6 — [A Word of Caution from a Wondering Wanderer]

A word of caution here before we progress.  I have been putting off writing this part of the story for the last 10 years.  The reason for this is that 10 years ago I walked away from a 30 year focus.

I have been hesitant to tell this story because I am sure that it will cause offense to many.  I was concerned that it could even have a negative impact on my family's relationships and especially my daughter as she navigated her teen years.  

But I am working on my 60th year and my wife and I have been on this journey together for 33 years.  My daughter is an adult with her own son to raise.  Both my wife and daughter have been encouraging me to get this into print for some time now.  And, if I don't tell this story, no one else will be able to explain it to my grandson!  

This is a pretty wild story that will take us from my childhood in the USA, to Africa, southeast Asia, Israel, and back. It includes my time as a soldier in an African army and my return to work side-by-side with my former enemies.  It is a pretty wild ride, but that is not what caused me to hesitate.

The Cause of Hesitation

The next few installments in this saga detail a course change that would cause me to "wander" for three decades.  Because I wondered as I wandered, I would end up completely overturning the life choices I made during my 7 days in May.  

This is not to say that 30 years were a total bust, but my conscious motivation for the entire period would be overthrown.  Because I always wondered as I wandered, I would eventually find an underlying motivation that would lead me to reject my conscious motivation.

Now does this seem confusing to you?  Let me make this plain.  Over the course of 7 days in May, I would wander away from my Jewish faith.  I had already rejected my Jewish upbringing as being inadequate.  

Now I began to take a course that was definitely not Jewish.  I would begin to become interested in Jesus--although this was a much different Jesus than the one in traditional Christianity.  I would start as a "Jesus Freak" on the outside of organized "churchianity", but eventually would find myself as a pastor, missionary, and even a seminary professor right smack in the middle of a well-established Christian denomination.  But, because I wondered and because I was always questioning everything (one element of my Jewish heritage that never abated), I was always in trouble with some religious "authority."  The more trouble I got in, the more I wondered.  At the end of 30 years progressing deeper and deeper into Christian religion, I walked away from it and returned to my Jewish faith.

So, in the next few segments I will detail how I wandered into Christianity.  Later we will document how I wondered my way back to Judaism.

My story will relate the challenges I faced, both theologically and experientially.  If you stick with me as I narrate this journey, you will probably be challenged too.  Whether you are Jewish or gentile, religious or irreligious, a faith adherent or an agnostic--you are likely to be frustrated with me.  But if I am to tell my story, I have to be open with you.  I hope you can remain open with me as you read.  

5 — Day 1 - Part II - Jewish LSD Freak Meets Jesus Freak

So, here I was having the "trip" of my life--a bad trip to boot!  I had never experienced anything like this.  I had suddenly achieved spiritual enlightment (so I thought).  I had become conscious of my own self "godness" and oneness with the comic whole.  And, in this state of hallucinatory confusion, I believed that, having discovered my godness, the looming thunderstorm and sky full of dark clouds meant that I had decided to end the world.

Secluded as I sat in the bushes on the steps leading down to the lake, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a tall, thin young man with blond hair.  He looked at me with his deep blues eyes and asked if I was okay.  To this day, I still can't figure out how he found me there. Maybe he had seen me wander down to the lake.  Maybe his older brother, Chris the Hippie had alerted him to my predicament, or maybe someone how the real God sent him my way.  

I turned to this innocent looking young man whom I would come to know as "Dave" and said:

I am okay.  I am God and it is the end of the world.

Dave replied:

You aren't God , and it isn't the end of the world--yet.

And then he began to tell me that there was a time coming when the world would end, but that I could come to know the true God personally and avoid that disastrous end.

You guessed it--Dave was what he called a "Jesus Freak."  For the next several hours, Dave along with his brother, Chris the Hippie, began to try to convince me that what I needed was a "personal relationship with Jesus."  Now, that type of stuff wouldn't go over with me as a Jew, even the nominal Jew that I was, if I were sober.  But, under the influence of a very strong hallucinogen, my natural resistance to strange ideas was weak.  So, instead of laughing at this kid Dave and dismissing him as just another Christian like all the others I had known, I tried to make sense of what he was saying.  Of course, I wasn't making much sense at the moment, so I don't think I was ready for a debate.

By now, the thunderstorm had broken and Dave and I were soaked to the skin.  He offered to give me shelter at his apartment--the one where I parked my Mustang.  I gladly took him up on the offer.  As I sat on his floor with my back resting on his wall, I began to drip dry and the LSD began to lessen its intensity.  I was in my 5th hour of the trip and was beginning to "come down." When he determined that his verbal arguments didn't seem to be persuading me, Dave handed me his Bible and asked me to read Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.  These are two primary proof texts used Christians to proselytize Jews.  Of course, the words on the page were just a blur to me.

Here Comes the Freaky Part

As the sun began to set, it became too dark in the room to read, and typical of college students, they either didn't have any lights in the room that worked, or kept the lights off to avoid high utility bills.  

As I sat in the dark room, a spec of light about the size of a penlight appeared on the opposite wall.  As I stared at it, it became brighter and larger.  It seemed to be slowly coming toward me. Timothy Leary had written about the "clear white light of the void" that was experienced as one approached "enlightenment."  My anticipation rose as it drew closer to me.  Leary had warned that merging with the clear white light required concentration.  You should neither resist it or turn away.  You should focus on it.  He said that often a sense of dread might come over you and that you needed to keep yourself open to it as it approached, rejecting any fear.

As it got to what seemed to be about 5 feet from me, I was suddenly overcome with a strong sense that the light itself was sinister.  I turned my head slightly to the side and the light instantly disappeared.

The light's departure was followed by the sun breaking through the retreating storm clouds outside the window, lighting the room.

I must have made a noise or cried out at that moment.  Dave got up and crossed the room to where I was curled up--knees to nose.  He once again asked me if I was alright.  I told him what I had just experienced.  He smiled sympathetically and once again launched into a religious explanation.  He told me:

Satan often masquerades as an angel of light.  That was the devil trying to enter you.  But Chris and I have been praying for you and that is what protected you.

Oy!  This was just too much for me in one day--all this Jesus and devil stuff!  I stood and thanked them for helping me in out of the rain.  They tried to give me a Bible to take with me, but I refused.  As I left their apartment and headed across my frat house, I had no idea that by week's end that we would be all be stuffed in my Mustang (Chris, Dave, and Barry my tripping partner) as we headed for a Jesus Commune in Santa Cruz.

This was only the first of my seven days in May.

4 — Seven Days in May: Day 1

No, not the book--that was a cold war thriller that described a nuclear confrontation between Moscow and Washington.  It was written in 1963 just after the Cuban Missile Crisis.  My seven days in May took place in 1970, and although I have told this story dozens of times, this is the first time in 40 years that I have told it and "wondered" what it really meant.  In fact, for four decades, the moral of this story has been the same.  But my wandering has brought me to a different conclusion.

Well, let's just tell the story and see where it takes us.

I told you how I had become something of a local guru on the tricks and traps of LSD trips.  I recounted the need to always stick with a partner so that you don't get lost in the mental hallucinations, forget that you have taken a drug, and risk losing total contact with reality.  Well, at the beginning of a week in late May, 1970 I came across a dose of what my friendly local dealer certified as "clinical grade" LSD.  

For some time now, I had been yearning for that ultimate trip where I would delve into the depths of my own being and discover the true nature of self and my place in the universe.  I certainly had not found what I was looking for in my materialistic and "plastic" experience as a secular Jew.  

My mother, a Reform Jew, considered herself an atheist.  Her position on the afterlife was, "When you are dead, you are dead.  You just stop existing."  My father only attended his Orthodox Shul for high holidays and when my uncle (who was president of the Shul) could drag him into a Saturday morning minyan.  According to my father, when you died, you went to some in-between place for 11 months until you hopefully moved to some sort of happy afterlife.  He really didn't seem interested in such things, and just getting him to talk about it was an effort.  He was so filled with guilt about his childhood relationships and his failed marriage (later he would chalk up three failed marriages), that his only religious involvement was to purchase a huge stained glass window for the foyer of the new Shul.

But there was no "there" there.  To me, it all seemed to be dead tradition.  I could not perceive any spiritual meaning or value to any of it.  For me, Judaism was a tired system of ethics.  Even my bar mitzvah was a power struggle between my divorced parents.  My mother wanted me to have a "normal" childhood--typical of suburban American life.  That meant confirmation in the Reform Temple as the single kowtow to religious tradition.  My father finally gave up the hope that I would attend Hebrew school 3 days a week, but had negotiated a bar mitzvah with his rabbi where I would only have to show up on my 13th birthday and read a few Hebrew prayers transliterated into English.  My 13th birthday passed without incident.

Confirmation in 10th grade was just an excuse to no longer have to attend Sunday School at temple.  However, I did not escape religious services on holidays with both my mother at temple and my father at shul.  Those were lost weekends!

Anyway, in May of 1970 I had the perfect trip planned.  I had clinical LSD, a ZBT buddy (Barry-- if you are still out there, get in touch!) to trip with, and it was a beautiful warm day in Madison.  The spring school term had just ended, and it was during that time before the first summer term classes began.  For me, it was between the school term from which I had withdrawn in the 13th week, just before I would fail my classes, and before I had to sign up for summer classes.  It was that perfectly neutral time--no responsibilities.

Barry and I planned to start our trip around noon down at the student union, out on the lawn overlooking Lake Mendota.  We swallowed our little pieces of paper with the pink splotch of LSD at the ZBT house and strolled down Langdon street to the Union.  There was a handful of others sprawled on the lawn enjoying the idyllic weather.  Barry and I joined a small group, one of whom was a blonde on whom I had a huge crush.  Another was Chris who had the reputation of being the hippest of the hippies.  Although we hadn't met formally, Chris the Hippie and I saw each other often as he lived in the apartments across the street from the ZBT house.  I had a parking space for my British Racing Green 66 Mustang in front of his door.  [The car had been a 16th birthday gift from my father.  I loved that car!]  

By now the rush from the drug was getting pretty strong, and I lay back on the grass gazing at puffy white clouds gently blowing across the lake.  Feeling pretty good about myself, I rolled over to say something to the one I hoped would soon be my blonde girlfriend.  Suddenly, what had been the perfect "trip" took a turn for the worse, as I turned on my side rolling right into a pile of dog-doo. 

My love interest and Chris the Hippie chuckled at my predicament.  I excused myself and began to head back to the frat house for a shower and change of clothes.  I told my tripping partner, Barry, that I would meet up with him later.  That was a mistake--he should have come back with me while I cleaned up.  You never want to separate from your tripping partner.

I was in a hurry to get rid of the filth and the smell which was intensified by the drug.  I took a shortcut back to ZBT that took me along the lake shore and by all the frat houses on the lake.  As I moved from backyard to parking lot, I also passed all the garbage dumpsters behind the fraternities.  I was humiliated, covered in dog crap, totally overcome by the smell, and instead of gazing out on the lake, was confronting all the refuse from a weekend of parties in the frat houses.  Do you think this might turn out to be a bad trip? 

By the time I got back to the frat house, all I could see, smell or think about was crap.  I stood in the shower for a good 45 minutes trying to get rid of the smell.  But even if I had been successful in ridding myself of the smell, I had all these images of refuse playing through my drugged-out head.  I was now at the peak of the drug's effect, separated from my partner, and having totally forgotten that I had taken LSD.  I was just dizzy with horrible smells and images.  

After changing clothes, I wandered outside to the end of the street and walked down the steps to the bank of the lake.  I sat down there and gazed out over the shimmering blue water.  The fluffy white clouds began to change to ominous black thunderstorm clouds.  

As I sat there watching the clouds roll in, I suddenly had a flash of spiritual understanding.  I realized that I was one with the universe, a part and parcel with it.  My mind reached out to touch the universe while at the same time, I became conscious of myself at the deepest level.  I realized that there was a universal existence, that all life was part of that universal being, and yet I myself was small "g" god.  I realized that we are all part of the cosmic being, yet I was that being.  I was "god" and part and parcel with "God."  

I fixed on the huge black storm clouds.  Suddenly, yes, I knew I was god/God and I now that I had come to this discovery, I had decided to end this existence.  It was the end of the world!

Some trip huh?

In that state of mind, ecstatic with my enlightenment, but with trepidation about the approaching end of all things, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, asking:  "Are you alright?"

Next:  Meet Dave, Chris the Hippie's younger brother.

3 — So Who Is Timothy Leary and What Does He Have to Do With Anything?

So, when we left off, I was "wondering" about apparent similarities of Jewish and Christian experiences, and the existence of God as an 18 year old University of Wisconsin freshman.  And then I read Timothy Leary.

For those of you who didn't experience the 60s, Timothy Leary was a Harvard professor who began experimenting with LSD.  He became an advocate for daily LSD use as a shortcut to spiritual enlightenment.  Basically, he argued that LSD simulated and stimulated a heightened state of consciousness that was only known to mystics and dedicated practitioners of meditation and yoga.

Well, in 1968 it sounded worth a try to me!  I had experimented with marijuana and hashish, but for those of you who have had more recent experience, the stuff we could get back then was pretty weak.  You could not count on much of a high from the dope available on campus.  About all you could count on was a headache and a serious case of the munchies.  But weed was a social drug and none of the people I knew were messing with any narcotics or speed.  Even the LSD was typically weak and impure, sometimes actually a light dose of the poison strychnine or belladonna (which also used to be an ingredient in some cold medications.)  My first few attempts at LSD just made me ill.

I finally found a source for real LSD.  My source was a local high school senior who claimed to have Mafia connections.  This skinny blond hair, blue-eyed kid looked more like captain of the debate club than a dangerous mobster!

Of course, a few years later I would find myself working morning cleaning crew for a pizza restaurant owned by a friend.  It turned out my friend's Sicilian-born father was the head of the local syndicate.  I actually ate with this guy one day after I finished vacuuming and cleaning the tables.  He made a heck of pizza! 

My friend was not aware of his father's "connections" until many years later.  I did find it strange that his father, who didn't drive, was always accompanied by a used car salesman who drove him around.  This car salesman was sitting right across from me at lunch.  So, I asked him how car sales were going.  This 6'5" 300 pound response was, "Huh?"  The portable meat locker was the bodyguard, of course.  I gave up on further discussion of business and economic trends and applied myself to my slice of pizza.

And, by the way, he had a recipe for the best lasagna I have ever eaten.  I am not going to name any names here, but old friend, if you read this blog, please send me that lasagna recipe.

So, I apologize for this little pizza/lasagna excursion to those of you who may have a serious case of the munchies now!  Let's get back to LSD.

Now, I know it may sound strange for someone with a Ph.D. in World Religions to assert that some of his first research into religious experience was on an LSD trip.  Although, I did not immediately find myself in a state of nirvana, nor did I experience the advertised visual hallucinations, I did begin to experience "thought hallucinations" on an ethereal plane.  What do I mean by this?  I really can't say.  The best description I have ever come up was that it was like dreaming with my eyes open.  And the subject of the thought dreams were the nature of existence itself, an essential awareness of "self" at the most elemental level, and at the same time, a sense of oneness with the Cosmos.

As they say in car ads with stunt drivers, please do not try this at home!  I am not recommending this for anyone.  I am just telling you what happened to me.  And you will see as this story continues, that although this may sound romantic and exciting, it was a hallucinogen induced fantasy.  The 24 hour physical hangover was agonizing.  The mental hangover lasted for years.  I saw some people literally lose their minds.  One person I knew committed suicide from the damage years later and after having been in a rigorous rehab program.

Fortunately for me, I was spared from such serious consequences.  I focused my attention on trying to make sense of my LSD trips--to map them out.  As a result, I began to have a bit of a reputation in ZBT as the guy who could talk you down from a "bad trip."  Probably the most frightening aspect of hallucinogenic drug trip was that you had a tendency to forget that you had taken a drug.  This happened almost immediately.  So, you would be feeling the initial rush of physical stimulation, while at the same time encountering alien thought patterns and random ideas.  It was easy to get lost!  Timothy Leary insisted that you should "never trip alone."  I found that to be good advice.  You needed a partner, so that when you got lost in thought hallucinations, there was someone with you who was at least at the same stage of drug stimulation.

Always tripping with a partner worked well for my 2-3 trips/week during most of my sophomore year.   I couldn't take LSD every day.  (I needed at least 24 hours in between to recover.)  It worked until one day at the end of May in 1970.  On that day, I got "clinical grade" LSD from my blond-haired high school Mafia contact.  It came as a dried drop of a pink liquid on a 1/4" square of paper--going price in those days was $5. 

Next:  Seven Days in May

2 — Wondering Wanderer

Yesterday, my wife, Pegi, suggested that I should name this blog "Confessions of a Wondering Jew."  Wondering is what got me started on this lifelong quest for spiritual identity.  It is also what keeps me wandering--often into places where my wondering gets me into difficulty with others, especially when it comes to matters of faith.

I am sure that I did some religious wondering as a child, but the trouble really began when I arrived at University of Wisconsin in 1967.  Growing up in Louisville, I had little everyday contact with other Jewish kids--mostly limited to the dozen who were part of my Reform Temple confirmation class.  When I arrived in Madison for my freshman year, my private dorm was composed of an interesting mix of about 100 Jews from New York or Chicago and 50 Hispanics who were attending a high school completion program for children of migrant workers. Meal times were interesting, to say the least, and I found the Hispanic and Jewish cultures to be equally foreign.

I managed to make friends with most, but by my third week was already heavily involved in picking a fraternity.  The other Jewish kids were considering one of the three Jewish fraternities (Zeta Beta Tau, Pi Lambda, Sigma Alpha Mu).  My Jewish roommate and I rushed the Jewish fraternities, but were both more interested in the gentile fraternities like Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Beta Theta Pi (my step-brother had been a Beta at Miami of Ohio).  I was surprised to find myself being actively rushed by the notoriously anti-semitic Sigma Chi!  

Ultimately, my roommate joined SAE.  For reasons that I still don't understand, I picked ZBT which was the largest of the Jewish fraternities.  Maybe I was influenced by the full-time chef that they had wooed away from one of the top restaurants in Madison.  Growing up, I had always "wondered" why my gentile friends seemed to have bland casseroles for dinner while we always had roast, steak, or chicken along with salads, side dishes and desserts.  Maybe the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, even when it comes to picking a fraternity!

Or maybe it was because the gentile girls on campus seemed very foreign to me with their Nordic features.  These Wisconsin girls felt distant to me.  On the other hand, the Jewish girls from New York and Chicago were a lot more attractive and certainly more plentiful than anything I had ever experienced in the Louisville.  If I remember correctly, there were only three girls in my temple confirmation class and the only one to whom I was attracted, well let's just say she was intellectually-challenged.  

But many of the Jewish girls in Madison were beautiful, and because you had to have top grades to get into UW from out of state, they were intelligent and quick-witted.  These young women came to the ZBT parties.  So, let's just say I wandered into ZBT for food and romance.  And that is when the "wondering" began in earnest.

I was Jewish and familiar with Orthodox traditions through my father's shul and I had been educated in the Reform traditions of my mother and step-father.  By the way, religious holidays were a nightmare for me.  I went to shul with my father on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, and still had to attend temple services with my mother, and let's not forget about Sunday School!  

Fraternity life showed me a Judaism that seemed neither Reform nor Orthodox.  These kids from New York and Chicago (mostly with Reform upbringings) were so much more "Jewish" in a way I had never experienced.  They weren't observant like my father's family, didn't keep kosher, didn't go to services, but seemed steeped in Jewish culture that was unknown to me.  I began to wonder if I even knew what "being Jewish" was.

And even though they were Jewishly different, none of us seemed interested in Jewish thought or practices.  Other than our Jewish backgrounds, we felt no different than our "Christian" schoolmates.  Well, maybe we were a little more interested in politics and protest against the Vietnam war, but we were all listening to the same music, smoking the same weeds, experimenting with the same hallucinogens, and slipping and falling on the same icey sidewalks on the way to class.  [I seemed to always fall on my gluteus maximus right in front of the private dorm where so many of my Jewish girlfriends lived!]

So, I began to wonder what was the difference between Jewish and Christian students.  Was there really anything to religious background at all?  Was there really a supreme God?  Did any of this matter?  Was there any such thing as a meaning spiritual experience?  And then I read Timothy Leary.

1 — Starting Where I Am

One of the advantages of being a "wandering" Jew is that I can just start where I am.  I should have started 9 years ago, and there have been a few aborted beginnings, but beginning has always been the problem.

I don't want to start with my publication (Messianic Jewish Congregations:  Who Sold this Business to the Gentiles?  Lanham, MD:  University Press of America, 2000.  That was just a point in time, and although it represents something of where I was in 1997--well I have wandered since then.  I could have started with my childhood and bored everyone!  There will be time for that.  

I sure couldn't start with the chapter about me in Robin Moore's 1977 book, Rhodesia.  I only slightly resembled his characterization of my military adventures in Africa at the time.  I remember he put some words in my mouth that I don't understand to this day.

Should I start with my late teenage years as a secular Jew raised by a Reform mother and Orthodox father?  Or should I start with my LSD and teargas experiences as a University of Wisconsin-Madison student in 1967?

Where do you start the story to explain how a nice Jewish boy from Louisville ended up as a Christian missionary in Africa?  And then how do you begin to explain how the birth of my only child, Abigail, in 1986 began the path that would end my association with Christianity, my career as a seminary professor, and bring me back to be a practicing Jew?

And how did I get stuck working for AT&T for 9 years?  Who cares--I am actually happy to be one of the 12,000 who were just "canned" as a part of the current economic crisis.   The result is that this is where I am--call me retired, call it my retirement career, call it what I should have done 9 years ago instead of taking that "temporary" job with AT&T while I looked for a teaching position at a secular institution.

This is where I have wandered and it is where I will start.  I will probably upset Jews and Gentiles alike as I tell my story, but hey what are you going to do--fire me?  Too late for that--AT&T beat you to the punch!