I had felt somewhat abandoned and misunderstood for most of my younger years, but behind all that chaos, sadness and struggle, there was a spark within me to reach out and connect with something greater within myself.
As a child, I ended up with 3 different sets of parents due to divorces, and deaths, resulting in having 17 brothers and sisters, although never under one roof at any time. This, of course, was a perfect storm for getting lost in the shuffle.
My father had a drive to provide some form of religious background into our lives and I was initially raised as a Protestant. As a young child, I never really embraced anything that was specifically Protestant, yet something did get in that reinforced the idea that there was a God and something greater in the world.
A good example of that was a time when I was 9 years old and had gotten lost in the woods. I was just a few miles from home, but couldn't figure which direction to go, so I just picked one and walked for what seemed like hours. I can't remember exactly what I was feeling, but I know I was definitely afraid and have some vague memories of a few deals I made with God if he got me out of there.
A moment arrived when I thought I recognized a large formation of rocks and then came upon a set of railroad tracks that I was familiar with and I followed them for a while until I finally emerged from the woods, behind what was then a local High School. Having found my way out of the woods, my response was that I started singing songs I learned while in Sunday School. I was still a mile or so from home, but all the way home as I walked along the streets and sidewalks, there I was just singing, so happy to have found my way out, and somehow knowing I was not alone.
I rarely stayed in that place of gratitude since I tended to embrace being mischievous (that's a kind way of saying I really liked to break things and create havoc when I could), but still, there was always something there, perhaps buried deep, but there.
Another example of this hidden spark happened late one Saturday morning when I was 12 years old and was just finishing up watching the great array of Saturday morning cartoons that existed in the 70's, and I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. I opened the door and there were two young women there who proceeded to talk to me about God and handed me some literature. Something clicked and I asked them in and we sat in the living room for hours while they shared all kinds of things from the Bible that my religious upbringing never touched upon. I was like a moth attracted to the light and immediately knew I wanted more, and so I became a Jehovah's Witness.
What is a Jehovah's Witness?
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. They recreated their own version of the Bible that replaces the word God or Lord with the word Jehovah. A core belief is that Jesus was a prophet or teacher, and not an actual aspect of God as believed by the Christian faith.
Those two young woman integrated me into their lives and would pick me up for Sunday services and I even attended at least one convention with them. They would also come over my house once a week and would teach me their beliefs. I really enjoyed this time, and this was both spiritually and emotionally supportive since my mother was not living with me at the time so I was pretty much a full time baby sitter for my three youngest brothers, aged 3, 4 and 5 years old.
I followed that path for just under a year, but a few of their beliefs were at odds with what I felt was true, so I eventually let it slip away. However, this wasn't the end of my introduction to my spiritual growth since shortly afterwards, my father got involved with a local Pentecostal / Evangelical church and I started going there Sunday mornings.
What are Pentecostal / Evangelical beliefs?
Pentecostal and Evangelical beliefs generally embrace certain aspects of the Bible very rigidly and literally. Their doctrine teaches them that they are to preach the Bible throughout the world to declare that Jesus will return some day for those who have accepted him as their personal savior and he will create a new kingdom for them where they will live forever. On the flip-side, those who neither follow, nor ever heard of Jesus, will spend eternity in hell fire instead.
A lot of what they taught at the new church, resonated with me, and after a few years I became very involved with the church and was one of their few active teens. I was Saved or Born Again just after my 15th birthday and I was fully engaged and committed to my potential future as a Missionary. I walked the walk, literally, as I carried my Bible with me to high school along with all my other books, wore my cross and lapel pins and had more than my share of conversations with fellow students and teachers about their need to be saved as well.
I embraced this way of being until I experienced a crisis during the Christmas vacation of my Junior year in high school. I ended up hanging with friends and family that were all into partying, and somewhere I chose to participate as well. I felt liberated from the weight of following doctrines and requirements, but shortly afterward, during quiet time at home, the guilt of having betrayed God became overwhelming and I reached out for forgiveness and to connect again, but there was nothing there. I couldn't connect. I tried and prayed and there was nothing and I eventually accepted that I had crossed the line and was thrown out of the graces of God and was now on a path of eternal damnation in hell fire.
Well, since I tend to embrace my path, and my path appeared to be one of eternal damnation, I chose to really deserve it. I began using drugs, drinking, smoking, embraced hard rock music and got involved with stealing, vandalism and all manner of illegal activities and unkind actions.
Behind all this activity there was the growing guilt of having betrayed God, even though I no longer participated with the church. Further complicating my stability was the looming belief that the world would be ending in 4 to 5 years due to the Jupiter Effect in 1984, prompting the final return of Jesus to slay all the wicked, myself included.
What is the Jupiter Effect?
It appeared as though a planetary alignment in 1984 would put all the planets on the same side of our Sun. There was a belief amongst many Pentecostal and Evangelical leaders that this would create terrible gravity related issues on the Sun and on all the planets between the Sun and Jupiter. The belief or hope, was that this cataclysmic gravity event would bring about the disasters prophesied in the Book of Revelations, where Jesus would then return to fight a major battle with the wicked at Armageddon and then establish his new kingdom here on Earth.
I understood that most teenagers had trouble coping with things from time to time, but I could see no reason to plan a future, or even be here at all. A year had passed since I left the church and I was halfway through my Senior year in high school, but there was no point. There was no direction I could see that would matter. This line of thinking resulted in behavior swings that contributed to me becoming expelled from school, temporarily homeless, and initiated a deep depression that triggered two suicide attempts. I don't think I really wanted to die, I just wanted to find a way out. I was a total mess, everything was out of control, and it all came to a screeching halt when I got arrested on gun related charges and was committed to Juvenile detention for 3 months as part of a mental evaluation period since I had expressed suicidal tendencies.
So what does a David do? Well, between the time they escorted me in handcuffs out of court, and they closed the heavy metal cell door on my cubicle that first night, the reality of my potential future crept in and I kept hearing myself saying, “This is not going to be my life. I am not going to be that person.” Then in the days that followed, I surrendered to my circumstance, let all the crazy ideas go and became the best Juvenile detainee I could. I started working out, ate better than I ever did in my life, participated deeply in the education provided there, protected the younger boys from bullies and was assigned paid work duties due to good behavior. The counselors that worked with all the boys throughout the day gave me the nickname Doc because of how I would talk with other kids about their issues and problems. I actually ended up helping the counselors when other boys would escape, and I would have fun with some of the younger kids who simply assumed I was a counselor as well.
Years passed and I did gradually let go of many darker tendencies. I eventually got married, had children, began a career as an Electrical Engineering Assistant for 3 different nuclear power plants, and believe it not, got involved with Evangelical beliefs again from time to time. I always had an inner drive to connect with something higher, and so I would turn to the only thing I knew to turn to. However, no matter how much I tried, I always felt there was something missing and also something was not right with many of the beliefs the church held. I found myself being involved with the beliefs for a year or two, and then backsliding for months or years until I would once again start going to church.
After one of my cycles of having left the church, I was feeling drawn back again, but I decided to go about it differently. Instead of pulling out my Bible and attending church, I just spent quiet time at the end of my night and attempted to connect with God without any evangelical twist. For example, where I had previously listened to praise and worship music during prayer, I now just played instrumental classical music and instead of choosing to read the Bible, I set it aside for the time being, and, being a bit brazen, I lit candles to create atmosphere, which was considered to be a bit taboo.
Somewhere within that choice to set aside my evangelical beliefs, this opened a door for Spirit to work with me in a way not possible before. It wasn't long before a friend of mine gave me a copy of Conversations with God and the insights within that book really opened my mind and spirit in ways I had not previously imagined. Then shortly after that, another friend and business companion (who will eventually become my second wife), invited me to a healing meeting. I knew this would be a New Age thing and was taught that it was evil and misguided, but I thought I would just go and see what it was.
Well, it turned out that the healing meeting was a catalyst for a whole new direction of my spiritual growth as I came in contact with a new concept of seeing and being. The instructor of that meeting (my future Father-In-Law), who was a retired Heart Surgeon and recent graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, introduced me to the teachings from A Course in Miracles ... and this changed everything.
Those teachings helped me to establish a new base for my connection to Spirit, and it was all about love and forgiveness and none of the heaviness, sacrifice and obligation I had become accustomed to. All the requirements and guilt fostered by other beliefs just fell away and I was finally on a path that was allowing me to truly make strides in my spiritual growth because I was no longer limited in what I could allow, and I was no longer in a box created by a belief, but was free to allow higher thoughts to come and go, without any repercussions.
I have spent the last twenty years working and growing within this new spiritual reality and have continued to have the occasional Aha moment where there is yet another shift and another door or direction opens. Each change brings more clarity and a greater sense of who I really am, and who all others really are as well.
I am now at another shift where my direction has me focused on coaching others like myself that have been walking in a direction of self-improvement and self-awareness, but have been hitting too many walls and getting frustrated with delays like I did. I understand all of that and I am here now, as a Certified Transformational Coach, to help make their transition into being more self aware, much easier and less prone to frustration and confusion.
I appreciate the time you took to allow me to share my story with you and I invite you to reach out to me and see where we could work together on helping you make your own personal, emotional and spiritual strides, and help your journey expand into directions you may not have imagined, or dared to dream as possible.
Namaste
