LEAVING SHADOWLAND

By Bob Huneycutt

THE ALPHA         

Thirty years ago, on a rustic farm in the mountains north of San Francisco, I spent six weeks studying the teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.  At 21, I had never heard of the Korean evangelist, even though he was fast becoming a lightning rod for controversy.  In the ensuing years, the church would be hit by lawsuits, accused of heresy and be betrayed by ex-members.  The man in the middle of it all, Reverend Moon, far from moving to quell the flare-ups, would seem to encourage them and thrive on the controversies.  The members would scatter like ships before a storm, some sinking, and some surviving with weary, battle-hardened visages.  The Unification Church was forged in fire. 

            However, in the mid-seventies, the storm is little more than a tropical depression, and the church centers are beehives of activity.  Curious young people are constantly moving through the workshops, getting an introduction to the teachings, and some will swear they got a glimpse of Heaven.  It is these whom their parents will say are stolen from their families.

            For three decades I rode the Unification roller coaster, but my fondest memories and my deepest insights were from those early days, herding sheep, sleeping by a woodstove and learning to pray at a Unification Retreat near the northern California farming town of Booneville. 

            For a brief period, the church enjoyed nearly unbridled prosperity and growth, and the bulk of that blessing was bestowed on the San Francisco Bay Area, that American Mecca for spiritual seekers.  Every week a hundred new recruits would join the workshops and nearly half would become members.  What was the reason for this unparalleled success, at the very time when most churches were burdened with dwindling memberships? 

Originally I intended to examine the success of the Unification Church at attracting young people, for in those days the Church was far more effective than the Methodist Church, where I grew up, at recruiting new members.  Ultimately the focus of the story became the church’s impact on me personally, for it wrought a considerable change in my life and instigated the journey which brought me face to face with my own selfishness.  Regrets?  I have a few, mainly that I learned so late to love.  But I have no regrets about diving into the Unification Movement.  I remain convinced that the many critics of the Church simply don’t know the Church as I do, and so I felt compelled to tell my story. 

            Perhaps the first issue is how I came to be in the Bay Area in the first place, too far from home, a stranger in a strange land.  The journey there was improbable and convoluted, and began, as most journeys do, if only you reach back far enough, on my own doorstep.

RHYMES WITH CALIFORNIA

When Charlie shows up on my doorstep, about to jump out of his flip-flops over something, I’m just finishing up supper, my sister Donna is clearing the table and my Mom is fixing to wash the dishes.  My Dad, the grizzled captain, has already made for the marina where he is most likely piddling with the boat and fussing over the engine.  This is only about the second or third time Charlie has been by my house and I feel rather gratified, for Charlie is about the best surfer in Emerald Isle.  Most of my friends surf, and I myself go to the beach every single day, but Charlie has distinguished himself with his aggressive style and outrageous cutbacks.

Charlie has a physique like Michelangelo’s David on a surfboard and when he catches a wave, his sun-bleached hair flies out behind him. He carves the face of the wave and cuts back with such authority that the beach bunnies watching from the shore would never guess that without his gold, wire-rim glasses, Charlie is nearly blind.

            So Charlie, the super surfer from Emerald Isle, is standing on my front porch holding the screen door open.  His friend Graham, a skinny, rich kid from J-Ville that plays guitar in a Rolling Stones cover band, is waiting in the driveway in a futuristic-looking car with doors that open up like the wings of a gull.  My question is: Charlie, did you finally get a date or something?

            No, says Charlie, but do you want to go catch some real waves?

            Seems Charlie and Graham have cooked up a scheme to drive out to California, where the waves are plentiful, and spend a month carving North Carolina names on California swells.  Every surfer knows East coast waves are tiny compared to the grinders on the West coast; no California surfer ever traveled East in search of good waves.  Somehow in the planning sessions my name came up, and they want me to come along, ride in the back, maybe drive some.  Just strap your board on top, Charlie says. 

            Count me in, and I don’t need to think about it.  This sounds like a chance to hone the old skills and I travel light: corduroys, t-shirts and several good books.  Graham has a big tent and an atlas with directions to every Good Sam Campground between here and Honolulu.  We’ll just jump on I-40 and transport cross country in no time in Graham’s amazing car.

            We depart on a Sunday morning.  The surfboards are strapped to the roof and the tent takes up most of the trunk, but other than that, there is little baggage.  I pack a couple science fictions, Asimov and Heinlein.  Somebody brings Frank Herbert’s Dune, an appropriate title for this trip, and, inexplicably, the I Ching is lying in the back seat, with its ‘everything is nothing’ philosophy.

            The first day on the road we jump straight over the Appalachians and zoom through Tennessee.  We find a campground near Memphis at dusk and Charlie and Graham decide to forego the tent and just sleep under the stars on a picnic table.  My Boy Scout training persuades me to erect the tent, but about the time I get settled into my sleeping bag, I hear a disturbance outside as Charlie and Graham rip up the stakes and the tent collapses on me.

            Lying there under the fallen tent, I start to think about pulling out of the trip; after all we’re only one day away from home.  Do I really want to spend my summer vacation in the company of juveniles?  But this is why Charlie picked me in the first place.  He knows me well enough to know I’m not the type to cause a big scene; I’ll be miffed for a few and that’ll be the end of it.  We’ll continue on, and long before we hear the roar of the tumultuous Pacific, with its languorous beaches and tan-colored cliffs, I’ll have forgotten all about those mischievous snickers of conspiracy that preceded the toppling of my tent.  Charlie’s right; I’m in this for the duration.

            With our seagull wings folded down, we go flying across Arkansas, Oklahoma and on into New Mexico.  This is the first time for three southern boys to see the American Southwest, painted in hues of tan and red, so unlike the pine-encrusted swamps and coastal plains of Carolina.  As the fiery sun sets over the desert we hide conspiratorially in our resurrected tent and drink Coors beer, brewed with Colorado water, a toast to adventure.  Next day we take a short detour to the Grand Canyon.  Standing on the observation deck with a hundred other tourists we shield our eyes and peer across the chasm to see… the other side, brown and red strata of rock.  No sign of life.  Pretty neat, says Charlie.  Anybody want to buy a souvenir?         

Then we climb high into the Rockies until we top out at Flagstaff, and from here on it is downhill all the way to L.A.  Crossing into California we see great buttery hummocks, treeless and brown, with zero shade.  The sun here is intense, merciless.  Riding on we come to the entrance ramp for the tangled asphalt arteries of Los Angeles, and we follow the signs till the road stops at the pristine Pacific. 

After three days cooped up in the car, our bodies crave the water.  Looking out for the first time at the Pacific Ocean, the waves are enormous; we estimate them to be ten feet high.  We paddle out even though the sun has set and it is getting dark.  We get some good rides, but when the night descends and the ocean becomes unfamiliar and gigantic, we get spooked and catch a wave to shore.

            In the subsequent days we do little more than eat, read books and play in the ocean.  There are good breaks up and down the coast south of Los Angeles, but our favorite is a stretch of parking area with camping spots along a bluff overlooking the ocean at a place called San Onofre.  Here, a five minute hike down the cliff brings us to a barely used beach with rideable waves breaking on shallow sand bars.  This camper’s paradise has miles of parking, right along the ridge of the cliffs, and amiable neighbors, mostly kids driving up from San Diego, and uncontested waves that beg to be ridden.  Mornings we drive into the little downtown area for an all-you-can-eat breakfast and we wolf it down.  Then we surf through the morning and afternoon, and often we are the only ones in the water.  The waves are waist-high, shoulder-high, and head-high; to neglect them would seem an awful waste.  In the heat of the day we might spend a little time reading in a shady spot, or drive around and check out some new beaches.  We are all reading ‘Dune’, getting lost in the messianic tale and dividing our time between planets, ours and Frank Herbert’s.  You could say we are immersed in the novel like a surfer in a tube. 

            We are anxious to taste the southern beaches down around San Diego, so we somewhat reluctantly pull up stakes and drive south on Highway One.  Leaping from the car, I go racing down the cliffs to get my first peek at the waves of La Jolla.  I have underestimated the scale of the mountain, however; this cliff is a sheer vertical drop of 1000 feet.  A suicide drop.  I get maybe halfway down the cliff before I come to a drop-off that I can’t see past.  I could maybe slide down but I might not be able to stop, and I also find that I can’t go back up the way I came.  I’m seriously stuck. 

            High on a ledge overlooking the Pacific, I can see thick waves smacking the black sand with a rhythmic forcefulness, white foam flying on the wind.  I see the hang gliders leaping from the ridge above me and sailing out over the ocean, catching the updraft and angling their crafts parallel to the beach.  And far below me I see a couple passing and even from this distance I can see that they are unclothed. 

            Hey, I’m stuck up here on this cliff, I yell down.  What? they yell back.  Even here on this rock, with my life hanging in the balance, I am perturbed by the inconvenience of having to scream to be understood.  Help me! I scream.  There are some guys on the ridge, they yell, but you have to yell loud so they can find you.  Further humiliation.  Help, I scream, making myself hoarse, I’m here, here.  Finally they pinpoint my location and start down on a rescue mission, and the naked couple moves on down the beach.  After about ten minutes, two kids, perhaps only high school students, lower a blanket over the edge and I grab on.  They brace against some rocks and I pull myself up. 

            I look at them and they’re just regular guys, about my age, at least they don’t look like heroes that I can discern, but of course they just risked their lives to pluck me off the face of a suicide precipice.  Is there something I can do to repay?  Buy y’all a beer?  Thanks, we have to get home.  This is not the way I imagined it.  In my vivid dreaming I was the hero who rescued the beautiful girl, who rewarded me with an achingly soft kiss.  I can not even be properly grateful to my saviors, conflicted as I am with questions about the value of the life they saved.  If I could see things for what they are, I would see myself stranded on the cliff and jumping off the cliff with no real consideration of the consequences.  Paddling into a tidal wave without reflecting, will I be crushed when it all collapses?  Does life require reflection?  I hope not. 

            I meet up with Charlie and Graham back at the car.  This is Black’s Beach, they tell me, a nude beach.  I never even heard of such a thing.  Let’s go check it out, I say.  We already been there, Charlie says, there is a path with ropes and steps and a line of people descending.  The surf looks good. 

            Grabbing our surfboards, we join the line of people following the trail down the mountain.  Sometimes we must hold our boards under one arm and grab the rope with our free hand, or hand the boards over the ledge to navigate a particularly steep grade. 

            The beach is crowded with naked and nearly naked people getting all-over tans.  The surf is decent, but what a distraction.  We return to Black’s Beach for two more days, for the waves and the scenery, but by the third day they no longer stimulate.  In search of something more, we travel farther south, all the way to Mexico, and drive down to a tiny coastal village called El Rosario.  Here we set up our tent in a real land of Babel, where no one speaks our language, and even those that do speak English don’t let on that they do.  The water here is frigid, I was expecting tropical, and we break out our wetsuits.  The waves are not bad, but the bottom is littered with rocks and debris and is treacherous, the kind of place where you can really slice up your feet.

            Besides that, we have heard horror stories of Americans being mistreated in Mexico, even by the police, and are disinclined to spend much time here.  In our tent at night, we confer and unanimously agree to return to the friendly camping areas of San Onofre.  In the morning we break camp, secretly surprised our car wasn’t messed with, and we drive up the long desert highway, pass through customs and reenter America feeling a lot like refugees. 

            San Onofre is a paradise with our names on it.  For outsiders like us, invaders essentially, that means not having to deal with all the territorial garbage.  The kids drive up here from San Diego and they sit around bonfires at night drinking Rolling Rock and throwing rocks at passing trains, but they welcome us into their circles and they turn us on to the music that’s popular on their airwaves.

            I strike up a conversation with one of the girls camping a few spots down from us.    Debbie is exactly what I imagined California girls would be like.  She, in turn, is intrigued by three southern boys who drove out west just to catch some waves.  She says that we are a lot more polite than the rude San Diego boys.  Debbie is plugged into the Southern California scene: the music, the surf culture, the people and the parties.  She talks happily about the society she moves in, the beach community, laughing and chatting as the night melts away like a flickering candle in the moonlight.             

It is the last days of our trip, and one memorable night, we sit around the campfire at Debbie’s campsite with a group of her friends listening to the music blasting from her car with the doors thrown open.  Beer flows freely and a joint makes the rounds.  Charlie is plastered.  He feels like throwing up and disappears and when I find him he is lying at the edge of the cliff.  I don’t want him to pass out and fall over the edge, so I try to drag him away from the ledge, but I’m pretty messed up too.  I end up scraping his back on the rocks.  I’m pretty stoned and the sound of Debbie’s laughter etches itself into my memory. The tan face and blond hair are similarly inscribed in my thoughts.  The smell of mesquite, which grows plentifully on the cliffs, where nothing else will grow, is forever impressed on my sensory neurons, as are the pounding of the surf, the San Diego rock music, and even the books I’m reading, for I will long remember the nuances of this trip, holding the details in my dreams as a virtual shrine.

            I keep thinking that here I have stumbled onto something valuable, but I can’t discern if it is love or the illusion of love, freedom or the absence of responsibility.  Even the companionship I have found here is a house of cards that will fall to reveal layers of loneliness and a desperate longing to cling to something that, once abandoned, can never again be quite accessed.

            The next day I wake up with a splitting hangover, take a breath to clear my head and then I remember – what a bacchanalia.  I wonder whether Charlie survived the night, but he is here in the tent, as is Graham, as is the fat girl from the campsite next to ours, who joined us in the night to ease her solitude. 

Our month in California is coming to a close, and it will be good to get back home, if home still exists, and if it does not, it will be good to get away from California.

            We did not come here to live, but only to get a taste, and what a delicious confection is was, all gooey and sweet, to which we now must say goodbye.  Goodbye to our cool friends from San Diego, goodbye to the carefree life, goodbye to the best waves we ever surfed.  Adios to the land of sol, and mas sol, sun and more sun, for it never rains in southern California.  You can just live outside and become one with the elements.  We will be heading back to the green lushness of America’s wettest region, the evergreen south, and we will look with awe upon the emerald forests and wonder why we never noticed before how green our backyard is.

            Of my time in California I can say that life on the road suited me just fine.  If there was anything I really missed during that time of camping out and laying down my head in a different place every night, it was my stereo system.  Record players require settlement.  Other than that, I could just as well live in my truck.

            I’m rather proud of my truck.  It’s a little Toyota pick-up, my friend Jon calls it a Toy truck, and it’s yellow with a stick shift and I put a camper on the back, carpet on the truck bed and curtains on the windows.  I could live in it, no problem.

            My Dad is a mechanic and he always made sure I had wheels.  My first ride was a midget racer I got when I was only four years old.  I ran it into the side of the house.  Next my Dad built me a mini-bike, and then I had a Yamaha motorcycle before I even had a driver’s license.  When I turned 16 Dad built me a dune buggy, but it was too cold in the winter and now I have my Toyota camper.    

I throw my surfboard in the back and go flying over Bogue Sound on the arching Cameron Langston Bridge, steering with my knees and playing my harmonica with both hands.  Now that I am back home, I wonder whether the little Carolina waves will sustain me. I’m aiming for a new spot half a mile from the Bogue Inlet Pier, a place only a few surfers know about.  I am resigned to being back on the East Coast, but if it is only two foot slop, I’m not even going to bother getting wet.

            What I find, however, is much worse than two foot slop.  Some idiot has erected a cyclone fence at my surfing spot, the entire length of the beach and I know just who did it.  McClain owns most of Emerald Isle, he is developing the land and making a pile of money and he is most surely behind this monstrosity.  Looking through the bars of the fence, the little two-foot waves suddenly seem so desirable.  It is a crime, unpardonable, to put up a fence to keep me out, and, I promise, I shall exact a price.

            Under cover of darkness I return to Emerald Isle and park at the Bogue Inlet Pier.  I hike down the deserted beach at midnight, walking near the surf which erases my footprints as I pass.  In the dim light of the stars, the fence is nearly invisible but no less impenetrable.  I am given an inhuman strength which allows me to pull pilings from the ground, tear gates from hinges and inflict a great deal of damage.  But looking at the mangled mess in the night, I realize, the fence wins.  I will not return here, the surfers will not ride this break further and the time will come when the surfers will be crowded out altogether and only those who own property will be able to access the waves.

            In the aftermath of my perfect crime, I try to keep a low profile.  What I mean by that is that I don’t vandalize any bulldozers or put sand in their gas tank or anything like that.  I actually have quite a talent for destroying heavy equipment.  Dozers may look indestructible, but actually they have many vulnerable points.  I try to stay out of trouble, but I do stupid things when I drink.

            Like this one night when I challenge a bird-brained bouncer at a skuzzy pizza joint, a guy named Tank, who fortunately does not pursue me into the parking lot where I retreat, spitting obscenities foolishly while my friends drag me to the car.

            The other lapse is when I go over to Emerald Isle near the end of the summer season and there are people everywhere and lots of noise, kids screaming and bright rotating lights like an out-of-control Ferris wheel.  I have had a few beers, and I walk around disdainful of the whole mess, the tourists, the proprietors and especially the developers.  I can hardly wait for winter to chase away the tourists so I can walk on the beach and watch the waves in peace.

            I’m pretty drunk, and I guess it’s never a good sign when you drink alone.  I run into some kids from my neighborhood over by the go-cart track.  Frank and Kyle are a couple years younger than me, and they seem all right, Frank is the leader and pudgy little Kyle is always looking to him for approval.  I just can not relate with their avocation.  They’re heavily into CB radios and the whole culture which surrounds it.  They explain to me that they have handles, radio names, and they have to be given the name over the airwaves from a trucker or another CB radio aficionado.  Frank says his handle is Flyboy.  They seem very interested in what I’ve been up to over the summer and I tell them about my trip to California and how the beaches there belong to the public, unlike the overdeveloped madness all around us.  They just look at each other stupidly and I realize, even in my compromised state, that I’m talking right over their heads.  Better leave it alone.  Actually, I say, there’s nothing much going on in my life, headed nowhere.

In September I return to the University of North Carolina.  Mom has granted my wish to rent a trailer because I’m tired of living in a dormitory, but the trailer has a low spirit like a slum or something.  I make the mistake of getting a roommate, a bodybuilder who is a real jerk and we almost get in a fistfight.  He would have killed me.  My gay journalism professor tries to seduce me, so that even that class becomes something of a chore, and I’m completely uninspired by my other classes.  By December I’m ready to drop out of school.  I’m headed for a fall and quitting school only hastens the inevitable.

            Back home, I go for a walk on the beach in the weeks following Christmas.  I see a fence on top of a sand dune, a really rickety fence that is almost falling down on its own, and I shove it on over, almost out of habit.  Right after I do that I see a big car heading in my direction and I hightail it on down the beach.  My heart is beating pretty fast, and I remind myself to not be so careless.  A little ways down the beach, I glance back, and there is a fat cop not ten steps behind me.  I start to sprint, but here comes another guy down out of the dunes to intercept me.  He tackles me and holds me until the cop comes up and puts on the handcuffs.  The cop looks at my driver’s license and says, yep, this is the guy.  Then he puts me in his squad car and transports me to the magistrate’s office.  

            The little fence that I just helped topple is so decrepit that it could not even be properly called a crime, but this cop is convinced that I might be in hot water for several more offenses.  In fact, he seems to think most of the acts of vandalism on Emerald Isle could be my handiwork, and he might be right, but I didn’t think he could prove that.  What are you talking about? I ask in a shaky voice, for I’m plenty scared.  I just pushed down one little fence.

            We have reliable information, says the magistrate, that you destroyed quite a bit of personal property, and that’s what you’re being charged with.  Someone turned you in for the reward.

            Suddenly, intuitively, I divine what has occurred.  The reliable information was provided by me.  I might as well have signed my name to each fence and bulldozer I wrecked, for in the summer when I met up with Frank and Kyle at the beach, I was drunk, and I must have told them everything.  Ye, Judas.  My backstabbing friends have sold me out for an unknown sum of money.  The creeps probably got at least enough to buy new CB radios.  I could think of some new handles for them: Backstab Boy and Gutter Rat.  Come in Gutter Rat, this here’s the Backstab Boy.  Go ahead Backstab, what’s your twenty?

            My Dad comes and bails me out at the magistrate’s office and he is not happy.  A copy of a form typed out by the magistrate details the charges and sets my court date.  Very little talk around the dinner table this night.  

            I am warned and advised to stay away from Emerald Isle, which puts a crimp in my plans.  Nothing worse than getting expelled from Paradise.  On the one hand, I just want to get this all over with as quickly as possible, but on the other hand, I dread the day of accounting.  The day comes quickly enough however, in spite of me, and the night before, I cannot sleep, but just lie awake listening to music through my headphones.  Like a last meal before the execution, the music never sounded so sweet, so cathartic, especially Trower, the guitarist who was so popular in San Diego.  Just hearing him takes me back to those untroubled days on the West Coast, now elusive as a dream.

            In the morning I quietly eat breakfast and drive down to the courthouse in Beaufort.  I don’t have to wait long before my case is called, and when I stand up, McClain comes and stands right beside me.  McClain, whose fences were mangled and whose bulldozers were dismantled, tells the Judge what happened.  The Judge asks me for my version and I repeat the story I rehearsed.  Then McClain asks to speak with the Judge personally and the Judge grants his request.  I sweat it out.  The Judge is ready to nail me, but on the advice of my attorney, I finally admit my crimes and throw myself on the mercy of the court.  Then the situation changes rather dramatically, because, for one thing, McClain is placated.  The Judge agrees to allow a ‘prayer for judgment’, which means that if I stay out of trouble for six months, I can avoid most of the penalties which I rightly deserve: probation, counseling, fines, restitution.

            The Judge does command me to stay away from Emerald Isle.  No problem there.  I never want to set foot on the doomed little island again.  Instead I move down to Carolina Beach, near Wilmington, and rent a cramped bungalow a block from the beach.  I get a job that pays okay but physically wears me out, hard manual labor.  I choose to live completely in exile; I don’t see my family or friends at all, and I don’t make any new friends.  I just keep to myself.  Twenty years old but I feel older, like a hardened criminal emerging from the darkness of prison.  Except that the real truth is I’m still in prison and I’m there by choice.  I don’t actually come right out and say ‘Leave me alone’, but the bitter words are written all over my face.

            I’m a Leo, whatever that means, and when I turn 21 in August I walk a block to the ABC store and purchase a pint of Southern Comfort.  I put on some music, I’m very proud of my stereo system, and start drinking, by myself, before noon.  The whiskey is sweet as candy but, man, what a kick.  I pass out in the early afternoon.  I don’t wake up until the wee hours of the next morning and it feels as though I missed my birthday.  It is about the most depressing birthday I can imagine, but it does not impress upon me the need to change my ways, not yet.

            When I admitted my culpability in the demolition of McClain’s cyclone fence in Emerald Isle, my lawyer looked at me and said: You’re not a bad kid, just a little misguided.  Even now I am aware of the conflict in me and my inclination to do what I know is right, but I convince myself that it is not yet the right time to rehabilitate, and I justify my own misbehavior.  I have drawn a very small existence for myself and to acknowledge it makes me lonely and unhappy.  Something evil got a hold on me.  To be honest, the only things that keep me going are music and surfing. 

            And my job, what a dead-end road!  I need the income but the job really stinks.  I’m a deckhand on a dredge boat and I work with a bunch of cutthroats in hardhats and rednecks, and I’m at the bottom of the totem pole.  Our lot is muscular, physical labor, working with heavy machinery to transport dirt from the river to the roadbed for a new highway.  We work a swing shift, which means a week working days, a week working nights, a week working graveyard shift and then double back and work two eight hour shifts in one day.  It is quite demanding and it’s about to kill me.  Laying pipe, moving sand.  A week after my birthday bash I oversleep for about the fifth time.  The overseer calls me into his office to inform me that I am released.  I argue with him, but only half-heartedly, I know I really had this coming and in fact it is probably overdue, and my arguments are futile.  It was the foreman’s decision, son, he says, talk with him.  I drive over the causeway down river from the dredge and scream my favorite expletive into the wind in the direction of my dear co-workers, but it is drowned in the noise of the great suction pump, sucking the muddy river bottom, and rolling up my window I drive on into oblivion. 

            The time has come to move on, but – where to?  what next?  The places of my youth, once so familiar that I called them home, I now wander as a refugee.  Again and again I hear the voice of California calling to me like the songs of the Sirens, those lethal songs of the Sirens. 

            I hold up and scrutinize a dream that I see clearly at night when I lay down in my bed: a small house right on the ocean, a brilliant but modest career as a writer, and always, the Siren is there.  This is my dream and it floats before me like a pool of water in front of a man lost in the desert, a mirage that supersedes reason.  Is this freedom which I aspire to, or another illusion?  Is it love which calls, this aching desire which offers only emptiness?  Fill me up. 

            But my compass is pointing west.  I have a little money in my pocket and I will get a job when I get to Santa Barbara, for that is where I am bound.  That is where the Siren beckons, tanned and blond, dancing to the music of San Diego. 

            The first leg of this journey requires crossing the mountains in western North Carolina, but the vistas are awe-inspiring and I’m craning my neck left and right to take it all in.  On the other side is Tennessee, a long undulating state.  I burn up the highway, reaching Memphis around midnight.  I drive on, bridging the dark waters of the Mississippi River and running in the night until no one is on the road except the truckers.  In the dead of night I pull into a rest stop and crash in the back of the camper until the sun is high and wakes me.

            You can’t beat breakfast at a truck stop, and breakfast is my favorite meal.  I roll on through Arkansas and Louisiana, and in the panhandle of Texas I stop for gas.  While I am gassing up my pick-up a kid comes running up, says he got left behind by his friend, and can I give him a ride as far as the next exit.  I feel sorry for the guy.  Sure, come on.  About half a mile down the interstate we come across his ‘friend’.  Can you pick him up, he asks, and I get the feeling I have been set up, but I pull over anyway.  These two guys seem to be grateful for the ride, apparently rides are hard to come by, but they bicker in the front seat like a married couple.  They are going as far as Highway 77 in Arizona, and then north to an outdoor concert.  I’m the kind of nice guy who is unwilling to kick them out, and so I resolve to tolerate them as far as Highway 77, but they do get on my nerves.

            Evidently they are broke, for when I stop for lunch at a diner, they sit and watch me eat, saying they are not really hungry.  When I walk out they steal the tip off the table, and I go back inside and leave another tip.  The older, bigger guy decides to ride in the back of the camper, and I and the young guy talk for a while.  When we stop to check on him, he is furious because he was getting groggy from the fumes in back and when he pounded on the window, we didn’t hear him.  Says he nearly passed out.  I decide to drive on through the night to get rid of these freeloaders, the good news being that I am making great time, pulling closer to the cool and soothing waters of the Pacific.

            My truck is nearly alone on the road in the dark, pre-dawn hours, and as a hint of light transfigures the Arizona sky, I draw energy from the coming morning.  My passengers sleep fitfully curled up on the seat next to me.  We arrive at the point where 77 crosses 40.  Traveling a little ways north on 77 to the first exit, I can barely conceal my smile as I pull my toy truck into a truck stop in the middle of nowhere.  My wayward companions prepare to disembark.  Come to the concert with us, they urge.  California is calling me, I say, adios.  They shoulder their backpacks and I watch them wander off across the parking lot looking for their next ride.  I fill up my tank and turn myself again west.      

I am so relieved to be rid of my guests that I spend the next day sightseeing, taking detours to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest, and I could spend days in the peaceful desert preserves, but the ocean calls.  Driving on through the desert on Highway 40, I watch the mountains slide by on my right and I keep thinking it would be a fine adventure to climb them and sleep under the stars.  Finally I pull into a rest area, squeeze through a barb-wire fence and hike a mile into the desert and up a mountain-like ridge at sunset.  In the gathering darkness of evening, it is in fact a surreal hike through giant cactus and misshapen boulders, a real moonscape.

            At the summit I find a stone arch and, under it, a little room to spread out my sleeping bag.  It feels like I’m camping out on another planet.  I get high there alone in the desert and I start to think I am the last man on the planet.  A palpable paranoia descends. 

Abruptly, heavy black clouds obscure the stars and the moon is darkened.  As bolts of lightning illuminate the alien terrain, heavy drops of rain begin to fall and the wind begins to scream.

            Sometimes I have premonitions that I am going to die, and suddenly I perceive that maybe my time has come.  Looking around, I start to wonder whether scorpions live up here among the rocks, and a tiny voice in my head is predicting that the stone arch is going to fall in the night, a tiny voice admittedly, but it won’t shut up.  But there is no way I’m going to sleep out in the rain.  If it’s time for me to die, then I resign myself to it.  Anyway, what happens when the rock caves in and crushes my body?  Just black sleep, or do I wake up on the other side with a splitting headache? If I die here so far from home, not a soul will know.  The lightning flashes again, from the east to the west, freezing the ancient boulders in frightful positions that crowd around me.  The thunder crashes nearby.  Jesus, what was that?  I’m sorry, Jesus, I didn’t mean to say that. 

            Suddenly I realize what I must do.  I have to turn from my evil ways.  Give up the booze and the dope.  Stop destroying other people’s property.  I need to read the Bible.  For the first time in my life, I stare God in the face, and I say, sorry, God, I can’t do it.  I’m really scared, and I might die here alone tonight, but I can’t make promises that I know I won’t keep in the morning, assuming that I survive until morning.  The storm rages forth and I know I need absolution, I desire it, but it is not forthcoming.  Then the fury passes on, the stars blink back on.  The arch holds.

            In the morning I look out from my perch at the sun rising over the desert.  I don’t know what to make of the fireworks of the night before.  I didn’t die, but perhaps I should have, and maybe I’m living on borrowed time.  I roll up my sleeping bag and descend.  I walk back to my camper and look at the arch where I spent the night.  It is not as high as I thought, but a scenic spot for an epiphany.

            I roll on, over the Rockies and through Flagstaff.  On the backside of the mountains, my little truck starts to lose power.  Forty is the top speed, going downhill, and then thirty is all she will do.  No power on the upgrades.  I stumble into Needles, find a tin-roof garage on a gravel side street.  The grease-stained man inside shakes his head.  Head gasket is busted, he solemnly intones, take me three days to get parts.  Trouble is, I’m short of cash.  This is major surgery, so I phone my folks to please send me some money so I can get out to California.  They wire the money through Western Union.  The little camper will be brought back to life.

            I hang out in Needles for three days, not much to do.  Finally the patient is released and we are back on the road, finally reaching the valleys of California’s eastern edge, then smoggy L.A., and finally the Pacific Coast Highway.  Then it is north to Santa Barbara, and in the evening I pull up at an apartment near the University.  I hear laughter coming from an open window, familiar laughter.  This is unmistakably Debbie from San Diego, a girl that I met once as a camper at San Onofre, and have written a few letters to.

If Debbie knows me at all it is through my letters.  I am a writer, after all, and studied journalism at the University of North Carolina.  I was the editor of the Town Crier, the West Carteret High School newspaper, and an editor and contributor to the Revere, the student’s poetry magazine.  I would compose two and three page letters, love letters essentially, not so much to Debbie as to the ideal she represented, the quintessential California girl.  Through these she knows a little about my life and inner thoughts, but she doesn’t dream, not in a million years, that I will make the 2000 mile trek to pursue the relationship. 

I sit in my truck for a few minutes asking myself, why am I here?  Finally I walk over and knock on the door.  Debbie is happy to see me, what a surprise! and she is glowing and beautiful as I remembered her.  Her blond hair is tied in a ponytail and her teeth are dazzling when she smiles, contrasting against her brown skin.  We sit and chat in the living room, but later, when Debbie goes to the kitchen to pour some drinks, her roommate informs me, Debbie has a boyfriend. 

            Everybody needs a dream, but some dreams were never meant to become reality.  I will sleep alone in my camper this night.  The next day I go looking for work.  I find a job in an industrial laundry where all the employees are Mexican, and I spend my days in total isolation. 

            For a solid month, an uninspiring month, I help sort napkins from tablecloths and run the giant machines that spin the linens clean.  In a month’s time, I only make one friend.

            I meet Bob in the park.  I’m sitting on a park bench playing my guitar when the tall black homeless man in army fatigues walks over and starts singing.  He just makes up words as he goes along and if I alter the chords, he stays right with me.  As the song builds toward a climax, I’m beating the guitar and Bob is singing over and over, I wanna die, I wanna die, and we finish up emotionally drained.  This is even before we introduce ourselves.  I’m thinking we just tapped into some sort of muse, a dark muse, perhaps.  That was inspired, man!  Bob is a veteran; he went to Viet Nam, couldn’t handle the sound of shots being fired or the proximity of death, was declared unfit and shipped back home. 

            I tell Bob you can’t trust people, they will hurt you and take every semblance of pride you got, and Bob agrees.  I tell him that life is stacked against people like us, people with no power, and Bob says, no.  No, he says, I know the man upstairs is looking out for me.  Soon as I get my life right, he says, He’s gonna bless me.  What? I say, looks like he left you high and dry.  No, says Bob, He’s taking care of me, I know he is.  He sent you along, didn’t He? 

            Bob doesn’t have a sleeping bag, so I give him my extra.  He’s upset when he finds out I have spending money, of course I always have money, I work, and he accuses me of holding out on him.  I give him a couple dollars and he blows it at the billiard tables.

            But Bob saves my life.  Walking down the sidewalk one evening, a Mexican worker calls me over.  Quieres veinte dollares? He asks.  Sure I want twenty dollars, I say.  Ven aqui, he says.  Bob says, wait.  Don’t go.  He’s not a good person.  And I listen, for Bob is my only friend.

            One day as I am leaving the laundry, having just punched the time clock, I am accosted by a tall, clean-cut fellow in a light green turtleneck, nearly running into him on my way out the door.  We could be a study in opposites.  He is carrying a bulky case of candy under his arm, and he says he is raising money for his church.  Me, I’m in a hurry and have no money, so I give him the brush-off.  Not today, man, I’m busy.  Okay, he says and smiles, well, have a nice day.  Then I feel kind of bad because I was rather curt and he seemed like a nice guy. 

            I have been aware for some time that two of my college acquaintances are living in Berkeley, just a little north of here.  I worked with Eddie and Patti in a Blimpie’s making sub sandwiches while I was going to college.  Patti is really tiny, especially when she stands next to Eddie, who slouches to play down the disparity.   Eddie was a manager at Blimpie’s, but he was sometimes like a mentor, giving good advice.  Get a wife, Eddie used to say, so you don’t waste all your money going out looking for girls.  I surprise them with a call, and then I decide to drive up for the weekend and see my old friends, maybe score a home-cooked meal.

            Eddie and Patti are glad to see me.  Eddie is doing graduate work towards a degree in Jewish theology, wearing a yarmulke and Patti is typing lecture transcripts for a professor.  They are an odd couple but they make it work. 

You came all the way to California to get a girl and she dumped you? Patti says.  Don’t give him a hard time, says Eddie.  

            There is a Blimpie’s here in Berkeley and I go by to see if they are hiring.  The manager thinks he might be able to give me a few hours.  I decide to stay here in Berkeley.  It is here that my luck finally changes.

BOONEVILLE

             I have only been in town a couple days when I begin to meet Unification members.  The first encounter is in the employment office where I go to look for work.  A young guy comes up behind me as I stand peering at the bulletin board.  He hands me a card introducing the Creative Community Project and explains that his group provides a gathering place for community activists and idealists.  Berkeley does not have a reputation for friendliness to religions and churches, so the Unification members created the C.C.P. to get around that persistent prejudice.  The locals think of it as a front group, but the members are not trying to reach the locals; they are after the young people who are drawn from all over America, bearing backpacks and wearing long hair, traveling due to their dissatisfaction with society.  We’re dissatisfied too, the young man explains to me, but we try to keep a positive attitude and create a harmonious community.

            My next encounter is with Laura.  Laura is a pretty blonde with a Donna Reed smile who is manning an information table on Telegraph Avenue, that busy street at the center of the counter-culture and political activism, where the Dead have walked.  The intersection of getting high and social reform.  Laura is sitting at the table smiling at strangers, stubbornly ignored by the locals and trying to make eye contact with passers-by.  Laura sings like an angel with a sweet soprano, but I will know that later.  All I know now is that when she calls out to me, my feet turn toward the brochure-laden table.  Laura explains that the Creative Community Project sponsors a food bank, hosts community dinners and gives seminars at the University.  She mentions a retreat in the mountains to the north, imparting an almost mythical quality to it, a utopian farm hiding in an idyllic wilderness.  For a moment I catch myself staring off into the distance. 

            We’re having an intercultural dinner at our center on Hearst Street tonight, Laura says.  Perhaps you’d like to come?  I’m afraid I have to work, I answer, sliding on down the busy street. 

            Next day, I am drawn again to the information table.  This time there is a young guy with slicked-back black hair and horn rim glasses.  Hi, I’m Barry, he says, I’m with the Creative Community Project.  You’re the third person I’ve met, I say, nodding to Barry and passing on.

            In my case, the fourth time is the charm.  It is the last week of November, Thanksgiving Day, and the University is deserted.  I’m thankful because I have the campus to myself and I spend the entire afternoon skateboarding through the Quad and up and down the sidewalks.  Berkeley is hilly like San Francisco, a skater’s paradise, and I have it all to myself, but after awhile, as the sun is setting, I sit down on some steps and my mind drifts home to Carolina.

            Thanksgiving at my grandparent’s house was always worth the long drive to get there.  Our grandparents spoiled my sister and me terribly, and our parents allowed it, but quickly reestablished, on the way home, that we were not really the center of the universe, as we may have been led to believe. 

            My grandmother would spend the entire afternoon preparing the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce and ambrosia, fit for the gods.  I was always the last to finish, but I did the most damage.

            Now, for the first time in my life,  I am missing Thanksgiving with the family.  I am missing my grandparent’s teetering old millhouse, football on the television and a steady stream of relatives and neighbors.  The centerpiece of the holiday is the feast my grandmother prepares, but I always look forward to sitting at their old Story & Clark upright piano in the living room and improvising for hours on the few chords I know, having never had the benefit of piano lessons.  At least I have my guitar with me, in the back of my Toyota camper, where I will sleep tonight, parked on a Berkeley backstreet. 

            As the sun is fading and the light is draining from the northern California sky, I get up to skate back to my camper, and call it a night, when a guy in a gray business suit and black wingtips comes running up out of the twilight.  Hey, he says, can I try that? 

            I hand him my skateboard and he stands on it, a little wobbly, rides a few feet and jumps off. 

            Hi, I’m Laurey, he says with a smile.  I’m with the Creative Community Project.

            I’m familiar with it, I say.

            We’re having a big Thanksgiving dinner, he says, but I can’t go back without a guest.

            In the filtering twilight, I can not see clearly the face of my companion.  How can we see that the tone and direction of our entire life turns on a simple decision made in an ordinary moment?  I have always walked alone, but here in the semi-dark I am aware for the first time of my need of a friend.  Laurey is disarmingly open, as though he’d been expecting me.  I decide I’m not ready to retire to my lonely camper quite yet.

            We make our way to a big house on the top of a Berkeley hill.  Quite a few people have gathered and we are just in time for dinner.  Much of the food, the turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes, could have come from my grandmother’s southern pine dining table.  Other offerings, the dates and dried fruit, the guacamole and vegetarian casserole, are typical California fare, and are derived from the Creative Community Project’s garden and gleaning operations.  Laurey seems to know everyone here.  I can see now that he is lean and angular with a stubbly shadowed chin, a ready grin and intense eyes.  He speaks in the slightly affected manner of Californians and is an engaging conversationalist.  I have not had a home-cooked meal in a while and I try to pace myself but everyone pushes me to help myself to more food. 

Afterwards we assemble in a room set up with folding chairs where a professor from a small local liberal arts college gives a short presentation on the character and nature of Truth.  He concludes that the origin of Truth might be referred to as Universal Prime Character, or God.  The mention of that word causes me to turn to Laurey with trepidation and ask, Is this something to do with religion?  Laurey reassures me that the main function of the group is helping people, and that among the members are a variety of philosophical outlooks.  Then he invites me to come for lunch the following day.  Somewhat placated, I accept the invitation.  He sees me out, bids me goodnight, and I skateboard, downhill all the way, back to my truck. 

This, then, was the first secret of the enormous success of the Unification Church’s outreach: there was an army of volunteers canvassing the public areas of the Bay Area, and they were on fire.  I had been in town for a week and had already met four members, and each one had approached me with sincerity and conviction.  Volunteers manned information booths on busy streets; they hit bus stations and parks and were ubiquitous on the campus of UC Berkeley.  They were drawn like magnets to young people with backpacks and sleeping bags.  The members were going out at all hours of the day or night to witness; at midnight they would hit the bus station and meet a wanderer with a backpack, newly arrived.  They would endeavor to talk with students between classes, idlers in the park, revelers returning from the bars and anyone who crossed their path, in the quest for one prepared person. 

            They got persecuted, of course, but the Creative Community Project thrived on rejection.  If anything it made them more determined.  Some went out alone, but mostly they went in two’s and three’s to encourage each other.  Older members went with new members and taught them how to engage a stranger in conversation, and how to discern a good prospect.

            If there were plenty of fishers out trolling, there were also plenty of fish to catch.  The Bay Area in the mid-seventies played host to a generation that had abandoned jobs and careers and set out on a search to find meaning beyond money and family.  This generation uniquely sought to fill a spiritual hunger, traveling cross-country and often ending up in California, and as they were not finding what they were seeking, and remained empty inside, they were good prospects.  The combination of one group of young people searching for meaning and another group passionate to share their faith spawned the explosive growth of the Unification Movement in the Bay Area, mid-1970’s.

Behind the scenes, a lot of preparation went into the effort to meet people. Members were going out to witness long hours.  They were talking to a lot of people, getting contact information, and following up, but these were external actions.  The internal part of witnessing was praying and fasting, and God noticed their sincerity.  

            Spiritual conditions were an important part of the process.  The Unification Church was a spiritual movement since its inception in Korea.  Spiritual conditions enlisted the help of the spirit world, but seen from the perspective of witnessing as a battle between God and Satan over the soul of one individual, spiritual conditions allow God to come down and claim ownership.

Laurey meets me on a Thursday evening, and he invites me to come back for lunch the next day, when he will encourage me to attend the weekend workshop at Booneville.  During the interval, he has to rely on the power of his prayer and his spiritual conditions to bring me back.  In fact, for me it is a spiritual battle, and I struggle over whether to keep our appointment.  In the end, as I have not had a shower in a long while, I decide that if I can find a shower before lunch, then I will return to the large, mysterious house on the Berkeley hill as planned, but when one is living in a truck, finding a shower can be a challenge.  Someone I meet on the street suggests I try the dormitory.  The dorm is open, and empty, and I am able to shower there unmolested.  Then I tie my long hair back and make my way to our noontime rendezvous.

Laurey and I sit down to a simple lunch on the patio.  He knows that I am a skeptic about religion, so he suggests we just meditate for a moment on the origins of the meal, from the seed to the harvest, from the farmer to the grocery to our kitchen and through the sure hands of Karen, the cook. 

            It is a fine and perfect day in late November, but the California coast knows no winter.  The large house is nearly deserted; most of the members are on the street, trying to find a guest for the weekend workshop, although some members have real jobs.  Karen prepares a simple healthy lunch for Laurey and me: salad from the garden, dates, cream of broccoli soup, yogurt with dried apples. We sit on the patio in the partial shade and talk.  Laurey is trying to sell me on the idea of taking the evening bus to Booneville, spending the weekend on the farm, and finding out more about his community, but I already know I am going. 

            Laurey is an open book.  He tells me a little about growing up Jewish, being very happy until a breakup with his long-time girlfriend left him depressed and questioning his whole life.  He sat in a chair in his room for eight hours, and could find no meaning to his life.  He has found something very fulfilling in working with the Creative Community Project.

            Turns out we are both musicians, and as I have my harmonica in my pocket and his guitar is nearby, we play some songs together.  Laurey is not going out every day to witness because he has a regular job.  He is vice-president of a carpet-cleaning company; hence he is always in business attire. 

            I’m not the kind of person to open up to someone I just met, but I confide in Laurey that I sometimes have premonitions that I am going to die.  Laurey says that people often get that feeling before a major change in their life.

            This is my last lunch before a major change.

In the evening I carry my sleeping bag on the bus bound for Booneville.  Laurey sees me off, but he is not going up to the farm.  We drive through the night on steep switchbacks over dark valleys in the mountains north of San Francisco.  A little before midnight we pull up at a rutted dirt road with a padlocked gate and a small sign that reads Ideal City Project.  A guy in a pick-up truck is waiting to let us in.  We bump down the road to a parking area and unload.  The farm is quiet; nobody is waiting up. 

            In the dark we are directed to various rustic buildings.  In a low gray wooden structure I step over sleeping bodies till I find enough space to unroll my sleeping bag.  I lay down in my bag amidst the dust, the stove-smoke, the snoring and the rustling and breath a sigh of relief, for my 2000 mile journey has come to an end.

            By the time I got to Booneville, the movement had grown like a giant oak tree.  The trunk was like the lecturers and staff, the branches were like the army of witnessers and the leaves were like the budding new members, but all of this had sprouted from one tiny seed. 

            Onni was a young Korean woman who had come to San Francisco to help transplant the Unification Church to America.  She had tried to witness to people for two years, even talking to strangers in the checkout lines at the grocery stores without recruiting a single member.  Finally she found Kristina.  Kristina got excited about the message and she brought several of her siblings and quite a few of her friends to join the fledgling movement.  Kristina was charismatic, articulate and passionate, but more importantly, she was completely united with Onni, and there is no power under the sun stronger than two people bound together for a higher purpose.  That an American woman trusted an oriental woman only multiplied the power; she had overcome a barrier.  Kristina’s life had been touched by God in a dramatic way that compelled her to throw away her cigarettes, turn her life around and embark on a new journey with Heaven as the sole destination.  With Onni as the spiritual leader, Kristina as her spokesman and organizer and a few dedicated members as the launching pad, the movement took off, and by the time I came along, it was a well-established entity and the members were familiar sights all over the Bay Area.

            In the early days the members would invite guests for dinner and afterwards give a lecture that was an introduction to Divine Principle, the teaching of Reverend Moon.  Divine Principle is an explanation and elucidation of the Bible, but Reverend Moon maintains that it is not his interpretation but was received as a revelation from God.  Why would a new interpretation be necessary?  Various understandings of the Bible have resulted in the current situation of over 300 Christian denominations.  Much of the Bible is written in symbolic language and what is needed now is for God to reveal the real meaning so that all the churches can be brought together as one body of Christ.    

Those early members were serious about sharing their conviction with anyone who would listen, striking up conversations with strangers and seeking in each person a sign that this was the one God had prepared.

I came to California seeking something else, freedom, independence.  As a long-time surfer, I came to find good waves and accessible beaches.  A surfer is always looking for the elusive, perfect wave.  Instead, what I find is, firstly, a friend, and that is important because I needed a friend.  Beyond that, I am intrigued by this group of people who are striving to live for each other.  How can I know that?  I have known these people less than two days.  I can’t, of course, but at least on the surface what I see is the absence of cynicism, a forthrightness and simplicity that is disarming, and faces that are so bright and friendly (some would say glassy-eyed) that I can’t hold on to my grimace for long.

            By the time I arrive in Booneville, the organization is more sophisticated, but the basic formula is the same.  At the heart of the witnessing effort is Onni’s conviction that the hope of the future resides in Reverend Moon’s teachings. 

            Those teachings were condensed for the weekend workshops into five or six main lectures: The Principle of Creation (Nature of God), The Fall of Man, Principle of Restoration, Christology, The Second Coming, and, The Spirit World.  This was the curricula which awaited me for my first weekend workshop.

            I had grown up in the Methodist Church, but I had grown disillusioned and drifted away from it and become slightly agnostic.  We used to go to church every other Sunday as a result of some compromises.  Mom had grown up Catholic, but she converted to Methodism when she married Dad.  Since Dad did not feel compelled to attend church, and Mom felt it was important, we went to church every other week. 

            I had grown up saying a simple children’s prayer before bed, until I got too old for it.  Thus, my relationship with God did not keep up with my physical maturation, and He got left behind.  Also, I never connected with the Methodist theology at all.  For example, when I read in Revelations that Jesus would return on the clouds with a sword on his tongue (Rev.19:15), I thought he would have an actual blade in his mouth.  The symbolism eluded me, as it does many Christians.             

Also, the Methodist Church of Swansboro North Carolina had an organ, a small choir and only one lady who could actually sing.  I definitely was not expecting a church with a rock band and a new message.

I rouse myself on Saturday morning before the general wake-up call.  The November morning is nippy, but there is a campfire and a few early-risers hold their hands against it.  Soon as wake-up becomes official, the hordes begin to gather round the fire, until there are maybe 200 people milling about hugging themselves warm. 

This day begins in earnest when a couple hundred people form a circle and commence exercising, not with military precision, but more like a band of gypsies.  Some of the exercises are unusual, stretching the eyeball, massaging the brain, that sort of thing, but the atmosphere is overwhelmingly congenial.  This goes on for an hour until breakfast is ready.

We split into groups of about 12 and eat with our group.  I like my group, in fact I like everything about this place so far, but I am about to be challenged.  The first lecture of the morning is pertaining to the existence of God.

The lecture hall is a long, low building whose prior usage had been as a coop for chickens.  As we enter the hall, the dust is flying and the band is rocking on the stage.  The audience is moving and, sure, it’s not ZZ Top, but I can feel the electricity. 

The woman playing guitar draws my attention.  She has strong stage presence and a peaceful charisma.  This is Kristina, Onni’s first disciple, and she seems to be having a great time.  We sing ourselves hoarse and then the band retires from the stage. 

A soft-spoken man with receding hairline and round spectacles is going to give the first lecture.  This is Noah, who also is a kind of camp manager.  Onni was not going to use him as a lecturer because he had a fierce stutter, but he learned the material, organized it, and overcame his stutter.  Now he is the main lecturer, and he is going to give the Principle of Creation.  I listen to the lecture with an open mind and am stunned to discover that God exists.

This is my overwhelming conclusion after listening to the presentation.  Ever since I was a teenager, I struggled about the existence of God.  Even when I thought He might exist, I thought He did not need us to worship Him.  Other times I could not feel God at all, He did not exist in my world, but the Principle of Creation explains God in such logical terms that my mind can grasp it and I am relieved because I realize I wanted to believe in God all along.  Of course it is one thing to comprehend God intellectually, and quite another to hear His voice spiritually and feel Him in your heart, but this in an important first step for me and absolutely crucial to a more important realization that is about to take place.  This is like the beginning of an awakening.

My Methodist ancestors are rolling over in their graves.  Noah has just explained that God has both a masculine and a feminine aspect.  Is this Christian or Eastern thinking?  It doesn’t bother me because, as I mentioned, I was never that big on theology anyway.  Noah is teaching from the first chapter of Divine Principle, called Principle of Creation, concerning the nature of God, and the relationships between God and man and the universe.  Since everything in the creation has a masculine or feminine aspect, and everything has an internal character and an external form, the conclusion is that the origin, God, must also have those same qualities.  Here is God, here is creation, the causal being is expressed and embodied in that which he created, or, as Genesis 1:27 says: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  Noah poses the question of why God created man in the first place.  No person, not even God, can be happy in isolation, so God created man to share the joy of his creation, and to share love.  He created children for much the same reason that people have children.

We have group discussions after the lecture and I participate.  We eat lunch and play dodge ball.  Then we have the second lecture which is the Fall of Man and it goes completely over my head. 

Let me say a word here about the Fall of Man.  The Fall of Man is probably the most important chapter of Rev. Moon’s teaching.  When he was a young man, Reverend Moon tried to uncover the secret of man’s fall from grace.  He did not believe that eating a fruit could be the reason God would expel the first couple from Eden.  Then he discovered the secret that the two trees in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, symbolized Adam and Eve.  He deduced that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents Eve’s love, and that eating the fruit meant a sexual relationship between Eve and the Archangel.  He asked God if this was true and God denied it.  He determinedly asked God a second and a third time if it was true, and finally God acknowledged that this was the real reason that man was kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

Somehow the lecture doesn’t impress me.  Was it a fruit or an act of adultery which caused the world to be separated from God?  I only know the world is messed up, and I am consoled just to know that God exists at all.  We discuss the Fall of Man in our group, but I am impatient for the next thing.  In the evening we have entertainment.  There are some very talented individuals among us, and I am impressed with the quality of the music.

By the time the day is drawing to its conclusion, I am getting used to all the praying and singing and it no longer strikes me as odd.  I am tired but nourished in a good way that makes me feel like I have not been replenished in a long while.  The weekend workshop is like an initiation or a rebirth, breaking the shell which restrained me and freeing the spirit inside, but the more important of the two days is yet to come, when my newly liberated spirit will find a deeper comprehension.

As I am sleeping now before a big day in my life, this night might be a proper juncture to evaluate the effectiveness of the Creative Community Project and the recruiting methods.  The CCP is recruiting young people on the street, transporting them to the farm where they study Divine Principle and many join the movement.  Critics, and they are legion, would say that the CCP is not up-front and forthcoming enough about its affiliation with Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, but the damage from bad publicity is already starting to take its toll on the witnessing.  If there is a potential benefit here for misguided young people, and I am the evidence that there is, then perhaps the group is right to soldier on by placing the emphasis on the message.

Sunday morning.  In the air is a seriousness that has not been there the previous day.  The first lecture of the morning is to be given by Kristina, and her topic is Christology.  I listen attentively as Kristina describes the crucifixion, a familiar story, but my reaction is totally unexpected.  For the first time, I am affected by the composure of Jesus in the face of the abuse, torture and debasement.  It’s as though I am hearing his unbelievable words for the first time, and I cry to consider the power of the love of God embodied in Jesus that eclipsed the world’s hatred for a glorious, tragic moment.  Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.  Then Jesus embraces me and says, I’ve been waiting so long for you.  I sob and say, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.

Kristina is emphasizing the humanness of Jesus, that which made him feel the same emotions with the same intensity as any one of us.  To feel what we feel, and yet do what we could not do, sets him apart, but calls us to reformation.  By emphasizing his divinity, I’m afraid that theologians have rendered his sacrifice superhuman, and the quality of his heart unattainable.  Now I see Jesus in a new light, and I can never look at things in the same way again.

People who study these kinds of things call it a conversion experience.  All I know is that I want more of it.  I ask the group leader if I can stay on the farm and join the seven-day program.

After Kristina’s speech, I feel emotionally drained.  I am enamored of a song which I heard in the workshop, and I borrow a guitar and am busy trying to learn it.  It was written by one of the sisters in the workshop and is called ‘If You Should Hear a Song.’  The lyrics, simple yet profound, strike a chord with me, and confirm to me what some songwriters say about songs being channeled instead of created, as though the words were there all along, waiting to be received from a higher realm. 

The day ends with a big party.  About forty of us decide to stay on the farm to continue our study of the Principle.  We are the fruit of all the brothers and sisters hard work and sacrifice: the prayers and fasts, the countless hours spent witnessing, the dinners and speeches, the singing and the planning.  Forty of us are ready to delve deeper, and everybody comes together to celebrate the new spiritual babies with song, feast and fellowship.  Everything I own I left behind in my truck, but tonight my truck could sprout wings and fly away on a sea-breeze and I would watch it go, for all I need is here.

While weekends on the farm are exciting and hectic, by Monday the schedule settles down and the priority is on studying the Principle.  There are three lectures daily, as well as group discussions, sports and chores.  There is time set aside for individual prayer, and with no distractions to speak of, the environment is ideal for a fledgling spiritual life.  There is an emphasis on living for the sake of others, and ample opportunities to put it into practice.  Some intrepid members wake up early to study the Bible or Reverend Moon’s speeches, but for most of us the daily schedule already contains abundant content.  What about staying up late to read?  Onni discourages it, saying it is more righteous to rise early.

Noah has distilled the Principle into manageable bites, conveying the essence in simple stories with a generous portion of humor and a touch of Biblical drama, and his stories are engaging.  The first lecture of the morning introduces the concept of indemnity. 

Noah turns to the blackboard and writes, in deliberate flawless letters, ‘lesser indemnity’, and under that ‘equal indemnity’, and below that ‘greater indemnity’.  Lesser indemnity, he explains, is when a debt is cancelled for a lesser sum.  The greatest example of lesser indemnity is Jesus death on the cross as payment for the sins of man, but Noah does not dwell on that subject; we are spiritual babies, not yet ready for solid foods, who need to be encouraged on our path and offered a glimpse of Heaven.  Instead he recites a story about a boy who gets caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.  His mother scolds him.  No cookies before dinner.  This is an example of lesser indemnity, Noah says.  Equal indemnity is exemplified by the Old Testament adage, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  Greater indemnity would be required in the case where the condition of lesser indemnity went unfulfilled.  For example when God asked Abraham to offer a sacrifice of a dove, a ram and a heifer, Abraham neglected to cut the dove in two and Satan claimed the sacrifice.  Therefore God asked him to offer his son Isaac.    This very first lecture is an important part of the Principle of Restoration which maintains that nothing can be restored without going through a course that reverses the process of man’s fall from grace. 

            While most of the lectures are interesting and broaden my perspective, there is one lecture which gives me trouble.  The lecture on spirit world is completely foreign to me; I don’t have anything in my upbringing which prepares me for it, and my training as a journalist makes me skeptical of anything I can’t see.  One of the guys in my group says that he also struggled with this particular teaching until one day he saw one guy get knocked out of his chair during the spirit world lecture.

            It was very interesting.  One fellow tipped over in his chair after the spirit world lecture and fell on the floor, making a loud commotion.  Everyone looked at him.  He stood up and said, You know, I was just sitting here thinking that I don’t really buy into this whole spiritual realm stuff, and I told God, if You want me to accept this, you’re going to have to knock me out of my chair.  And did you see what happened?  I got knocked right out of my chair.  Maybe there is something to this. 

This insight in shared with me by Davy, someone who has befriended me and whose opinion I respect.  He has been on the farm for awhile, is a member, but he thinks independently, and so for me he makes a good bridge between the two worlds.  He counters my cynicism with his naiveté.

            Another lecture is a revelation to me.  Parallels of History outlines how history has repeated itself in 2000 year intervals and why.  The first 2000 years is composed of distinct periods from the beginning of Biblical history until the time of Abraham.  The second 2000 years is made of similar periods leading up to Jesus, and the third period ends with the Second Advent, roughly the year 2000.  I am amazed that history can be made to line up in such a logical and purposeful juxtaposition, but Davy is unimpressed by this particular section.

            Davy and I are together constantly and there are two reasons for that.  First, we really enjoy each other’s company.  Second, the Creative Community Project goes to great lengths to make sure guests do not become isolated, and he has been assigned to stay with me.  Fortunately, Davy and I get along well, but some guests complain that they can not even go to the bathroom without a chaperone.

At the heart of the Booneville Experience is the power of the Principle to change lives.  Most critics of Reverend Moon’s teachings have not actually studied the Principle and know little about it.  One criticism is that his theology combines Christian and Eastern thinking.  Although some Christians have a problem with that, I think nineteenth century transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau would have endorsed that approach.  The respected New England writer was equally comfortable quoting Christian, Hindu and Confucian philosophies, because he was able to discern Truth and Wisdom in various cultures.  Further, he disdained the religious arrogance of ministers who thought they alone possessed true understanding and God.

            How great a thinker was Thoreau?  His writings influenced Gandhi, who led India to independence with his philosophy of non-violent disobedience, and Gandhi’s philosophy in turn influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, who Reverend Moon has called the greatest leader of the twentieth century.

            Reverend Moon’s teaching disagrees with conventional Christian thinking that God’s original plan was to evangelize the west and Rome.  Instead, he suggested that God had prepared the oriental cultures through the philosophies of Buddhism and Confucianism to receive the Gospel.  God’s original plan was that Jesus should be crowned King of Israel, and Jesus’ teachings would spread east to Asia along the merchant routes which connected the Orient to the vast Roman empire, and the world could have been restored in a relatively short period of time.  When Jesus was rejected and crucified, an alternate path became necessary but the internal nature of oriental character, the respect of ancestry and loyalty to leadership would have made a fertile ground to receive the Messiah.  Instead, Christianity moved west, enduring three hundred years of persecution and martyrdom until Rome under Constantine surrendered to the army which marched without weapons under the banner of God’s love.

            Reverend Moon’s teachings diverge from mainstream thinking, but what is the basis for the old way of thinking?  Much of what Jesus taught was told in symbols and parables, until a future date when all of heaven’s secrets could be revealed.  The result was many different interpretations and hundreds of denominations.  Jesus said, if I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? (Matt.3:12)  St. Paul said of the old way of thinking: for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (I Cor. 13:12)

            Noah patiently teaches us and we discuss all these things in our group, centered on our group leader, Angelina.  How can I adequately describe Angelina?  She is a saint and my life is enriched to know her.  She has an inner glow, dark Hispanic hair, and wears Native American dresses and Mexican peasant blouses.  She is the mother to our group and she kindly takes me under her wing.  Late at night we find her sleeping in the laundry room, where the machines run constantly, laying on the driers with her hand-woven blanket pulled over her.  She is doing the group’s laundry.

            One of the stories she tells me is about a jalapeno-eating contest she has with a Chinese man.  She loves spicy food, and, without even breaking a sweat, defeats the challenger.  She tells the story of her triumph as though she were savoring a spicy delicacy. 

She never complains, she always centers the group and whenever I am vacillating, she always has time for me.  She is a completely humble person, yet Davy and I stand in awe of her because her standard of giving is so high.

            Angelina and I go for a walk in the wooded hills surrounding the farm.  The air is still but one leaf on one tree is waving and fluttering like mad.  Look, a miracle, says Angelina.

            Angelina, I explain patiently, there’s a completely scientific explanation.  The aerodynamic shape of the leaf enables it to react to nearly zero velocity air currents, producing movement.

            Pshaw, says Angelina, This surely is a sign from God.

            One morning she tells the group she has found a definition of ‘love’ in her dictionary of love.  Then she pulls out a worn Bible and proceeds to read from Corinthians. 

            Saturday nights are the time when all our talented brothers and sisters, and some who are marginally talented, share their songs, dances, jokes and skits.  I have the idea to sing an old Taj Mahal blues song, Cakewalk Into Town, and Davy agrees to help with the vocals and even Laura with the silvery soprano will lend her voice, and of course I break out my harmonica.  We are a big hit, this audience dislikes no one, and the second verse cracks everybody up:

            You know work it done got scarce, you know work it done got hard.

            I spend my whole day stealing chickens, mama, from those rich folks yard.

            I used to sing this song self-consciously, and I used to say that when the song becomes the truth, then I’ll be able to sing it as it was meant to be sung, with exuberance.  I had the blues so bad one time, it put my face in a permanent frown.  But now I’m feeling so much better I can cakewalk into town. 

            My harmonica sounds as sweet as honey, the blues strikes a chord with almost everyone.  Cakewalk goes over pretty good, but another song receives fewer accolades.  I ask Angelina, one morning, if I can play a song for the group.  I sing ‘Louise’, a ballad I heard Linda Ronstadt sing about a prostitute who kills herself.  A beautiful song, and Angelina would never say anything discouraging; the most she would ever do is just nudge me in the right direction.  After I sing, Ah, but the wind is blowing cold tonight, well goodnight, Louise, goodnight, Angelina asks simply, what was that? 

            When I have been on the farm for a couple weeks, and on a Saturday evening, Laurey suddenly shows up and joins our group.  He is quiet at first, surveying the situation and checking on me.  I feel a little uneasy too, realizing how little I know about this person who invited me to the farm in the first place.  As usual, he wears gray business clothing, the rest of us being in jeans and flannel shirts.  The chemistry of the group is altered and everyone is reticent to speak up.

            Then we move to the big barn where everyone gathers, and now Laurey goes to the front and breaks out his guitar.  Tonight we are going to have a hoe-down, of sorts, and Laurey and a brother with a fiddle are center stage. 

            Laurey and his friend, Jeremiah, are cutting up like characters from the Grand Ole’ Opry and the first sing-a-long is She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain, with requisite sound effects.  We will all go out to meet her when she comes.  Hi, thar’!  It’s totally cornball, but it works because this audience has a complete lack of pretension.  Laurey has a natural stage presence which I envy. 

            They tell jokes here and there, and the jokes are corny as all get-out, and still are guaranteed to get laughs.  Did you hear about the fire at the circus?  It was in tents.  But by no means should a thing be said which anyone would construe as being offensive. 

            Laurey’s mission tonight is to raise the energy in the room, prepare the audience for a special guest.  When we sing Country Roads, I wish I had my harmonica with me.  I want to be part of this, having fun, stone cold sober, a healthy community of like-minded, yet diverse, individuals.  One more song and we are starting to feel a kind of tired contentment.  Then Onni arrives.

            Onni asks how many are meeting her for the first time and about half the room raise hands.  She requests we close our eyes and she sings ‘Exodus’ in a slightly accented but pretty voice.  This is her song which she always sings and, out of respect, nobody else would dream of singing her song.

            Onni is the enigmatic figure behind the scenes, and new members like me know little about her except through stories that are passed around.  One time, I am told, Onni and Kristina went to see The Exorcist at the theater.  Confronted with the spectacle of the real Satan on the movie screen, Onni and Kristina screamed their heads off, but nobody in the theater could hear them.  This was presumably because fallen man’s spiritual senses are dull.  Onni and Kristina were having a ‘spiritual experience’, something which can only be experienced through the spiritual senses.  A restored human being, whose physical and spiritual senses are aligned, would receive stimulus from both realms, like a radio that is tuned to the proper frequency. 

            Onni is married to a professor at a small local college, the same professor who gave the introductory lecture my first dinner at the big house.  Like most marriages in the Unification Church, the couple were matched by Reverend Moon and married in a Unification ceremony called ‘The Blessing’.  Onni is from Korea, and a story from her early days has her shouting down a group of protesting students, presumably Communists, on a University campus in Seoul.

            In Korea in the seventies, tensions were still high between the democratic South and the Communist North.  Reverend Moon was a staunch anti-communist and no surprise.  In the North, he was arrested merely because he was a Christian, which was not allowed, and beaten nearly to death in the police station.  Recovering his body from the street, his followers nursed him back to health, and he resumed his ministry.  He was arrested a second time and spent nearly three years in a labor camp before being liberated by United Nations forces.  He escaped to South Korea and began again, building his church out of discarded cardboard boxes.

            Even though Reverend Moon is a vocal critic of communism, Divine Principle makes it clear that socialism is preferable to capitalism in terms of an equitable economic system.  Eventually, a socialistic system embodying God’s ideal will be established.  Early Christians lived according to this ideal in some respects by sharing all their goods in common. (Exposition of the Divine Principle p.342)  The problem with the implementation of socialism in Russia and China was mainly that those societies oppressed religion while denying the existence of God.

            Communist ideology was fairly popular on American university campuses in the seventies, especially in Berkeley, which was more liberal than most.  Again, the main opposition which Unification members would have had was the denial of God and the rejection of religion.            

Onni is tough, but she has a soft side.  One day Kristina and another sister are very sick, so Onni sends them to bed.  She encourages them to take it easy, but they sneak out the window and go out witnessing anyway.  Onni catches them as they are coming back in the window, but instead of scolding them, she dissolves into tears.  She is easily moved to tears, but fierce when angered.  I will never know her well, but I am told that I am four steps removed from Onni: Onni witnessed to Poppy who witnessed to Valerie who brought Laurey.

            Each day at Booneville causes my spirit, grown dark from several years of bad habits and careless living, to grow brighter.  I look at myself in a different light, and soon I ask someone to cut my hair.  Nonetheless, after a few weeks I find myself getting homesick for the old carousing.  It always happens on a Sunday evening.  Sunday is when those who are returning to the city load on the buses, while those who are staying celebrate the new guests with the Sunday night festivities.  So it becomes a regular Sunday occurrence to start pining for my old decadent life.

            I tell Davy that I miss my guitar, the beach, and meat, (the diet here is primarily vegetarian), so Davy says Okay, I’ll take you to the beach and you can play your guitar and eat meat.  He is sympathetic, because he also had to give up stuff to join the movement.  Davy’s great sacrifice is sex, and he admitted freely to the leaders of the workshop that he didn’t think he could live without it.  So far, he tells me, he really hasn’t missed it.

            Other than Sunday evenings, I don’t think about my old life much at all.  My life is studying and working on the farm.  Every afternoon is given over to chores and executed in the groups.  This is a time of day, presumably, when any effort to give a lecture might be met by nodding heads and weak necks.  Instead we put on our dirtiest jeans and go out to work on the farm.  Some groups, expecting that those who sacrifice the most receive the greatest blessing, volunteer for the grimiest job, cleaning out the septic tank.  My group, shrugging off the biggest blessing, builds paths and herds sheep. 

            Sheep are timid animals, and they can’t be approached quickly or they bolt.  We form a semi-circle around the beasts and move up slowly to encourage them in the direction we wish them to move.  It is a chore requiring patience and teamwork.  If only we could realize that witnessing requires a similar approach, instead of scaring our prospects into a stampede through our insistence.

            I savor the slow pace of the weekdays, but the weekends bring new faces. The year is winding down, this year which is America’s two hundredth anniversary.  I play chess, I shell soybeans, and I work in the kitchen preparing dinner for several hundred.  In the evening we form a circle on a bare hill and sing I’ll Never Leave You Anymore as the sun sets.  We have a campfire and sing Kumbaya.  Without realizing it, I am becoming stronger in my faith.  Critics, and they are vocal, call it brainwashing, but Unification members just laugh and call it ‘heart washing’. 

            I find myself standing in God’s spotlight, and I am the center of the universe, but it is a world of hope and one of color; it stands in contrast to the dark place I once inhabited, where my main pursuit, like many young people, was escapism.

            On the final day of the year, in the waning hour, I hike out to the highest hill on the farm, intending to reach it at midnight.  On the way I am startled by a rustling in the bushes beside the path.  I jump nearly out of my shoes, and an equally frightened buck jumps away through the underbrush and scrambles off in the dark.

            Atop the hill, the forest rolls away like ocean swells to the place where the moon hangs in the sky like a lighthouse.  In simple language I talk to God about the inadequacy of my past and my intention to reform, and I ask Him to guide my efforts.

            Anyone who has never touched the heart of God in prayer cannot understand the change in perception it engenders.  To believe in God is one thing, but to KNOW there is God as firmly as one knows one’s parents, and to know that you are loved, that is another matter altogether.  Although I often can’t understand the impotence of goodness in the world around me, I have nonetheless never doubted since then that God exists and that He is guiding me, and I would probably hold on to that conviction even if He guided me into poverty and loss. 

My transformation is nearly complete.

            Six weeks I am sailing on a sea of enlightenment and tranquility, but there is one squall which I have purposely neglected to mention until now.

            I don’t contact anyone for the first two weeks on the farm.  When I call my Dad, he seems to know more about Reverend Moon and the Unification Church than I do.  Next I call my sister, who informs me that our parents are divorcing.  Not only is this unexpected, but given the distance between us, it feels surreal, like the affairs of strangers.  

            Finally I call my friends in Berkeley.  It must have seemed to them that I have disappeared off the face of the earth.  They are genuinely alarmed that I am with the Creative Community Project.  They encounter the members often on campus and disdain them.  They are quite sure that I have joined a cult and am probably being held against my will.  They urge me to leave at once and then phone my Dad to encourage him to kidnap me and take me back to North Carolina.  My Dad thinks this is my choice to make, and besides, he is preoccupied with the divorce. 

            This storm takes me by surprise and causes me to question all that I have experienced.  Now I wonder if everyone here has ulterior motives.  I agree to return to the city to consult with my friend, Eddie, and his girlfriend Patti, and reexamine my decision in a neutral environment. 

            Eddie convinces me to do a little research on the church and its founder.  First, he and Patti are going to take me out to eat at the restaurant of my choice.  Then I will spend the night in their apartment, and the next day go to the library for research. 

            On my way to Eddie’s place I pass through the large house near campus.  The place is almost empty, except for Dr. John, an Australian medical doctor who has been with the movement for about a year.

            Of the media coverage on the church, Dr. John has this to say: That stuff even makes me negative.

            Davy walks with me to meet Eddie.  Meeting on a street corner near Eddie’s place, Davy offers his hand.  Eddie declines to take it and sizes up Davy, whose appearance could be described as tallish, lanky and country.  Eddie is similarly tall with black frizzy hair.  He is Jewish but I never thought of him as a particularly religious person. 

            You don’t look like a Moonie, Eddie tells Davy. 

            I stand off to the side as Eddie begins to criticize the church.  Davy refuses to lose his composure.  Eddie accuses Reverend Moon of blaming Jews for Jesus’ death.  He calls the church a cult and Reverend Moon a false messiah. 

            I like Eddie, we used to work in a sandwich shop in Carolina, but I am struck by Davy’s patience in the face of an all-out verbal assault. 

            Nothing is resolved, of course, and after awhile Davy wishes me well and turns to go.  We agree to meet again the next morning to go to the library and I leave with Eddie. 

            That night Eddie and Patti take me to a nice Italian restaurant.  I crash in their pad, but it is small and a little inconvenient for them.  The next day it is clear that both Eddie and Patti have busy schedules and will not be able to accompany me.  They warn, plead and advise.  Then they leave for work.

            Angelina has come down from the farm, and she, Davy and I take a bus to the library.  Davy mentions that Rolling Stone magazine ran an article on the church.  Before we go inside, Angelina says that Kristina asked that I call her.  I call from a pay phone and Kristina sings to me over the line, You Are My Sunshine; she reminds me that God loves me and hangs up. 

            The next few hours we spend drinking the poison.

            Many people joined the Unification Church in the seventies.  God turned the spigot on and when the pitcher was full he turned the spigot off.  But there should have been more pitchers to fill.  So many people joined the church that the other churches became alarmed.  When the churches became alarmed, the media turned ugly.  Then the government and the Congress tried to legislate the church out of existence.

            What I read in the library is only the beginning of a tidal wave of negativity that will continue unabated for decades.  There will be exposes and investigations.  Later on when I leave California for a mission, I will leave behind my white Aria Les Paul copy electric guitar.  I will see a photo of Kristina playing my guitar in People magazine, taken by a reporter who goes to Booneville undercover.

            By the eighties, the well of blessing has dried up.  People still join the church, but it takes a long and arduous effort.  Within the movement we talk about the reason witnessing became difficult.  We suppose that we members lacked heart, faith, love or maturity.  Those were the internal reasons the spigot cut off.

            Externally, opposition from churches, businesses, media and government took its toll.  There came a time when everybody had heard of the Unification Church and everything they heard sounded awful. 

            But what I see in the library does not dissuade me.  I ingest as much negativity as I can stand, and then I look at my friends, Angelina and Davy, look at my life, and make my choice.

            The California coast is defined by ragged cliffs which rise from the sea and stand peering out over the vastness of the Pacific.  When the wind is right, the waves are massive beasts whose booming sound echoes over the inland plains.  From the naked southern beaches of LaJolla to the crowded white sands of Huntington and Malibu and up to the cold, oil-stained beaches of Jaloma, and, further north, Half-Moon Bay and Monterey, all connected by the Pacific Coast highway, the cold strong water beats like a pulse in the heart of California. 

            I have seen the hang-gliders fall off the sheer cliffs and sail, clutching a wisp of breeze, out over the tanning, naked bodies at Black’s Beach.  I myself have paddled out near Trestles when the swells stood twice as tall as me, and the rocks were like teeth bared on both sides of the cove.  The character of the natives is made distinctive by the salty water running in their veins and the fiery sun which drowns every evening in their deep blue backyard.  Fire and water.

            I make up my mind to leave it all behind.  Having turned my back on the ocean, its presence comes to haunt me in my dreams and its wet kiss becomes a memory.  I throw it all away, my jeans, my music, my solitude, when I answer a higher calling, but something of the loner remains inside, writing poetry and dreaming.  In those days we used to say that whatever you give up on account of God’s calling, He will give it back to you eventually, and I have found that to be essentially true, except for those things which don’t fit through God’s gate.  But the music, the ocean and the words, these belong to God, and through His eyes they become sacred.

            If living on the farm was my personal kingdom of Heaven, leaving was kind of like getting kicked out of heaven, for while I had been diligent in my studies of Principle, perhaps I had not dealt effectively with my rather extensive shortcomings.  With understanding comes responsibility; so far, I had been taken care of well and now it was my turn to take care of others. 

            One Sunday evening I board the bus back to the city, where I will be expected to take care of new guests.  I move into the big house in Berkeley.  This is the Hearst Street house, formerly owned by William Randolph Hearst, the millionaire newspaper man, whose first success was the San Francisco Examiner.  A lot of members live here and every morning we receive our assignments and go out to meet the public. 

            Some days I help with the outreach, but it is tough for me.  Shy by nature, I am asked to go out to talk to strangers, but I do not go alone.  Usually I go together with a brother or sister, but I’m afraid I am not much help.  One sister, after working with me for a couple hours and she is doing all the work, encourages me to go strike up a conversation.  I start talking to a girl walking her dog, but I never get around to inviting her for dinner, which is the whole point.  This sister becomes a little frustrated with me, and suggests I run a lap around the campus, so I take off, escaping for a while, and come back a long time later.

            Some of the brothers have a very simple approach.  They just mark off an area inside the Quad on campus and invite everyone who steps inside their territory.  I favor this simple-minded approach, but results are hard to come by.

            Some days I am asked to go fundraising.  We go out in a van, maybe ten of us, with buckets of flowers in the back.  The first time I am paired with a rather young man, Woody, also young in the church, but very even-tempered and polite.

            Woody and I, with our flowers, enter the first shop on our street.  Right away the lady inside tells to beat it, that she does not like us or our organization, but she is not uncivil, just abrupt.  It is my first taste of rejection.  The best response would be to bite my tongue and politely wish her a good day, and that is what I wish I would have done.  Instead I say something unkind which I will remember and regret for a very long time.  Woody hustles me out the door, explaining patiently that there is no gain in returning unkindness for unkindness, hate for hate.  She might call the police he explains.  I offer to go back and apologize, but he suggests we forget it and move on down the street.  We move off together, but I will not forget this experience soon.  We make a few dollars with our carnations, and though some people are unfriendly, I am struck by how many nice folks there are, and I am starting to appreciate these kind strangers, many who buy a flower.  It is terrible to say, I know, but especially among the poor and the minorities, we find sympathy.  Jesus said: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Matt.:19:24), and though I have found magnanimity among the wealthy, Jesus was letting us know that money can be an obstacle to those who become enamored of it.

            Morning comes early at Hearst Street, when two guys go from suite to suite with a guitar singing a verse of Red, Red Robin as a wake-up call.  This works well at Booneville, but in the big house I soon grow to dread the sound.  The house has three floors and we are segregated by gender, sisters on the third floor and brothers on the second.  We meet in the large hall downstairs to receive direction for the day, and some inspiration.  We pass around pitchers of juice, coffee and chicken broth, for the entire center is doing a liquid fast until noon.  A liquid fast just means no solid food, and is not too demanding.  Most fasting means only water, and no one goes without water; that would be unhealthy.  Individually, members often offer one-day or three-day fasts, and every member does a seven-day fast before getting married.

            It goes without saying that fasting is entirely within the realm of religious life; what reason would a non-believer have for purposely starving himself?  The religious life is the path of emphasizing the spirit, and restricting the physical self.  Why bother?  Originally, the spirit should have been the subject of man, but because of the Fall, man became dominated by physical desire.  The ideal, exemplified by Jesus, would be to control the physical desire to eat, sleep and have sex.  In Psalms 35:13 David writes, I humbled my soul with fasting.  Jesus fasted in the wilderness for 40 days, and afterward, when he was hungry, Satan suggested he turn some stones into bread.  Jesus said, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt.4:4).

            I am trying to remember if we ever fasted in Swansboro United Methodist Church.  Perhaps in some inner circle, certainly we never did anything like this in the MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship).  We had costume parties, campouts, beach trips and infatuation with the Pastor’s two daughters, but we never missed a meal that I can recall. 

            On the morning that we are gathered in the large hall and passing around our liquid breakfast, Sheri, the house mother, is pumping us up before she sends us out, as sheep in the midst of wolves (Matt.10:16).  Sheri is a hugger; she gives out big bear hugs to anyone who gets within grappling distance.  She has a hook nose like a hawk’s beak.  As a teenager, she announced her intention to get a nose job.  Her father, a burly butcher from Detroit, broke down and cried.  But your nose is just like mine, he sobbed. 

            Every day is different for me.  Some days I go fundraising, some days witnessing.  Sometimes I help with the food pantry, which I enjoy.  I visit many different kinds of neighborhoods in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and everywhere I go I see the futuristic monorail of the Bay Area Regional Transit.  Set up high as it is, the monorail is visible from a distance.  I’ll be walking through a haggard neighborhood in Oakland and look up the street and there, set against the sky, is the monorail, reminding me what a great distance I am from rural North Carolina.   

One day I cross the Oakland Bay Bridge to help with outreach in San Francisco.  We go to Golden Gate Park which is a gold mine for new members.  We work all day and as evening falls climb on a bus with our guests.  The San Francisco center is a colorful row house, but in front are half a dozen protesters.  They yell at us and try to prevent the new guests from going inside, but before we arrived someone has warned us about the welcoming committee.  Still, some guests flee.

            Inside, people are milling about, talking to the guests and absorbing the warmth.  I gravitate toward one young man with long dirty-blond hair.  Evidently he is a frequent visitor, and the members are shying away from him.  He is sketching a design for a rocket ship and he holds a conviction that planet earth’s time is short.  His calling, he says, is to load an interstellar vessel with as many people as will heed his warning and escape the doomed planet.  Toward that end he has formed a rock band to raise money for the trip and so far he has collected several hundred dollars.  I ask a few questions about the details of his mission and he happily responds. 

            Soon we gather in the main room for the introductory lecture.  It sounds familiar, essentially the same speech I heard when I met the church on Thanksgiving Day.  At the heart of this presentation is the old Indian story of the elephant and the five blind men. 

            The first blind man encounters the elephant’s trunk.  My, he says, an elephant is similar to a snake, long and flexible.  The second blind man runs into a leg.  An elephant is like the trunk of a great tree, he says, wide and solid.  The third blind man finds the elephant’s tail.  An elephant is most like a reed, says he, thin and rigid.  The fourth blind man runs into the side of the beast.  The elephant is like a massive wall, he cries.  The last blind man finds the elephant’s ear.  It is like a giant fan, he exclaims.  The conclusion that I would like you to draw from this story, says our speaker, is that different belief systems may all be correct in their interpretation of ‘Truth’, but still only possess a portion of the entire Truth.  Through studying together and sharing our diverse knowledge, we can begin to picture the whole elephant.  Here we study a new expression of Truth which is no less valid than the ancient wisdom of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism, but in this modern age, people want teachings which are logical and which harmonize with science.

            To understand our place in the Universe, we, as created beings, after all we did not create ourselves, must uncover the Source from whence we came, whether we call that Source: Universal Prime Energy, First Cause or God. 

            This time I do not turn to the guy sitting next to me and say, is this something to do with religion?  Instead I turn to the man sitting next to me and say, what do you think? 

            It’s nothing I haven’t heard before, he shrugs.

            This is different, I say.  It has made a profound impact on my life.  Which is an understatement.  I am on the inside, looking out.  The cool San Francisco night.  There is a fire in the fireplace and a sky full of stars in the chandelier. 

            Some days Sheri reads to her flock.  She likes to read The House at Pooh Corner, which typifies the eccentricity of the Unification Movement’s California expression; this would not happen at any other church center.  The Bay Area has taken Reverend Moon’s vision and given it an almost bohemian and very American, interpretation. 

            When Sheri decides, one morning, to read the story of the Prodigal Son, I am nearly overcome with emotion, as though I am hearing the familiar story for the first time.  This time the prodigal son is me.  I’ve been there, living with the pigs and eating the scraps.   Pining for drugs and guzzling alcohol.  And coming home.  In coming home I know with certainty that I can never go back.  Sure, I might falter, can and will despair, but the difference now is that I will share my heartache with God, recognizing that His heartache is more severe, and I will be comforted.  It is moments like these that propel me, cause me to rise up and walk out the door again, to put my heart on the line even though it might be trampled underfoot.  Sometimes I pray, God, I don’t want to do this anymore, let me be an ordinary Christian, but God never says, You have been deceived, although I hear many Christians say it.

            I have a dream where I fly.  How can I capture that feeling of elation in my waking hours?  I have the uneasy feeling, in these weeks since I joined the church, that I have probably squandered my adolescence.  I arrived at college just looking for trouble.  My grandfather, kind sweet man, sent me a letter, a first! lecturing me about opportunity.  Waste of paper, I thought.  I left school, went to the beach, got in trouble there, and was arrested.  I fled the East Coast, hit rock bottom, found myself here.  Now I start over.  A clean slate. 

            In the evening Sheri calls me up to her room on the third floor.  She hugs me, says with tears in her eyes how she is proud of my progress.  I myself can’t recall any accomplishments.  She explains that some members are being sent to join the mobile fundraising team, would I like to go?  It is an adventurous life, see the country, grow your faith. 

            All my life I did what I wanted.  If it is possible, I am ready now to do what God wants.  What does God want?

            Around 20 new members are to be disseminated like seeds to the M.F.T. (Mobile Fundraising Team) regional centers in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Cleveland.  Prior to our departure, we are invited to a workshop to study the spiritual significance behind life on the mobile team.  Some of the top sellers in the nation come to share their methods and give their testimonies.  I will now explain, in my own words, the deeper meaning of selling flowers.

            The mobile teams are composed of six to eight members with a captain and a team mother.  If the captain and mother are united, and the fundraisers are one with them, God’s love flows down to all like a river flowing downhill.  The course to individual restoration can be accomplished in seven years with whole-hearted effort.  The formula course for Unification members is three and a half years of fundraising, followed by three and a half years of witnessing.  After that comes the Blessing, which means marriage.  The marriage of two God-centered individuals opens the door to the creation of an ideal family.  Through the ideal families, the community, nation and world can be restored.  In this way, the world is transformed from hell to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. 

            Fundraising, when done correctly, requires an investment of heart in order to restore money, which represents creation.  The money becomes an offering and the offering becomes the condition by which God reclaims man.  Further, the money is then used for the programs and projects that assist in the community. 

            The content of the workshop is dense, and while I am excited about this new phase of my life of faith, I am so nervous that I make myself ill.  Eventually I retire to the bedroom, with its immaculate hard wood floors and a ticking clock on the mantel, where the sounds of the workshop become muted as I close my eyes.

The silver thread of faith

            I wake up on the oily banks of the Cuyahoga River, the heavily-polluted northern Ohio river which famously caught on fire.  The Cuyahoga runs through the industrial section of Cleveland known as the Flats.  The Flats is an area of steel and smoke, heavy equipment and vast iron foundries, city blocks in length, colorless and cavernous.    

            The M.F.T. center lies between Akron and Cleveland, green hills locked between two gritty manufacturing towns.  From here you can see the giant hangar of the Goodyear blimp in Akron, and the smoke and sparks of Cleveland to the west, its sky lit by molten iron works, the waves frozen on its Lake Erie shoreline.

            In a non-descript white two-story house the fundraising teams reside, but most of their time is spent in the Ford vans lined up in the driveway.  The teams mostly live on the road.  In the early mornings the teams wake up in the center, or a motel, or a campground and load the vans with fundraising product.  The members pile into the vans and head out to the day’s area.  On the way they will pray in the van, eat breakfast in the van, organize the product and, upon reaching the area, begin dropping off the members two at a time.

            The product is packed in boxes and stored in the rear of the van.  We use many kinds of product: candy bars, chocolate turtles, peanut brittle, foil etchings, music boxes and bamboo oriental scrolls, but our favorite product is flowers.  On the weekend we sell carnations with baby’s breath and roses with leather leaf, especially in the bars and dance clubs.  Romantic couples welcome us. 

            Technically we don’t sell anything, but ask for donations for the product.  We go around to the shops, homes, shopping centers, traffic lights, trailer courts, apartments and wherever people are concentrated.  We encourage each other, for fundraising is a challenge.  I get butterflies in my stomach before I go out, but once I get started, it’s not so bad.  While there are some people who are unfriendly, and some who are very negative about the Unification Church, there are also those who are happy to help.  Behind each door, you never know who is waiting.

            However, our main concern is not the money.  On the mobile teams, the amount of money is immaterial, because the effort and the heart behind it is the offering, and through our offering, the relationship with God develops.  Why does God require an offering?  Man stands in a midway position between God and Satan, and any blessing which God bestows is fair game unless man himself makes a condition to move to God’s side. 

            Divine Principle emphasizes the duality of the Creation, and fundraising has both an internal and an external function.   Externally, the money is the locomotive pulling the movement forward, buying and maintaining the church centers, and enabling half the members to go out witnessing every day.  Internally, we fundraise to make a condition to be accepted by God.  Reverend Moon says that the purpose of an offering is to liquidate the debt of sinners. 

            Divine Principle poses this question: How does God separate Satan from fallen people who stand in the midway position?  Satan relates with them on the basis of his connection with them through lineage.  Therefore, until people make a condition through which God can claim them as His own, there is no way God can restore them to the heavenly side.  On the other hand, Satan acknowledges that God is the creator of human beings.  Unless Satan finds some condition through which he can attack a fallen person, he also cannot arbitrarily claim them for his side.  Therefore, a fallen person will go to God’s side if he makes good conditions and to Satan’s side if he makes evil conditions (Divine Principle p.176).

            Divine Principle says that fallen man can remove his fallen nature by becoming one in heart with a person who is closer to God.  On the traveling teams, this means uniting with the team captain.  One aspect of man’s fall was arrogance, specifically when Lucifer said to Eve: then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen.3:5).  For fallen man, humility is one of the toughest traits to master, but by going the humble way, one can actually change one’s character.  Therefore this is the life of developing heavenly character.

            When we are out fundraising, on the front line as we like to say, we are thinking about how to keep a positive attitude.  To walk into the first shop of the day and be turned away is no big deal.  But if the next twenty people reject me, call me names, call the police and yell at me, how do I keep smiling?  How to then go into the next shop and brightly say, Good morning, I’m helping out with a fund drive for my church today.  It’s a challenge.

            The Buckeye State is my new home and one person who helps me acclimate to this new life is Wendy, the team mother.  Wendy is a pretty brunette who comes from a wealthy family but favors simple clothes: brown slacks, a cream blouse and perhaps a chartreuse scarf.  She stands very straight, is down-to-earth, an excellent fundraiser and she wants me to be successful.  She often wears a button with a photo of Reverend Moon, or sometimes a gold pin that says, Try God.  She is serious when she works, and she looks at each person directly in the eye and speaks slowly as if she were addressing a child.  She talks to every person who crosses her path, no exceptions, be it a homeless person, an armored truck driver or a jogger.  Her results are tops in the state because she believes that every person who donates is connected to Heaven by a silver thread and she is sure that their eternal life hangs by that thread. 

            Wendy explains things to me.  She says that we are destined to go through cycles of hardship and blessing.  Whenever she is having a tough day, she is confident that the pendulum will swing back the other way, that in her hour of despair, breakthrough is right around the next corner.  Conversely, when she is flying high she tempers her enthusiasm, expecting the fall back to earth.

            She also explains that our course on M.F.T. is the same one which Reverend Moon walked.  It is the path of sacrifice in order to liberate mankind, and the course of coming to understand God’s heart.  Jesus said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Matt.16:24).  I am dropped off with Wendy and I watch her fundraising, and she is pleasant, but as serious as if she were waging a battle with Satan.

            And Wendy gets her revenge.  When she is asking donations in a Kroger grocery store parking lot, some of the housewives are downright unfriendly.  Wendy covertly gives a little wave to the lady’s kids who are peeking through the rear window of the car, and the children almost always wave back.  This is Wendy’s revenge.  These kids probably grow up thinking, maybe the Unification Church is not as bad as my parents say, but the real benefit is that Wendy never allows bitterness to accumulate in her heart.

            My team captain is Frank, and Frank is not difficult to get along with.  Frank is so straight-laced he seems to have come right out of the fifties.  Short hair, horn rim glasses, a real straight arrow.  He’s from somewhere down south, around Atlanta.  CB radios are riding a wave of popularity and Frank installs one in the van.  He gets a kick out of talking to the truck drivers.  The weather is getting milder, and we travel south to work in the small towns around Dayton and Columbus.   

            One morning Frank drops one brother and me off in a small town.  My brother Ron is a soft-spoken fellow, round like a big teddy bear, with wire rim glasses.  We quickly finish visiting all the shops and start knocking on doors in the residential section, but at midday, not many people are home.  Around lunchtime we are supposed to rendezvous with Frank at the Exxon gas station.  I tell Ron I know a short cut, and lead him down a side street and across a railroad yard.  This entails dodging between trains and climbing between boxcars.  I enjoy this kind of adventure, but Ron, juggling a case of peanut brittle under one arm, says, I wanted to be a librarian.

            In fact, the thing I love about M.F.T. is seeing every town and city in Ohio, the underside, the industrial area, historic district and ghetto.  The river towns, the farming towns, the birthplaces of famous people.  The Mormons have some history in Ohio, in fact in Carthage Joseph Smith was dragged from the jail by a mob and executed.  I fundraise Carthage. 

            The wealthy area is where the real money is waiting to be made, and some members, especially sisters, excel at fundraising in expensive subdivisions and nice office parks.  Give me the slums.  I love the black areas, the Hispanic neighborhoods, the trailer parks and the run-down apartments.  The people who live in sub-standard housing are so kind, and they have nothing but they’ll help you if they can, even if it’s only a dollar and something to drink.  Jesus said, And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cold cup of water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward (Matt.10:42). 

            At the end of each day, we join together for a prayer service.  One night, Frank pulls the van under an abandoned bridge.  We form a circle in the dark and begin to pray in unison.  When Frank starts to sing a holy song, it is the sign to finish the prayer.  We are usually able to qualify our prayers, as in I had a good prayer, or, I couldn’t pray.  This night, as the prayer is ending, we are surprised to discover that in the dark, a stranger has joined our circle.  If only witnessing were so easy.  Frank takes a moment to invite him to the nearest church center.

            Another time when I am visiting shops, but dragging my feet and feeling much uninspired, I walk out in a field to pray.  There are times on the frontline when it seems to require a tremendous effort just to keep giving out, and this is one of those days.  I begin to cry out to God, accusing Satan and screaming at my own selfish nature.  Suddenly a guy walks by on a path through the field.  I feel the same way myself sometimes, he says.

            Every day on M.F.T is a little like that.  There is some point during the day when the going gets tough.  If I can pray at that moment, and relate my misery to God’s historical misery at the loss of His children, and then restart, suddenly people are giving and that becomes my testimony and this is what gives fundraising a spiritual significance. 

            In the morning I am dropped off in a small town and begin to visit the shops.  It is a farming town, with a cluster of silos, a feed shop and a lonely railroad.  The citizens of the town are unfailingly polite, but maybe on this particular day no one has an appetite for chocolate turtles.  Maybe they are just suspicious of strangers.  Frank picks me up in the middle of the day, feeds me and encourages me, and drives me to the next small town.

            This is life on the fundraising team, challenging and rewarding.  The experiences are bittersweet, but the impression that God is close and shares every hardship is very strong.  I love this life, and I hate it.  When I hate it, I see a freight train and I want to hop on it and ride far from this place.  Other times, it seems that every person I meet is sent by God.

            Sometimes we fundraise in grocery store parking lots and the interesting thing about parking lots is that you meet such an interesting cross-section of people.  I see a huge black lady in a bright yellow dress wheeling a cart full of groceries to her car.  I run up to her with my boxes of candy.  She looks almost as though she was expecting me and she says, I’ll take two.  She is so kind and sweet-tempered and obviously Christian that I can’t help myself and the words just pop out of my mouth: When I see you I see the face of God.

            One day we are camping in a state park, and at the end of the day we form a circle and offer a prayer.  This is the critical point of the day; all the effort we made, the people we approached, the money we collected must be offered up to God.  Then Frank takes me aside and we sit down at a picnic table.  How was your day, he asks.  The day was a long slog through a swamp and a lost wandering in a desert, and now, demoralized and more than a little dejected, I want to forget about it.  He patiently explains that he needs me to help make a good spirit on the team.  He knows I work hard, but through becoming one in heart with Frank, God will be able to reward my efforts.  I know every word that he says is true, also that my heart has not embraced Frank. 

            As he speaks, I feel disembodied, as though I am watching this scene in the third person.  In the gathering darkness, there seems to be a light shining behind Frank.  I am not even aware of the words now, just warmth that exudes from him.  Something about becoming one in heart, that the result will come automatically.  At this moment I admire Frank, but I am jealous of him and I know I can never be like him.  I am a rebel and the black sheep, but because I desperately desire God’s blessing I will try to absorb Frank’s guidance.  The night falls on us, but I can still see Frank’s sad smile and clean face, and I feel his hand on my shoulder.

            I also spend some time on Teresa’s team.  It is rare on M.F.T. to have a female team captain, but Teresa is unique.  Teresa is as tough as any of the brothers; she makes no concessions to her gender, except the trash can that sits next to her in the van, which is pink.  Teresa is a team captain because 1. She is organized. 2. She has been successful as a fundraiser, and 3. She has many experiences which she can draw on to educate her members.

She implores us not to be boring, to make each day on the front line an adventure.  She explains how one day she walked into an office with candy bars and a businessman said, You guys are all alike.  So Teresa jumps up on the guy’s desk and acts out the sales pitch from a Scope Mouthwash commercial.  He buys the candy bar.

Teresa also emphasizes the importance of unity with team Captain.  In an interesting story to illustrate her point, Teresa tells this tale.  She was dropped off by her team captain in the morning in a small town, but soon she was stopped by the police.  The captain picked her up and said, You were stopped because you are not united.  You have to trust me.  Again he dropped her off in the same small town.  Again she was stopped.  The captain picked her up, encouraged her to have faith and dropped her off a third time.  This time she was arrested.  But it was a very powerful lesson about faith and unity, Teresa says.      

As time passes, I become acclimated to life on the road, circumnavigating the Buckeye State and canvassing her neighborhoods.  These are years when other people my age are finishing their education, forging careers and starting families.  I get an education of a different sort.  I learn a lot about human nature, forgiveness and perseverance.  Sometimes I reach out to God sincerely, like a child, and, unexpectedly, He is there.  He never leaves me, especially in my hardship, but sometimes I forget about Him, and I cry to realize that He was there all along.  Reverend Moon says, When the mind and body become completely one in love, working on the highest levels of the world, that is where God will reside.

Weekends are an especially busy time for the M.F.T.  We go shop-to-shop all day, visit a residential area in the evening and then at night hit the bars and restaurants with flowers.  Roses are the best.  I can run down High Street in Columbus or Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, hit 30 or 40 bars and sell out a whole bucket of roses.  Occasionally, one drunken guy will buy the bucket and give roses to all the girls in a place.  Even a small town will have a dozen bars, but a city like Cleveland will have thousands. 

After midnight, Frank drops me off in front of a busy Cleveland dance club called The Electric Company.  This is too easy.  I just stand out front and ask the couples on their way out and almost everybody gets a rose.  Even if the rest of the day was a struggle, this is my opportunity to make some money for the Providence. 

            On the weekends we work very late.  When the team captain arrives back at the center or the motel, all the members are asleep in the van.  Even though we are tired, we wake up at 5:00 a.m. every Sunday morning for a prayer service.  Sometimes I am so exhausted that I fall asleep while praying; then I stand and pray.  Maybe God smiles to see this. 

            Sometimes, on Friday and Saturday nights, we go on bar blitzes.  This is when we are dropped off on a street with a string of bars: country bars, neighborhood taverns, private clubs and ethnic bars.  The responses also run the gamut, from very receptive to indifferent, including the guy present in almost every drinking place who looks at the roses and says, I’m not dead yet.  Then there are bars that are just plain dangerous. 

            I am dropped off on a bar blitz on New Year’s Eve.  There is one bar where the music is so loud I can barely be heard.  A girl sitting at the counter with her friends tries to steal a flower, so I move off to the other side of the place. 

            I finish the blitz and find myself at a dark intersection way past midnight.  I try to catch a ride to a 24-hour Waffle House down the street, but there are only a few cars and they hurry past. 

            A car pulls off the road and at first I think maybe they want to buy a rose.  Instead, the two guys who jump out of the car are friends of the girl who tried to steal a flower.  The girl and her friend wait in the car.  One guy comes up in front of me while the other one comes behind me.  When I realize they are up to no good, I gamely try to defend myself.  I have the presence of mind to run into the street in order to attract attention, but the street is deserted.  I throw a few punches before these two miscreants corral me, and one of them gets me in a choke hold from behind.  I can’t move and I can’t breath.  Don’t kill me, I beg, before I pass out. 

            When I come to, it seems like just a moment later but I am not sure of anything, the guys are taunting me and taking my bucket of flowers back to their car.  I stumble into the woods as they drive away.  My face is bloody from a gash in my forehead and I assume I hit the road when I fainted.  I hike a mile down a dark road to the Waffle House and wash my face in the bathroom.  Then I call the center and wait to be picked up.  When the captain sees me he says, How did this happen?  There were two of them, I explain.

            Two things I know.  First, I am sure that these deviants have a conscience and will wake up in the morning regretting their misdeeds.  Second, I have been in the Movement long enough to know that I have to forgive them.  It was Jesus’ words of forgiveness to those that beat and tortured him that opened the way for redemption: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).  I say I forgive them and I pray for them, but in a deep chamber of my heart it is hard to forgive and I harbor a grudge there.  My resentment will force me to relive this traumatic event over and over.  If Jesus could not forgive his enemies, the way of salvation would have been blocked.  This night I have paid a substantial price, but as I bear resentment the sacrifice is squandered and prevents God from receiving it.  It leaves a scar.

            In the dark night we drive to Chicago, a convoy of vans filled with tired and sleeping fundraisers.  The gash above my left eye is bandaged and I am looking forward to spending the first couple days of the New Year with brothers and sisters from five states at a retreat north of Chicago.  I will not return to Ohio; my time there is expired and I leave bearing many memories and a sleeping bag. 

            The Unification Movement is stumbling.  The phenomenal growth of the mid-seventies has been stymied by persecution and opposition from many directions.  Witnessing is difficult and there are court cases pending in various places, but in Japan the movement is prospering.  Some of Japan’s brightest young leaders are brought to America to try to turn things around. 

            This accomplishes two things.  First, the American movement becomes truly multi-cultural.  We are exposed to oriental thinking and it broadens our outlook.  Personally, I embrace the eastern ways, even sushi.  The other result is that the cultures clash and there are numerous misunderstandings and communication problems.  Feelings get hurt and a lot of members feel alienated in their own church, and there is plenty of blame to be spread around.  Despite that, this is a course which we necessarily must traverse.  If the Unification Church stands for anything, it is the reconciliation of opposing forces, and we are destined to struggle to harmonize western and oriental cultures, as well as black and white, rich and poor, male and female, north and south, liberal and conservative, young and old; the church’s purpose for existence is to bring people together. 

            Chicago is a big place and the leadership here is Japanese, and if Americans are proud of their individualism, Japanese are just as proud of their public-mindedness, but where is the common ground? 

            The regional leader, or Commander, is Tate-san, who is very short and lean with military posture and a martial artist’s focus.  All of us brawny Americans are intimidated by him, not because he is strong, he’s actually physically frail, but he’s fearless, strong in spirit, and confident.  His background is as an air traffic controller, maybe that’s why he leads the region like a military commander.  He is a soldier in God’s army, but I wonder if he has a soft side.

He does, but he keeps it well hidden. In his speech to welcome the new members, Tate-san says, Welcome to Chicago, the home of Al Capone, and he laughs harder than anyone.   

My team captain is Kent, who is very articulate, an excellent speaker with something to say, but as a leader he is insecure and under a great deal of pressure to be successful.  He really looks like the bookworm that he is with his narrow, black glasses, oily blond hair and chalky skin.  Kent is an intellectual, and he can articulate a problem and he can find a solution, but he lacks self-confidence.  How appropriate then, that when I meet him at the New Year’s retreat, he is on crutches, as are several members.  This is an especially severe winter in Chicago, and many broken ankles are blamed on icy sidewalks and stairs.

            Fundraising in Chicago is pretty much the same as it is in Cleveland, but the level is somewhat more intense.  Kent’s team is an elite team; this is not just training in faith, this is leadership training, and it can be rigorous.  Sometimes Kent goes out fundraising with me, and he is not a people-person, but something extraordinary always happens, for example someone is inspired to donate fifty dollars.  It’s very spiritual, says Kent.  I also appreciate his internal guidance during the Morning Prayer service, but the intensity here wears me down.

            In February we have a record snowfall, nearly ten feet.  Dump trucks come from as far away as New Jersey to help haul the snow out of the city.  Bad weather does not affect our fundraising schedule.

            Kent drops me off to fundraise late at a 24-hour White Castle.  I sell candy until 2:00 a.m., and then I get a ride with a dump truck driver.  I catch a nap in his cab for a couple hours while he hauls snow out of the city.  In the frigid, early morning I leave the warmth of his cab and continue fundraising until Kent picks me up for breakfast.

            It is around this time that I am exposed to Japanese food.  I try tuna sashimi with soy sauce and a pinch of wasabi, and decide it’s not bad.  Hard to beat green tea and miso soup on a cold day, and every day in February in Chicago is a cold day.  In fact, this is the year when the February temperature never rises above freezing. 

            One day I stay in the center and have lunch with Tate-san.  We are having broiled horse mackerel, pulling the meat off the bones with chopsticks.  Tate-san scrapes his fish clean.  You like Japanese food? he asks.  I like it, I say.  Maybe your wife Japanese, he suggests.  I hope so.

            On another occasion Tate-san takes me out for lunch at a nice restaurant.  We eat out a lot on M.F.T., and because we run around all day, we all have pretty good appetites.  Tate-san tries to get me to open up, but I don’t open up so easily.  I’m happy to engage Tate-san in a bland conversation, but he wants something more specific.  Are you playboy? he asks.  You take drugs?  No, I answer blandly.  You homosexual?  Not at all.

            When I was in college, my journalism professor took a personal interest in me.  I seemed to be his favorite student, but I realized he was trying to seduce me when he brought a bottle of wine to a private tutoring session.  When it became clear to him I wasn’t interested, my grade dropped, and it made me a little bitter.

            Reverend Moon made enemies in the gay community through his criticism of the homosexual orientation, but it has been my personal experience in the church that we try not to judge anyone, while still disagreeing with the lifestyle.  I have several gay friends, but I worry that they are on a path to unhappiness, and there is the additional problem that many gays harbor resentment against the opposite sex, or were abused.  My journalism professor told me honestly that his father abused him.  Even though he had a wife and daughter, he could not find peace and fulfillment in the family, but he was wrong to entice his students.

I tell none of this to Tate-san.  He becomes a little upset because I won’t open up to him, but that’s not how we did it in my family.  We kept things bottled up inside.  If this is the restoration course we are walking, it is going to take several generations to restore this.  I hope my children will be better than me.

            Tate-san has a strong spirit and he is a good leader, but he is physically frail.  Sometimes the brothers give him a massage, but he can’t stand strong pressure.  Sometimes I think his toughness is mostly a façade.

I get a glimpse of something one day when Tate-san comes dangerously close to cracking a joke.  A group of us are sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room of the M.F.T. center.  One brother asks Tate-san, What is the providential significance of the eruption of Mount St. Helens?  Mount St. Helens is a volcano in Washington that has just unexpectedly exploded, killing eight people.  This is an almost unheard of event in America in the modern era.  Tate-san reflects.  Then he says, Internal problems.  The providential significance of a volcano.  Internal problems.  I guess you had to be there.  All of us crack up, but Tate-san maintains a straight face.  Maybe a glimmer of a smile in his eyes only.  He is not predisposed to humor.  The time will come when Tate-san will gather his M.F.T. members and sincerely apologize for his strictness, but I already accept that his only motivation is to serve God.

I stay on Kent’s team for three months, but I’m not happy here.  Tate-san moves me to Frank’s team, Frank has come to Illinois! And we leave Chicago in our dust as we set out for the small towns and cities of the Land of Lincoln.  Far from the big city, I feel the clouds are breaking.  Kankakee is the first stop on our journey south; the kids in this small town might go to Chicago on the weekend, but they are country folk at heart.   I see the college towns, Bloomington, Carbondale and Athens and Champaign.  I spend time in the capitol, Springfield, where Lincoln practiced law.  In DuQuoin I meet billiard expert Minnesota Fats, he’s driving an old beat-up Cadillac, and he donates a couple dollars.  We spend a day in Olney, a town known for its population of albino squirrels.  In Effingham the entire team is arrested and spends an hour in the police station. 

In Galesburg I meet an old man who says he knew of Carl Sandburg, my favorite poet.  He worked for the railroad, says the old man, but he was lazy, always daydreaming.

            There is one incident so insignificant as to be hardly worth mentioning, but because I can not get it out of my head, it would almost be dishonest not to report it.  In the early evening, in a small town in the state’s midsection, I am going door to door in a quiet old neighborhood.  A middle-aged woman comes out on her porch and cracks the screen door to find out what I want.  Her pretty teenage daughter stands behind her.  I explain that I am selling chocolate turtles for the church and she would like to know what church.  The Unification Church, ma’am, I answer politely.  She does not support the Unification Church.  Don’t believe everything you see in the news media, I caution her.  We see a lot of problems in the society and we think the first step to solve them is to turn the nation back to God.  The world is not so bad, she says, I’m quite happy.  Immorality and drugs are problems among the young people, I insist.  The daughter is taking in this exchange.  If I was smart I would leave it at that. 

            It so happens that the daughter is wearing a t-shirt that says, Do It In Downtown.  Do it in downtown? I say, what kind of message is that to send to the young people?  What do you think they mean when they say do it in downtown?  Parking and shopping, she answers.  I blanch.  Well, I don’t think we’ll be helping out this time, she concludes.  Everybody knows all those Do It slogans have sexual undertones.  Do It in the Woods.  Electricians Do It with Energy.    Sushi Chefs Do It Raw, and so on.  I wish I had kept my mouth shut, instead of humiliating a girl who probably would have turned from the door admonishing her parent, Mom, leave him alone.  Instead I may have helped create our most vocal critic.  As I said, it was a small affair, but a small affair which became etched into my conscience.

            Frank’s team goes around the state, meeting the people where they live, where they work, where they shop and where they drink.  The towns begin to run together, but the people are so different, short or tall, happy or melancholy, hurried or relaxed.  With some people I feel a natural rapport.  When there is friction with a complete stranger, I speculate that perhaps our ancestors were enemies.

Sometimes Tate-san lets me lead a team, but he concludes that I’m better in a supportive role.  Still, he lets me experience the responsibilities of a team captain, even though my lack of organizational skills and sloppy bookkeeping work against me, as well as something intangible, a cheerleading quality, the charisma to be able to pick up a struggling member and give them the impetus to breakthrough.  I never quite catch that elusive quality that makes a good team leader. 

            One December day when I am a team captain, I’m picking up the members of my team.  We are working the far suburbs of Chicago and one sister is in the back arranging her product and counting her money.  The street here is wide and flat, a business district, and I breeze right through a red light before I even realize it.  A police car is behind me.  Uh oh, the sister says.  I brace myself for the sound of a siren, and I am consoled that I haven’t had a ticket in a few years, but Tate-san will not be pleased.  The police car stops for the red light and then catches up to me.  He pulls up in the next lane right beside me.  The officer riding shotgun in the cruiser turns on the loudspeaker mounted behind the grill. 

            Merry Christmas, he says.

            We seldom take a day off on M.F.T., but on Sundays we work less.  In the morning we find a park to have a prayer service.  We sit around a picnic table and sing Holy Songs, and then read from the Bible.  Most of the team captains prefer the Revised Standard Version for its simple English.  The team captain might then expound on the reading, endeavoring to relate it to the struggles we face on a daily basis.  Then we go out to the struggles, but on Sunday this is an abbreviated session.  In the evening, we might look forward to dinner in a nice restaurant, or perhaps a movie, and not some decadent film with a cynical message but something with an inspiring message.  The Chosen, the Never-ending Story and Star Wars are all favorites among the Unification members.  The team captain reminds the sisters, before we go out in public, not to wear their purses slung across their chests like machine guns, but to wear them over their shoulders like normal girls.

            But before we enjoy ourselves on a Sunday evening, we take time to wash the van.  The vans we buy new and they are state of the art, usually Fords or Dodges.  The Ford engines last forever; I have seen them cross the three hundred thousand mile mark, still huffing powerfully. 

We drive to the carwash and the sisters vacuum the floor and clean the interior with Windex and 409 while the brothers scrub the outside.  I climb on top of the van and clean the grime off the roof.  Two brothers remove the wooden platform from the rear of the van, where the third seat would normally be.  On top of the platform are the cases of candy for fundraising and under the platform is the luggage and sleeping bags.  All of this is removed so that the interior of the van can be made clean.  Then the body is waxed and buffed and everything is returned to its proper place.

By the captain’s seat is a cup-holder perpetually holding a cup of hot coffee, usually procured from the drive-through.  On the dashboard is a map of Illinois, laminated and well-worn.

Sometimes the traveling teams really burn up the highway.  Frank shares with me the secret of long late-night trips.  If you’re sleepy, says Frank, eat something crunchy like Fritos or nuts.  It makes a noise in your head that wakes you up.  That and a cup of super high-octane coffee. 

Thanks, Frank, I’ll remember that.  And I do.     

When the Israelites were wondering in the wilderness, after their exodus from Egypt, they could not build a temple, but God had them build the tabernacle, which was kind of a mobile temple until they settled in the Promised Land.  Similarly, our vans are like mobile temples, the place where we sing Holy Songs, and pray, flying down the highway at 70 miles an hour, worshipping God.

At night, when the team is traveling, the members sleep in the back on the seats or on the platform, lulled by the sound of tires on pavement, while the captain drives to the next town.  Highway 55 will take us to Springfield, in the heart of the state, and every small town and city is connected by the vast array of veins and arteries making up Illinois’ highway system.   

            Usually once a month Tate-san calls all the teams back to Chicago for a workshop.  There is a thrill in returning to the big city.  The elevated train throws its shadow on the busy streets below.  Chicago is famous for its food, including all the ethnic cuisines, Greek diners where you can get a feta cheese omelet any time of day.  The Sears Tower defines the skyline, the Miracle Mile, the museums and at the edge of Lake Michigan, Navy Pier, Lake Shore Drive and Soldier’s Field. 

            All the brothers and sisters gather for the meeting.  The theme of this workshop is internal guidance and everybody appreciates a good workshop.  Our lecturer is ill, but he soldiers on and we don’t realize how sick he is, but he can’t eat a bite for two days.  To make a point, he says, Ask Satan what he thinks about me.  I do so.  At first I hear nothing, and then, a string of obscenities, bloody fool, wasting his life, could be a real leader.  Then I ask God, what do you think of our brother?  I am moved by his dedication, his sacrifice, here is an elder brother you can trust. I didn’t realize that you could ask God a question and get a response, but actually, if we, God’s children, can’t communicate with Him then that is a problem.  The fact is we can communicate with God, except when our spirit is confused.  I have talked to God many times, but this is the first time I stopped to listen.

            He makes a second point: in our life of faith we are endeavoring to become people with a character like 24-karat gold, in other words, no impurity, but usually we look good on the outside, but inside is teeming with contradictions.  Gold-plated.  That sure strikes a chord with me, for I am a quiet person.  Why do you think I am so quiet?  The quiet ones are the ones you have to watch out for.  Basically I’m hiding and holding onto the darkness inside, but if I don’t say too much, no one will realize what a hypocrite I really am.  But the first step to real change is realizing where you stand with God, pushing aside the façade. 

Life on the frontline will drain your batteries, but a good workshop will recharge you.  We make some team changes, organize the product and area, and head back out on the road.  And the road goes on and on.  I’ve been doing this for a while, but I begin to suspect I’m just going through the motions.  I can’t connect with my original motivation.  Something about saving the world.  At some point Tate-san decides to send me for a more in-depth workshop.  He informs me that I am going to New York for a 21-day program.

This is my first visit to New York and the city meets me with its cold, impersonal stare.  Al Kooper, the songwriter, once said to the city in his song New York City (You’re A Woman): You ain’t never loved nobody.  I’m not the first person to find the Big Apple a little rotten.  Nonetheless, this is the home of the Unification Church’s North American headquarters, and the church is active here.  

            I take this workshop seriously.  I intend to challenge God to show me what is true, to reveal Himself to me, and answer my doubts.  As Jesus said, Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you (Matt.7:7).  I don’t want to take someone else’s word for it; I want to seek the truth on my own terms.  Faith, after all, is a very personal thing, and I am convinced that each one of us has an obligation to question our faith constantly, just as we must always be reevaluating our status and standing with our Heavenly Father.  I’m not looking for a blind faith.  I question Divine Principle and I challenge God.  I think a lot about Reverend Moon, the man we call Father, and my relationship to him.  My relationship with my own Father was based on fear more than love.  How can I restore that?  Reverend Moon is not a man to be taken lightly.  His speeches are like the ocean, sometimes frolicking, sometimes peaceful and sometimes dark and intense.  While one speech might make me feel hopeful and ecstatic, another speech is pure judgment.  Like standing in front of God. 

            Then one Sunday morning we drive up the Hudson Parkway to the Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, New York.  We gather at 5:00 a.m., sing holy songs and pray, and by six o’clock Father appears.  This is my first opportunity to see Reverend Moon in person, and I’m expectant.  I have heard that those narrow eyes see everyone in the packed room, even more than that, that he sees down to your spirit.  What if my spirit is deformed and twisted? 

            This morning, for some reason, the microphone is not working.  The title of today’s speech is The Right Path of Abel from the Providential Point of View, but while they are working on the microphone, Reverend Moon tells us about his fishing trip of the previous day.  Even after the microphone is fixed he continues to talk about fishing and the ocean for the entire speech.  The title of the speech is later amended to The Right Path of Tuna. 

            Reverend Moon’s vision for the ocean is that through proper management, all the world’s hungry people might be fed through the ocean’s bounty.  He has an idea to make bread from fish powder to alleviate famine in poor countries.  Another idea is a fleet of ships around a Mother Ship that could stay out on the ocean for extended periods of time.  When the world finds peace, the aircraft carriers could be used for this purpose.  Other ideas include aquaculture, fast freezing on ships and the health benefits of krill (a small, shrimp-like creature).

            He has the idea to create a fleet of boats to be used to educate inner-city youth about life on the sea, and call it Ocean Church.  Towards this end, Father tells us that he has purchased a marina, docks and boats in Gloucester.  In the Unification Movement, Reverend Moon is the visionary, but it is up to the members to implement the vision, to make it happen.

            Reverend Moon has become deeply tanned from fishing.  He tells us that Mrs. Moon will have a black husband in the summer and a white husband in the winter.   

            After Father leaves, brothers and sisters spill out onto the large grounds at Belvedere, with quite a few gravitating to the large boulder near the driveway to pray.  It is a morning when the sky is clear and the sounds of families and children reverberate off the nearby woods. 

            I take time to process my feelings after having finally met Reverend Moon for the first time.  He looks just like the pictures I have seen and he is supremely comfortable on the stage talking to the members.  My first thought is that Father is a very good man, a dynamic speaker, a visionary and a prophet, but is he something more?  Is he the Messiah?  What is a Messiah?

Is he my Messiah?  Is there an answer to that question that will not alienate my Christian brothers and sisters?  Perhaps I can say, as the disciples 2000 years ago said, that there is good news.  The promised second advent has already occurred, right on schedule according to God’s timetable, and Biblical prophecy fulfilled, which states, I will come on thee as a thief (Rev.3:3), and The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed (Luke 17:20).

            In the first few months after joining the church I came to accept that Reverend Moon had been anointed by God for a unique mission and given special authority.  The introduction to Divine Principle says that ‘through intimate spiritual communion with God and by meeting with Jesus and many saints in Paradise, he brought to light all the secrets of Heaven.’  The beginning of his mission was in April of 1935 when, at the age of 13, he received a vision of Jesus while praying on a hill near his home.  Jesus asked him to finish the mission of the Lord left unaccomplished due to the crucifixion.  Thus he began the journey which brought him to Pusan in 1954, where he hung a sign which said: Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, commonly known as the Unification Church.  How can we know if Reverend Moon is sent by God?  Jesus said in Matt.7:16: A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

            Rather than praying for the Lord to come on the clouds, or waiting for the Rapture, Unificationists have been busy working on behalf of God’s will.  We have not been idle, but with small numbers, we can’t be successful.  That is why the outreach is so important.  Unificationists believe that we must take ownership of this world and restore it ourselves brick by brick; this is what God wants us to do.  In this respect, God is not the answer to our prayers; we are the answer to God’s prayer.  Ben Franklin said God helps those who help themselves.

            There is one story about Reverend Moon, I don’t know if it is a true story or a rumor, but the way I heard it, he was looking out a window, deep in thought, when one of his senior advisors asked him what he was thinking.  He turns around and says, I was thinking that if Jesus does come back on the clouds we are all in a lot of trouble.

            Another story, and this one I know to be true, Reverend Moon was speaking at length to the members.  He is reminded that there is an airplane to catch to the next city.  He is reminded again a short time later, and at the third reminder he turns and says, you don’t tell me what to do.  I am Messiah.  And then he proceeds to laugh uproariously at his own joke.  This is the unseen Reverend Moon, the one the media has never met. 

On the twenty-first day we conclude the workshop with a big bonfire in the woods.  We are encouraged to repent and make a new start.  If repentance is not the daily diet for Christians, it should be.  Repentance is what Satan can’t do.  Satan can never say he’s sorry.  So this is the most useful tool a Christian has for separating from Satan.  It is the essential weapon in the Unificationist’s arsenal, and even though it’s easy on a superficial level to say the words, the remaining issue is to really mean it. 

            In the dark woods, with the big bonfire blazing, I have a good prayer.  The next day I fly back to Chicago and my new start.              

Changes are coming to our region.  We get new team captains, new members, some of the old members get a new mission.  Young blood comes to the Windy City.

            The call comes for marriage-eligible men and women to hurry to New York.  In the Unification Church, the requirements for marriage are three years in the church and a seven-day fast.  Most of us are eligible.  All the teams rush back to the M.F.T. center.  Plane tickets for two dozen people are waiting.  We pile into the vans and hurry to the airport.

            On the way there is an accident.  One of the drivers sideswipes a car while changing lanes.  He does not stop.  If we stop we miss the plane.  If we miss the plane, we miss the Matching, when Reverend Moon will suggest a spouse of each of us.  Reverend Moon will be matching eligible couples in New York, and we are determined to participate.  All our life of faith has been leading up to this.  Another van blocks the car from getting in front of our driver.  At the next intersection, all the information has been printed on a note card and is passed apologetically to the wronged driver.  We barely catch our flight to New York, where, I hope, my fiancée is waiting for me.

In the New York airport, brothers and sisters are arriving from all over the world for the matching.  Some who cannot come will be matched by photo.  Vans are waiting to ferry us downtown to the New Yorker Hotel.  The New Yorker was bought by the Unification Church for a mere seven million dollars at a time when the city was beset by crime and economic hardship.  This historic and massive building is being restored slowly, but the lobby, the Manhattan Center and the Grand Ballroom (where the matching will take place) are opulent and ornate.

            The lobby is decorated in the historical style, but with religious overtones.  The chandeliers shine on murals of Biblical scenes hanging in the portico.  On the left as we enter is a large globe with the inscription, The Light of the World. 

            Reverend Moon is widely regarded as a matchmaker.  Even as a young man, he was reputed to be adept at choosing good couples.  In the early years, he picks the spouses for most of the members, but he hints that in the future, this will become the parent’s responsibility.  Arranged marriages are a historical tradition in the Orient, as well as the Middle East and other places, but have fallen out of favor in the twentieth century.  Certainly, it sets us apart from other Christian denominations and their wedding practices. 

            The members gather in the Grand Ballroom and Reverend Moon appears.  He talks for a while about the importance of marriage in the context of God’s providence, and then he commences to pointing to various members and suggesting matches.  He asks M.F.T. members to stand up and I stand.  He points at me and then points at one Japanese sister across the room.  She is not sure at first if he means her or the sister in front of her.  Me? she asks.  Then he pushes us together.  We bow slightly and then go upstairs to discuss the matching.

            Upstairs, I look across a small table into the face of the woman with whom I will share eternity, if we accept.  Her hair is raven black.  Her face is bright like the moon with a melancholy smile.  She lowers her eyes, only slightly, under my gaze.  I ask her name.  Ryoko.

            I accept Father’s match, she says simply.  Me too, I agree.  Her English is somewhat limited, and communication is an issue.  We go back downstairs and bow to Reverend Moon, indicating that we accept his choice.  Then we leave the Grand Ballroom and make our way to the cafeteria, as we both are famished.

            We wait in line in the cafeteria to get our lunchbox on a tray.  Hundreds of newly-matched couples are milling about, loud and festive, greeting old friends.  We carry our trays into an expansive hall and eat sitting on the floor.  I steal glances at my fiancée; she is shy and pretends not to notice.  Someone with a Polaroid is going around taking photos of the new couples; he takes our picture sitting there on the floor with our food and hands it to me. 

            Ryoko means child of goodness.

            I see people I recognize everywhere, and many stop to offer their congratulations.  I see familiar faces from California, Ohio, M.F.T. and workshops.  Laurey is there, and we take a picture together with Laurey in the middle like a proud papa. 

            Even without the benefit of communication, it is quickly apparent to me that we share the same dry humor.  Not only that, but she anticipates my thoughts, and I know what she is going to say before the words appear.  Just like me, Ryoko has a quiet, shy nature.  Tate-san says we are like the same person, just different genders.

            She has a degree in philosophy.  She spent the last two years in England, where she worked as a missionary for the church.  She has two older sisters.  Her father is a lifelong public servant who drinks generous amounts of sake in the evening which renders him mellow and sweet-tempered.  Her mother is long-suffering, having grown up with a severe step-mother and stepsisters, an outsider in her own family.  Ryoko’s grandfather had grey eyes, very rare in Japan, and her aunt had the power of healing in her Buddhist hands. 

            I feel so awkward around her.  A cat has got my tongue, and conversation requires a huge amount of effort, pantomime, the translation of words into simple language and more simple language and a whole array of gestures and facial expressions.  Finally we give up trying to be understood at all, saying whatever we feel like and smiling to acknowledge that, yes, I know you didn’t understand a word but somehow it’s enough just to be near you.  In the absence of speech, we find that laughter comes easily and senselessly to fill the silence. 

            The Matching goes on into the afternoon.  Ryoko and I step out onto the street and walk a block to Grand Central Station.  People everywhere.  She takes my arm and we walk down to the East River and sit on a dock watching boats and barges pass by.  Ryoko reads a book.  I take a picture and she pretends not to notice.  When she smiles, which is seldom for she is a serious person, her whole face lights up and her eyes become narrow slits.  Barges loaded with the city’s garbage drift by on their way to dump their cargo in the ocean.  The sun is low in the sky.  Nature here is compromised and the people are tough.  They have no patience for pedestrians.  We cross the street quickly, hiding behind the veterans. 

            It begins to rain and we walk close up against one another beneath a black umbrella.  A cold rain.  Down the side streets we stroll, a Korean church, warehouses for the garment industry, and brown tenement buildings.  The crowds thin on the slick sidewalks as the light fails. 

            Back at the New Yorker I see familiar faces.  The matching has ended, and the newly-matched couples are getting acquainted.  There is a huge celebration cake and I eat the icing from her cake.  In the evening there will be entertainment in the Manhattan Center.  Our first date.

            She explains about haiku.  Haiku is a traditional Japanese poem composed of three lines in a form of 5-7-5 syllables.  Here is mine.

            Divine Principle says that God is the subject being of harmonized masculine and feminine qualities.  He created Man and Woman in the Image of His Divine characteristics and blessed them saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Gen.1:28).  Tragically, man fell into a state of separation from God because of an act of disobedience that Divine Principle identifies as being an act of adultery.

            Our life as Unification Church members is the life of restoration, beginning on the individual level, but now we are graduating to the next level, on the level of the family.  Historically, men and women have been like enemies, even when coming from the same culture.  In our case, we are the descendants of former enemies.  How much more difficult, then, is our course? 

            We walk down Eighth Avenue to a pizza by the slice shop.  Across the table, looking into her face, I do not recognize an enemy.  When I look at you I see the face of God.  The mother of the world’s lost orphans.  New York becomes a metaphor for aimless humanity, but we are spinning in our own sphere on a private planet.  We look as spectators out at the sky, the river, the people flowing.  The sidewalk is a bridge to tomorrow, and the New Yorker is a sanctuary from the horns, sirens, bells and shouts of this, America’s most impatient city. 

            We watch a woman chasing a purse-snatcher, right in the shadow of Madison Square Garden.  New York can be arrogant and mean, but I guess you could get used to Hell if you have an apartment there.  Homeless people sleep in the dark corners in Grand Central Station, but the locals do not even notice them.  We explore this strange world and, finding it uninhabitable, hurry back to the safety of the World Mission Center, as the New Yorker is now known.

            Her mission is in England and tomorrow I will fly back to Chicago. I don’t know when I will see her again, but I have her face captured in my camera.  One word from Father changes everything.  Ryoko will be staying in America, and she will be going on the road with M.F.T.  Since she is insecure in her faith, I think M.F.T. will be beneficial for her.  M.F.T. is the life of coming to depend on God, I tell her. 

            I blush when I bump up against her tiny body, but for now our relationship is entirely platonic.  Divine Principle is very clear that man’s separation from God was caused by fornication before marriage.  Our cardinal rule is: Do not repeat the Fall. 

            The Bible says that Adam in the Garden of Eden was busy making up names for all the animals (Gen. 2:20).  We can imagine that Eve was staying at home feeling abandoned.  It’s just like the interactions between men and women today; while the men are off skateboarding, working on cars, or playing pick-up basketball with their buddies, women feel left out.  Lucifer must have spent a great deal of time with Eve, they would have talked at length, and Lucifer knew of things from the beginning of creation.  Originally he would have been present in the Garden as a teacher for the first human ancestors.  This was at a time before man’s spiritual senses became dull, and Lucifer the archangel was as real to Eve as Adam was.  God had anticipated the potential for Adam and Eve to feel sexual desire before He joined them in holy matrimony, so He gave them a commandment, according to the Bible: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die (Gen. 3:3).  Divine Principle explains that the Tree of Life symbolizes Adam and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents Eve, and the fruit of the tree is her love. 

            Eve was attracted to Lucifer and he was drawn to her.  They engaged in an act of love that the Divine Principle identifies as being an act of fornication.  Immediately Eve realized that she had done something wrong.  She tried to go back to God by seducing Adam (Gen. 3:6).  Thus the Fall became substantial, and Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, and Lucifer was expelled from Heaven.

            In fact, to say that God kicked them out may not be entirely accurate, because the Bible explains that after they disobeyed God, Adam and Eve hid themselves.  They ran away and hid from God.  Children with a guilty conscience often hide from their parents, and this is what our human ancestors did.  Similarly, at the conclusion of life, it is not God who sends people to Hell, but human beings with unbearable guilt that choose to live apart from God. 

            According to Reverend Moon, when Ryoko and I receive the Holy Wine during the Blessing ceremony, Satan can no longer accuse us of the original sin, and we can stand in the position of Adam and Eve before the Fall.  The Blessing ceremony will follow in a few months.

            Back in Chicago, I return to the front line.  Ryoko joins the M.F.T. in Seattle, and she writes me almost as seldom as I write her, but each letter is precious.  Her experience on the fundraising team is deeper than mine.  She makes a small sacrifice, waking up early to pray, but good things always happen.  She meets good people and they donate, and she always has good result.  Spirit world helps me, she writes. 

            She also trusts her team leader, because she believes that God will work through the position.  The team captain’s ability is beside the point, God works through the power of unity. 

            I begin spending less time on the front line.  Sometimes I am asked to serve as a kind of general affairs person, overseeing the fleet of vehicles, ordering product and maintaining the center.  I like these kinds of external responsibilities but it is a life devoid of spiritual endeavor.  You need the help of spirit world to open a person’s heart, not to change the oil in a van.  I have to remind myself to pray; otherwise I become as dry internally as a desert. 

            Sometimes I am called upon to lead a team.  Then I become responsible for the well-being of my members and their spiritual lives.  I spend long hours in the van, driving around, picking up food for members in the drive-thru and ferrying members to their areas. 

            One night one of the sisters on my team is beaten up and robbed.  I go to see her in the hospital and she is not badly injured, mostly just bruised, but I don’t know what to say.  She was working with a brother but the hoodlums just pulled a coat over his head and yanked the money from her pockets.  She tried to put up a fight.  I walk around the area where the attack occurred and try to fathom how to prevent future incidents.  The most important protection, I know, is unity.  Satan doesn’t attack unless he sees some disunity or flaw, some mistake or wrong attitude.  As team captain, it is my job to protect the team spiritually.

            In July, the previously-matched couples travel to New York for the Blessing, the elaborate Unification ceremony of marriage.  We are wed in Madison Square Garden, which is packed, and the proceedings are televised as 2075 couples dressed in white robes walk down the aisle.  The New York newspapers, usually filled with nastiness, are unusually gracious on our special day: Congratulations, Honey-Moonies, the headlines read. 

            The floor of the Garden is filled with brothers and sisters in their holy robes lying like a low white cloud in the vast arena, which we imagine to be filled with God’s presence.  Existing only in the moment, fused with Ryoko by my side, the past with its hardships and pain is forgotten and the future’s demands and quarrels are hidden.  For now the present is enough, for this is a preview of Heaven, this gathering of the family of man, with all races and nations represented, in a rare moment of peace. 

            What is the Blessing?  Simply put, it is amnesty for the original sin, that crime of Adam and Eve that allowed Satan to say to God, they are my children, not yours.  Here in New York, God is claiming back His own children.

Afterward, thusly forgiven, I return to Chicago.  Many of the older members are graduating from M.F.T.  Some who are over thirty will start their families, some go to the seminary, some become missionaries overseas and some get witnessing missions, but I will stay a little longer.  As a veteran I can help raise up the young members, mostly working behind the scenes as general affairs person.  Some of the new members don’t care for fundraising, but those who invest themselves begin to shine like diamonds. 

            The time comes when enough people have left the fundraising teams that some of the centers are shut down and the properties sold.  Eventually even Chicago is slated to be closed and the remaining members dispersed to Philadelphia and Los Angeles.  I stay behind to clean up the warehouses, return the keys and sell the properties.  In a way I am the last M.F.T. member in Chicago.  Then I, too, relocate to L.A.

            Ryoko is in L.A. as well, training as a bookkeeper for a wholesale fish warehouse.  I am encouraged to spend time with her, we barely know each other, and so we go out together for dinner.  Her English is remarkably improved.  We enjoy an elaborate meal in a fancy restaurant and afterwards park near the beach in my car, with her laying her head in my lap.  Shaking, I ask if it would be all right to kiss her.  She smiles, and I slowly bend down and barely touch her lips, but it sends an electric jolt through me and leaves me weak.  But we go no farther.  We will start our family life soon, and we are cognizant of the importance of waiting for the proper time, as Adam and Eve should have waited.  One sweetly-charged kiss, and then, the mutual commitment to abstinence, for if our human ancestors had waited for God’s approval, then the most holy act would not have become the most debased act.

I treasure my experiences on M.F.T. which helped me to forge a more compassionate character, and that will propel me to be a better person, but it does not entirely prepare me for married life.  I move to New York to take care of general affairs on the national level, and Ryoko moves here as well.  In a tiny room high in the New Yorker Hotel, we consummate our marriage.  The first year of marriage is the most difficult, when all our fallen nature comes out, but even so, I begin to appreciate how desperately I need Ryoko to balance me and compensate for my shortcomings.  Harmony as a couple constantly and daily requires compromise and negotiation; you can’t just do as you please, but there is an acclimation period required, a time of mutually injured feelings.

There is one final lesson to be learned before I leave M.F.T.  One day I am taking the elevator up to my apartment.  I am alone in the elevator, and I am slouching and leaning against the wall.  Then a very important senior leader of the church steps in with an entourage.  I decide it would be phony to snap to attention, so I continue leaning against the wall.  When we exit, this leader says a few words to his assistant, who takes me aside.  He explains that God’s love flows downhill, like water.  Similarly, the love that originates in God flows through senior leaders, junior leaders, to all the members.  In a family, it flows through grandparents to parents and finally to children.  He says that in order to receive the love, we have to show respect to those above us.

At first I reject this advice and am angry, but the more I consider it, the more I can accept it.  It is an oriental concept, of course, we pride ourselves in the west for being equals, but I can believe that this is closest to heavenly design.  In learning this, I come to understand the truest way of life is to show respect for all of God’s children, even the homeless, the cripple, the alcoholic and the criminal.

Now my schooling is complete.  Ryoko and I are summoned for a meeting with Father at East Garden, his estate in Tarrytown.  He encourages the American-Japanese couples to join the restaurant business; Japanese members have already opened ninety sushi bars.  I offer my application and a few days later I am invited to Atlanta to meet the owner of five Japanese restaurants spread throughout the southeast.  He tells me to move down right away.  Ryoko is pregnant and will have to come later.  My first day in Atlanta, the staff takes me out for lunch.  We are chatting and getting to know one another when one sister asks me when is my birthday.  It’s today, I suddenly remember, and my gift from God is to be returned to the South.

THE COURSE OF A SUSHI CHEF

            It is 1988 and my life is about to get a lot more complicated.  Ryoko, her belly swelling with our first child, stays behind in Manhattan while I transfer to Atlanta to begin work in the August Moon Restaurant.  The manager, Ishi-san, takes an apprehensive look at me and ushers me to the dish-wash room.  A sixteen-year old kid shows me how to operate the dishwashing machine and recommends that I invest in some rubber boots as he throws his apron in the linen basket, leaving me with a tall stack of plates and racks of dirty glasses. 

            August Moon is a teppanyaki joint where they cook at the tables, and it gets smoky.  Six of the big grills sit in a dark, greasy room off to the left, and to the right are some stained pine tables and a long sushi bar along one whole side.  The hibachi chefs are all Korean, but in a pinch, Ishi-san can put on a show, throwing shrimp and setting grease fires, although he prefers to stay behind the sushi bar. 

            The owner of August Moon is Mr. Hoshino, a  tall, thin Korean man with a gaunt face and long bony hands, who grew up in Japan.  Mr. Hoshino dresses nice, always in somber tones: dark greens, dark browns, and black.  A jacket but no tie.  He owns five restaurants scattered about the southeast, but this is his only steakhouse.  Teppanyaki, strictly speaking, is not a traditional Japanese cuisine, but a kind of derivation of the famous okinomiyaki shops in Osaka where you can cook your own seafood pancakes at table grills, teppan being the Japanese rendering of ‘tin pan’, and yaki meaning grilled.  But the simple cafes in Osaka bear no resemblance to the gaudy, overblown theater made famous by chains like Benihana, where the rice is cooked in a big pile on the grill and the chicken and beef is sliced staccato-style amid the smoke and the grease with food flying and the hibachi chef reciting stale jokes.

            Nonetheless, hibachi cooking is still popular in 1988, and though the area of Doraville where August Moon is situated is a little dilapidated, our customers, mostly regulars, still get a smile on their face as they come through the front door.   

Washing dishes suits me fine.  I don’t have to think about the work at all, leaving my mind free to wander.  After one month of mindless freedom, Ishi-san asks me to join the wait-staff, the elite group that functions as the smiling face of the restaurant.  In most restaurants, the servers are among the highest-paid employees, because of tips.  They serve as liaison between the customers and the kitchen, operating under pressure from both sides, but showing a calm exterior.  The staff at August Moon is capable, friendly and diverse: there are several Malaysian students, a pretty Taiwanese girl and her boyfriend and two Korean girls.  I am the lone white guy.  One of the Korean girls is Banya, who takes me under her wing and shows me the fine points of waiting tables.

Everyone should have the experience, once in their life, of waiting tables, because you can never mistreat a waitress after standing in her slip-resistant black shoes.  It is theatre which must be experienced to be appreciated to work under pressure in the intense heat of the kitchen and the fast pace of the dining room, holding in one’s mind a list of tables and needs and traveling back and forth with various heavy and obtuse loads, and still come out smiling.  If only the rude ticket agent and unhelpful city workers had honed their customer service skills in the heat of a busy restaurant.  Banya imparts to me the patience and empathy of a good server.

Banya has a strong nature, as do many Koreans.  If I was to compare the character of Japanese people with Koreans, I would say the Japanese are organized, emphasize the public benefit and discourage individualism.  Koreans, on the other hand, are somewhat more independent, fiercely loyal, and extremely sacrificial.  They are a hot-blooded people who tend to like spicy food, and Banya is no exception.

Banya is one of those oriental ladies whom you can never guess their age.  She seems young, with her bangs hanging in her eyes and pigtails.  She is small and energetic, prone to laughter.  She is an accomplished violinist.  Since she knows my church was born in Korea, she teaches me many things about Korean culture and food.

Here at August Moon we pool the tips, which is a little different from most places; we put all the tips together and then divide them up equally so that each server makes the same amount.  The advantage of this is that it provides a real incentive to help one another, to run someone else’s food to the table and bus each other’s tables.  The disadvantage is that some servers are slackers, don’t pull their weight, or are dishonest about their tips.  This can lead to bad feelings among the staff, especially since tips here are kind of lousy, and turnover is high. 

One day I have cause to wonder if Ishi-san has verified his staff’s legal status.  A somber gray man parks himself at a table near the front entrance and asks to see everyone’s identification.  He is from the Immigration Office.  I sit down across the table from him and hold out my license.  Anyone who’s not American, he says with a glare.  While I get up and walk away, several waiters disappear out the back door of the restaurant.  Fortunately this occurs near the end of the lunch rush, and I finish the shift as the sole waiter. 

There is an older Japanese woman who serves as hostess and cashier.  She is a favorite with the customers but she is tired of the restaurant business and ready to retire.  Ishi-san decides to groom me as her replacement.  She is a hard worker and polite to a fault, but she is deeply suspicious of anything related to the Unification Movement.  Me, I’m tired of living like a secret agent and so I try to be open about my church involvement; on the other hand, I refrain from proselytizing in the work environment.

There is a precedent for this.  The story that is often told in Unification circles is that Reverend Moon never talked about his providential calling when he was in prison in North Korea.  To have done so would have meant almost certain torture, as if life in a communist death camp wasn’t brutal enough already.  Despite his silence, other prisoners were drawn to him, sometimes by a message communicated in a dream, and he gained disciples in the prison without witnessing.  Also he shared the meager rations he was given, so we often say that the most powerful witness is not what you say, but how you live. 

In December I fly to New York to be with Ryoko, the delivery being imminent.  Our room high in the New Yorker is small and empty, and one night after midnight, her water breaks.  She takes a shower while I take the elevator downstairs to hail a cab.  The wind blows snow in my face.  By the time Ryoko makes it downstairs, I am waiting with the taxi.  We drive across mid-town to the Beth Israel Hospital.  Our driver complains about the one-way streets; the best he can do is drop us off behind the hospital, with a half-block of snow-covered grass to trudge across.  Every few steps Ryoko must stop for a hard contraction.  The streets are deserted and the lights of the hospital in the distance are the only signs of life in the sleeping city.  Our footprints in the snow trace back to the curb where we were let go.  Ryoko doesn’t speak at all, but just pushes forward when she is able to move at all.  We reach the back door and are horrified to find it locked tight.  She looks at me in desperation.  Coming soon, she says.

I bang on the door.  There is a security guard just inside.  She’s having a baby, I yell.  He grapples with a large ring of keys and unlocks the massive door, holding it open as Ryoko climbs the last few steps.  Inside, a nurse pulls up with a wheelchair. 

She whisks Ryoko off and I get us registered and then sit down in the waiting room.  I decide to give them a few minutes to get settled in before I ask to join my wife.  I almost wait too long.

They usher me into the room where Ryoko lies in a special bed with stirrups, hooked up to a monitor that measures the contractions.  They are getting stronger.  The team that is here is a doctor and three nurses.  I quickly discover how totally obtrusive a husband is at a birth.  I am not sure what my function is, but the team and my wife are occupied and ignore me.  The final pains of birth are dramatic and draining, and then as the head pops out, followed by a healthy baby boy, my response is not what I expect and I cry to welcome Samuel to our world.  One of the nurses asks if I need to sit down and I guess I must have turned rather pale.  Then all of the attention shifts to Sam and he is a perfect, tiny boy, complete in every way.  He cries and takes the breast and sleeps his first sleep.  Everyone is tired and I am sent home before daybreak. 

Two days later I fly back to Atlanta; Ryoko will join me when Sam is old enough to fly, for they say that a newborn’s ears are too sensitive to take an airplane.  Back at the August Moon, I move to the front of the house where my responsibilities include seating customers, alerting their server and, at the conclusion of their pleasant dining experience, accepting their money.  Occasionally things do go awry, and I am expected to handle complaints, deflect criticism, absorb blame and otherwise keep the peace.  And I will become adept at it over the course of time, but I am still learning the job the first time a businessman leans over me and shares that his companion found shards of glass in his salad.  I’m new at this.  I don’t know what the correct compensation is for a fly in the miso, a hair in the rice, a long wait, an overcooked steak, or poor service.  Is it enough to discount the meal, make it complimentary, or should I give the entire party of ten people a free ride, as this gentleman is insisting.  To me, one free dinner seems reasonable, and Ishi-san is backing me up.  I don’t know what else to do so I dig in my heels and make a stand and it almost leads to a confrontation.  The disagreement does not escalate, however, but it does lead to bitter feelings all around and a profound relief when they finally leave.  And although I will need to learn to be more sympathetic, it is a fact of life in the restaurant business that there will always be a small minority of customers that insist on acting like jerks. 

They are the exception.  Most of our customers are regulars; Ishi-san knows them by name and they are more like friends who are just visiting and grab a bite because it is convenient.  They sit at the sushi bar and marvel at the expertise of the sushi chefs.  A good sushi chef is an artist.  His blade is razor sharp; he can make pieces of sushi in seconds and fill a wooden plate with fish as colorful as a flower arrangement.  But creating sushi is a labor-intensive process and, when it gets busy, delays are inevitable.  As we like to say, this is not fast food.  My unpleasant job is to let customers know when their food is going to be late.  Then again, to co-ordinate the cook- times between the hibachi chefs, the kitchen and the sushi bar is an ongoing challenge, and, during the peak times, a downright nightmare.  We do the best we can.

Eventually Ryoko and Sam, all eight to ten squealing pounds of him, join me down south.  Mr. Hoshino has purchased a big cedar-sided building consisting of four identical townhouses.  We snare the first one, essentially an empty shell since we have no furniture other than a dorm-size fridge, a futon and a card table with the legs cut short so we can sit on the floor oriental- style.  The townhouse next-door is taken by Ishi-san’s family, the next by the Japanese brothers and the last one is rented out.  The immediate benefit for me of having Ryoko nearby is that she can translate for me the impassioned discussions of the August Moon staff about the daily functions of the restaurant.  Further, she has an inside track to my co-worker’s honest feelings through their wives, including Mrs. Hoshino, through whom I gain insight into the big boss himself. 

            Mr. Hoshino takes me into his confidence.  He is a business visionary who spends long days driving the endless streets of Atlanta searching for prime locations for new restaurants.  He is the kind of businessman who can sell you something without your even realizing a transaction has taken place.  When he visits August Moon, he rakes the side yard, picks up trash in the parking lot, and attends the chores that nobody does.  He imparts guidelines to Ishi-san, who is happiest when Hoshino is out of town.  Since he is Korean, he doesn’t align himself with the Japanese members, but seems genuinely interested in my opinion.  His own ideas go unexpressed, and when he decides something, he moves at once and alone.

            For their part, the Japanese members are glad to have me working in the front, first of all because English is my first language and because I’m a church member and they can trust me.  Ishi-san and I share a love for music and he turns me on to contemporary Japanese pop.  Some of the Japanese brothers have found the best local fishing spot, and they share with me their secret.  Driving north from Atlanta, I can drop a line in the Chattahoochee River just below the dam.  The trout are plentiful here, and there is no better fishing than what a good size trout will give and no better eating among freshwater fish. 

When I joined the church, I left my guitar behind in San Francisco, and now I realize how much I miss it.  I purchase an old, dusty Epiphone with a slightly warped neck in a pawn shop for a hundred twenty bucks.  Strumming it brings back that old familiar feeling, and I still remember all those old songs, blues mostly: Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.  Melissa.  Stormy Monday.  After a long day of dealing with demanding customers, there is a catharsis in just picking up my guitar and hitting a chord, or bending a note.  Singing a ballad.  Dishwasher blues.

            I embrace my new home and mission, and it is here that I begin to formulate a plan, really just a dream at this point, of opening my own restaurant.  It is a doubtful dream, punctuated by: I don’t know how, and I don’t know when.  But it is a spark that just needs a little dry kindling to ignite.  There are various steps along the way, and the next step is when Mr. Hoshino decides to transfer me to Nashville, Tennessee to run the front of his most successful restaurant, an expansive place frequented by country music stars, called Benkay.  Well yes, country music stars do like Japanese food.  But they don’t advertise it.  And though I am familiar with the rumor that on a record studio bathroom wall there is graffiti that says, Dwight Yoakum eats sushi, I think that most of these famous people are proud of being cultured and cosmopolitan.  Off-stage. 

            I become star-struck in Nashville.  This is Music City, and I watch country music videos on television to identify people I see at the sushi bar every week.  They are almost universally approachable and personable.  Since I too am an aspiring musician, there is common ground, but then, in Nashville, every shoe salesman and window-washer is in the music business.

            Roy Clark.  Patty Loveless.  Rodney Crowell.  Lynn Anderson.  Bela Fleck.  Rita Coolidge.  I see them all dipping raw fish in soy sauce and eating rice with chopsticks.  Amy Grant drifts in, beautiful and sociable.  When she learns my name, she calls me on the phone: Bob, this is Amy, can I make a takeout order?  My closest brush with fame.  Suzy Boggus, I inadvertently brush up against her breast.  One of the Bellamy Brothers, (hit song: If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me), comes in and says he forgot his wallet, so I tell him take care of it next time.  Stevie Winwood   Janis Ian, Holly Dunn, Lily Tomlin, Paul Overstreet. 

            Our second child is born in Nashville, a daughter.  Mr. Hoshino says, a son, a daughter, perfect.

            To summarize what I learn in the year and some-odd months I spend in Nashville: there is tangible benefit in remembering people’s names, taking interest in their personal lives, and striving to dislike no one.  And while I’m not an outgoing person, I can learn to tolerate just about anybody.  I find that a smile goes a long way to breaking down resistance.  I said a smile goes a long way to breaking down resistance.  It is a truth that bears reiteration, and saves my butt many a time when the operations come unglued.  I have no assurance that Susie the waitress will show up for work today, but we’ll serve lunch in either case, and keeping a positive outlook, not just a frozen smile, might make a customer’s experience a little more pleasant, despite the possibility that they may have to wait a little longer than usual.  We just do our best.  What I learn is integral for survival in the service industry.  Still I carry this dream, the spark that will not die, of holding the key to my own restaurant, a sushi bar, of course, for sushi is riding a wave of popularity that is practically a tsunami.  Toward that end I request that Mr. Hoshino let me experience the other dimension of restaurant work.  I ask to work in the very guts of the restaurant, send me to the kitchen.  The noise, the heat, the vitality of the kitchen.  The sinks, fryers and grills, the walk-in cooler and the serving line.  Vegetables getting sliced and sectioned, shrimp thawing, beef and chicken covered in sweet teriyaki sauce, fish broth simmering on the stove.  Mr. Hoshino accommodates me; to the kitchen I will go. 

This requires another transfer, we’re used to it, and this time four of us are transferring.  In Alabama is the smallest of Mr. Hoshino’s acquisitions, the first sushi bar in Huntsville launched before Huntsville even knew what sushi is.  This little diversion is Sakura.  Sakura means cherry blossom, which conjures images of spring and new life, but the reality of this operation is sometimes closer to a slime hole.  But even the beautiful water lily thrives in the mud.

            The manager at Sakura is the second-best sushi chef I have ever worked with.  The best one was a grumpy old fart who sliced fish briefly at Benkay for exorbitant sums of money before opening his own rival sushi place, but he could make sushi at the rate of three average chefs.  Sakura’s manager and head chef is Toshi, young but very capable and, by a financial transaction I never fully grasp, he is the new owner of Sakura, having purchased it from Mr. Hoshino with substantial assistance from his wealthy father.  Toshi reminds me of Graham, the rich kid from J-Ville with whom I traveled to California.  Both are stylish, prodigious guitar players, and notoriously cool.  Toshi can play Hendrix; not many guitar players can pull that off.

            Sakura seats only about 40 customers.  The exterior is certainly not impressive; the gravel parking lot, flat shingled roof and flaking paint all call attention to the urgent need for an overhaul.  But we have one important customer who improves the appearance of Sakura just by his presence.  This gentleman, who evidently made a great deal of money with the invention of a computer peripheral in his garage, drives three cars: a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and an Astin-Martin, all three fire-engine red.  He comes for lunch at Sakura several times a week, and his beautiful car sitting in our parking lot draws envious stares.  He likes to eat a sashimi platter with a Hurricane roll.  The Hurricane roll has crab and cucumber inside and smoked salmon and avocado outside, so the outside is green and orange, like the Miami Hurricanes.  I don’t know how this roll migrated all the way to Huntsville, this city likes Auburn or the University of Alabama, but it’s a good seller for us, it keeps our local entrepreneur happy and his beautiful cars gracing our driveway.      

            To the kitchen I go for training.  Kind-hearted Tomi (Tomihiro) is in the kitchen, and his first question is: which hand do I favor?  It is a fair question, but I hesitate.  All my life I have been dexterous-confused.  I am plain incapable of writing with my right hand, but I throw right.  I grew up holding a fork in my left hand, but later I switched to the right.  Tomi helps me.  If there is an option, then he will encourage me to use my right hand, like all Japanese chefs.  In Japan, a south-paw would be very rare, a real oddity.

            Tomi instructs me in the proper use of the knife, the cleaning and the sharpening.  He assigns me to make the tempura, standing in the hottest space of the kitchen, beside the deep fryers.  His tempura is light and not greasy.  Mostly shrimp and vegetables.  Sweet potato, green pepper, carrot, onion and broccoli, all lightly battered and quickly deep-fried.  We cook tempura the traditional way, building up the batter with sprinkles from our chopsticks.  Nowadays the faux-Japanese restaurants take shortcuts, and the tempura is inevitably heavy and overcooked, but mine is sumptuous.

            I take over Tomi’s position and he transfers somewhere else.  I work alongside a tall Japanese brother who mans the grill, and who is so quiet and somber he could almost be called brooding.  I never coax from this brother one shred of personal information, where he is from, his age or his testimony.  Someone confirms for me his name and the sole fact that he is a church member, but apart from that, he is a great big mystery.

Toshi is fortunate to have a few church members working for him, because after us, he has surrounded himself with mostly riffraff, losers and hard-luck cases, with the notable exception of Penny, the sweet-tempered Alabama girl who waits tables at Sakura.  One of the waitresses has a restraining order against her boyfriend, another’s boyfriend is in jail for assault, and another is a mail-order bride from the Philippines.  One of the kitchen helpers holds a knife to a new guy’s throat.  A dishwasher has a disagreement with a waitress about cars, Toyota or Ford, and dumps his dinner in her lap after she flings her water in his face.  The cashier has mental health issues and the cook gets beat up by a band of unknown thugs.  One sushi helper wrecks the Porsche he bought with gambling winnings.  Easy come, easy go, he says.

            But the king of the misfits is Edwin, the Filipino cook who lurks in the darkest corner of the kitchen.  I get along with Edwin okay, but this guy has more dark habits than a closet in a convent.  For example, one time I am riding in Edwin’s car on the way to a basketball game when he swerves to hit or scare a black guy walking alongside the road.  Why did you do that, I ask?  I don’t know.  One day a motorcycle shows up in front of Sakura.  Let me ride it, I ask Edwin.  You don’t want to ride that, he says.  I collected it from a guy who couldn’t pay off his gambling debt.  When a waitress breaks up with him, he drives alongside her and forces her off the road, then beats her up and leaves her with bruises and black eyes.  She cannot work for days.  His oldest brother is a playboy and the next brother is in jail for assault, but Edwin is not dark or brooding, he is just a free spirit with a detached conscience.  Somehow he convinces Toshi to co-sign a loan so he can drive a Nissan 300ZX.  When he defaults on the loan, Toshi picks up the payments and takes the car.  Toshi is driving a bad-looking black 300ZX with a license plate that reads: 0 2 60 B4 U (Zero to sixty before you).

            Our third child is born here in Huntsville, coming so quickly that the doctor is absent and the nurse has no time to put on gloves.  Now our family is five, but Toshi thinks families can be a distraction from work.  He insists that work is the first priority, family is second, and this creates a tension between us.  Toshi and I have very different priorities, and sometimes that is hard to reconcile.  After about six months of making tempura, I ask Toshi to teach me to make sushi.  Perhaps the timing is fortuitous; he needs help at the bar and he grants my request.  From my point of view, this is the final step in learning every aspect of the Japanese restaurant, from the back of the house to the front of the house. 

            Toshi is younger than me, very short, intelligent and detached.  He stands on a wooden platform behind the sushi bar to increase his stature, but also, he confides to me, to see down the front of women’s shirts.  He likes nice things, and plays a mean electric guitar.  As I have mentioned, he is an excellent sushi chef, also a strict teacher.  If he shows me something once, his expectation is that I have learned it, and sometimes I have.      

            First he teaches me the importance of a sharp knife to the art of making sushi.  Unlike the western chef’s knife, the sushi knife, called yanagi, is only sharpened on one side, so the angle is sharper and the blade is very sharp.  You could shave with a good sushi knife, Toshi says.  The blade is made from high-carbon steel so it is soft and easily sharpened, but if left wet, it will quickly oxidize.  Toshi shows me how to sharpen it using abrasive stones, and how to polish it with Ajax and rolled-up newspaper.  A sharp, shiny blade is a sushi chef’s pride.  It is such a precious tool that sushi chefs, me included, have been known to try to catch a falling knife rather than let it hit the floor, for a cut hand heals, but a broken sushi knife cannot be restored.

            Then he starts to teach me about the fish.  The preparation of the fish is extremely important and varies with the type of fish.  In Japan the sushi chefs are immensely qualified to prepare raw fish.  An apprentice might spend his first three years just making rice and cleaning the kitchen.  In America no such stringent guidelines exist, and sometimes the chefs are inadequately trained.  I am proud to report that Toshi is strict about handling the fish and enforces the highest quality controls.  I learn from a master. 

            The mackerel is prepared using a very traditional method; the fillets are packed in salt for thirty minutes and then soaked in vinegar.  This is the preparation technique that dates to the time before refrigerators and was intended to extend the shelf-life of the fish.  In addition, it also created a delicious taste.  Bacteria are the enemy of freshness, and the various components of sushi: ginger, wasabi, vinegar and salt, all inhibit or kill bacteria.

            Salmon is prepared in a manner similar to mackerel, with the additional step of freezing.  Salmon requires special attention just because they spend part of their lives in fresh water.  No other freshwater fish is used as sushi.  Nor will salmon be served in a sushi bar in Japan, but it is popular here in America. 

            Yellowtail, or Hamachi, has an oily, strong taste similar to mackerel but milder, and it is probably the second most popular fish at the sushi bar.  The neck can be kept aside, marinated and broiled for a special treat.

            The king of the fish is tuna.  Number one tuna is bright red with no fishy taste whatsoever.  It is the most popular fish at the sushi bar, but it is even more popular in Japan.  Most of the bluefin tuna are caught off the New England coast and shipped to Japan.  The bluefin might weigh up to one thousand pounds and, in Japan, fetch up to one hundred dollars a pound.  At Sakura we mostly get the smaller yellowfin or big-eye tuna, 20 pound loins shipped by air and arriving twice a week.

            We also serve lots of black tiger shrimp, boiled and soaked in a vinegar/sugar/lemon mix to enhance the taste.  We have octopus which is sliced with a wavy hand motion to create a ripple effect and scored on the underside to make it less chewy.  Squid, we serve with a mint leaf.  Giant clam should be very fresh, boiled for about ten seconds, and when you drop it on the cutting board, it should move.  Beside the variety of fish, omelet is used as nigiri sushi.  The omelet is made in a square pan and built up in successive layers.  Toshi says he can tell an expert sushi chef just by the way he makes omelet.  I ask Toshi if a woman can be an expert sushi chef.  He says a woman’s hands are too warm.

            Other fish include flounder.  Toshi can cut thin slices of flounder sashimi and create a perfect white flower.  Eel.  Customers often and correctly save the eel for last, because it is covered in a sweet sauce, almost a dessert sushi.  The ocean serves up a colorful palette of seafood, and we occasionally get more exotic species.  Abalone, sea urchin, surf clam.  Squid livers.  Personally I pass on the squid livers. 

            Toshi says his sushi is not beautiful, but that he is fast.  If a customer is waiting too long for sushi, he doesn’t care how beautiful it looks.  I take this philosophy to heart, for the master has taught me well, but our falling out, when it comes, will be irrevocable. 

There is one other sushi helper at Sakura, Kitae, who is Korean.  Kitae and I are constantly competing with each other to see who can do it faster or better, and in this way we both quickly become adept.  Our main function as sushi helpers, besides prepping the fish and vegetables, is to make rolls.  Rolls, or maki sushi, are one of the four ways sushi is served, the other styles being nigiri sushi, chirashi sushi and sashimi.  Rolls consist of a thin sheet of roasted seaweed, covered in rice and rolled up with fish and vegetables on the inside, and then sliced into bite-size pieces.  Kitae and I can make a roll in about 60 seconds and, although in the beginning some rolls fall apart, with time our rolls are as uniform and crisp as Toshi’s.  The bad joke in all this is that the only thing I learned in college which I actually use in my new profession is how to roll.

 Nigiri sushi is a slice of fish on a ball of rice, and this is entirely in Toshi’s province, for he can make it extremely fast and arrange it on the plate so that it is very appetizing.  Sashimi is the fish without the rice, literally slices of raw fish, but the presentation is as exquisite as a painting.  Chirashi sushi is a bowl of rice with assorted fish on top.  But what we sell the most of is maki sushi: rolls.  At Sakura we try to maintain a balance between the traditional and the contemporary.  We offer traditional sushi like nigiri and sashimi, and we have a nice selection of rolls with names like California roll and spider roll, American adaptations of Japanese cuisine.  The California roll is composed of crabstick, avocado and smelt roe, but they don’t even grow avocadoes in Japan.  We have a spicy tuna roll, but most Japanese people don’t eat spicy foods.  There are Japanese restaurants whose menus consist almost solely of rolls, a hundred different varieties, and their clientele is almost exclusively western.

The only rolls that can properly be called traditional are the single-ingredient rolls: tuna roll, yellowtail roll, cucumber roll, ume roll; these might be found in a sushi bar in Tokyo.  Also the futomaki, fat roll, a big mouthful of a roll with crabstick, cucumber, smelt roe, omelet and sweet gourd inside.  The gourd requires a good deal of preparation: it is softened in salty brine and marinated in a sweet sauce, a lot of trouble so we just prepare a little.  If we do have a run on futomaki and run out of materials, then it is my policy to say: sorry, today I’m out of my gourd.

When my rolls are starting to look like they are supposed to, Toshi shows me how to make nigiri sushi.  He forms a ball of rice with three quick movements of his fingers and then slaps the slice of fish on top.  Then I do it.  If I copy his movement about a hundred times, my technique will start to become like his.  He forms another ball of rice and wraps it in a piece of plastic wrap.  Carry this in your pocket, he says, until you instinctively know the exact right size. 

Toshi is not dissatisfied with the job I’m doing, but working under pressure as we are and in such close proximity, there is bound to be conflict.  There is something else there as well, something harder to describe.  Toshi is drifting away from the church, he joined when he was very young, and the resentment he is starting to feel toward the movement comes out in his interactions with me.  But we never actually have an argument or a fight; the worse that happens is one night, a very busy night, when Toshi refuses to speak to me, and I walk out and go home, leaving Toshi to handle the rush alone.

Like any restaurant, some nights are busy and some are slow.  If you could predict the busy nights, you could make a fortune, I suppose.  (Just open on the busy nights.)  But something completely unrelated assures us two weeks of constant and heavy business. 

The Space Shuttle takes off on a 10-day mission.  On board is the space program’s first Japanese astronaut.  Huntsville just happens to be an outpost for NASA, and so, for two solid weeks, a swarm of Japanese journalists, perhaps a hundred of them, descends on Huntsville. 

They flock to Sakura every night for noodles, tempura and, especially, sushi.  One might think that they would use the opportunity to try some new cuisines, but they seem content to maintain their customary diets.  For two weeks, Sakura is the busy gathering place for a displaced army of Japanese writers, news people, cameramen and correspondents.

When Toshi decides to start opening Sunday nights, I complain that it is my only night with my family.  You should put work before family, Toshi says.  Though I respect Toshi, he is a church member who does not live as a religious person, and his priorities are the opposite of mine.  Toshi has a fiancée, but he’s thinking about calling it off.  He asks Penny out on a date.  This alarms Mr. Hoshino, who comes to Huntsville to talk to him.  Toshi agrees to spend some time with his fiancée to see if the relationship can be salvaged.  Toshi disappears for a few weeks and I find myself in the position of the head chef.  During this time there is turmoil all around.  Edwin the cook beats up his girlfriend, our waitress, and we fire him.  The bar next door burns down one night, mysteriously.  Toshi finally returns, but he has decided to leave the church, and my future is also affected.          

            I find myself standing at a crossroads.  I can stay at Sakura where there is a measure of security and familiarity.  Or I can leave.  I phone Mr. Hoshino and he says the decision is up to me.  I don’t like the idea of working in an ‘outside’ restaurant (i.e. outside the Unification movement).  The only reason I came here is because I was following Father’s directions.  Father instructed us to start our own restaurant and make it a center of the community and a gathering place for local leaders, and I still intend to do that.

            Next morning I stop by Sakura to inform Toshi I am leaving.  He asks me to stay long enough for him to find a replacement and I decline.  I am returning to Nashville, I tell him, where I have some unfinished business.

            Immense relief to be back in Nashville.  Even though it entails moving again, and we have accumulated quite a lot of second-hand furniture.  Also because now we are five.  Nashville is a beautiful city, a city of manners and civility, clean and southern.  The only thing I hold against Nashville is its distance from the ocean.  I could never settle so far inland. 

            They make room for me at Benkay, and I punch my timecard, intending to stay a year as I do most places.  But I am only passing through.  Benkay has nothing left to teach me.  Nashville has nothing to hold me.

            The only event of any real consequence to occur during this second stint in Nashville is that Ryoko is pregnant and gives birth.  One thing that can be said about this middle portion of our life is that we move and have children on a fairly regular basis, almost yearly.  This time, though, there is a surprise waiting; Ryoko carries two boys in her womb.  They arrive in the dead of winter, days before a massive ice storm paralyzes middle Tennessee.  The first boy arrives five minutes before noon – a morning baby.  The second one comes five minutes later, afternoon.  The first one comes squalling, but the second one is strangely quiet.  What’s wrong with him, Ryoko asks.  He just needs a jump-start, says the doctor, and, moments later, the cries of both boys fill the room with their dual demands for attention. 

            The ice storm knocks out the power to much of Nashville.  Ryoko can’t even bring the boys home, but goes to stay with a friend, while I sleep in the freezing cold in our apartment, waiting for the lights to come on. 

            Ryoko is really challenged in the wake of the births of the twins, who form a kind of tag team and take turns wearing her out.  Ryoko has her work cut out for her, raising five children and not one of them old enough to start school, and me working a lot and not much help when I am home.

            Ryoko and I are in agreement, however, that it is time to go home.  I grew up in North Carolina and my parents are still there, though divorced.  The kids barely know their grandparents.  So I make some phone calls.

            I discover that there is a restaurant in Cary, North Carolina called Little Tokyo that is owned by a Unification member.  Cary is a suburb of Raleigh and only a couple hours from where my parents reside, a manageable distance.  We might not want to live right next door, I explain to Ryoko.  After so many years away, I’m not sure how my parents will receive me. 

            So I say a prayer and call the manager, Takahashi-san, who goes by Ron.  I explain who I am and my background, and ask him to consider hiring me on as a sushi chef. Ron says he will consider it.

            Several days pass.  Finally I receive a call from Ron.  Fateful call.  He can use me, but he’s not able to pay much.  In fact, if I take this position, my salary will drop precipitously.  Our family of seven will have to learn to survive on $1300 a month.  Rent and groceries, and not much else.  An austere, no-frills life, but the kids can grow up in closer proximity to their grandparents.

            I go looking for the manager of Benkay, and I find him manning his position behind the sushi bar.  Smiling, I shake his hand and say, sayonara.

Actually sayonara may be too strong a term.  The Japanese word conveys a finality not suggested by our goodbye, more like goodbye forever, but I have made many friends through Benkay and I hope to see some of them in the future.  One of my friends and my favorite Christian singer, Amy Grant, hands me an index card with her Nashville address on it.  We tour all over the country, she says. Write me when you get your own restaurant and maybe one day the whole band will come for dinner.  I put her address in a big box which goes on a big truck along with all our worldly possessions and we transport all our stuff and ourselves thirteen hours east.  Home.

            Little Tokyo occupies a long, narrow space in a small shopping center.  To fit everything in the space required a convoluted design that has tables lined up on both sides of the dining room in a seating arrangement resembling a school bus.  The sushi bar is not visible from the front door; nor can the manager, Ron, see the cash register from where he stands.  He desperately wants to redesign the interior, and has drawn up a number of blueprints, but so far the owners won’t fund the project.

            Ron Takahashi is a fine sushi chef, and he conveys many pointers to help me improve my sushi, but he doesn’t mind leaving me in charge of the sushi bar if he has some pressing business.  When he needs to take time off, I step in as the head sushi chef and this gives me confidence that I have arrived, that my sushi is good enough for Japanese customers.  From this time, I can say that I have learned the craft to the extent that, given the opportunity and the resources, I could probably open my own place.  It is a dream I have held for a long time, since I was a young man it seems.  I am even qualified to teach others how to make sushi, and, ironically, some of my students are Japanese.

            So what does a white boy, a gai-jin, know about sushi.  Quite a bit, as it turns out.  I’ll always be at a disadvantage to my native Japanese counterparts, who, graduated from breast milk to soy sauce while still in infancy.  But anyone can make sushi, even a woman, it just requires a love for sushi and proper training, and I learned from the best. 

            Ron and I work side by side, and Little Tokyo is doing a pretty good business, but his boss at headquarters is not happy.  Ron is under pressure to generate more income, but none of the profits are being reinvested in the business.  Little Tokyo is going through some tough times. 

            I get a second job waiting tables at a chain restaurant to help make the frayed ends meet.  I leave the finances in Ryoko’s capable hands and somehow we get by, but only just.

            Ron is happy to take off Saturday mornings to play golf, and I like working when he’s not there.  I notice one pretty Chinese lady that comes for sushi most Saturdays.  She is friendly and one day she asks me about my background as a sushi chef.  Where did you learn to make sushi?  How long have you been making it?  Where did you meet your wife?  She comes in so regularly that I miss her if she doesn’t show.  Then one day after I make her lunch, she drops a bomb.  She’s looking for a sushi chef for her restaurant and would I be interested?  Perhaps, I say, concealing my interest, but I would require a certain salary (roughly twice what I make at Little Tokyo).  That’s not a problem, she says.

            I have said that the totality of the course of my life seemed to consist of a series of steps, each one standing on the foundation and rising above its predecessor.  Some people discern cycles which consist of a specific number of years and repeat endlessly, perhaps even into the next world.  Who can know what toll is required to gain access to the next road or where it will lead, for we are not given a map to locate ourselves and are only vaguely aware of the destination.  Only in looking back can we see for certain whether a turn was beneficial or detrimental. 

            I have arrived at the most critical step of this particular course, my course as a sushi chef.  This will be a step which draws me out, exacts a price, leaves a mark and tastes bitter, but my faith has an existential element which causes me to say: I am given what I need to grow. 

            Andrew and Vivian are the Chinese couple who become my new bosses.  Their method of managing makes the name of the restaurant seem very appropriate: Imperial Palace.  Imperial Palace is located in Chapel Hill, a memory from my past that could not seem more like a homecoming than if I had planned it, for here is the University of North Carolina, where I studied, or more accurately, attended in my youth. 

            Vivian can be described as pretty, she was probably beautiful when she was young, but when angered her face changes and becomes dark, and she is prone to angry moods.  Andrew is a decent man, a stereotypical hen-pecked husband, and his primary pleasure is drinking beer and watching movies filled with action and mayhem after work.  Their teenage son is often at the restaurant, helping out in front, but it is obvious that he resents spending his adolescence here at the restaurant under his parent’s stern eyes. 

This is a Chinese buffet, but Vivian has the business acumen to realize that she can catch and ride the wave of popularity of sushi.  Unfortunately, business is in decline, and adding a sushi bar will not save it.  Imperial Palace does a good lunch business, but dinner customers are scarce.  The sushi bar is tucked into a back corner, and Vivian, to my dismay, darkens the large windows, creating atmosphere, but hiding what’s inside.  I attract a few regular customers, but nothing like the flood of business Vivian is anticipating, and she stubbornly holds that against me.

            For me, the slow pace is a blessing, for it allows me to spend time with my customers talking about music, movies, Tar Heel basketball, almost anything but religion and politics, two very sensitive topics that I learn to avoid, except with people I trust.  I learn my customer’s names and, when my memory fails me, I start to write names down in a journal, along with a description and some point of reference.  Standing behind the sushi bar, on that rare busy night, I look out across the dining area and see all my friends, kind of like that lyric from an old song: They sit at my bar and put bread in my jar. 

            The Chinese have a vicious work ethic, and I am expected to conform.  We are closed Sunday; otherwise I might not have a day off at all.  Days are long, beginning around nine, and by the time I finish cleaning up, it is nearly eleven at night.  Midnight when I get home.  Often, at closing time, when I’m tired and ready to clean up, Vivian will ask me to make her dinner.  But that doesn’t really bother me.  There is intrigue between the staff, and some backbiting, but none of that really gets to me.  But there is one incident that is hard to forgive.

            We have a busy lunch.  Afterwards, while I’m cleaning up, Vivian’s son sheepishly informs me that there was a message.  Ryoko has gone to the hospital.  Ryoko is nine months pregnant, so this is a call I was expecting, but I am irritated that they waited till after the lunch rush to tell me such important news.  I rush to the hospital, a long way, but there is no joy in this birth.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck; she is stillborn.

            I take a couple days off, much to Vivian’s chagrin, but I will not be rushed in my grief.  From now on, my first loyalty is to my customers, not my bosses.  I plant a willow in the front yard in memory of our loss.  When I return to work, the Nicaraguan boy working in the kitchen has a simple word for me: Lo siento.  

My customers keep me motivated and inspired during the long days.  For them, this unexpected sushi bar hidden away in a Chinese restaurant is a secret they share only with friends.  Sometimes new customers stumble upon the sushi bar quite by accident.  One man walks in, looks around, and gravitates to the back where I am slicing fish. You don’t look Japanese, he says.  This is Dave, and he will become another one of my best customers.

            Another is Josh, a mountain of a man, twice as big as a usual person, and he eats about twice as much.  He quickly becomes my most frequent flyer, and I see him up to four nights a week.  Josh comes in after he gets off work at the dry cleaners, and sometimes he doesn’t show up until almost closing time.  Then Vivian frowns; she is happy to take his money, otherwise she finds him a bit of a nuisance, but he sits at my bar and puts bread in my jar, we talk about music and movies, and I discover in the course of conversation, and to my great interest, that both his parents are writers.  More than just writers, one is an outspoken columnist, social critic and former Time magazine correspondent.  The other is a successful novelist and a local patron of aspiring authors.  As I am Josh’s friend I am automatically drawn into the circle of their family and friends, including many creative people. 

            As I close in on two years at Imperial Palace, I hear a rumor that the restaurant is on the market.  Seems like I spent 18 months to two years in most of the restaurants where I worked.  I start looking for my exit.  I submit applications at various Japanese restaurants as well as some chains like Pizza Hut and Bo Jangles.  But God has heard my prayers and a door opens where I didn’t even know a door existed.  Josh’s parents, the writers, approach me about opening a sushi bar.  With hands almost shaking with excitement I draw up a proposal for a new restaurant.  I try to be as detailed as possible, including everything from the cost of silverware to the type of background music, and when I have addressed every issue I can possibly think of, and estimated the start-up costs (underestimated as it turns out), I pass it on to my would-be benefactors. 

            There are several stipulations that I am asked to agree to, one of which is that Josh will be an employee in the new restaurant.  I readily accept this condition, Josh and I are friends, but I point out that in hiring Josh, I’m losing my best customer. 

            For a name for the new restaurant, I consult Ryoko.  Many of our friend’s restaurants have names with ‘Hana’, the Japanese word for flower, in it.  I ask Ryoko if there is a Hana beginning with the letter ‘A’, my sole motivation being to steal first place in the phone book, and she suggests Akai Hana, and just like that, a star is born.

            Akai Hana Japanese Restaurant, after coming soon for six months, opens for business on June 15, 1997, and we are swamped.  The crowds stream in, stretching us to capacity, and we start running out of fish.  We run out of rice.  In one sense the first day is a disaster, but it portends a busy future.  I quickly realize that I will not survive as the lone sushi chef, and I add a second and eventually a third person behind the sushi bar.  I start to furiously prepare more fish, fearing in a dark corner of my mind that I am single-handedly depleting the oceans of tuna, salmon and flounder. 

            Later in the evening, when the cashier has counted the money, the last customer has exited and the dishwashers, waitresses and cooks have all gone home, I take one last look around and think, this here is something I could not have done by myself.  I hold up the key and look at it – Not for my own benefit but for the sake of the community, I open these doors.  The staff is like a family, and God has entrusted them to me to deal with using respect and fairness.  The course that He maps out, and that I traverse, involves, more than anything else, learning how to serve.

The Crowning of a King

            The darkest days of the Unification Movement are when Reverend Moon goes to prison for allegedly neglecting to pay taxes on a chunk of money.  It damages the credibility of the movement in the eyes of the American people, and might spell the end of the movement, but the members stand strong.  I am in Chicago at the time, and none of the members there, that I am aware of, abandon the movement because of the court case.  The trial is controversial, and many mainstream denominations file briefs supporting the Unification Church, but for the American public, Reverend Moon’s guilt is never in doubt.  Many of the churches who decide to support us realize that they could be next. 

The church adopts the legal position that because Reverend Moon is from Korea, he could not have been familiar with American accounting laws.  A second defense, one that is used on appeal, is that the church’s assets are used solely for God’s work, and should consequently be exempt from taxation.  The federal government, in its infinite wisdom, disagrees, and Reverend Moon spends a year in Danbury Corrections Facility.  Reverend Moon has been to prison six times in his life, including three years in a North Korean death camp, and he says that compared to the prisons in North Korea, American prison is like a country club.

Senator Orrin Hatch investigates the court case and issues this statement: We accused a newcomer to our shores of criminal and intentional wrongdoing for conduct commonly engaged in by a large percentage of our own religious leaders, namely, the holding of church funds in bank accounts in their own names. Catholic priests do it. Baptist ministers do it, and so did Sun Myung Moon.

            When the indictments are announced, the Unification Church holds a rally in Foley Square in Manhattan.  I am called to New York to support the rally, and my job is to cruise the streets around the park in my M.F.T. van with banners hanging on both sides.  One banner says No Justice in Moon Case, and the other says Pardon Rev. Moon.  I’m ready to do whatever I can to help out, but I’m a teeny bit concerned about safety.  If I’m going to drive the unruly streets of New York, the last thing I want to do is attract attention to myself.  Besides, the Unification Church has an abundance of opponents and some of them wish us physical harm.  If shots ring out, I don’t want to be the subject of tomorrow’s headline. 

I am issued a map which describes a large circle around the section of Manhattan bordering Foley Square.  I spend the next few hours, while the rally is going on, driving the busy streets.  A few insults and curses are hurled in my direction, and since the weather is fair I have the windows down, but the city largely ignores the stream of banner-bearing vans.  Round and round I go; the most intimidating opponents are the impatient buses, those overlords of the street, who enforce their territory with their sheer size. 

Later, as I am passing by the park, I glance toward the stage, and I catch a glimpse of Reverend Moon speaking to the crowd.  He is gesturing with his hands to make a point and he is the final speaker of the afternoon.

Reverend Moon, the man we call Father, is a prodigious speaker.  He has traversed the planet on numerous speaking tours and given countless public speeches, but he spends even more time talking informally to the members.  His lack of fluency in our language has been the main obstacle, and so he is usually accompanied by a translator, although I have heard him on occasion speak in heavily-accented English.  A tireless speaker, his longest speech was a fourteen hour marathon.  Sometimes he reads from a prepared text, but, inevitably, he diverges from the script and speaks extemporaneously, stretching a 30 minute speech to an hours-long discourse.  When he speaks, he describes his vision through the lens of the Principle, of which he is the author.

            What is this message that Reverend Moon is so intent on communicating, and is America hearing it?  

            America sees a wildly gesturing man whose lips are moving but no sound is coming out.  Reverend Moon has been rendered mute by prejudice.  Very few people know what he believes or what the Unification movement stands for, except for the vaguely held notion that he is some sort of self-proclaimed messiah.

            Unfortunately, people have heard the last part first and the first part not at all.  No Christian could tolerate such a heretical suggestion without hearing first the premise upon which it is based.  That premise, gone missing, is the Divine Principle.  The Divine Principle builds its argument step by step, based on the Bible and beginning with the book of Genesis.  Only by reading the Divine Principle and considering open-mindedly its interpretations of the Bible could one even contemplate its conclusion: that the Second Advent will occur in Korea.  The Principle draws its Biblical support for that conclusion from Rev.7:2 - And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.  Also, Matt.24:27 – For as the lightening cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the son of man be.

            Some Christians believe that the Lord will return to Israel, but after the rejection of Jesus by the religious leaders of his day, God would have chosen another people to receive the Lord at the Second Advent.  As Jesus said in Matthew 21:43: The Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.  

            Christians have been waiting for the Lord to return for two thousand years.  Some Christians have almost given up.  The prevailing thought is that Jesus will come on the clouds with a sword on his tongue, and I used to buy into this concept until I studied the Divine Principle.

            Two thousand years ago, many people who anticipated the arrival of the Messiah were also looking up at the sky.  The people were expecting the arrival of the Messiah to be preceded by the return of Elijah, who ascended to heaven in a burning chariot, but instead he was born on the earth as John the Baptist, who came in the spirit of Elijah.  The disciples accepted that Jesus was the Lord foretold in the prophecies, but the disciples came to Jesus to ask him, in Mat.17:10: Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come?  Jesus said, but I say unto you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but have done to him whatsoever they wished.  Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.  

            Again, today, many are looking in the clouds.  Rev.1:7 says: Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.  Even so, Amen.  Due to this verse, Christians are expecting Jesus to return on the clouds, and presumably not just a jumbo jet.  But clouds could be symbolic in this case.  A cloud is formed of purified water, therefore clouds could represent those righteous people who attend the Lord at his Second Coming, much as it does in Hebrews 12:1, which says: We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.

            The manner in which the Lord will return at the Second Coming is an important theological debate that needs to be initiated, unfortunately most religious leaders feel there is nothing to discuss.  Their minds are made up, but if the Lord comes on the clouds, the prophecy cannot be fulfilled which says that the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed (Luke 17:20).  This is one of the concepts Father has been busy trying to introduce through his many speeches.  What else is important to him?

            Ryoko and I lived in Manhattan for a time, before Sam was born, and we would attend the Sunday program every week at the Belvedere Estate in Tarrytown, and often, Father was the speaker.  I’m sure I took notes during those talks, but I don’t know where my notes are anymore.  I mainly remember the brothers and sisters who gathered there at Belvedere, perhaps three hundred of us, hoping to glean some inspiration from Father’s words to fuel the flame and keep the dream from dying. 

            We are a really idealistic bunch, and sometimes Father talks about the ideal.  He envisions a world where there are no barriers between races, and no borders between countries.  This is not just conceptual for Father; as the matchmaker for the members he has encouraged us to marry interracially and internationally.  Marry your enemy, he instructs.  American and Japanese.  Black and white.  Christian and Moslem.  Of national boundaries, he has said, God did not make them, man did. 

            Father talks about politics.  He compares the political parties to two squabbling brothers, Cain and Abel.  He says that the Democrats and Republicans are like orphaned children who can never truly reconcile until they find their parents.  Haven’t we all watched the growing animosity which cripples our legislature and divides our people?  With that in mind, and in light of Father’s philosophy, I trade in my former party preference for an unaffiliated designation.  I’m the kind of person who tries to stand in the middle and find the good in both sides, but I just as often find myself under attack from my friends on the right and the left.  Both sides often have a valid point and through compromise and flexibility the process moves forward.  Kind of like a marriage. 

            Father talks about spirit world.  He says that in the spirit world, if you want to create an extensive banquet, you just imagine it.  You can invite your friends, family and all your ancestors, feed them all, and clean up instantaneously.  But the air you breathe in spirit world is love, and if your heart is underdeveloped, you will feel that you are choking. 

            Father talks about America.  He admires the Puritans who carved out a home in an inhospitable land, starving rather than eat the seeds which represented their hope for a first harvest, building the church first, and offering it all and themselves, should they survive, to God.  When Father first came to America he went to Times Square and stood looking up at the soaring architecture and massive buildings, and wept because none of it belonged to God. 

            Father is a man of peace, but first he was a staunch anti-communist who fought an aggressive ideological campaign and supported those who stood up to the communist threat.  Communism backed down, times changed, and he now insists that war is a primitive and destructive means of solving conflict.  Now is the time, he says, as the prophet Isaiah taught, to beat our swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks (Is.2:4).  Nor is Reverend Moon a pacifist, but he has maintained that the current war, essentially a conflict between Christians and Moslems, will never be resolved by force. 

            In 2003, soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Reverend Moon organizes the Middle East Peace Initiative.  A group of over one hundred clergy travel to Jerusalem to engage Moslems and Jews in a dialogue.  The talks seem to be productive, some important contacts are made with religious and political leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and so the activities continue on a regular schedule. 

            Under such impressive titles as: A Conversation Among the Children of Abraham, and Heart to Heart in the Middle East, the talks are mostly civil and constructive.  Then Reverend Moon sticks out his hand and stirs up a hornet’s nest.  He makes a suggestion that is so revolutionary, and so controversial that, at first, even the Unification members can’t quite grasp it.  Father wants to suggest that ministers remove the crosses from their churches.  Remove the crosses from the churches?  Lord.  Sometimes I think Father wants to incite the wrath of our Christian brethren.  He is only following the direction which God gives, my wife says firmly.  Then is it God who conspires against us?

No, for God is always on our side, but sometimes it’s hard to see.  And sometimes Father’s directions require time to digest the meaning.  I resign myself to take part in the campaign, and I set aside time to visit with the various ministers with whom I’ve become acquainted over the years.  Unification members across America fan out to visit their neighborhood churches to ask them to take down their crosses as part of a crusade called Take Down the Cross.  As I struggle to find the words to explain the reasoning behind this outreach, I gradually come to embrace Father’s vision, but for the most part, the ministers do not.

            Responses to Father’s initiative range from bemused to outraged.  There are those Christian ministers who are secure enough in their faith to admit that they don’t have all the answers, and they see this as a novel but pointless exercise liable to stir up unnecessary turmoil in their congregations.  Then there are those who are incensed that a foreigner, a Korean! would tamper with the most vivid symbol of Christ’s sacrifice.  One minister can’t decide what to think.  Then he has a dream that convinces him that this is real, and he steps forward to participate in a quiet revolution.  Some ministers take down the cross under cover of darkness and hide it in a closet.  If my parishioners find this, says one preacher, they’re going to hang me on it.

            Historically, Moslems living in the Holy Land have been attacked by armies marching behind the symbol of the cross.  For Jews, the cross represents the centuries of blame from Christians for the death of Jesus.  Christians have not always used the sign of the cross; the early Christians used the sign of the fish.  It was Constantine in the fourth century who saw a cross in the sky as he was marching into battle.  He immediately adopted Christianity and his armies conquered behind the sign of the cross on their shields.

            I begin to wonder how the symbol of the cross became so entrenched.  The burning cross is an expression of racism.  The cross was used in horror novels to ward off vampires.  Could it be that we have been using the cross in a provocative way, to intimidate?

            We try to explain to our Christian brothers and sisters that it is not the crucifixion but the resurrection that is Jesus’ victory.  I have a hard time explaining this new direction to my minister friends, especially my good friend Dr. Ella Cotton, a woman preacher in the Holiness tradition.  We are not in any way diminishing the value of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, but for the sake of harmony between the religions, we are encouraging ministers to symbolically take down their cross.  Dr. Cotton has a cross on the front of her church, on the altar, on the walls, on her robe and on her headdress.  There is an old country gospel tune that conveys the sentiments we are endorsing and we sing it often: The Old Rugged Cross.

            Dr. Cotton is skeptical, but a very few ministers agree to participate in the curious experiment.  In doing so, they risk exciting the ire of their congregation, and they are jeopardizing their position as head of the church every time they affiliate with Unification members.        

On the fifth tour to Israel, the clergy march through the streets of Jerusalem bearing a large wooden cross and they carry it to Golgotha and bury it in the ground.  They trade in their cross for a crown and afterward, there in the Holy Land, a miracle occurs.  The clergy are joined by rabbis and Imams who declare it an auspicious day, when Christians are willing to lay down their cross for the benefit of peace.  One rabbi swears that these are surely the last days, and another rabbi blows his trumpet, a sign of the arrival of the Messiah. 

            Standing on the foundation of that victory, the sixth tour is organized and includes plans for a peace rally in Independence Park, Jerusalem.  I decide to make the trip and Dr. Cotton, who longs to see the Holy Land, agrees to accompany me.  What an odd couple we make.  I could probably pass for a Methodist minister, if I could discipline myself to wear around my neck that noose we call a tie. Dr. Cotton, who also likes to be called Apostle, in her long flowing robes and tall headdress, looks the part of an Ethiopian priestess.  Her garments are sewn by her daughters, who also attend her constantly, but in embarking on this journey, she trusts herself into my hands.

 Apostle has had a rough life and it shows in her weathered face.  She helped raise her nine siblings and then raised seven kids of her own, holding them against her abundant hips.  Her face is dark as the earth and her heart is the rich topsoil in which the seedlings of her family sprout and vividly bloom, with Apostle diligently pulling the weeds.

            The first leg of this journey is a 10-hour drive to New York.  Apostle is coming down with a cold and she sits in the back and doesn’t say much.  We spend the night in the New Yorker, which Ryoko and I called home for the first eight months of our married life.  Next morning we drive out to Kennedy International Airport.  Apostle and I are indeed an interesting couple as we stride through the concourse, but at Kennedy, whose long arms reach the corners of the planet, exotic is commonplace. 

            Israeli security is strict but efficient, nearly friendly; they look tough but wave us on through.  On the long flight over the Atlantic, it becomes clear that Apostle is becoming sicker, and she tries to rest in the cramped seats.  As we fly into Tel Aviv she becomes more animated.  I have always prayed to visit the Holy Land, she tells me.  Everywhere there are soldiers carrying semi-automatic rifles.  Then a bus takes us to Jerusalem and I look out the window and see Israel for the first time.  Tan-colored hills stretching out in all directions.  A few stunted trees and dusty bushes.  I find myself wondering whether Jesus trod this path.  

We are welcomed to Jerusalem by the American president of the Unification Church, Reverend Jenkins.  The plan is to visit the historical sites, participate in neighborhood projects, talk to religious leaders and hand out flyers, but the focus of the tour is on the Peace Rally, scheduled just a few days before Christmas.  Reverend Jenkins is en route to a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and on his way out he encourages us to begin our 10 day stay with a visit to the Wailing Wall. 

            The Wailing Wall is a remnant of the ancient Temple, destroyed in 70 a.d. by the Romans, and is a place where Jews go to pray.  A group of us take taxis to this important landmark, but we get hijacked on the way.  The Palestinian drivers take us deep within the Old City to their cousin’s gift shop.  The Old City of Jerusalem is a maze of old alleys and brick paths, and we don’t have a prayer of finding our way out.  Then the lead driver explains that the ‘tour’ will cost $25.  One pastor, a fiery, black lady preacher, speaks strongly to our hosts, and they back down.  Only five dollars, they say, and they whisk us back the hotel, arriving two hours later than we were expected.

            Our first full day in Israel, we take a bus for sightseeing.  Apostle is ill, but she is determined to see the place where the legends say Jesus was born.  The Church of the Nativity is in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and to get there we ride to the security checkpoint, and switch to a Palestinian-owned bus to reach the destination.  At the border we are accosted by a gaggle of youths begging for coins.  They are pitiful, but beggars are so ubiquitous at the tourist areas that we can’t help them all.  At every tourist spot in Israel there are poor folk selling souvenirs, for the unemployment rate in the occupied lands is over 50 per cent, and the Jews keep commerce under lockdown by controlling what goods cross the border.  No businesses are surviving in these battle- scarred towns, and the tourist trade has been devastated by the violence of the intifadah, the struggle of the Palestinians against the Jews.

            I can’t help but compare the treatment of Palestinians with the way blacks used to be treated in America.  In our hotel, the Palestinians work in the kitchen and wait on tables, but these are not the Palestinians who strap on bombs; the suicide bombers live in the occupied territories where they have no work, no vote and no hope. 

            The Church of the Nativity was built in 333 a.d. by Constantine, destroyed and rebuilt in the sixth century.    It is owned conjointly by three denominations: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian.  All three religions must approve any maintenance to the building, so maintenance is minimal.  We duck through the narrow front entrance and inside we see columns of rose marble and ancient frescoes from a previous millennium. 

            Behind the vestibule is a narrow, worn stairway that descends to a catacomb of rooms and grottos inside the belly of the church.  These rooms are carved into the subterranean rock itself, and have witnessed a thousand years of visitors.  The walls are damp with the tears of a faithful few.  In a back room our group pauses to pray, and some of the ministers get a little excited, but there is a heavy dark spirit here that we are not quite able to break through.  Because we are a diverse group representing many nations, the prayers that fly upward are phrased in a dozen different languages, somewhat like the prayers of the disciples at the first Pentecost, when the Bible says those gathered spoke and were understood in many tongues.

            There is a lot of history in this rugged structure, but the distance of time makes Jesus’ fingerprint on the place seem more the realm of rumor than reality.  It’s hard to imagine Jesus in such a dark place. 

            Afterward we take the bus to a Palestinian restaurant for lunch.  They serve us a delicious meal and I’m starting to think I could get used to this, but we are the only customers.  The tourists, the lifeblood of the community, stopped coming, and the manager begs us to reassure our friends and send more tourists. 

            We drive next to the Mount of Olives which overlooks Jerusalem.  We pull our coats tight and take in the nice view on the run, because a gale is whipping and the cold in penetrating.  Then the weather worsens.  By the time we drive on to the Jaffa Gate, the wicked wind is accompanied by hail and thunder.  A full storm engulfs us.

            Praying again at the Western Wall in the inclement weather, and also earlier at the Church of the Nativity, I receive the message that I should talk to Apostle about the mission of Jesus.  She’s waiting for the Rapture, of course, as are many Christians, but I feel strongly that the key to understanding the life of Jesus and the promise of the second coming are the prophecies that he would come as King of Kings, not just spiritually, but as the actual King of Israel in the tradition of King David. 

            We talk on the bus moving slowly through the tempest and I try to plant some ideas.  If the people had believed in Jesus, I suggest, he would have become their king.  No, she says, he had to shed his blood.  Apostle has taken a lot of Bible Home Study courses, and she has prodigious knowledge of the Bible, but I suspect that she is too set in her ways.  She also needs to visit a doctor, but she doesn’t believe in doctors. 

            At the end of the day, Apostle is sick and wore out.  She politely requests that I allow her to rest in her room the following day. 

            There are various opportunities on this tour to volunteer for service projects.  I sign up for one that looks interesting, and find myself on a bus next morning bound for a day on a farm.  The farm is owned by an artist and peace activist named Emilio Mogilner.  Emilio looks just like a middle-aged hippy, but he is charming and eloquent, and also disabled.  When developers were building a 10-story condominium next to his farm, he went to court to try to stop them.  He was shot in the back by an unknown assailant, losing the use of his right arm.  He had to learn to paint with his left hand.  Now he practices a technique he calls One Breath Time, where he holds his breath and paints an entire canvas in one breath.  He is going to let our group try One Breath Time painting, but first, there are acres of chores waiting to be attended around his farm.

            Pruning, clearing, planting, tilling and mulching.  We spend a long day, maybe 10 hours, investing our sweat in his vision of an ecologically-friendly commune.  Emilio does not allow machinery on his land; all the work is done with primitive tools and by hand.  His idea is to invite inner-city youth to work on the farm, to stimulate their love for nature.   In the middle of the long day we break for lunch.  We are served an organic meal that has been gleaned from the land.  Bedouin women, desert gypsies, bake flat bread over an open fire, and tear off long pieces to feed to the workers.  The food is unbelievably good, not just for the body, somehow it nourishes the soul. 

            Emilio has a nice spread, and I get dirty working it from the north to the south, and the east to the west.  I realize that beyond his borders are unfriendly neighbors, but on Emilio’s land, here is comfort and something familiar.  Laboring on the farm, using my hands, digging up rocks, the sounds that people make when they are working together in the outdoors.  Then it hits me; this place reminds me of Booneville, I’m back where I first met God.  Here in Israel I have found a second portal to God’s presence, here in this unlikely little oasis, leading me to believe that God waits in the quiet places where nature emerges and is nourished by those who love her, those who love their Heavenly Mother.

            Emilio is right.  Respect nature.  Have a care for the future.  And he has a lot of enemies.  But the biggest danger I see is what corrupted those idealistic American youth who tried to get back to nature: drugs and free sex.  The vision became unattainable.

            At the end, Emilio brings all of us into a large side-room off his rustic cabin.  The floor is spread with long rolls of paper.  He invites us to take brushes from the work benches which lean against the four walls.  We smear globs of paint on makeshift palettes.  On a pre-arranged signal from Emilio, we take a collective breath, a deep one, for we know that the breaths of this physical life are fleeting, gone, before we really comprehend what is in our heart that wants to be expressed, and remembered.  Emilio says Begin.  We fill our canvasses with color.

The next day is raining and colder still.  Winter in Jerusalem.  In the morning we visit the Upper Room, possibly the site of the last supper, but all these historical locations are unconfirmed.  Like our tour guide at the Church of the Nativity told us, was Jesus born here?  I don’t know, I’m just glad he was born.  We also see the tomb of David, both sites being located on Mount Zion, the site of the ancient City of David. 

We spend time at the Holocaust Museum, which chronicles the death of six million Jews, and more than that, an entire culture.  The entire Jewish population of Europe was nearly wiped out.  I can feel the bitterness the Jews bear due to the Holocaust and their inability to forgive.  Because of that they feel justified in arming themselves and oppressing the Palestinians, just as they were once oppressed. 

Finally we visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Here I take time to pray for all my minister friends.  Some among them persecuted me for my beliefs, despite having marched in the civil rights movement.  How quickly we forget.  For patience I pray, acknowledging once again my confidence in the ultimate victory of goodness. 

I always look forward with hungry anticipation to the buffet laid out at the motel in the evening, but tonight my enthusiasm is tempered by concern for Apostle.  I have not seen her all day.  I have dinner with her roommate, Valerie, who happens to be my spiritual grandmother, that is, she invited Laurey to the Unification Movement, and Laurey invited me.  Over dinner Valerie gives me the bad news: Apostle’s cold is beginning to look like bronchitis, her legs are weak from an old injury – torn ligaments, and she has a toothache.  Valerie believes it is also a spiritual struggle; she is very set in her theological ways, and I have planted some new ideas.  We draw up a plan to pray for Apostle, and send a dinner up to her room.  Our Japanese sister, Akiko, is going to offer a massage.  I send with Valerie something I picked up in a Palestinian shop for Apostle: a flask of water from the Jordon River.

With only a couple days left before the Peace Rally, most brothers and sisters go to the neighborhoods to pass out flyers, but I resolve to spend as much time as possible with Apostle.  We meet downstairs in the lobby.  Apostle is wearing a white robe and matching headpiece, and I notice immediately because of its absence, she has removed her cross.  The sun is shining brightly today, in more ways than one, and the temperature is mild.  We take a cab to the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, and pray there at length.  Then we ride to the Jaffa Gate and walk up the aged cobblestone street to check out some of the gift shops.  Apostle buys some souvenirs to take back to her family, and up the street we see brothers and sisters busy handing out fliers.

There is a sidewalk café near the gate, and as the late afternoon shadows stretch out, we sit at a table on the patio and order coffee.  We feel rather cosmopolitan.  We talk about our experience so far in Israel, and though Apostle has had a tough time of it, she’s philosophical about her journey.  What don’t kill me, she says, bound to make me stronger. 

The core of Apostle’s congregation is her family, and she has a large family.  Even with her efforts, two sons ended up in prison, one on murder charges, but without her, this family would have been in the news a lot.  One son woke up in prison, started a ministry, and came out a changed man.  He got a job, married the woman he saw in a dream and made himself a credit to the family.  It was all due, he said, to the power of his mother’s prayer.  Her five daughters have also had their ups and downs, but their faith gives them power to overcome, and Apostle believes in them.

Apostle and I sit in front of the tiny café watching people pass by and enjoying a fine cup of Middle Eastern brew.  This is one of the most troubled regions on earth, but Jesus spoke plainly when he revealed the means of dissolving the hatred: forgiveness.  His lips were moving but no one heard the message.  But I continue to hold out hope.  Thirty years ago Apostle and I could not have sat down together without instigating a riot.  We already went through this in America, and it took us a hundred years to work it out.  Israel desperately seeks a way out of the violence and that’s why we are here, but will they listen?  Do we have to make the same mistake twice?

Back at the motel, Apostle slips up to her room, while I attend a pre-rally meeting with several hundred brothers and sisters.  We watch a video of the meeting with Yasser Arafat.  Our brother asks him to drink the Holy Wine together, a kind of communion, and he obliges.

Isaiah 9:6 – For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Divine Principle maintains that God’s divine plan for Jesus was that he become the king of Israel.  Toward that end, He prepared the Chosen People for thousands of years to receive Jesus, but after three years of public ministry, Jesus only had a small following, and the religious leaders perceived Jesus as a threat.   He told his disciples of his plan to enter Jerusalem, also that arrest and execution awaited him there, but he railed against the religious leaders, knowing it was they who blocked the accomplishment of God’s will.  But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against man: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in (Matt.23:13).  He went to Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders conspired to arrest him.  They found a willing accomplice in the disillusioned disciple, Judas.  At the final moment, Jesus prayed that the bitter cup could be taken away, but it was too late.  God’s dream that Jesus inherit an earthly throne was cut short, and he ascended a heavenly throne. 

Today is the day of the Peace Rally.  When I stood on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city, I remembered Jesus’ words in Matt.23:27.  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that kills the prophets and stones them which are sent unto thee, how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!  Past wrongs have been forgiven, and this day Jerusalem shall welcome him, who was expelled, with the words of the prophet: Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord (Matt.23:29) The Peace Rally begins with a march to Independence Park, but Apostle and I will skip the march and go directly to the main event.

We take a taxi and the driver is Palestinian.  It doesn’t take much to get him talking about the current conflict.  Unification Thought says that if the early Christian councils had not turned Jesus into God, Islam would never have appeared.  Even Billy Graham admits that the concept of the Trinity is a ‘mystery’.  Moslems have long contended that Christians are not even monotheists, that we worship three Gods (i.e. the Trinity).  Originally Mohammed, the founder of Islam, respected Christians and Jews, and called them People of the Book.  Now Reverend Moon is also saying that theologians have got it all wrong, that each one of us should be the embodiment of God, a temple of God, just as Jesus was.

Unificationists have tended to shy away from all these controversies, but there it is.  If it seems that the Unificationists are trying to shake things up, it’s because we are.  We can’t be complacent in the face of society’s present crises.  We cannot sit back and wait for the Rapture.  As Jesus said in Matt.10:24 Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword. 

Apostle and I disembark across the street from Independence Park.  Already buses are arriving from all over Israel with attendees.  Apostle and I are given V.I.P. tickets and shown to good seats in front of the stage.  God has granted perfect weather for this auspicious occasion. 

The rally opens with an Israeli rock group called Gaya, consisting of two Palestinian rappers and four Jewish musicians, and their music is so harmonious and uplifting, it’s hard to imagine the deep rift that exists between their peoples. 

Next is a large Ethiopian choir.  Ethiopia has a fascinating history that encompasses Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  King Menelik I is said to have been the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and Haile Selassie was the last of the Solomonic rulers.  The choir sings a song so ethereal and otherworldly that I am left with the feeling that I have witnessed a thing divine.

I find myself wondering at the odd confluence of ages that has brought the focus of the providence back to the Old Testament city of Jerusalem.  The Principle explains that history repeats itself for a specific providential reason.  When a central figure in God’s providence fails to fulfill his responsibility, the period is repeated until the condition is fulfilled.  In the case of Israel, the religious leaders rejected Jesus, and his disciples abandoned him, leading to the crucifixion, which was not part of God’s original plan.  Two thousand years later, we are returned to Jerusalem to correct this mistake. 

The media is present to document the succession of speakers: rabbis, imams, a Druze priest (the Druze religion originated from Jethro, the Father-in-law of Moses), Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and a Korean minister of the Unification Movement. 

When I joined the Unification Church, my friend Eddie accused Reverend Moon of blaming the Jews for Jesus’ death.  He was right, I can see now, to be indignant.  The Jews had been prepared by God to receive the Messiah, and God trusted them more than anyone else on earth.  When the great tragedy of the crucifixion occurred it was mainly the failure of a few key leaders, and if I had been there, or any one of us, we likely would have committed the same mistake.  Even the faithful among us likely would have run away like Peter.  Who among us could say with confidence we would have died alongside Lord Jesus?  Father said that if even one disciple had stood by Jesus, the crucifixion could have been averted.

Blame?  How could we, southern whites like myself, who have not even acknowledged our complicity in uprooting the Africans, claiming them as our property, raping, maiming and murdering them, how could we blame the Jews for the execution of Jesus, we who are also and resolutely guilty.

Now Reverend Jenkins is calling the religious leaders to the stage, and assigning them a place to stand.  In the center of the stage are two large, ornate chairs. 

If Jesus had not been crucified, he should have taken a bride.  God would have wanted him to have a lineage.  A report from a spiritualist suggested that a sister of John the Baptist should have filled the role of bride to Jesus, but with failures all around, God’s original plan was blocked, and the secondary plan, redemption through the cross, eventually became the only alternative. 

The stage is set and the participants are in place.  Reverend Jenkins announces that the coronation ceremony is about to proceed.  Up until now, the rally has been a perfectly congenial affair, but abruptly I hear yelling, protests, and movement around the periphery.  From three rows back, I still can’t make out what exactly is going on, but it’s like a spiritual wind kicked up, though the air is still.  Reverend Jenkins proceeds determinedly with the ceremony.  A rabbi and his wife approach the two chairs and lay elaborate, bejeweled crowns in front of them.  One for Jesus and one for his bride.  It is done, Reverend Jenkins declares.  Jesus has been crowned king here in his homeland of Israel.

I remember my first experience with Jesus.  A sister, Kristina, was giving the Christology lecture, describing the tragedy of the crucifixion when suddenly I found myself weeping, and I didn’t understand why, but it made me feel like I had stumbled onto something crucially important.  Now I turn to Apostle and ask her if she realizes what just happened.  Jesus was crowned King of Israel, I say.  He always was my King, she answers. 

As the Peace Rally finishes and the crowd begins to move toward the line of buses, I suddenly feel inexplicably happy, almost giddy.  Apostle is contemplative.  I do believe that God matched Apostle and me together, and tossed us into a kind of exile which required that we rely on each other for nearly two weeks, to shake me from my self-absorption.  Apostle never goes anywhere without several of her daughters to attend her, but somehow, she trusted herself into my hands in a great leap of faith.  Apostle is not as young as she used to be, and her body is flat wore out from helping raise her siblings, as well as raising her own children as a single mother.  She has been beset by countless ailments, tested in her constitution and her faith.  I have stood by her.  I could have become preoccupied with holy sites and historical artifacts of Israel, but I determined early on to stay with Apostle and experience the Holy Land together.  In doing so, I have come to love Apostle very much, and I know that is the main thing King Jesus expected of me.

THE OMEGA

            I have three families.

The first family to which I belonged, after leaving home, is composed of the Unification brothers and sisters, who walked the same course as me, endured the same hardships and drew the same conclusions.  This is a family that is so trusting that I could meet a total stranger in a foreign country, and be welcomed in his home.  Despite that, we argue among ourselves and hurt each other with such an inexplicable callousness sometimes.  I close my eyes to think of it.  Bearing strong conviction, we are inclined to express our disagreement with our brother and sister, sometimes with alarming vehemence, tears and drama.  I have sat and watched these exchanges in pain, but our extensive training, on outreach and fundraising teams, ecumenical projects and missionary work, persuade us of the value and healing power of two difficult words that could dissolve the emotion: I’m sorry. 

            We are not perfect, but I am beginning to understand what perfection is.  It does not mean you never misspeak, are never confused or never doubt.  It means that you love God to the extent that you could not do anything which would cause Him pain.  Is perfection really possible?  Jesus said you must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.  Christians often say they are not perfect, just forgiven.  Then is Heaven filled with imperfect people, selfish people?  Or does God remove the fallen nature by supernatural means?  Or, as Divine Principle teaches, does the responsibility for removing the fallen nature lie with man, who fell?  This goes right to the heart of that which delineates Unification ideology, the concept that God does not heal our sin, but the Messiah shows the course that we must walk to remove it.  Therefore Jesus said, in Mark 10:21, come, take up the cross and follow me.  Knowing this, perfection may suddenly look so unattainable, and yet it speaks to the power of love as a transforming agent that we believe and follow. 

            I have visited numerous other churches and denominations.  I love the music in the Holiness churches, and they welcome their visitors with such warmth.  The African-American charismatic churches place such an emphasis on music that even the dirt-poor congregations are willing to spend several hundred dollars for a good pianist to play for a couple hours, not that the Holiness preachers limit their services to two hours; they get fired up and the eleven o’clock sermon could stretch into the mid-afternoon.  The Holiness and Pentecostal preachers can whip up a crowd, draw down the forces of Heaven and incite the congregation to stand up and declare their faith.  My complaint is that when you look at the words, I mean actually write down what the minister is saying and read it, there is no content there.  The sermon is mainly a lot of shouting and jumping about, just exhortation.  The minister’s role becomes that of a cheerleader, and if he doesn’t feel the spirit is there, he says, Come on now, let’s give God some praise.  I know ya’ll can do better than that.  Doesn’t anybody in here love Jesus? 

            There’s a place for that, of course, but I’ve been to enough church services, Pentecostal, Holiness, Baptist and African-Methodist-Episcopal, to have grown tired of the praise-heavy façade, and I just want to hear the minister say something that relates to the struggles which I’m meeting.  Keep it real, preacher.  Amen.

            The sermons in the Methodist Church, where I grew up, tend to be thoughtfully constructed, but more mundane and reserved.  If only we could bring the two together…

            But everybody loves their church, and we Unificationists are no exception.  It is natural to feel a strong loyalty to the place where you first met God.  It is becoming more commonplace nowadays, but I am proud of the fact that the Unification Church was one of the first interracial churches

            At the head of this family stands the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the man we call Father.  Most of the opportunities I have had to be with Father have been public settings.  Of course I have heard many stories of personal encounters with Father, and here is one of my favorites.  My friend Gail drove a Korean leader up to Danbury, Connecticut to visit Father while he was in prison.  Gail waited by the car while Mr. Kang went inside.  At the end of the visit Father and Mr. Kang were standing on the porch in front of the entrance to the minimum security facility, and they were smiling broadly and waving.  Gail looked behind her to see who they were enthusiastically waving at when she was mortified to realize that they were waving at her.  Regaining her composure, she waved back, and she received something that every Unification member hopes for.  We want to have a personal experience with Father.  He’s a busy man, but in the early days of the movement he personally took care of each of his handful of members.  Then he sent those members out to convey the same standard of love to successive waves of new members. 

            For all the criticism that the Unification movement has received, and it has been a wild ride, and I am not certain that we will ever make it to mainstream, but our conviction has been stubborn, and the love which touched our heart does not diminish but continues to grow through the years of raising up the second generation, and threatens any day now to overflow into the broader society like rainwater on a dried-up garden.

            The staff at Akai Hana, the kitchen chefs, sushi chefs, dishwashers, servers, cashiers, bussers and preppers, these comprise my second family, and a diverse family they are, drawn from the two worlds of oriental and occidental.  The Orient has been represented by diligent hard-working men and women from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Burma, Philippines and Viet Nam.  The Occident has contributed independent-minded hard-working individuals from America, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Liberia.  I have often found myself standing in between.  Like the time when two sushi chefs, knives drawn, ask each other, shall we continue this outside?  Or the time a Burmese Freedom Fighter, who spent seven years in the jungle toting a rusty rifle, takes umbrage at an obscenity uttered by a Mexican, in perfect English.  Or when two waitresses are at odds over something as trivial as the manner in which the tables were allocated.  In each incident, violence was averted, tempers cooled, tranquility prevailed.  We achieved what the United Nations could never do. 

            Though the kitchen gets hot, the dining room remains ever cool, so cool.  The pretty waitress is bringing pan-fried pork dumplings, a wooden platter of sushi and a steaming iron pot of udon soup to a couple in a booth.  The sushi chefs are laughing and chatting with customers sitting at the sushi bar but their hands never stop molding the fish into variegated flowers.  A nicely dressed couple enters and the hostess shows them to a booth by the window.  As the tables fill, I begin to jot down the first name of customers waiting to be seated: a couple for the sushi bar, a party of four that wants the patio.  The noise of the customers drowns the music from my expensive stereo system.  At some Japanese restaurants, the hostess greets the customers wearing a gorgeous silk kimono.  That will never happen at Akai Hana.  We are a busy restaurant, extremely busy, and my hostess can not run in a kimono.

            At the end, I kill the music, turn off the lights, lock up and head home.  There are always stories to tell.  She made a hundred dollars in tips.  Good for her.  She’s part of my family.

            Finally there is the family that I formed with my wife Ryoko, with whom I received the International Exchange Marriage Blessing in 1982, and our six children who have been a source of joy and constant concern.  As parents, our solitary prayer has been that they form their own relationships with God and remain pure until they receive the Blessing.  Despite that, as one who rejected my parent’s faith, I could not bring myself to impose my beliefs on them.

            Family life is something like this: Every morning Ryoko makes me breakfast, and it is often the same thing my Mother used to make: eggs and bacon, granola, half a grapefruit and always toast with peanut butter and honey, for this is my addiction and I’ve been a peanut butter junkie since I was five.  A big fan of George Washington Carver.  We eat together, the two of us, after we pack our six children off to school.  Over a cup of coffee softened by cream, for that is another addiction, we linger and I read the newspaper.

            Did you see the phone bill? She asks.  Our daughter was on the line to Norfolk for three hours.  Is that right? I say, glancing up from my newspaper.  Three hours!             

Here is another story about the Mormon Church, I say, seems they are in the news a lot lately.  The Mormons, like us, are a movement that struggled to gain acceptance in the society, a group some still regard as a cult.

            Then I put my stuff in a bag, give my wife a kiss, a big sloppy one, and head out the front door, for if there is stability in the family, I can stride into the wide world with confidence, even altruism: who can I help today?  Who needs a hand? 

            There was a time when I questioned whether perfection is even possible for faulty human beings like myself, this despite Jesus pronouncement that we must be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.  Now I see perfection is easy, simple! compared to the challenge of perfection, or even harmony, as a family.  And yet we can’t go to Heaven as individuals.  Is it Heaven, if your children and parents are weeping in hell?  How can it be?

            I know one lady who went on vacation in the Caribbean, a vacation from her husband and daughter.  But most mothers would not enjoy themselves leaving their family behind.  My wife doesn’t even like to go out to eat or see a movie if the children are left behind.  She would willingly choose to go to hell for eternity to be with her children rather than fly away to Heaven without them.  Jesus explains that a shepherd would leave behind his 99 sheep to find one lost sheep (Matt18:12).  Wasn’t Jesus trying to reveal to us something about God’s parental heart?

            Late at night I will return with stories about my day, for Ryoko always asks, how was your day?  I tell her about my co-workers and customers, for we share all our information freely, and my assessment of the community in which I strive.  This is home, and it is my home, having weathered many storms and still standing strong, for it was built on a good foundation.  Our yard is like a park, with dogwoods, beech, crepe myrtles, sumac, oaks and a willow, weeping, with their roots dug into the earth and their leafy arms reaching up to heaven and almost touching it.  We play soccer in the side yard and basketball at the church next door.  We are a large family, by today’s standards, therefore we have special requirements: a house with four bedrooms, a minivan that seats eight, a big fridge, a sturdy washer.

            Sometimes in the evening as I sit on the deck which I built, peering out over the trees which I planted, listening to the children playing (I also planted the seeds of them), if I hold my breath and squint my eyes I can almost imagine, just in that moment, that this is the garden that God created, and His nature, undefiled, is planted in me.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE

Music is such an important part of my life.  In writing about my experiences, I often think of songs that seem to express my feelings during the various transitional times.  Here are 10 songs that either figure in my story, Leaving Shadowland, with the relevant page number, or otherwise were important to me.

1.      Robin Trower – Too Rolling Stoned: On the cliffs of San Onofre I heard this song for the first time.  It forever after will remind me of those carefree days.  (page7)

2.      Albert Hammond – It Never Rains In California: Another song that rhymes ‘California’ with ‘warn you’.  “It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn you, it pours, man, it pours.”  (page8)

3.      Five Man Electric Band – Signs: This song reminds me of the fences the developers erected along the beach “to keep me out, or to keep Mother Nature in.”  (page 9)

4.       Robin Trower – Daydream: Takes me back to California, “we were laughing in a daydream, where the mountains kiss the sky.”

5.      Boston – More Than A Feeling: I was sitting in a parking lot in Santa Barbara when I heard this song for the first time.

6.      Taj Mahal – Cakewalk Into Town: I sang this in Booneville with Davy and Laura. (page 27)

7.      Linda Ronstadt – Louise:  Angelina wasn’t sure what to think when I sang this sweet, sad song about a prostitute who commits suicide.  (page 27)

8.      Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey: I don’t sound anything like Van Morrison, but his singing style was an influence.  This song captures my feelings about being with Ryoko after the matching.  “She’s as sweet as tupelo honey, she’s an angel of the first degree.”

9.      Elton John – Tiny Dancer: I think there is about a 90% chance that Elton was talking about Unification members in New York.  “Jesus Freaks, out in the street, handing tickets out for God.”

10.  Billy Joel – Piano Man:  Standing behind the sushi bar, I often think of the words of this song.  “Well they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar, and say, Man, what are you doing here?”  (page 68)

11.  Cat Stevens – Wild World:  I have often heard the rumor in the church that Cat’s former wife became a Unification member and he wrote this song for her.

Bob has heard from some of you in the restaurant but he hasn't had much response from you over the internet.  If you would like to comment on this article, you can email the writer at akaihanarestaurant@earthlink.net.