn't sleep. We talked until after one in the morning, then hung up our cell phones and tried to sleep. But sleep was restless for both of us and we only got a few hours of sleep that night. But when I did sleep I had three dreams about Ava and me...

And so after a restless, sleepless night I got into the van and began the drive of four more hours north, hoping I would not fall asleep at the wheel. The ride was long but I got there when we had planned I would arrive. Ava came to pick me up at the storage lot for the van. We embraced saying that finally we will be together forever. Never more will we be apart. We loaded the few things I brought for the summer in her car and then drove off to the motel that Ava had reserved for us for our first night together back in Auburn.

End of May 2011

After I got to Auburn on May 5th we lived in various places until Ava retired from her work near the end of May. Then we moved to our first real home.

And so here we are in Westwood (not to be confused with the Westwood in LA), where we will live for the next six months. Westwood is a small town of just over 2,000 and 5,100' near Mt. Lassen in the far north of California. We are staying in our best friend, Carolyn's house here. It's a two bedroom house that is very comfortable for us, but it's an unusual town with rows of houses that none of them match, many of which have junked card in their front yards, or trash. There is one bank that is closed, a pharmacy that is out of business, an abandoned Masonic Lodge, an abandoned hospital just down the street from us, Captain Andy's Mountain Market (which is really a liquor store), Young's Market, Buffalo Chips Pizza, and a video store that rents DVDs at a dollar a pop. If you need any other services you have to drive nearly thirty miles through the mountains to Susanville.

There are a few churches in town. There is a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, the Baptist church meets only on Tuesday evenings, the Catholic Church has abandoned its building and is meeting in a nearby town, and there is the huge but empty People's Church. Our neighbor attends the small Calvary Chapel in town but Ava and I go to the Westwood Assembly of God.

The Assembly of God meets in a log cabin church building. The minister goes by the name of "Smokey." He told us he got the name by being born in the far north of California during a forest fire. Pastor Smokey's church has got to be the friendliest church that either Ava or I have ever been to. I'm guessing that there were probably about fifty people in attendance at the church. I had introduced myself to Pastor Smokey as Rick and Ava—we didn't want him to know that I had been a minister. And so when the church service began he said from the pulpit that he welcomed Ava and me to his church and he said that to let him know if everyone there did not shake our hands with smiles on their faces. And they did, all of them. Even a little girl ran up to me and hugged me.

Now, neither Ava nor I believe the things that the people in this church believe. We do not believe that the earth was created in seven days just six thousand years ago. We do not believe in the Virgin Birth, that Jesus was uniquely the Son of God, that his death saved us from damnation, or that he rose from the dead. We don't believe that only Christians will be "saved," nor do we believe that the Bible is the only Word of God. And we certainly do not believe that homosexuality is a sin. So why go there? Part of it is for nostalgia. Part of it is for entertainment. Part of it is for community.

As I write today, Ava and I have lived here one week. As I said, we have been to church and we have been to the one bar in town twice—Chuck's Railroad Room. We've been to the market and liquor store a number of times and to the video store every day. We cook our meals together, drink wine and champagne; we smoke marijuana and make love.

First week of June 2011

The first month we were in Westwood it snowed three times—the last time during this week! But then, after the snow melted we began our work. Though we are both retired, we work most days refurbishing Carolyn's house, which used to be her now dead husband, Tom's hunting cabin. Ava and I have said to people many times that we are homeless and unemployed. And though we don't have a home of our own, Carolyn said that we could live in her house as long as we want—without paying rent! But in exchange for this we told her that we would fix up her house. And so we have painted two rooms and the front deck; we have installed blinds, light fixtures, a ceiling fan and shutters. We have put new door knobs on a number of doors, cleaned out and organized the shed—this one with Carolyn's help and I now mow and water the lawn and pull weeds. We have even put in a wood floor in the sun room. So while in one sense we are homeless and unemployed, from another perspective we have a place to live and work to do.

June 2011

Social life in Westwood... most afternoons when we finish working on the house we sit on the front porch and drink champagne. As the cars drive by, most wave at us. The neighborhood children ride by on their bikes, and Gabe—the boy that lives two doors down often comes over and talks to us.

And the adults on our street also come by and drink beer with us. Our next door neighbors—Bob and Kippy visit us often—they are the salt of the earth. And the dogs—Westwood is a haven for dogs. There is no such thing as a leash law here. The dogs roam the neighborhood, or lie in the street and don't even move when you drive by. Tom, Carolyn's late husband used to leave the doors of the house open so the dogs could wander through—and it happened to us as well. There are always dog biscuits in the sun room for the neighborhood dogs. And when Ava and I go for our evening walk around town, dogs join us and follow us around town...

July 3, 2011

The biggest holiday in Westwood is the 4th of July. Only they celebrate it on the third because the neighboring town of Chester gets it on the 4th. Our day began with a pancake breakfast at the Community Center. Then there was a parade down the main street in town. We stood in front of Captain Andy's Mountain Market and there couldn't have been more than fifty spectators in attendance to this yearly event. The who thing was over is a short time and featured fire trucks, police cars, a number of trucks with signs advertising their businesses on them, kids on bikes and a few oddly decorated vehicles. Later that day a neighbor said that it was the best parade they had had in years.

Then we went to the big event of the day—the Paul Bunyan Mountain Blues Festival. This event was held at the park in Westwood. Besides music there was food, drinks (even beer) and a number of other activities like snow mobile racing and log tossing. We brought our beach chairs and sat and listened to the music for a while—which was more jazz then blues and then went home early. So much for the 4th of July...

September 2011

After three months in Westwood we decided to move back to Auburn because Derek, Ava's son needed help with his father, Steve who now had MS. So we left Westwood with all of the earthly possessions we had in our car and found an apartment in Auburn.

When we got back, Ava first got some of her things from Steve's house and then we drove down to the Fresno area where we loaded up our truck with the things that I had been storing at my sister's house. We set our home up with these things as well as furnishing we found at the Good Will, Thrift Stores and yard sales.

Our first house guest was my son, Andrew. Andrew is a fashion photographer who divides his time between LA, New York and London as well as many other places in the world. He had not been able to visit us in Westwood—and in fact he had never seen Ava and me as a couple. He was due to fly in to New York in a few days and so he decided to fly from there to LA and from there he and his girlfriend drove to Auburn. When he got to Auburn he was only able to spend one night and day with us. When he saw Ava he immediately recognized her from the times he had visited me at the church where Ava and I worked together. Ava is the consummate home entertainer. I had watcher her in action for nearly nine years at various parties and gatherings at the home she shared with Steve but then at her sister Tara's house and also in Westwood. But even on the small scale of our apartment she served an elegant meal for Andrew and us. We started off with champagne and appetizers, then a wonderful salad course, and then we enjoyed the main course served with wine. And for dessert we had a glass of Port with pear pie—which was something Ava made for me every year when we celebrated my birthday at Steve's then Tara's then at our own home.

After a good night's sleep we woke up and spent the morning going to a number of yard sales and thrift stores where they look for vintage clothes that his girlfriend resells on-line. And when we finished shopping, Derek and his girlfriend came over to meet Andrew and have lunch with us. Derek and Andrew bonded almost immediately. But after visiting for a couple of hours Andrew had to drive back to LA.

September 2011

The next day Ava and I went to church at Unity of Auburn. There we were greeted by the husband and wife who co-pastor the church. They were friends of mine but had n ever met Ava because I wasn't with her when I was a minister in town. But they recognized Ava right away because they had been following us on Facebook. Then after church we were off to more yard sales, and for a long walk around the lake that is in the park just down the street from us. That night Ava made another of her creations—a wonderful dinner of pasta and wine. And then we made love till late in the night.

October 4, 2011

Tonight we are having our first Dream Group at our home with the rest of the group who have been meeting without me for a year. I started doing dream work back in 1988 when I was the minister of Community Congregational Church in Tehachapi, California. At that time I was just doing independent study—reading all the books I could find on dream interpretation. Then from 1997 to 1999 I studied dream work in my doctoral studies with Unitarian dream worker, Jeremy Taylor. Since that time besides giving lectures on dream work, at my last church in Ontario, California, I started a Dream Group.

Jeremy Taylor feels that the best dream work is done in small groups where individuals having different life experiences can look at a dream from a number of perspectives. He teaches that all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness—even nightmares! He also teaches that a dream can have many different levels of meaning and that only the dreamer can tell with certainty which interpretation is the primary one. This moment of recognition is what he calls the "Aha." Sometimes when you do dream work a person has no ahas. But then days later something will trigger a memory of something that was said in the dream group that finally clicks.

Taylor also uses a technique whereby the participants in the group must always introduce their comments on someone else's dream with the phrase, "If it were my dream it would mean..." This is important for two reasons. First it can sometimes almost sound accusatory when someone says, "I think your dream is saying thus and so about you!" And secondly is the fact that once a person shares a dream with the group, each participant has their own imagined version of the dream colored by their own experiences. Take for example a person says, "In my dream I was driving on a mountain road." One person might imagine they were in a sports car while another might think of their family station wagon. And while driving on a mountain road might be a pleasant experience for most, for Tara and me, our drive on Mt. Lassen with Carolyn driving and Ava sitting beside me in the back seat, was a terrifying experience!

This is what happened at our first Dream Group meeting in our new home. Ava was so excited to be entertaining again—that is when she's at her best. And soon as it struck 6:00 p.m. Ava began dancing around the room saying, "When are they coming? When are they coming?" And she kept looking out the window watching for them to come up. Now it was 6:05 and no one had arrived and Ava was saying, "Where are they? Where are they?" Then at 6:06 they finally arrived, all four of them together. After welcoming them, Ava showed them around our apartment that she had decorated so beautifully at so little expense. We had champagne, red and white wine and tea. Ava also made wonderful d'oeuvres. Most of them wanted us to tell them about how we came together, all the places we had been and our plans for the future. But in the end we did do some dream work. We worked on interpreting the dreams of three of those who had come. All in all it was a wonderful evening and Ava and I felt so accepted as a couple.

October 10, 2011

Today I got a phone call from our dear friend, Martha who was one of my former church members. She said she knew she wasn't supposed to call me but her mother was dying and she wanted me to come and prayer with her. Though her mother was never a member of my church, she had been a part of our church's prayer group. You see, though it is an unwritten law, ministers in my denomination are not to visit former members, thereby encroaching on the new minister's territory—it's even considered unethical. So even while I was driving up to Auburn from southern California the Interim Minister knew that I knew that one of the member's sons had been killed in a motorcycle accident and the member had asked me to come and be with the family when I got to Auburn. But Interim called me as I was driving up and told me that under no circumstances was I to have any communication or interaction with this family. And so I didn't and felt terrible about it—I was afraid that the family would think that I didn't care. But this time I thought, "To hell with them! I'm not a minister anymore." And so I went to the convalescent hospital where Martha's mother was dying and said a prayer for her. The next day Ava and I went together to check on her again. And when we left I said to Ava, "Feels like old times, huh?" We visited her every day until she died today.

February 23, 2012

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. In Auburn there is always an ecumenical Lenten series which is hosted by the Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. The first service which is on Ash Wednesday is always held at the Catholic Church because it is the largest (seating 700 people) and is the most attended service. Then the series follows in the other churches, but with ministers taking other churches. For instance, the Lutheran minister preached at the Catholic Church, but the Presbyterian minister preached at the Lutheran Church and the Catholic priest preached at the Presbyterian Church and so forth. In the eight years I was minister of First Congregational Church I preached twice at the Lutheran Church, twice at the Presbyterian Church, twice at the Episcopal Church and two others which I don't remember.

Since we were back in Auburn Ava and I decided to go. It would be the first time I attended these services without being a part of them. So we went to the Catholic Church last night for the Ash Wednesday service. We saw a few of the members from the church that I had pastored and we took part in the service as participants. So when we went forward to have the ashes applied to our foreheads with the six ministers presiding—and you had a choice of which minister you went to—Ava and I chose the new minister of the Congregational Church where I had served as a healing gesture.

Then when at the end of the service when the ministers were processing out—and they all knew me and thought I had run off with one of the women from my church—the Catholic priest, Father Mike broke out of the procession and came over to where we were sitting and had us stand. He hugged us both and said he was so glad that we were together—this in front of the other minister as well as the nearly 700 people in attendance. Then he asked us to process out with the other ministers and come back to the vestry where all the ministers would gather. Ava told me to go and so I went. But before I got to the back of the church, Father Mike told me to bring Ava too! And so we both went to the vestry to shake hands with the ministers. Ava and I were so surprised that Father Mike had openly embraced us in front of the whole church, and he said that he wanted to get together with us...

April 2012

When Ava and I first got together and were talking of marriage she said that she would change her name to Kuykendall but that she would rather change her name to her maiden name—having already changed it twice to her two earlier husband's last names. So I said that what I wanted was to change both of our names to her maiden name, Reich. That meant that I would legally be Richard Reich, so on my books, Richard E. Kuykendall would then only be a pseudonym.

I filed to have my name changed first in January and then Ava filed to have her name changed in March. And so we are now legally Richard and Ava Reich.

And of all things, yesterday we went to a lecture by Matthew Fox at Unity of Grass Valley. I had been a long time student of Matthew Fox—in the first graduating class in the doctoral program that he instituted in Oakland, CA and he had spoken at First Congregational Church of Auburn just two weeks before I retired from there as minister.

When we went into the entry at Unity and I saw what I thought was a guest book and I told Ava, "Let's sign in as Rick and Ava Reich." So we did. Then as the program began the minister who was hosting Matthew Fox said let us pray for those who are on our heart, and he began by saying, "Rick and Ava Reich." It turned out that what I had thought was the guest book was a prayer request book. So hundreds heard our name spoken publicly for the first time!

May 19, 2012

On Mother's Day Ava and I set out on a cruise from San Francisco to

Vancouver, British Columbia. It was the first time that I was ever on a cruise, whereas Ava grew up on ships and had been on many cruises. We didn't know how I would do in terms of being sea sick. As it turned out I was fine.

So we sailed out of San Francisco and we had a suite with a balcony. And we sat out on our balcony as we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Ava and I like to dance, so that night we went to one of the ballrooms to dance. We got there when the band first started playing and there were only a few there. Sailing from San Francisco, the gay capital of the world, we noticed that there were a lot of gay couples on the cruise. And when we were in the ballroom and we saw a gay couple of men in their late sixties, I told Ava that I hoped they would dance. And they did! They did ballroom dancing, dipping and spinning each other. It was beautiful. And so Ava and I got out on the dance floor and started dancing with them too. It was wonderful!

The next day there was going to be an art auction and before they had set up things we saw a painting that was a tribute to Van Gogh and his painting, "Starry Night." It was by a French artist and was beautiful. I talked with Ava and we decided that when the auction began we would bid on it. Oh, and I didn't tell you that along with the auction was all the champagne you could drink!

So we sat through the auction and drank champagne. Paintings were selling for thousands. But the auction came to an end and they never brought up the painting I wanted to bid on. So I went up to the auctioneer and told him that we wanted to bid on the Van Gogh tribute. He reopened the auction and started the bidding at $600.00. We said we would take it—and strangely, no one bid against us. And so it was ours!

The next day we got off of the ship in Vancouver and took a bus to Seattle where we had a rent-a-car reserved for the next day. Since we had no transportation we had the bus take us to the Seattle airport. Our plan was that we could take a hotel shuttle to a hotel and then the next day we could take the shuttle back to the airport to pick up the rent-a-car. This way we didn't have to pay for a cab. The only problem was since we took the shuttle from the airport without first seeing the hotel we would be staying in, it turned out that the motel was a really seedy one—the worst motel that either of us had ever stayed in. But we just needed a place to sleep and it had a nice bed. We got our dinner and wine from a convenience store a couple of blocks from the motel.

In the morning we ate at a Denny's restaurant next door and then took the shuttle back to the airport to pick up the rent-a-car. And then we went into town to go to a huge outdoor market that Ava's sister, Jan had recommended we see. After exploring the market and stopping at an outdoor café for a beer, we headed south to Portland.

When we got there we couldn't believe how big Portland was! And as it turned out we found a motel right in the middle of the city. We had pizza and beer at a restaurant next door. And in the morning we headed for our destination in Portland—the world famous, "Voodoo Doughnuts." Their slogan is, "The magic is in the hole." Across the street is a homeless encampment on a vacant lot that the owner let them use. I felt that this was very compassionate. And there was a huge banner that said, "Keep Portland Weird."

After coffee and a doughnut we then headed for our last stop on our trip, Ashland, Oregon. We were supposed to spend the night at Mark's house—a childhood friend of Ava's. But we didn't want to spend the night there—we wanted to be alone. So we called and told Mark that we were still in Portland and that we'd stop by next afternoon.

We found a beautiful hotel in Ashland with an indoor swimming pool and spa. And so we drank wine, relaxed in the spa and made love—back in the room of course. In the morning Ava went for a swim while I watched and sipped on my coffee, then we walked around Ashland.

That afternoon we went to Mark's house where he and his girlfriend gave us a tour of their spacious house and large piece of land. Then we went back in the house to visit. By this time we were anxious to get home so we left after three hours.

After a five hour drive we were finally back home.

June 15, 2012

On June 7th we flew to Texas via Denver to visit Ava's family there. We smuggled Vodka on to the plane and I ordered tomato juice to make Bloody Mary's while Ava ordered grapefruit juice. When we got to Dallas, Ava's cousin, Spenser picked us up at the airport.

Spencer's house was our headquarters during our eight-day stay in Texas. The first day we were there we sat outside by the pool and drank champagne during a thunder shower. It was beautiful!

The next day we were going to drive south to Austin to see Ava's cousin, Steven. Ava and I white-knuckled it on our trip to Steven's ranch—Spenser is used to driving a Porsche and he drives really fast! When we got to Stevens' ranch he and his wife, Sylvia gave us a tour of their beautiful house and the grounds of their ranch which was complete with Texas Long Horns and chickens—much to Steven's dislike.

After our tour Sylvia got out a bottle of champagne, while Steven got out whiskey. He was surprised when I passed on the whiskey and gratefully welcomed the champagne. I think he thought I was a "girly man." Then the interrogation began. Steven is what they call a "Head Hunter." He interviews people for positions in various companies. He tries to make perfect matches. Now he was interviewing me for a position in the family. Steven is the oldest on Ava's mom's side of the family and Ava is the youngest. So he wanted to make sure I was good for Ava. We thought I said all of the right things and that I passed the test. Then it was back to Spencer's.

The next day we had planned to attend the Richardson Seventh-day Adventist Church. The minister there is the son of an older friend of ours in Auburn and who is a retired minister himself. I was sickened by all of the praise—"We praise You God! We bow down before you!" It sounded to me like God had real self-esteem issues—He need to be continually be praised. And then there was the sermon. He was preaching about the ancient sacrificial system in ghastly detail as it is laid out in the book of Leviticus. For me it's "the temple slaughter house." We were supposed to have lunch with the minister and his family after church but we couldn't stand any more of this and so we said we couldn't make it. After church, on the way back to Spencer's we mounted a search for Vodka but as it turned out no alcohol is allowed in their county—but thankfully you could buy beer and wine. So we stocked up on wine and champagne.

That night Spencer planned to take us to the rodeo. We got the real VIP treatment. We were in the second row, we had all you could eat barbeque and all you could drink beer and wine.

Ava and I are not fans of the rodeo and my daughter, Leah is totally against it because of cruelty to the animals. But we were with his family and were his guests and so we went with it. The strangest thing about the rodeo is how it began. The Master of Ceremony began the rodeo by saying a prayer. It was full of "Father" language which we can't stand, but it was kind of sweet because he prayed for protection of all the riders and of all the animals.

The next day we drove to legendary (for me) Wolfe City, the home of Ava's mom's family for generations going back before Texas was even a state. Steven and Sylvia also drove four-and-a-half hours to meet us there. After walking around the small dilapidated town of 1,412, we had lunch in the only restaurant in town. Strangely enough, Wolfe City now sells hard liquor—in Ava's grandfather's day the town strongly supported prohibition. He never drank a drop in his life.

Then for the high point of our visit to Wolfe City we visited Mt. Carmel Cemetery. We paid homage to Romey, the patriarch of the William's Clan (Ava's mom was a Williams) and saw the graves of him and his wife, Virgie. We also saw the graves of Ava's uncle, Welby and three of his children, and the graves of Ava's uncle Delbert and his wife. There was also a monument to the Reichs—a large rectangular stone with REICH carved into the stone in large letters. There were two headstones for Ava's mother and father there, but though there were the graves there were no bodies because her father and mother are actually buried in San Francisco at the Presidio. We drove home and we cooked dinner for Spencer's family. At Spencer's house they never have dinner before 9:00 p. m...

In the morning Ava and I walked miles to Spencer's next-door neighbors Yogurt Shop. Dana was very concerned that it was the hottest day so far that year and with high humidity. But we went anyway and enjoyed our walk.

That afternoon we visited the campus of the University of North Texas. Spencer and Dana's son, Ryan were thinking of having him go to college there next year when he graduates from high school. From there we drove to Ava's Aunt Betty Ann's house.

Betty Ann is a modern Job. Her first husband died the year Ava was born. Three of her four children were dead. And the one surviving child lost her son while he was in college. Then her second husband (who was a preacher) died, leaving her alone. But though Betty Ann is ninety years old she is still active in her town's theater. She even starred in a play just the year before. We visited and then went out for dinner. She told Ava that "I was a keeper." Though Spencer had five straight scotches for dinner, he drove us home that night—thankfully without incidence.

The next day, which was the last day of our stay in Texas we went to the Dallas Museum of Art. There I showed Ava paintings by Monet, Gauguin, Piet Mondrian, Picasso, Jackson Pollock and a special exhibit by George Grosz—the museum was celebrating Grosz' visit to Dallas years ago. Then we walked to the Kennedy Museum but didn't go in because it cost to go in and we didn't want to spend any more money. We went home and went to bed early because we had to leave Spencer's house at 3:00 a. m. for the airport by taxi cab. We were able to get a bottle of Vodka when we were in Dallas, so we once again smuggled Vodka onto the plane for our trip home, stopping first in Los Angeles and then on to Sacramento where we picked up our car and drove back to Auburn.

July 2012

And now for the visit from the German part of Ava's family. They too had to check me out. The Germans, being more conservative, would not meet at our house. So we met them at Tara's house. Their names are Michael and Ushi. Michael is Ava's cousin on her father's side of the family—the Reich side—and Ushi is Michael's wife. They live in East Germany in the city of Weimar. This was the first time for me to meet some of Ava's German relatives. And it was their first time to see Ava without Steve—whom Michael's mother loves.

And so we drove the five and-a-half hours to Tara's house, listening to our German lessons. We are currently on unit eight and we can do pretty well speaking chit-chat. One word however that had us laughing in the car was the name of a German restaurant—to the Lion = sum Lowen pronounced like zum Blerven. The German word doesn't sound remotely like anything in English, and you almost have to vomit it out.

When we got to Tara's house we were greeted by Tara who guided us out onto the back patio where Michael and Ushi were visiting with Richard. When they saw us they stood up and embraced Ava and I introduced myself to them. That evening we drank German champagne, visited some more and drank white wine—they only grow white wine in Germany, and Michael and Ushi don't care for red wine—Rot Wein. Richard and I ended up going to bed early and Ava, Tara, Michael and Ushi visited and looked at out picture albums that chronicled out life together and our travels.

Michael and Ushi had always thought that Ava was the wild one but Tara said that she was the wild one and started revealing the secrets of her life and trying to get Michael and Ushi to smoke pot. They refused, and she insisted. But it didn't work. Michael said that coming from East Germany they never broke the law—and they would do it here either.

Next morning Ava and I made love and I got up to make coffee. I was the first up and so I did the dishes. Tara got up next and started preparing breakfast. After breakfast Ava and I took Michael and Ushi for a walk around the small town of Templeton. As we walked Ava told them about my accomplishments in Auburn—of how I made our church become welcoming of gay people. They however did not understand the word, "gay." So I said, "Homosexual" and they got it. And they understood that I wasn't a stereotypical minister. When we got home I got out our German-English Dictionary and showed them the word, "gay" and that the German word for gay is "Frohlich"—is that like frolicking?

That day we went for a trip to Avila Beach. We walked along the beach and to touristy stores and then out onto the pier. Tara had planned to have lunch out on the pier but as it turned out the restaurant was closed until dinner time. So our plan B was to go to a restaurant that Tara like in San Luis Obispo. And it seemed as if the stars were in our favor, because there were two parking places directly across the street from the restaurant. We sat at a table outside which was just above a creek that ran along the back of the restaurant. Ava had wine and I had a Blood Mary and Tara, Richard, Michael and Ushi had Margaritas—it was a first for the German relatives.

The next morning Michael and Ushi left for Yosemite and from there to San Francisco where they would fly out of back to Germany. After they left Ava and I went wine tasting with Tara. We went to two wineries which we had been to before: Castoro Cellars and Tobin James, then Tara took us to one we had never been to. It was Penman Springs Vineyard. The winery was way out in the country and was run by two older women. Before we left we bought some wine and then the women brought out a large sign they had in their window which read, "Witches Parking Only, All Others will Be Toad." Tara told them about my book, _Even Witches Have Names_ and I asked how much they would sell it for. They said it was not for sale! So with that we left for Tara's house.

That night we went to bed early and in the morning began the long ride home.

July 2012

A number of years ago I did interviews on two different cable channels. One was called, "New Visions" and the other was called, "Crossing the Tracks." Ava really loved these interviews because she felt they really showed what I think in terms of spirituality, religion and philosophy. They were on VHS so Ava wanted me to have a number of copies of these interviews made on DVDs. The place that I had to take them to have this done was more than twenty miles away so I thought I would listen to a tape of Ram Dass on relationships on the way (yes, our car still has a tape player).

In Hinduism there are a number of paths to God. There is "raja yoga" the yoga of extraordinary experiences where they fast and take their bodies to ultimate points of endurance. Then there is "Janna yoga" the yoga of knowledge (that my path). There is also "bhakti yoga" the yoga of devotion and "karma yoga" the yoga of works. But Ram Dass says that the hardest yoga of them all is "the yoga of relationship."

He said that it is in the midst of relationships that most of us work on our karmic baggage—often incarnating life time after life time with the same person to work through things. Ava and I believe that we have been together for many lives. Ram Dass also contrasted the arranged marriages of India, with no possibility of divorce with "serial monogamy" here in the west. And just what is "serial monogamy?" It is being married to a number of people, but not at the same time. Ava has been married two times and I have been married three times.

With us having been married a number of times and given our age (in our late fifties) we have a lot of history without the other person and a lot of baggage from our past relationships to deal with.

The guy at the video shop said that he would have the DVDs ready in a couple of weeks.

August 2012

One Sunday after church at Unity our friends Udo and Nancy took us out for lunch at Home Town Buffet. Home Town Buffet is an eater's heaven—a smorgasbord where one can eat as much as they want and anything they want. There are two large salad bars, two stations of different kinds of meat—roast beef, fried chicken and fish. Then there are ethnic foods—Mexican, Italian and Asian. And then there are mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, macaroni and cheese. And finally there is the dessert bar—I had tapioca and Ava had the vanilla, orange sorbet swirl. While we were eating a boy at another table was convinced that I was the actor that played Batman—go figure.

After we ate we stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home where Nancy and Udo picked up some things and Ava bought some Italian grappa—it's a strong drink (40% alcohol!) made from the skins of grapes—but more on this later...

When we got back to Udo and Nancy's house we visited and drank wine. Nancy and Udo have a great love story—and they do the tango—even in Argentina! When Nancy was a freshman in college in Georgia, Udo was teaching in jump school at Ft. Benning. They first met at the downtown Methodist Church. And from the beginning they felt a special connection. They dated for about five months and then Udo went to Viet Nam. During the time he was there they wrote each other and even got to get together three of four times when he would come back to the states. When he got back from Viet Nam he was stationed in other places in the states and so they went their separate ways.

Over 25 years later after Nancy separated from her first husband she tried to track him down and finally did but by this time he was retired and living in Germany where he had been born. First they started writing to each other every other week and then as time went on they started writing each other every day. So the next year he came to California and Nancy showed him around where she lived. Besides showing him Auburn she took him to Lake Tahoe and San Francisco. But then he had to go back to Germany where he was working for a construction company. During the time he was gone they got together many times and within a couple of years they finally got married.

They see each other as their soul mates and they see Ava and me as the same.

Later the following week my son, Andrew and his girlfriend and my daughter, Leah came to visit us—and that's where the grappa comes in. Ava wanted Andrew to try it and so Andrew and I both had a glass, and then another. By the end of the night more than half of the bottle was gone and I was asleep on the couch while the rest continued to visit with each other, but now they were smoking pot. I slept well that night...

September 2012

Our next adventure was to Oregon's "Outback." My son Darryl and his wife live up in Lakeview, Oregon with their three children. Their third child was born just three months ago on June 21st and we wanted to go up and see the new baby. Her name is Emma. They were going with an "e" name theme. Their first child was named, Eric, their second child was named Ellie, and this one, as I said is Emma.

We brought gifts for all the family and champagne to celebrate Emma's birth. We gave the parents chocolates and a book titled, _"E" it for Ethics_ which was geared to teach child how to live ethically. For the children we brought stuffed animals, crayons and tablets of paper and the real his with them was magnets. They played with the magnets for hours.

That evening Darryl took us all out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then drove us out to the prison where he works as a correctional officer. When we got home we sent the children off to bed and we stayed up for an hour or so and drank our champagne—Darryl and his wife never drink in front of the children. Then Ava and I went to bed and drank wine and made love.

In the morning we had coffee and packed up our things and said our good-byes. Then we were off for what was a seven hour drive home.

September 24, 2012

A few days ago Ava and I went down to Southern California to be at my daughter, Leah and Bowen's wedding. They wanted to be married on the Autumn Equinox. They had a small but beautiful wedding under a tree in her mother's back yard. Leah's step-father, Robert and I walked her down to the ceremony together with me on her right side and her step-father on her left. When we got to the front, Robert sat down and I stayed up front to do a blessing for their union. The wedding was performed by Bowen's sister and the only flaw to the beauty of their wedding was when Leah and Bowen's dog, Ted, in the background took a dump on the grass. After the wedding we had a sit-down dinner and champagne toasts.

My son, Andrew who was the best man spoke first and then I spoke saying that having been married a number of times, I hoped that they, like the eagles would mate for life. I said that in the natural world some animals mate for life, while others like dogs do not. Humans however are unique in that we can choose which way we will go. And I said that I hoped they would be together always.

Andrew took us back to our hotel about 9:30 p.m. Leah had arranged for many of the guests who lived out of the area to stay at the same hotel. The next morning we went down to the lobby where there was a breakfast prepared and we talked with family while we dined.

After breakfast we went next door to a store and bought some wine. And we awaited the arrival of Ava's sister, Tara and her husband, Richard. Since we were becoming a family, Leah wanted Tara and Richard to be there to get acquainted with some of the family. And Ava bonded with Leah's mom and her identical twin sister and Richard and his brother are also identical twins. The reason Tara and Richard came the day after the wedding was it had been planned that the wedding would be small and private—just a few more than twenty. But the next day they would have their reception where more than seventy would attend.

When Tara and Richard got to the hotel we drank wine and visited while the hotel maids readied their room. We each had a suite. And when their room was ready we smoked some pot with them. Then we took the hotel shuttle over to the reception where the wine flowed freely and there was song and dance.

Ava and I danced almost every dance but when it was time for me to dance with my daughter, my ex-wife nudged Ava and the two of them danced together beside us. Then Richard got out on the dance floor and started jumping and leaping and flapping his arms. People were asking, "Who is that man?" But despite Tara's chagrin the next day everyone said how much they enjoyed him. And speaking of the next day... When I woke up I realized that I didn't remember anything about the evening after our last dance. And when we compared notes with Tara and Richard said they didn't remember anything either. Wow, what a party!

After breakfast we got ready to drive up to Tara and Richard's house where we spent one evening before driving the rest of the way home. All in all it was an eight hour drive from Auburn to the wedding.

September 2012

It's just a week since we were in Southern California and I had two interviews on the same day about my book, _Even Witches Have Names_. One was with the Auburn Journal and the other was with a radio station, WMUZ out of Detroit. For the Auburn Journal they interviewed me and then took pictures of me dressed in my hooded robe reading my book. I knew that this was a bit sensational but I was willing to go with it. I also knew that many of my former church members would be embarrassed by me and might even feel betrayed. As it turned out the article came out on the front page of the Sunday paper! It was also on line with video clips of me reading from my book. To no surprise there were mixed reviews. Some were supportive and some were embarrassed. One of my former church members said, "Shame on you for looking for support for your beliefs and embarrassing First Congregational Church." Its times like this I find my support in Aleister Crowley rather than Jesus Christ.

The second interview was with a Christian radio station and they also wanted to interview me because of my book. They were intrigued by how a Christian minister could also be a witch. I knew before I began that the host would try to discredit me and show how my claim to be a Christian was a mockery. I felt however that it would be good exposure for the book and I thought that someone out there might hear and like what I had to say. As it turned out I was right. And though the host didn't burn me at the stake he did condemn me to the fires of hell.

October 31, 2012

Our friend, Carolyn decided that for her 60th birthday she wanted to be initiated as a witch. And so Ava and I and Tara planned a big parting for her initiation and croning. Her birthday is on October 30th so we decided to do it on Halloween or Samhain[6] as the ancient Celts called it. All the people that came to the party—and there were about twenty—came dressed as witches. Carolyn had handpicked those who were invited. The ritual went well and all were respectful about what we were doing.

The ritual began with me saying: Today we stand between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. As the year wanes and the time of darkness approaches, we rest in life as those who have gone before us rest in death—and the earth too shall rest. We are here to turn the Wheel of the Year and to celebrate and honor our friend, Carolyn.

Then we did the calling of the directions and I initiated Carolyn—tracing a pentagram on Carolyn's forehead with water. She said that it was a baptism that her mother always wanted he to do. Then in the croning I said that she was the embodiment of the threefold Goddess. She had been a maiden until her menses, and a mother from her menses to menopause and now from menopause to death she would be a crone—a wise woman.

November 2012

I have done a lot of art work over the years, mainly doing mixed media pieces using pen and ink, colored pencils and photographs. Most people would take my art to be disturbing due to the mixing of sexual themes, Biblical texts and self-mutilation. Because of this I have not hung my pictures in the houses I have lived in for most of my life. When Ava and I moved into our apartment in Auburn she let me hang up a number of pieces in our bedroom.

One piece has a black man wearing only his under wear, ripping the skin off of his chest. It is titled, "Can the Ethiopian Change the Color of His Skin?" and is based on Jeremiah 13:23. Then I had a picture of John the Baptist eating a locust and one of Peter naked being crucified upside down. Then there is a self-portrait of me naked; kicking myself in the face which was titled, "It's Not Hard For Me to Kick Against the Prick" inspired by Acts 9:5.

The most disturbing ones are one titled, "You Must Be Born Again" which has me crucified upside down, with a woman's breasts and vulva giving birth to myself—you can see a photograph of my head coming out of my vagina. The other is titled, "So Where is the Ram in the Thicket?" which shows me standing before an altar that has my books, records, my eyes, brain and penis on it and I am holding a sword ready to run them all through. This piece was inspired by the story in Genesis 22 where Abraham was supposed to sacrifice his son, Isaac but God provided a ram as a substitute. What I was trying to portray was that being a minister I felt like I had to sacrifice the things that meant most to me.

Anyway, after having the picture up for over a year I decided to take them down. I didn't want any of the children who came to visit us to see them, and I felt I was through with the story they told. The funny thing was that when Ava's son, Derek came over to visit after they were down and I had traded them out for more conventional art work, his comment was, "No more stabbing the penis?" I'm done with that sort of thing.

February 8, 2013

Like my favorite teacher, Ram Dass, I too have been "stroked." I had a stroke and lost the use of my left arm and hand. This could put a damper on playing the guitar, piano and typing.

In the past few months Ava had hip replacement surgery, our furnace went out at our apartment, we moved into a senior mobile home park and the engine blew on our car and had to buy another one. Then Ava's son-in-law died, our water heater went out and I had a stroke—no actually it was one major stroke with two smaller ones and then two seizures for good measure.

This brings me to the subject of, "The Problem of Evil." The problem of evil has always bothered me. Now here's the problem. If God is all-loving it seems that God would not want us to suffer. And if God is all-powerful it seems that God could prevent suffering—but "there is suffering"—the First Noble Truth of the Buddha. The one book in the Bible that attempts to address this problem is the book of Job.

First Job loses his oxen, donkeys and servants (Job was well-to-do—see the first three verses of the book). Then he loses his sheep servants, camel servants, and then worst of all he loses his sons and daughters. If all this was not bad enough next Job is covered in "loathsome sores" from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

Basically three answers are given in the book of Job for why these terrible things have happened. The introduction to the book shows God and Satan making a wager. God says that Job is righteous. Satan says he is only righteous because God has put a fence around him. Satan bets if he can touch all that he has, he will curse God. And so God lets Satan have at it. Job is just a pawn in their celestial chess game.

The second answer which is given in many forms by four of his "friends" is, "You must have done something really bad to deserve this. Don't try to justify yourself!" In other words the bad things that have happened to Job are punishment for his supposed sins.

The third answer God gives "out of the whirlwind" starting in chapter 38 which basically says, "Job, there is no way you could understand the truth of the matter"—although I think that is bull shit given the wager in the introduction.

Supposedly there is a happy ending to this story. In the last chapter of the book God gives Job twice as much as he had before all of these tragedies—paying him back for his time as a pawn. Job throws a big party for all of his friends and family and they all comfort him _"for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him..."_ Job also gets ten replacement children—seven sons and three daughters. So much for the first seven sons and three daughters...

Mother's Day 2013

For Mother's Day I got up early and got Ava's present ready—it was a matching necklace and bracelet made with her Aquarian stones. I put it in a matching gift bag with tissue paper which were both red for passion. I also gave her a Mother's Day card. When she woke up I gave the bag to her and she was very appreciative. Then we got ready for church. At church it was a truly beautiful service. We sang a song to the Goddess with each verse ending with the pagan words, "Blessed be!" Rev. Karen[7] led us in a guided meditation about our mothers, mother-figures and Mother Earth. Rev. Mark's sermon however was on the similarities between Unity and Buddhism and what we can learn from Buddhism—Mark practiced Zen Buddhism for ten years!

There was an altar in the front of the sanctuary with a globe of the earth and tea-light candles all around it. At the end of the service Rev. Karen had all of the people form a line and come forward and ritually light the candles in honor of their mothers and/or mother-figures—and it turned out that there were just the right amount of candles for everyone to light one!

Then after church Mark and Karen came over for a Mother's Day Brunch and so did Steve and Derek.

Father's Day 2013

Ava and I made the trip to Tar and Richard's house in Templeton. There Leah and Bowen met us and they gave me for Father's Day a nice gay-friendly shirt and Tara and Ava packed a picnic lunch for us to take wine tasting.

For a number of years Leah and Bowen had heard us talk about Tobin James Winery and in fact we gave them a year wine club membership as their wedding present. So now they were finally getting to go there. When we got there, as we entered there was a man holding a huge iguana. We sampled all of their wines and even the wines that were only served to wine club members. Tara took pictures of us and Ava took a picture of Leah and Bowen.

Then we went to a winery that had a train sitting behind it. As we entered here there were two kids and a woman with a huge boa constrictor on a table. There Tara bought a bottle of wine and we sat at a table outside and had our picnic lunch with the wine that Tara had bought. Then we went out back to look at the train. Both of these wineries were in Paso Robles and seemed to have a reptile theme going.

Our last stop was in Templeton to Castoro Cellars. There is a wine server that we love to taste with. Her name is Nancy. She is probably in her mid to late sixties and has stunning blond hair cut with bangs and on the sides sharply cut just below her jaw line—she also has beautiful blue eyes. Whenever we go to Castoro, Nancy tells us about all of the wines we taste—she is a virtual fountain of knowledge concerning wine.

This time however something was different. First of all, not only was she letting us taste the wines but sometimes she was letting us have a second taste. Then she started bringing out reserves which she wasn't supposed to share and when she did she poured the wine into our glasses and then dumped the wine into the spittoon and then refilled them all again.

Next she said that she had a special champagne that cost $30.00 a bottle and she gave us a number of drinks of it. I said that I would but a bottle of champagne but she charged me only $15.00—50% off only for employees, which of course I was not. She said that she gave it to me because our friend, Tony used to be an employee there and his wife Suzi was with us. Then finally I just happened to mention that Leah and Bowen had been married only a short time, so she put some wine glasses in a gift bag and gave it to them as a wedding present! As we were beginning to leave she came out from around the bar and gave us all hugs. I was amazed at her generosity but when we left Ava and Leah said she must have been drinking—Leah, who had worked at a winery as a server said that some wineries let their servers drink with their customers.

Since then whenever we go to Castoro Tara and Ava kiddingly refer to Nancy as my girlfriend. Another time when we were wine tasting there I asked Nancy what was with all of the beavers around? There were stuffed beavers, pictures of beavers and the beaver is their logo. She said that Castoro is Italian for "beaver" and she added, "Thank God the owner didn't call their winery, 'Beaver Cellars.'"

October 25, 2013

The Thursday before Halloween we celebrated our first Samhain ritual at Unity of Auburn. Many of the people came in costumes and Ava and I came as witches. I had those who attended bring pictures or keepsakes of their loved ones who had passed on and we put them on our altar before the ritual. During the ritual I talked of the evolution from Samhain and All Saints Day to Halloween. And then the people were invited to say something of their loved ones who had passed on. After the ritual we had a Halloween party!

The next morning I woke up to the phone ringing. It was from my publisher saying that my book, _Even Witches Have Names_ was not selling very well, even though it had received "The Gold Seal of Literary Excellence" award. I told him, then they have to be more aggressive in their advertising—after all, they get 90% of my book sales. Then I hung up on him. I was very angry—and then my anger turned to God. Why didn't God answer my prayers to have my books sell?

I was angry all morning and then when Ava and I went to the gym I had a breakthrough. I went to the car to write it down: If there is a personal God who answers prayers, why do most prayers go unanswered?—petitions or affirmations? What of the Jews who prayed for God to save them when they were in the Nazi concentration camps? And I thought all such explanations such as "It wasn't God's will" were just face-saving bullshit for God.

Then I wrote: If there is no personal God, why pray? Isn't it just like talking to yourself? And finally, If God and the universe are the same, the universe does not hear or respond to our pleas. This was a breakthrough for me—I acknowledged the fact that now I knew in my heart what I had written intellectually in my books, _Prophetess of the Earth_ and _As It Is: A Philosophy of Life for the 21_ _st_ _Century_ [8] and that I too, as my friend Norm Rody—another Congregational minister—that I was a "Mystical Agnostic." Once I acknowledged this I was no longer angry but at peace.

December 31, 2013

For New Year's Eve we went to our first New Year's Eve service at Unity. They called it a "Burning Bowl" service where, as we do in Wiccan rituals, you write what you would like to have banished from your life on a paper and then burn it in a fire pit. Then as the people came back in from burning their papers a woman and I poured water upon the hands of those who came back into the church for them to wash their hands of the things they had burned.

Then back inside the church we wrote what we wanted to draw into our lives in the year to come and then we put those papers in envelopes which we addressed to ourselves. Rev. Mark then said that the church would mail them back to us around Thanksgiving to see if those things had come into our lives.

January 24, 2014

Yesterday was our friend, Bruce's 64th birthday. Bruce lives in our friend, Carolyn's guest house in Petaluma, California. Bruce is a gay man who Carolyn and Ava have known since they were kids. This month at Spiritwind the topic has been, "Homosexuality and the Church" and so I asked Bruce if he would be willing to come and tell his story and of course he did especially because it was on his birthday. Bruce came with his partner, Paul and Carolyn came with her dog, Allie. We had a great time and his talk was well received.

For this month I did a talk dealing with the biblical passages which speak against homosexuality, Laurie, who had been my occupational therapist when I had my stroke also shared her story of being a lesbian. Then on the last evening in the series we had representatives from the local PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gay people). Now they also include bisexuals, transgender and intersex people.

When I was at First Congregational Church I helped to make our church what is called in our denomination, "Open & Affirming" which means our church declared itself to be not only open to having lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people in our church as guests or members but that we affirmed who they were as unique expressions of God.

January 29, 2014

I have been visiting Hazel for over eleven years and Ava has been visiting her for eight years. We visited her the last eight years I was at First Congregational Church together. She was like family to me. Since Ava and I have been together back in Auburn we have visited her every week at the retirement home where she lives. The last year of two she has wanted to die. She was in her late 90s and just didn't know why she was still here. Her husband, Bryce died in 2004 and I did his service. Since then all she has wanted was to "be with him." Things started changing a few months ago.

First she asked me if I would do a talk at her retirement on death and dying. I said I would and spent a couple of months preparing for it. As it turned out I didn't do the talk but I decided to use what I had gotten together for a series at Spiritwind. Then a couple of months ago she started having what I call "visitation dreams" where loved ones that have passed on appear in dreams. First she had a dream that her dead son and his dead wife came to her.

Then we went to see her two days in a row and she wasn't there. We finally found out that she had collapsed with pneumonia and despite the fact that she has a "DO NOT RESUSCITATE" notice right on her wall, they resuscitated her and sent her to the hospital. When we went to see her when she got home she said that she was very angry that they had resuscitated her because that could have been her way out! She told me to tell her daughter that she wanted to die and to not do anything to prevent that again. And so when we got home I called her daughter and told her what Hazel wanted me to say.

The next time I visited her I told her that I would pray with her. I prayed a generic ministerial kind of prayer and when I finished she said that she had lived a full life and had many good memories. I felt like I had prayed the wrong prayer, so I asked her if she wanted me to pray that she would die? And she said, "Yes. And so I prayed that she would die[9] and when I finished she told me to call her daughter when I got home and tell her what I had prayed and why. It was hard but I did it.

They then put Hazel on hospice and I visited her every morning and came back with Ava in the late afternoons every day until she died—exactly one week after I had prayed that prayer on the 28th. We loved Hazel so much and she will be missed...

March 1, 2014

I was minister of Bethel Congregational Church in Ontario, California for ten years before coming to Auburn. For most of my time there my organist was my friend, Pat. He is an openly gay man who is now 60 as I am. When he was a child he was moved from foster home to foster home—at one they even performed an exorcism on him to cast out the demon of homosexuality.

On top of his unfortunate past he also has a disease called, "peripheral neurofibromatosis" where he has bumps all over his body, including his face. He had one true love in his life but he was killed. He was riding a moped when a police officer hit him in his squad car and left him for dead.

For the past nearly thirty years he has lived with a gay man named Larry—old enough to be his father—in a totally non-sexual relationship in a mobile home park in Ontario. Larry however recently died, leaving nothing to Pat—not the mobile home or any money and he has no family.

I knew that it would come to this someday and I had vowed that when the time came I would look after him. I have been there for Pat now over twenty years and Ava has been his friend as well for the past three years. Larry's attorney has been trying to work something out for Pat. Since he has no family we have agreed to have him move to Auburn. We found him an apartment and Ava has worked very hard getting it furnished. Our friends in town and from church have really come together for him and Ava has almost everything she needs to set up his apartment. He is going to know that he already has friends here that care about him. And thank God the attorney worked it out to pay for his first and last month's rent, cleaning deposit and his flight to Auburn! I picked him up at the airport yesterday.

March 28-30, 2014

On Friday Ava's daughter, Missina came down from Reno to have the grandsons spend the weekend between our house and Steve's. She also brought her boyfriend's three year old daughter, Kireann Elise who we all call, "Bug." She is such a magical child. At lunch as we ate she told us about a dream she had where she saw polka dots going into her belly button. Then she told us of the green aliens that were in the mountains. And when I said that after lunch we were taking the boys to the pool at our gym, she said that she had already been there before and there were dolphins in the water. When I heard her name I thought of the "Kyrie Eleison"—a prayer sung in liturgical churches which is Greek for "Lord have mercy."

After Missina and Kireann Elise left to go back to

Reno, Ava and I took the boys swimming and Derek met us at the pool and took them to Steve's house.

The next day (Saturday) we picked up the boys at Steve's house and brought them home with us. Not long after we were at home Derek and his teacup Chihuahua, Huey came over to spend the night with us.

Ava's grandsons are named, Brant and Randy. I baptized Brant when I was first at the Congregational Church in Auburn and I performed the marriage of Missina and Randy and she became pregnant with Randy Jr. not long after. The boys had their first sauna in our Club House with Derek and then when they got back to our home they made their own pizzas and s'mores on the stove.

In the morning I made for Derek and the boys sausage and eggs and then before taking them to church, Brant and I went out to walk Huey. As were walking we passed a statue of the Buddha in a neighbor's front yard. I asked Brant if he knew who that is? He said no, so I told him that he was the Buddha, he was like Jesus but lived 500 years before him. Brant's response was, "How do they know that that's how he looked?" So I said, "How do they know what Jesus looks like?" That ended our discussion.

After that we got ready for church and they love to go to our church!

August 11, 2014

My 61st birthday was on the eighth and I thought we were just going to have brunch with Derek, his fiancé, Stevie and Pat and then open presents. But as it turned out there was a continuous stream of friends flowing through our house from brunch until Charlie and Deb left at 11:30 p.m. When the first wave came, Derek, Stevie and Pat left. The first to come was Joyce, my former treasure from First Congregational. She came with their oldest member, Doris and her son, Mark and Karen came from Unity, and our friends Roy and Bennie—Roy is the minister of the Auburn Gospel Fellowship which started renting our chapel for their services when I first came to the Congregational Church in Auburn. My former church organist, Jane came by as well as my former Youth Director, Diane Gilbert. A number of our friends in Woodside Village also came as well as our dear friend, Carol Hachmeister. Champagne and wine flowed freely and the gifts kept coming.

Then on Saturday we got ready for a full moon party (actually the day before the full moon) at Ava's friend, Diane Youtsey's house in the town of Lincoln. Two of our friends, Charlie and Deb met us at our place and then they followed us to Lincoln. Charlie had my guitar, all of our drums, Deb's shakers and more in the back of his truck. When we got there, there was champagne, wine and pot (which I did not partake of) plenty of appetizers and loud music—Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. Diane Youtsey's son and Diane Gilbert's son and his friend were completely swept up by the spirit of the 60s—which was before they were even born!

Then Diane Gilbert said that she wanted me to lead the group in a full moon ritual. This was the first time anyone said anything about this to me. So we gathered all of our drums and shakers around the fire pit in the back yard. There were about fifteen of us gathered around the fire. We began with Charlie smudging our circle with smoking sage. And then I led in the calling of the directions. After this I asked those present to visualize what they wanted to bring to fruition on this full moon. Then after a few moments of silent meditation the drumming began! We drummed for about twenty minutes and then when they were through I led those present in dismissing of the directions and their elements.

After this, people just hung out and Diane Gilbert wanted me to play my guitar with her son and Diane Youtsey's son. So I played a few songs with them and then we packed up our things and headed home.

On Sunday Ava planned for us to go on a mystery trip. She had rented a car and she told me to dress warmer because it would be in the sixties where we were going. First I thought we were going to Tahoe but then when we were heading west on I-80 I thought we were going to San Francisco. But then when she said that she wanted me to take the shortest route to 101 near San Jose, I started guessing that we might be going to Santa Cruise which you can catch on the road that goes west out of San Jose. But when she had me go south down 101 I thought we must be going to my daughter, Leah and Bowen's house. And indeed this was where we were going.

My second surprise was that when we got to their new home which they had furnished and decorated beautifully, out their back window I saw on their patio Tara and Richard! They had come up to celebrate my birthday! After champagne and appetizers they said they were taking us out for lunch and that this would be the grand finale of my birthday weekend!

Now I didn't know anything about this but they took us to a restaurant in Carmel called, "Casanova's." In this restaurant the owner had actually bought the table which Vincent van Gogh ate his daily means while boarding at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers Sur-Oise, France prior to taking his own life. Ava and Leah know that I am a huge admirer of Van Gogh but it cost $1,000.00 to eat at this table not counting your meals! Leah and Ava had wished they could have done this for me for my birthday but they just didn't have the money for such a thing. So the idea was we would eat in the same restaurant as the table was in and perhaps I could look at it. We asked if we could look at the table and the hostess said we could if no one was eating in the room that housed the table. We went back to the room and no one was there and when we got there the owner was there and we asked him if they could take a picture of me sitting at the table, which we did. But then to our utter amazement, when the owner saw me in there he said, "Would you like to eat in here?" And Leah said of course but we could not possibly afford it. Then he said that we could eat there at no cost! I sat at the table with my hands on it in utter amazement; with my mouth open and as if in a trance!

And on the wall behind where I sat was a drawing and part of a letter to Vincent's brother, Theo and they took pictures of me beside them as well.

We had our meals and in the end we all put our hands together on the table and Ava took a picture of our hands on Vincent's table. After lunch we walked around Carmel for a while, looking at a bookstore and a few art galleries. Then we said our goodbyes to Tara and Richard and we went home with Bowen and Leah to pick up our rent-a-car and go home. It was truly an amazing day!!!

# ARTICLES

# SPIRITWIND

When I was minister of the Community Congregational Church of Tehachapi, California I wanted to start a second service. I asked myself, "What people were not being given in this community in terms of spirituality?" I had a number of friends who in those days were called, "New Agers" so I decided to reach out to them. So I advertised our second service as "Spiritwind: A Worship Experience for a New Age." This was back in 1990. In newspaper interviews I said that I was making a home for the "spiritually homeless."

In Tehachapi we had no Unity Church, no Church of Religious Science, no Unitarian Universalist Church—the people who belonged to these churches came to Spiritwind, including two Buddhist who taught Kundalini Yoga there and a Native American.

I originally chose the name, "Spiritwind" because of the huge wind industry in Tehachapi and because the words for spirit and wind are both the same in the Hebrew and Greek.

I would begin by playing the guitar with us all singing and then it would come time for the message. Some of the topics we explored were: A Course in Miracles, Past-life Regressions, Channeling, Tarot cards, Dream Interpretation and Wicca—our study of Wicca even led our group to start celebrating the Wiccan holy days. A publisher heard about it and said that if we created each of the eight seasonal celebrations which together are called in Wicca, "The Wheel of the Year" and adapted them to be used in Christian Churches they would publish it. And so it was that the only book up to this time that was published not at my own expense was, _Liturgies of the Earth_.

Spiritwind went beyond Religious Pluralism, because Religious Pluralism deals with the pluralism of the various religious traditions of the world, whereas Spiritwind deals with the pluralism of _all_ realms of the spirit—beyond the confines of the word religions as you can tell from the topics I have listed above.

When I left Tehachapi in 1992 for a call to another church, _The Bakersfield Californian_ wrote in an exit interview with me, that the Rev. Rick Kuykendall "has slaughtered his share of sacred cows" in the mountain community of Tehachapi. But after I left Tehachapi, Spiritwind has continued to this day for over 20 years.

Next at my new church, Bethel Congregational Church in Ontario, California, where I served for ten years, I established another Spiritwind group.

This time however the church board said that although they didn't mind me doing it at the church, they said that I could not use the phrase, "A Worship Experience for a New Age." Because they felt that those word would have a bad reflection on the church in the community. So I changed it to "A Study Group for Spiritual Adventurers."

Here I said to those who attended that "the sky was the limit" in terms of what we could cover in the realms of the Spirit. We did a series called, "Studies in Paranormal Experience" where we had speakers speak and demonstrate on such topics as "distant viewing," psychometry, aura reading and others. We also had speakers who spoke on Alien Abductions and Crop Circles. And one of the most far out was a study on "Interspecies Communication" with ducks the owner claimed that he could communicate with them by watching which pictures they pecked on in magazines.

Since I was at this church for ten years this is only a very small sampling of the topics we covered.

Next I took a call to Frist Congregational Church in Auburn, California where I served for eight years before retiring from there on October 31, 2010—with a service where it began with the calling of the directions as in Wicca and instead of a sermon a number of people had made giant tarot cards and they gave me a parting reading.

Right off here I started Spiritwind again at this church. It was very well attended and I had a wide variety of speakers: Druids, Witches, Jews, Buddhist, Sufis and Native Americans. We did a series on "Alternative Forms of Healing" where we looked at and had demonstrations of Reiki, Acupuncture, Cranial-Sacral Therapy and Hypnotherapy. We also did drumming and dancing on a number of occasions in the church's large fellowship hall. We also tackled hot issues like "Homosexuality and the Church" which led out church to proclaim it to be both open to and affirming of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender individuals.

Now after retiring I am doing Spiritwind at Unity of Auburn and Unity feels like a better home for Ava and me. Why does it feel like a better home?—because Unity is " _Culturally Christian, Spiritually Unlimited_. We freely draw on the ideas of many religions as well as contemporary philosophy, psychology and science." This is the best place for Spiritwind at this time in our lives.

# THE THREE PHASES OF MY LIFE

### Phase One

When I speak of the three phases of my life I could have spoken of being a child, a father then becoming a grandfather, or I could have spoken of my love life of my childhood and teen loves and my marriages. Or I could have even spoken of my educational life from undergraduate to Master's to Doctorate. But instead I have chosen to write of the three denominations that I have been affiliated with in the years of my ministry.

During the "Jesus People's Movement" of the late 60s and early 70s I received a piece of literature in the mail that was called, "Amazing Facts." To me it looked like a kind of "Ripley's Believe it or Not" of Biblical trivia. The first one I received was titled, "Things Aren't Always the Way They Seem" and it had a picture on the front of a magician's hat like the ones they pull rabbits out of. I read it and discovered to my amazement that the Sabbath was _not_ on Sunday but on Saturday. It had a tear-off that said, For a Free Bible and Study Guides to send this in with your name and address. And so I did. The "Amazing Facts" continued to come each week or so and then one day a man came to our door asking for me and said he had my free Bible—which would be mine _after_ I finished the study guides. And so this man would come over once a week and correct my lesson from the previous week and give me my lesson for next week. This went on for a few months. And when I finished I received my Bible and I was fully indoctrinated into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I had a girlfriend who was raised an Adventist and we decided to go to Loma Linda University together—a Seventh-day Adventist University in Southern California. Our plan was that I would take a bachelor's degree in Ministerial Studies and she would study for her R.N. At that time the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing were on the Loma Linda Campus, while the College of Arts and Sciences was on the La Sierra Campus. But both campuses were Loma Linda University.

After our time there we both receive our degrees and I took my first assignment as an intern at Lynwood Seventh-day Adventist Church as Youth Pastor while my girlfriend, who was now my wife took a job at a local hospital. My internship was just for a year so at the end of the year, when my wife had our first child, a son, we headed out to Andrews University Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan. We were there for over two years and during that time I was the first seminary student to work in the inner sanctum of the Ellen White Research Center. Ellen White was considered a prophet in much the same way as Joseph Smith is in Mormonism. In the center they had a vault where the walls were made of one foot thick concrete and it had a bank vault door. Within the vault were copies of all of Ellen Whites letters and manuscripts as well as all of her books.

Also, before graduating we had another child, this time a daughter. And so in August of 1980 I received my Master of Divinity degree and a call now as Associate Pastor of Temple City Seventh-day Adventist Church near Pasadena, California.

During my studies at Loma Linda and the seminary I had "studied myself out of the church." I no longer believed what Seventh-day Adventists taught but I was obligated to work for at least one year after seminary, so I did and then resigned.

The next three years were for the most part hell with me working construction with my father until he ran out of work and then for my brother until he ran out of work and the in a solar energy panel factory until they had to let me go and all of this time my wife was our main support.

So I thought that since everything had been going downhill since I left the Adventist ministry I thought that I would try to get back in. First a Youth Pastor I had when I first became an Adventist asked me to be his Associate at his church in the Riverside area of Southern California. The only catch was that I would not have a salary instead I would have to raise my own money by having people pledge money to have me there. In the time I was there I never made more than $400.00 a month.

But while I was there the two of us did an evangelist meeting that went over six weeks and ended with forty baptisms. The Conference was impressed and offered me my own church in the town of Mojave. This was in October of 1985 and I thought that now I was back in the ministry and making good money things would be better between my wife and me. And during the first six months I was there I even started a new church in Tehachapi, the mountain community above Mojave. Here we met in the Community Congregational Church.

But as for my wife, she said that she hadn't loved me since seminary. And she ended up leaving me; taking the kids with her—they were only five and seven years old and I was an emotional mess.

But then I started talking to the minister of the Congregational Church and he said that my real beliefs were far more in line with his denomination than the Seventh-day Adventist Church. His denomination was called, the United Church of Christ because it joined the Congregational Churches with the Reformed Churches. Because of this union they decided to not make any doctrinal issues the basis for membership and thus it is the most liberal Christian denomination in the world. This seemed just what I was looking for and so I started doing my church work on Saturdays in Tehachapi and Mojave and then on Sundays I worked at the Community Congregational Church. In fact I became a member of the church and they decided to sponsor me to become ordained in the United Church of Christ.

Things went well at first but when someone found out that I had become a member of the Congregational Church the shit hit the fan. Some members turned me in to the Conference but as I did my research in the church manuals I found that nowhere did it say that an Adventist minister could not also be a member of another denomination. And they were speechless when I pointed it out. No one had ever even thought of that possibility. In truth I was just biding my time until I could be closer on tract to becoming ordained in the United Church of Christ.

Now that I knew that it would only be time until they found a way to bring me down I decided to start preaching what I really believed in my two Adventist Churches. I was able to do this for a few weeks but when someone leaked a tape of one of my sermons the Conference yanked me out of the church. So I just sat home while they paid me to be quiet.

Soon it was all over and the Conference offered to pay off my school loans with the money I had in my retirement. I made a clean break but I only had enough money in savings to make it for a few months. As it turned out I was ordained in the United Church of Christ in July of 1988 and because the minister of the Community Congregational Church had retired after twenty years, they called me to be their minister.

### Phase Two

You might note that I prefer to say I'm a Congregationalist minister rather than a United Church of Christ minister. That's because I don't like the whole Christ thing. I believe in Jesus, a spiritual teacher who taught over two thousand years ago but I don't believe he was the incarnated Son of God, nor do I believe in the virgin birth or the resurrection. I believe that we all are sons and daughters of God and I believe in the resurrection as a metaphor for new life. And believing this is okay in the United Church of Christ.

During the interim period between my wife leaving me and my transition to the United Church of Christ I remarried. My second wife was the daughter of the piano player at the Mojave Seventh-day. She had a three year old son who at first called me Pastor Rick and then after we got married he started calling me, Pastor Dad. It turned out that though my wife had been raised as an Adventist, she no longer was a believer and was much more of a "New Ager." And when they booted me from the church both she and her mother left with me and came to the Community Congregational Church.

We served at that church on a five year contract and it was during that time that I began Spiritwind. We also both practiced Wicca besides our church responsibilities. And when the time came that the contract had come to an end they said that from that point they would only renew it one year at a time. This was because they didn't want to get stuck with a minister who stayed there twenty years as the one had before me.

Therefore we took a call to Bethel Congregational Church in Ontario, California. During the time I was there I started another Spiritwind group and we had a relationship with the neighboring Unitarian Universalist Congregation where the minister there and I started a CUUPs group. CUUPs is the acronym for the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. Our church would celebrate the winter solstice or Yule with them at their church and we would host them at a nearby park for the autumn equinox or Mabon. I was at this church for ten years but while I was there my second wife and I split up on moral grounds. Again I remarried and we served out the rest of the time at the church while working on my Doctor of Ministry degree in Matthew Fox's Doctoral program in Oakland, California.

Our next move was to northern California to the city of Auburn on the same freeway that runs from San Francisco to Sacramento to Tahoe. We were at this church for eight years. Again I started a Spiritwind program and tried to start a CUUPs group at the local Unitarian Universalist Congregation but they had no interest in it. So I practiced alone as a Solitary. Congregational Churches are run by the Congregation, not by the minister and so about six years into my ministry at First Congregational Church of Auburn I had a mutiny among the church staff where they took over writing the Pastor's Message in the church newsletter. They started writing the prayers that I would pray on Sundays, they picked the hymns that we would sing, where I used to do it so that the hymns would go along with the theme of my sermons. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and taking a sabbatical to try to pull myself back together. After I came back I was obligated to serve one more year under the same circumstances. And so it was that I ended up taking an early retirement just short of eight years there. But my one on-going legacy was helping the church to declare itself open to and affirming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

My wife and I moved back to Southern California where she said she was going whether I liked it or not. She wanted to spend her retirement years as a nanny to her daughter's children. I however was just alone most of the time. And while I was there all I could think of was Ava. My wife and I were friends of her family, we celebrated my birthday every year at their house and she was the "Church Visitor" for First Congregational and we went visiting people in retirement homes, nursing homes as well as the home bound. We did this for a number of years and we had become very close, so while I was in Southern California I spent my time texting with her at first then later sneaking calls. So after four months I filed for divorce and gave my wife a more than generous settlement. I threw away most of my belongings including a library of more than three thousand books as well as other things to travel light. I left our car with my ex-wife and took a U-Haul with my few belongings back up to Auburn.

Before I had even come back to Auburn someone had announced publicly in church that I had divorced my wife! And when I came back and was with Ava everyone immediately assumed that we must have been having an affair all along. This however was not true. I had never had any physical relationship with Ava as long as I was at the church. But they continued to believe what they did and of course no one wanted to hear our side of the story, except strangely enough the elderly women we had visited together before I left—and we were both so thankful for their acceptance. And we continue to visit them to this day, though two have died. And though we attended memorial services at First Congregational when those who we had known died, we were not to attend the church services. They had a new minister and the church staff said I was to stay off of his turf. But I must say he has been very kind to us, saying that we don't have to come here for just memorial services. So now sometimes we go to social events like their annual rummage sale.

### Phase Three

And so now we are both members of Unity of Auburn and it is a far better match for us spiritually. We love its inclusiveness and we are dear friends with the co-ministers there who I have known for ten years. They are Reverends Mark and Karen Schindler—and they asked me right off to do Spiritwind at their church and I am. And we are also their Church Visitors as well as still visiting the elderly ones we had visited before from First Congregational—they let us do that much. And now that we are both in our sixties, Ava and I are going to stay together till the ends of our lives.

# CULTS OF PERSONALITY

There was a band in the 80s called, "Living Color" and their signature song was "Cult of Personality." In this song they sing about a number of individual good and bad who had a "cult following"—Mussolini, Kennedy, Joseph Stalin, Gandhi, as well as Nobel Prize winners.

It is true that these had cult followings but in the realm of religion there are still others. Of course there is Jesus in the West. Go to any Christian church and it's all about Jesus. He was God incarnated one with the trinity and one before whom you are to humbly bow. In Charismatic churches they sing songs about Jesus as if they were singing to a lover. In the 'mainline churches" many still sing the old hymns about Jesus Christ. It's as if there was nobody else throughout time that was as holy as him. And he died for our sins to save us from burning in hell. Not only this he is not just our savior, he is our "personal savior"—just for you. I cannot accept the fact that it is all about Jesus.

And five hundred years earlier in the East there was the Buddha—the awakened one. We are to walk the path that he walked because he is the one who knows the way—even though 500 years later Jesus would say, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me." Buddha said there is suffering—as if we didn't know and he proposed a way out of suffering but in reality it doesn't end suffering. And yet millions of Buddhist around the world believe in walking his path is the way to enlightenment. Why can't they just walk their own path?

And then there is the late comer, Muhammad. What a gift he gave the world—conquering by conversion or death. I love the Sufis, they seem the closest to finding their own way, but not only do Sunnis and Shias fight and kill each other in the name of Allah believing that this is what Muhammad wanted them to do but now Muslims extremists are threatening to kill everyone who is different from them. And Muhammad started the whole thing, establishing Islam by conquering others.

On a more recent note in time I have already mentioned how I worked for the Ellen White Estate Research Center and while Seventh-day Adventist consider her inspired by God, even as the apostle Paul, having worked there I have seen dirty laundry that if aired would indeed shake the faithful. Again it's all about _A Prophet Among Us_ which is the title of one book about her.

And of course who could forget Joseph Smith the prophet of the Mormon Church, or should I say, The Latter Day Saints? I am actually a distant shirt-tale relative of him through George Gates, Utah pioneer of 1847. He was born in 1812.

Not only did Smith receive the golden plates which after being translated from the original "reformed Egyptian" became the _Book of Mormon_ but he also wrote the _Doctrines and Covenants_ and the _Pearl of Great Price_ , both considered inspired by God.

I'm done with "Cults of Personality" for me I follow my own path and no one else's.

# DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE

When you look up "Platonic Love" in the _Oxford English Dictionary_ it says that it is, "love or affection for one of the opposite sex, of a purely spiritual character and free from sensual desire..."[10] Interestingly enough it also said that as originally used it had no reference to women. Rather it referred to Greek men's relationships with younger boys.

Plato touches on different kinds of love in _The Symposium_. Here he speaks of the difference between eros and philia—what he calls, love and friendship. In Christianity we say that eros is physical love as in erotic, whereas philia is the love of friendship as in Philadelphia which means "brotherly love."

In the New Testament there is a third kind of love which is agape—selfless, unconditional love. This comes up in a dramatic way in the Greek version of John 21. Here John has Jesus testing Peter who has denied him by saying, "Do you agape me?" Peter says, "You know I philia you." Then Jesus says, "Feed my sheep." Then Jesus asks Peter again, "Do you agape me?" And again Peter says, "You know I philia you." Jesus again says, "Feed my sheep." Then Jesus asks Peter a third time, though this time he says, "Do you philia me?" And Peter says, "You know I philia you." Finally Jesus says, "Feed my sheep." The significance this was Jesus was asking Peter if he loved him with selfless, unconditional love to which Peter could not reply, so instead he answered, "I love you as a friend." When Jesus asked him the last time, "Do you philia me?" Jesus was saying, Are you sure you even love me as a friend?

For Plato, eros was love as in relationships. The New Testament however never uses the word eros. Rather it distinguished between philia and agape. Christians say that agape is "divine love" or "selfless, unconditional love." And so agape translated in 1 Corinthians 13—the famous chapter on love—as "charity" in the King James Version of the Bible. In charity we give without any sense of getting anything back in return. It is truly selfless giving. On the other hand, for the Christian, eros is erotic love or physical love. And so for the Christian, erotic love takes us out of the realm of Platonic love or agape love—a word which was never used by Plato.

In _The Symposium_ in "The Speech of Aristophanes," Aristophanes says that originally God created three sexes: male, female and an androgynous sex.

Zeus feared their power and so he cut each of them in two: "Each of us then is but a token of a human being, sliced like a flatfish, two from one; each then ever seeking its matching token."

Men sectioned from androgynous are woman-lovers.

Women sectioned from androgynous are man-lovers.

Women sectioned from women are lesbians.

Men sectioned from men love boys—these are the most noble and manly.

For me there is straight love, same-sex love, bisexual love, erotic love, love of friendship and selfless, unconditional love.

A case of crossing the line between Platonic and physical love is that found in the story of Abelard and Heloise. Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was the author of _Sic et Non_ or _Yes and No_ , in which he posed 158 questions from Christian teachings and answered them. He taught theology at what later became the University of Paris. In 1113 Abelard became the tutor of Heloise, the niece of an official of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. They ended up having a secret affair and as a result she became pregnant. After the birth of their child in 1118 they were secretly married but her uncle none-the-less had Abelard castrated. At that point Heloise became a nun. They continued to communicate through letters but later Bernard of Clairvaux (later to become, St. Bernard) got the church to condemn him for heresy in 1140.

After this he retired to the abbey of Cluny, where he stayed in seclusion for the last two years of his life. This is a testament of when it is not okay to cross the line between Platonic love and physical love.

# TUBY LONGLINE AND THE BIMBAY FLEAT

From the time I was a child I wanted to be a writer and one of the first stories I was going to write was titled, "Tuby Longline and the Bimbay Feat." All I remember about it was the title and that it was going to be a children's story written by a child. And I have continued to draw on the book ideas and pseudonyms from my teen years as well.

My first attempt at a book was when I was in the eighth grade. I started a book which I titled, _The Sweetened Life of Peter C. McDonald_. After I finished my first few chapters I showed it to my girlfriend's sister who was in drama in high school. She read it and said that it would go nowhere. I was devastated so I dumped the whole thing. But in 2014 I made another attempt at it and finished the book—and I think it's a good one!

The next book that I wanted to do as a teenager but never followed through on was _Tidbits From an Unknown Author_ which you are reading now. I obviously followed through as an adult.

Then I used pseudonyms from my teenage years as characters in books that are now published. Joshua Thornbee is the main character in my book, _A Dishwasher's Diary_ and Gabriel Seminger is the main character in my book, _Even Witches have Names_ —the title of which I came up with somewhere between 1990-1993.

So it turns out that I have been a writer at heart since my childhood and though I am for the most part an unknown author, I still am an author.

# SONG LYRICS

### AVA'S SONG

I had a library of over 3,000 books

And I read for years and years.

But I gave them all up and began life anew

Without shedding any tears.

When Ava and I began our life together

I told our friends I don't preach, teach—I'm through.

They asked me what I do now and this is what I said,

"I love Ava, that's what I do."

Chorus: Ava, I love you just the way you are—

You are the love of my life.

We love each other with a love that is more than love

And I want you to be my wife.

Ava is the world to me; she is my religion

I want to s pend our lives together.

We've been together for many, many lives

And we will love each other forever.

John and Yoko had nothing on us;

We are no longer two but one.

And Ava, you're my one and only love

And our love shines like the sun.

Chorus

Like the moon and the stars that shine at night

Our love is the light that lights our way.

And we follow our love as leads us along

Into the light of another new day.

Chorus

### I'M NO ISLAND

Chorus: I'm an island

(A) In the sea of humanity—

A voice crying

Amidst the insanity.

Can anybody hear me?

Can anybody hear me?

I put my life into a bottle—

Threw it out into the sea.

I cast my bread upon the waters—

I'm still waiting

To see what will become of me.

Chorus

But now the bottle is the world.

It holds my life—my life's the sea.

And the bread upon the waters—

It never left

For it's been ever waiting for me.

Chorus: I'm no island

(B) I'm the sea of humanity

The voice that's crying

Is inside you and me.

Just listen and you will see.

Just listen and you will see.

### LOVE WILL FIND A WAY

Though the way is not always clear

You do not need to fear.

Black and white turns to gray

But love will find a way.

Clouds my fill your heart

But soon the clouds will part.

Though you may feel blind,

Love sees what eyes can't find.

Chorus: If you can just hold on,

Even when hope seems gone,

Love will find a way.

Though you can't see your way,

Please trust these few words I say,

"Love will find a way!"

Things seem so complex,

You wonder what will happen next!

Life may even seem absurd

But love is the final word.

Though the way is not always clear,

You do not need to fear.

Just keep moving forward,

Love is its own reward.

Chorus

MAKER OF THE UNIVERSE[11]

Maker of the universe, maker of the sky

How we ever killed You—I often wonder why.

How could You love me as great as You are?

You chose a fallen race to dwell among the stars.

You gave us the earth—we laid it to waste.

You gave us each other—we kill with much haste.

What makes me see? What makes me hear?

How can I love? What makes me fear?

You make the sun shine on the good and the bad.

You bring salvation to the happy and the sad.

You are the life that makes me live.

You are the heart that makes me want to give.

### OUT IN THE STREETS

Out in the streets people are screaming

While in their beds others are dreaming.

Out in the streets people are crying

While in the stores others are buying.

Chorus: American dream—bound to fail

Following utopias down the trail

Where other political dreams have trod.

A Dead-end street it's us not God!

Out in the streets food is seldom tasted.

Inside our homes it's continually wasted.

Out in the streets people search for cover

While in their beds lovers hold lovers.

Chorus

Out in the streets people are dying

While our leaders still are lying.

Out on the streets live our neighbors—

We are the hands through which God labors.

Chorus

### PLACE OF PEACE

There's a place of peace inside of me—

I can go there if the need should arise—

If the need should arise.

There's really nothing outside of me—

The problem is there are too many lies.

Too many lies.

Chorus: Just lose your eyes and you'll be free.

Your breath must move as the waves of the sea.

The hurricane's eye is said to be calm—

Within yourself is a healing balm.

If I leave the past behind me

I can live Now without any fear.

Take no thought of what's in front of me,

I live Now—this is all too clear.

Chorus

### THE REAL PERSON

Don't look on the outside, in the inside

Is where the true beauty lies.

The face is changing, it's always changing

What is inside never dies.

And the body is just a cover

For the lover deep inside.

Outer beauty is always changing

And your "tastes" can be denied.

Chorus: Don't let appearance change your mind

'cause then the truth gets left behind.

You know the real person lives inside—

When you forget this they're denied.

Can't you see how beauty changes

What's ugly here may be pretty in another place.

What's pretty now, in times past

It would've never been the case.

So drop selection; change your direction

Start looking in another place.

Sense what is inside; don't let the body hide

The person behind the face.

Chorus

SEEMS LIKE A SHAME[12]

A baby was born

And then another and another—

You could almost

Count them on both hands.

She was married to a man,

In time he was gone

Then another man came

She had one for each hand.

Chorus: And it seems like a shame

But tomorrow will still be here

Maybe it will bring joy;

Maybe it will bring fear

But whatever it brings

I know she can ride out the storm.

As the years went by

Her second marriage

Found it's self upon the rocks

And then another man came.

I know it seems strange

This dance we're dancing

With partners one by one

Sometimes it seems like it's a game.

Chorus

Sometimes we're up

Sometimes we're down

Or we're nowhere at all

Or so it seems that way.

But where ever we are

There are lessons to learn

In the school called love—

We wait for graduation day.

### SHE'S MY GODDESS

Ava was the one for me.

Ava was all that I could see.

We love with a love

That is more than love.

We live for each other

In a heaven that's not above.

Ava opened her heart to me.

Ava was all that she could be.

I gave myself to her—

She gave herself to me.

When I look in her eyes

It is me that I see.

Ava is always on my mind.

Ava is mine and only mine.

Anywhere I'm with her

Is home to me.

She is my Goddess;

Our life is religion for me.

### SPIRITWIND

There's a wind blowing

Some call it "the breath of life."

It's a wing of peace

Not a wind of strife.

There's a voice in the wind

And all have ears to hear it.

Let it move you—

It's the wind of the Spirit.

The wind brings change—

We must bend as the reeds.

Carried upon its wings

We move as it proceeds.

Moving o'er the face of the water—

Moving o'er the body of the earth

The Spiritwind brings life—

It brings rebirth.

Sometimes it moves so gently—

Sometimes it moves with power.

And you can rest assured

It's blowing this very hour.

There's a wind blowing

Some call it "the breath of life."

It's a wind of peace

Not a wind of strife.

### UNITY

We live apart—

In different lands

And on the islands of the sea.

We know from the start

That there's so much

That comes between you and me.

Chorus: Humanity must learn to see

There is a unity in the diversity.

Our speech is not the same

And it's so hard

To understand how the others feel.

We separate by name

And then pretend

That one's appearance is what is real.

Chorus

Part: It's alright to be different

We don't have to be the same

But don't let the differences

Eclipse that which is the same.

Chorus

### WE ARE BROTHERS[13]

We are brothers

From the same father

For the same reason

Of the same mother.

We both have fallen

And we both have cried—

We both feel pain

And we both will die.

Chorus: La—la, la, la—la, la

I'm going to heaven

And I want to see you there.

(repeat chorus)

Grew up on the earth;

Were warmed by the sun.

We saw the animals

Run, run, run.

And Jesus too

Was once like you and me—

He is our brother

He's waiting for you and me.

Chorus

### WE SIMPLY TOUCH

You reach out; you touch my face

A sensation crosses space.

You speak to me in this way.

Your desires you fear to say.

Chorus: We don't need words

Instead we feel.

This kind of language

Is so real.

We simply touch.

We simply touch.

If I make a certain move

I always know if you approve.

I feel when you hesitate.

All your moves communicate.

Chorus

You don't speak and yet you know—

You like my touch; you feel the flow.

I reach out; I touch your face.

A sensation crosses space.

Chorus

### ALL OF YOUR LOVE

Ava come here, come close to me.

You looked into my eyes—

I saw myself in you, I want to be with you

You came to be with me too.

You're where I am, you're close to me.

You never go away when I forget your love

You simply wait for me—

You wait to give me your love.

Chorus: You came to me and gave me all you are.

And now together we follow our star.

Nothing can ever pull us apart.

You gave me all your love; I gave you my heart.

Help me to see you in all things.

You are so beautiful; as I behold your love

I want to be like you.

Swallow me up in you love!

Others see you; what do they say?

You look into their eyes; they simply look away

They don't see what I see

They just can't hear what I say.

Chorus

# POSTSCRIPT

And now it's time to draw this bundle of tidbits to a close. And whether this is read or not, it felt good just to write it. As I said earlier, I came up with the idea for this book as well as its title when I was still a teenage but I never followed through with it. And that is the problem with a few of my unknown author friends—they never follow through with their ideas. Well I have finally followed through and it took me some forty-five years to do it!

I will copyright this book and probably self-publish it like my others—that is if I can come up with the money. Self-publishing isn't cheap!

I hope that this may one day fall into your hands so that you may hear what I have had to say. And hopefully if you like what you read, though I can't afford advertising, perhaps this and my other books may spread by word of mouth.

And so it is that I bid you a fond farewell.

Richard E. Kuykendall

November 7, 2014

# End Notes

[1] In one of his journals, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote: "After my death no one will find in my papers (this is my comfort) a single explanation of what it was that really filled my life, the secret writing in my inmost parts which explains everything..."

[2] This is how I write my dreams in my dream journals.

[3] Wicca is the name used often in the place of witchcraft. The Old English word wicce (for women) and wicca (for men) means "wise one." Though others say these same words mean "one who bends"—things to their wills.

[4] These Journal Excerpts only run from 2010-2015 which is the time that Ava and I have been in a relationship together.

[5] See: Leviticus 20:13 and Exodus 22:18.

[6] Samhain simply means, "winter's end." It was a celebration of the last harvest and a celebration of the ancestors. Later when the Roman Catholic Church was attempting to convert the Celtic people this holiday was transformed into the Eve of All Saint's Day then All Hallows Eve and then simply, Halloween.

[7] Reverends Mark and Karen Schindler are our co-ministers at Unity of Auburn where we are members. I have known them for over ten years and they are dear friends of ours.

[8] This book was later published together with another book I wrote titled, What I Don't Believe and Why as Two Ways to Lose Your Faith.

[9] Does this make me the Dr. Kevorkian of ministers? And I don't really believe in prayer...

[10] Second Edition, volume XI, p. 1006. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1989.

[11] This song was written when I had just become a Christian. My views on a number of points in these lyrics have changed over the years such as the idea that Jesus had to die in order that we might be saved. I no longer believe in an anthropomorphic God or the need of salvation.

[12] I wrote this song for my mother.

[13] I wrote this song for my brother in the late 60s. I now however am agnostic in terms of all theories of life after death.

