This Body

My journey as this particular formation of the Cosmos has centered around attempts to reconcile an experience at age 12 with being a member of human society. At that early age I found myself in space looking at the Earth. Startled, I thought I could not breathe. A reassuring voice said yes you can. And I could. After gazing at the harmony and beauty of Earth for a while, I looked “down” and saw I had no body other than that of the Cosmos Itself.

The society in which I lived was that of the small town South with the widely accepted worldview of Protestant faith -- love God, accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord, work hard, don’t talk back, do good. No one spoke of being an embodying of the Cosmos.

My life has been spent in resolving this dilemma (di-lemma: caught between two lemmas, two premises). On the one hand, human society taught that I was an isolated protoplasmic blob needing salvation that must move through life in a prescribed manner: job, marriage, kids, grandkids, retire, die. I was not expected to have any education beyond high school. 

On the other hand, the cosmic hand, I knew that this societal prescription was not the whole story. Not even close. I learned, as they say, to “pass for white” and survived those early years without too much difficulty.

After completing the 11th grade, I left small town life for a job in Atlanta, working in the day and finishing high school at night. The company also helped pay college tuition so I began taking night college courses. 

Marine recruiters visited our house one day (my mother, my two younger brothers and two younger sisters had all moved to Atlanta by then). I was home alone, as I had been with the cosmic experience, and I signed up. With one condition, that I be sent to Japan (an inner urge which my rational mind did not comprehend but I knew I had to follow).

After basic training at Parris Island and a stint with the 2nd Marine Air Wing, I was sent to Okinawa. Close enough. The experience there changed my life. (We did perform maneuvers in Japan near Mount Fuji, so the Corps did not lie.)

My biography after that can be seen in the contents of my four major books. The first (“The Inner Work of the Warrior: A Manual For Embodying Spirit”) teaches a practical framework for incorporating martial arts principles in daily life. I adapted what I learned on Okinawa while studying hand to hand fighting with Isshinryu Karate Master and Founder, Sensei Tatsuo Shimabuku, to methods for embodying the Life Force (Spirit) that could be learned by non-martial-artists. I taught those nine principles with their practices for several decades to a variety of groups. They work.

This first book was an attempt to assist folk in developing their capacity to be an open vessel for cosmic energy and wisdom. Most appeared to use the practices for stress relief but that was okay too.

With the second book (“The World’s First Ever Baptist Crime Novel”) I invaded, with the help of one of my sisters, the conceptual system of Protestant Christianity. A small town Baptist church in the South received the help of a spiritual criminologist, a Creek shaman, a sweat lodge, and the town’s bad boy to resolve serious problems brought on by the church’s minister. The church even had a “preach-off” with various entries including Gregor the Demon. (He preached a pretty powerful sermon.) Inclusiveness was the theme, as you can see.

The third book (“The Hidden Words of the Living Jesus: A Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas”) allowed me to go beyond the conventional Christian framework, to step “outside” and express the consciousness of Jesus as best I could. The 114 sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are presented with no or little context. I sat quietly for 114 mornings with each saying and wrote what unfolded out of this extended contemplation. I had to enter the consciousness of the one speaking the saying to be able to write a commentary. I am happy to say that it received the endorsement of Father Richard Rohr -- something of a validity check.

Along the way, over the years, I had also been studying the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching (the Book of the Way and Its Virtue) attributed to Lao Tzu (the Old Dude) as its author. 

In my fourth book (“Jesus and Lao Tzu: Adventures With the Tao Te Ching”), Jesus, Lao Tzu, and I have an adventure in Flagstaff, Arizona associated with each of the 81 chapters. For each of 81 mornings, I read a chapter and sat quietly until Jesus and Lao Tzu appeared and invited me out to wander around the town and the mountainside. They were a riot. I missed them when the book was done.

As you can see, I have stepped outside the conventional frame of Christian religiosity. I have done so in accord with the cosmic experience at age 12. It is with me still. We are all the cosmos embodying. It is just that some of us don’t know it.