| Over the years, I've shared the story of my encounter with the Energy of
Unconditional Love with many people. Jay (not his real name) was one of those
people. He lived in San Francisco and occasionally rode my bus from Petaluma to
Sonoma to visit his girlfriend. About thirty-five, he was quiet and shy but
after a few trips together, we became quite friendly. I tend to talk about the
magic and wonder of life, which is a pretty non-threatening subject. Eventually,
I got around to telling him about my experience on Mt. St. Helena. After a
moment of silence, he said, "I've had a similar experience."
Jay's Story
He went on to tell me that one evening, while driving home after work on
Mission Street in San Francisco, he felt emotionally overwhelmed. Pulling off
the street into the darkness of an empty parking lot for privacy and to avoid an
accident, he folded his arms over the steering wheel and put his head down.
When he closed his eyes, he became a young man in his early twenties, naked from
the waist up, staring back at himself in a hallway mirror. Like his present
self, he wore his red hair tied back in a ponytail. His arms were cradling a
small baby and when he looked at it, he knew was himself. Looking up from the
baby, he saw a young adolescent version of himself standing beside him. As he
looked from one version of himself to another in amazement, an older soothing
male voice spoke to him from somewhere behind him. (He thought it came from one
of the bedrooms behind him--perhaps because he felt the need to have a body
attached to the voice.) In any event, the words made him feel love for all that
he is, something he had not experienced before. Like me on Mt. St. Helena, the
man sitting behind the steering wheel of the pickup truck sobbed uncontrollably.
After telling me his story, Jay went on to describe what it was like for him
growing up. Whenever he made a mistake or did something his parents didn't like
they would scream and curse at him. If he forgot something, he was a stupid
idiot; if he made a mistake, he was a stupid idiot; and if he failed to do what
they wanted him to, he was a stupid idiot. He told me that once, he forgot his
truck keys in the house and when he went back to get them, he stopped in front
of the mirror to scream and stab a finger of guilt at himself to emphasize how
stupid he was. He had internalized his parent's method of behavior modification,
which only reinforced self-hatred and self-loathing, not love.
Is Jay's story an example of Divine Intervention? I think so. His unique Inner
experience helped him feel love for himself, something his outer experience
wasn't doing. On a final note, Jay said he's never shared this story with anyone
because he thought they would laugh at him and think he was crazy, especially
the people he knows in San Francisco. That's sad but now that he's shared his
story with me, I'm sharing it with you with his permission. (He said he would
give me the written details of this story so I could write it up and publish it
on my website but when he dragged his feet, I asked him to tell me the story a
second time in case I had to write it from memory, which is what I have done.)
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