Stan: rule #27 - everyone does what's important to them

A conversation with my dad…

Oh, that makes so much sense!😜

Here’s my contact…

Email [e-mail]

Instagram @thisisemotionart

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is emotion art.

(00:02):
Emotion because humans are literally made of emotion.
And art because...
Well up until a couple years ago,
I didn't think I had any art.
Like I could not do art. I didn't see myself that way.
Now I realize that everything I do wants to be art.

(00:24):
As in, if I'm doing something for any reason other than simply that I want to be doing that thing,
it is not satisfying.
Emotion art.
Usually when people meet my dad for the first time,
people that know me already, their response is almost always,

(00:45):
Oh!
Oh, I understand so many more things about you now. So this should be pretty interesting.
Welcome to Stan Avery, my dad.
Enjoy.
Hi dad.
Hey Michael. It's nice to be here. This is an epic visit.
They always are.

(01:05):
Yeah.
I really appreciate that you are taking the time to sit down in front of a microphone with me.
Well rule 27 is,
everyone does what's important to them.
And the reason I'm here is because it's important to me.
And not only out of morbid curiosity.
I love that it's morbid at least.
There is nothing I like better than curiosity and morbid is among the best kind.

(01:30):
I think of you as dad.
Whatever that means to me, that's how I think of you.
What I'm hoping is that
I can hear from you in your words how you see yourself in a nutshell.
Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, I'm Stan Avery and I have a number of titles.
Where I live, I'm the gypsy's husband.

(01:52):
But I'm also the plumbing contractor.
But if you travel in India, there are many many many people there that know who I am.
And they regard me as Reverend Stan.
My first journey over there was about 40 years ago.
But I've been working there continually for 26 years.
And so I traveled I've traveled all over into remote places in India.

(02:16):
And so and we're still very involved there, although I cannot go back.
My last journey there, I just barely escaped.
I was being tracked online by three federal agents.
And they did not like what I was doing.
And so they were going to deport me.
And I found out about it while we were on our way to the airport.

(02:40):
And so we were in the middle of the drive, diverted, changed our tickets on the on the run.
And I got to Mumbai.
We were heading for Delhi.
I got to Mumbai and the federal agents showed up at the airport as I was in the air above the airport.
So that was cool.
So if I go back to India, I was told recently if I go back to India, I will be arrested at the airport.

(03:05):
So I just do what I do from here.
I keep writing and.
Yeah, you kind of see yourself as a vigilante a little bit.
Yeah.
And what Jesus said was he said, blessed are you when men say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice, he said, and leap for joy.
So when people are saying all kinds of bad things about about me and Teresa is the same way when they're saying all kinds of bad things.

(03:29):
If it's for the right reasons, we are deliriously happy when everybody in the world, all these people that like you are part of the world.
Love the world if they think I'm great and doing wonderfully and they they really like me to be around.
That makes me nervous because Jesus said woe unto you and all men speak well of you.

(03:49):
So that's kind of on my radar is I think I want to do well and I want to be popular or at least approved by the right people.
But not by the wrong people, because if people love God, you know, I want them to appreciate me at some level.
But if they hate God, I really like some of that to rub off on the way they feel about me.

(04:10):
It's an imperfect science. I just try.
This conversation is about like who am I?
And that makes me a little bit squirmy because.
Yes, you are correct.
This conversation is about who am I?
Okay, because it's my policy to not focus on myself because it's human nature to be preoccupied with ourselves.

(04:32):
And I figured out when I was young that that was completely pointless because when I figured out that God was obsessed with me because of his who he is not me special, but me like everybody like when I'm asleep, he's hovering over me thinking a thousand good thoughts.
You know, and so in other words, I'm wasting my time being preoccupied with myself.

(04:53):
So what I've practiced in my life is forgetting about me. And what I found is that you know that thing about if you seek your life in this world, you'll lose it.
But if you lose your life for my sake, you'll find it.
And so one way of trying to lose my life is just to kind of forget about myself.
I want to be the right kind of a troublemaker and loved and loving because that's everything.

(05:20):
Nothing else really matters.
Loved and loving.
Yeah.
Oh, yes, please.
But if I have to choose between the two, I'll choose loving.
Fortunately, you don't because they come together.
And I appreciate the compliment that you feel a little bit squirmy because that's really my goal in life is to bring a place of squirminess to people so that I have the opportunity to see parts of them that they normally would cover up.

(05:45):
Not that I'm saying you normally cover anything up.
I'm just saying it's just kind of a tendency I see that happens.
And so I'd like to get a little five minute version of the story of Stan Avery.
So now, with that being said, I hear you saying that you don't like to focus on yourself.
No, I'm game.
I kind of figured you would be since you sat down here.

(06:07):
Yes.
So thank you for being game, suspending belief and just entering into a moment of fantastical exploration.
We'll just see where it goes.
Well, I didn't realize this when I was young, but I was from an astonishingly privileged background because just first of all, U.S. citizen.

(06:29):
Secondly, being just here in Oregon and my parents were so nice.
They were reasonable, simple people and full of faith and love their children.
Very strong family.
That's exceptional.
And then also I was given like a really high IQ.

(06:50):
I didn't know that until later on as a kid because they kept sending me to Oregon State University to be tested for my IQ.
And it was fun.
But later on, I kind of like did the math and figured out what this is about.
And so I was given love.
But that's not always a privilege because the Bible says to whom much is given, much is required.

(07:12):
I was given lucidity and a relatively good level of eloquence.
And that's not something you really earn.
You can work at it.
OK, so in that whole formative time where you're being given all these things, what was the first stage in your emotional memory of your childhood?
I was hot tempered and selfish.

(07:34):
What was the setting of the stage?
Well, I had an older brother who was very nice.
He and I both were focused on me.
Were you guys in Philomath?
Well, my dad was the chief of police in Philomath.
And then he was on the Corrales force.
And so we lived there.
The three children, my younger sister, who just visited this weekend from Australia.

(07:56):
And then my older brother and me.
And I was the middle one.
And I was kind of like kind of spoiling myself.
Very focused on myself.
Same house, same school all the way through.
Yeah.
And then Western View Junior High School, which no longer exists.
And we lived like two blocks from the library.
My mom worked at the library.
So I was I just I disappeared into books for many years as a child.

(08:20):
Do you feel like that really helped you develop your imagination?
Yeah, it was great.
Well, literacy and imagination.
That's just the way.
And then that disease, I have passed that on to my children.
I notice you're a book person.
Disease?
Yeah, well, this is a different term than I've considered it.
It's tongue in cheek.
You know, bibliophilia is the name of that affliction.

(08:42):
And our house, as you know, is just like walls and walls of books.
I do know.
And upstairs we have a dark academia library.
Very dark, very academic.
With lots of books.
And we're getting more books all the time.
So did that whole that whole era from like, say, your earliest memories up until what?
You graduated high school.
Did that all feel like one stage?

(09:03):
Yes.
I thought I was awake.
I was sound asleep.
I was focused on myself.
And I did not appreciate or understand the rare privilege of my whole life.
My upbringing, my education, my U.S. citizenship, my parents, our family.
I had so many friends that had troubled families.
When I was young, Michael, our home was like a train station for all the kids in the neighborhood.

(09:29):
They would always gravitate to our home.
And we would have like crowds of kids hanging out at our house to play.
And the reason is because my parents countenanced it because they wisely figured, look, we're not raising grass.
We're raising kids.
And so they just let our house get trashed with a whole bunch of kids playing there.
We had a big rope swing in the backyard under the walnut tree.

(09:53):
And we had a basketball hoop.
We had all this amazing stuff.
And it was all designed to have the neighborhood kids because they reasoned.
We would rather have our house get trampled down with you guys being here so that we can see what's going on.
And that was just good parenting.
And I learned from that.
What were the top things that kind of were your motivation throughout that stage?

(10:15):
I love to read.
And I liked to get my own way, play games.
And I enjoyed having friends, but I was selfish.
That's just typical human things.
Now, one thing that took me down a notch, which was really helpful, this saved me was when I finished junior high school and I was about to enter high school, we moved from Corvallis to Philomath, which at that time, Philomath was like beer drinking, tobacco chewing, fast car, just downgrade.

(10:51):
Oh, massive downgrade.
And also the first thing that happened when I showed up at the Philomath High School as a sophomore was the guys kept trying to beat me up and I would have to run.
And it's like, what is this?
Because I grew up in academia.
I grew up at Oregon State University.
All my friends, their dads were professors or business executives, things like that.

(11:13):
And then we moved to Philomath.
And it was like loggers and farmers.
And so I just made a decision.
I will get along.
I will keep my grades down because if you're a guy in Philomath, you had to get a 2.5.
If you got good grades, you were ostracized.
Girls could get good grades.
So I kept strategically my GPA at 2.5.

(11:36):
My parents were cool with that.
They knew what I was doing.
It was social survival.
They didn't care.
And because they knew I would catch up.
And so oftentimes I'm finding as a parent of now teenagers, as you enter your teens.
Terrifying.
You enter a transformative state emotionally.
Was there a point where you felt derealized?

(11:58):
Like you felt like maybe you weren't real?
Or that everything just feels real?
How did you know?
I'm just asking.
I'm just curious.
Michael, this was a real serious thing.
But it was younger.
It was when I was in grade school.
And what happened was I became not completely convinced, but strongly suspicious that I was the only real person

(12:19):
in the whole world.
Does anybody ever?
I don't know.
There are people that go through that.
I went through that.
I thought I was the only real person.
So what I did was I mounted a campaign over several years trying to catch them.
And what I didn't realize was I was doing an early version of the Truman show.
And I actually was trying to catch them like where they would mess up or there'd be like a glitch in the matrix.

(12:44):
And then finally I got old enough, probably in the middle of grade school,
where I realized rationally that's impossible.
It would be too complicated to pull off.
And I realized, OK, everybody's real.
My parents are real.
Everything's real.
And they're all just people like me.
I'm going to look that up because you're not the first person I've heard of with it.
In fact, your grandson, Ike, experiences that very same phenomenon.

(13:10):
At what age did he figure out that it wasn't?
Stay tuned.
Oh, yeah.
For me, it was probably when I came out of that was probably around maybe 10.
But anyway, this is how Falomath that was my curse ended up saving me.
They were hippies were just happening.
And so I was I was in that culture.

(13:33):
I graduated in 70.
Marijuana arrived in Falomath in 71.
And so actually I was the only guy in the school.
I mean, there was one other guy that had talked and that was about it.
And so it just wasn't part of the culture.
And then I went and visited my friends.
I had so been close to in Corvallis and they were zombies because they'd been just

(13:57):
smoking dope for all those years that I had been running cross country and track
and just kind of avoiding trouble at school.
And that changes a life trajectory of somebody who is in their adolescent transformative years.
Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I smoked dope for a year afterwards until I got to the point where I was
losing my short term memory and I just said, forget this.

(14:19):
So I just stopped.
And Teresa was the same way.
She smoked dope for about a year and then quit for about the same reason.
How do you feel about dope now?
OK, because I mean, the conversation around this drastically changed.
There's people that OK. Good question.
There's people around me that use it all the time.
It's just legal.
And it's like wine.

(14:40):
And I remember what happened to me as an older teen, you know, like 18, 19, when I used it every day,
it had a deleterious effect on me.
But I was functional, you know, but it was just like it was a bad habit.
And it was just like I had better things to do.
It's ubiquitous now. It's everywhere because it's legal.
I got my own school board in Bandon.

(15:03):
Yeah. And it's a very conservative school board.
We're really trying to keep the school like something like in the late 50s.
Yeah. Really conservative.
But we cannot stop that because it's legal everywhere.
And so the kids just have it and there's nothing you can do about it.
And so it has a negative effect.
But but anyway, someone else could use marijuana.
It's like it's just a drug.

(15:24):
It's going to make you sleepy and hungry.
But for me, if I was ever to intentionally use it again,
it would invoke a spiritual transaction that would terrify me
because what happened was I was really strung out on pot.
And then when I became a Christian, it was a very momentary thing.
In one moment, I was born again.

(15:46):
And it was literally like the Matrix.
It was like like waking up in a dream.
Really, it was like that. And so I was instantly delivered from pot.
I had no interest at all.
But if I ever took it, I would yield myself mystic that I am in the spiritual
universe, the demons, if I ever intentionally took marijuana,
it would open a door for them that I would not be able to close.

(16:10):
And I'm terrified of that. Like Teresa, one time she went, you know,
we would go do evangelism at the country fair.
And on the way out, this this this girl offered Teresa a cookie.
I kid you not.
And so she was eating this cookie and Jelena looked over and said,
Teresa, what are you doing?

(16:32):
The cookie was kind of green and it was just basically a pot cookie.
And Teresa had no idea. She went on in her innocence.
She was loaded for three days.
I mean, she was so zonked and it was actually just comical.
But the reason why it didn't matter other than she couldn't drive was
because she didn't do it intentionally.

(16:54):
So spiritually, nothing happened.
That sounds scary. It's scary.
Well, there are things there are things to be afraid of.
Like I am afraid of sin.
I what would you call that? Like I can hear that.
Yeah. You know, like the reason why I don't sin is not because I'm a good person.
I want to be good. But that's just the battle we all go through.

(17:16):
You know, like Paul talked about that, you know, in my heart, in my mind,
I recognize what's good and what's right.
But in my flesh, I keep doing the wrong thing.
So I'll be in that battle the rest of my life.
But the reason why I don't sin is because I have the sing.
I literally this is like a mantra for me. It's a daily prayer.
I'm praying for the fear of God, the terrifying, trembling fear of God.

(17:42):
And I wish I had more, but I pray for that.
And I'm OK with the way it's going.
But so what was what stage two? What's the transition?
When did stage one? OK, OK. I'm in Philemon.
I wouldn't go full on with kudos.
I didn't like it there because I didn't fit in.
And the guys were always trying to beat me up my first my sophomore year.
And but I just got into it. You know, just like you get lemons, you make lemonade.

(18:04):
So but what happened was in hindsight, I never dated girls there in Philemon.
I didn't I didn't go into parties. I never went to anyone's house.
I had lots of friends in school, but I had zero social life.
That meant that the whole time I was in in the flow of high school,
while everybody else around me was chasing girls and fornicating, I wasn't.

(18:27):
And so I didn't. And also, I wasn't drinking alcohol.
They were all drinking beer because I didn't go to any events, went to no parties.
I just stayed home and I read books.
How do you feel about that difference in how you showed up to that era of your life as the peers that you're comparing with?
How do you feel about that? That's how your experience went.

(18:49):
It preserved me to swap. I was a bad kid.
And if I had been given the opportunity, I would have done like like there's a there's a.
Sounds from the way you're describing the what you didn't do that you were a good kid.
So where do you base that you were a vacuum? No, no.
The goodness was was from social rebellion.
In other words, I'm not going to be like these people. And it wasn't because I was good.

(19:12):
There's this there's an old music group called the Birds. Have you ever heard of them?
OK, well, there's this this line from a song over under sideways down immoral things.
They said were wrong or what I want to do. And given a different environment, I didn't I was not in contact with God.
And I was just a carnal kid. And given the opportunity, I would have been a dope smoking fornicator.

(19:34):
And I would have been just I would have been a mess.
OK, so I have to ask you. Yeah. So it sounds like you're saying that the natural impulses that you get overwhelmed with in that era of your life in the teen years is what you are describing as bad.
You see those as bad. Do you see? Well, drunkenness and fornication.

(19:56):
Yes, of course, they do. But I'm saying that you didn't do any of those things, but you're still seeing yourself as a bad kid.
So what I'm saying is you see even the urge to do it. You see that as bad.
Well, the temptation to sin itself is not bad. No, because everyone's going to be tempted.
And the scriptures don't condemn us for being tempted. But it's when we yield to temptation.

(20:18):
OK, OK. OK. OK. This is going to be difficult to stick to the thread because these rabbit trails are so tempting.
You keep trying. So tempting. But I want I want to hear the accolade, the Philomath accolade. Yeah. And so so anyway, so I got out of Philomath High School, got first in state and track.
I was so proud of that. Yes. And then you're still displayed in the Corvallis High School.

(20:44):
Absolutely. OK. And so then I went down to to San Bernardino. I left the next day after graduation, went down there because my girlfriend's family is moving to Rialto.
And so I went to San Bernardino, got a job in the steel mill and I worked in a steel mill, made a whole bunch of money for the summer.
And I went to community college and bombed because I was smoking dope every day. And that was about my life.

(21:07):
And that was about it. And I just had this really nice little cottage and lived there.
And what did that last for? That kind of in between? Most of the year. OK.
And then and then what happened was I had a I took a psychedelic. Which one? LSD. OK. Yeah.
And I don't know. I've never taken anything else. So what happened was I took an LSD pill and then later on I took another one.

(21:34):
And so then I had the typical experiences. There was all kinds of like the trees were moving and the mirrors were melting.
And there was all kinds of stuff. I got these I just the typical hallucinations of music and things like that.
But there was one thing that was absolutely real and that changed everything.
So I'm sitting up through the night completely alone, wiped out on LSD there in the living room.

(21:58):
I sat in this chair and there was a demon and there was an angel. And this wasn't just a momentary thing.
It went on through the night. It was just like a scene from like Jacob wrestling with the angels.
This demon and this angel were wrestling for my soul. And this went on for hours.
And when the demon would be prevailing, I would be filled with an overwhelming desire to destroy myself,

(22:24):
destroy my soul and live in complete darkness and excess and decadence and destroy myself.
And when the angel was winning and it went back and forth several times during the night,
when the angel was prevailing, I would want to go back to Oregon and straighten my life out and walk straight and narrow and do the right thing.
And just put aside the darkness. But what was clear to me was that whichever one won, that's where I would be.

(22:50):
And I had no choice in the matter at all. And so in the morning, the angel won.
Question. Yeah. Do you think that you were watching a literal angel and demon? Good question.
Fighting for your soul. Or do you think that you were seeing a visualization of an internal struggle that was happening inside yourself at that point anyway,

(23:12):
between options in your life? Because hallucinogenics, in my understanding and experience, they open up different layers or channels of perception
or they fabricate a story for you, however you want to see it. But I'm wondering, do you feel like it's?
I was looking at them. There they were. And they were wrestling on the floor in the living room.

(23:36):
I was watching it happen. And there was never, ever been a question or a nuance of doubt in my mind that they were real.
And in the morning, the angel had prevailed. And I just knew that's it. I'm going back to Oregon.
So like Titanic external forces that were in pitched battle on behalf of your direct life. Yeah, I'm an externalist.

(23:59):
In other words, I'm absolutely convinced that the sum of my universe is not just me making my decisions, that there are all kinds of spiritual forces going on all the time.
I would have fit in real well in medieval society. But anyway, the next morning it was like a destiny. And it wasn't a choice I made, Michael.
It was in the morning. It's just like, OK, that angel won and the LSD faded away. And I just got everything in order and got in my car and I drove up to Oregon.

(24:31):
But the thing is, I was still completely asleep spiritually. What do you mean by asleep spiritually? I was still in the matrix. I was still I was completely asleep.
I was not in contact with God. Well, can you tell if somebody is asleep or not asleep? Or how can somebody tell?
I'm going to say not so much asleep and awake as knowing. In other words, I still didn't know him.

(24:54):
And the reason why I call it awake and asleep is because when it ended, when it changed, it just felt like waking up from a dream.
And this was after I got to Corvallis and I was going to go look up my old friends, you know, Jerry Ortiz and Greg Hoffman and whoever else, all the guys that I knew that I used to smoke dope with.
And so it was Sunday afternoon. So I thought, well, I'll just go back to the church service and see all my old buddies there and see who's got some pot.

(25:21):
You know, and it just it made sense at the time. It wasn't weird. But here's what happened. So I'm driving in my old Rambler. I had a nice old Rambler.
I was driving on my way from Philoma to Corvallis and I was going to swing in on 9th Street and go to the church.
And there was this voice that came and it was like really, really weird. And out loud voice said, you're going home. You're going home.

(25:43):
And it kept repeating like a mantra. You're going home. You heard it physically. Oh, physically. Oh, Michael, is there any chance that you were saying it but not aware?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, because what happened was I actually pulled off the road. I got out of the car.
I went to the front of the vehicle and I shouted out loud. I said, I am not going home. Home is the other direction. I'm going to church to find Jerry and Greg and the guys and smoke some dope.

(26:08):
And I said all that out loud because I was trying to shut the voice up. And then I got back in the car. I took up driving. You're going home. The voice wouldn't stop.
And it was like it was haunting me. It was like weird. So I pulled into the parking lot, got out, went up, sat up in the balcony. Here's the church service. I'm listening to the church service.
No, actually, I wasn't listening to church service. And the voice was still there. You're going home. You're going home. It's like this is so irritating.

(26:35):
And I wanted to find the guy. So then they made announcements. They said, hey, there's going to be a college fireside group at the Ortiz's house.
And I knew that's where Jerry lives. He'll have some pot. And the voice was still there. You're going home. I was like a total hippie. And these people were totally not.
And so I'm sitting there on the piano bench. And then this girl, Liz Pace, comes and sits by. Because no one was talking to me. I was just there.

(27:00):
And the speaker, they had a special speaker. It was this guy in Army Intelligence from the Vietnam War.
And he was talking. He was doing a demonstration on interrogating Viet Cong soldiers. And I'm a hippie. And it's like, are you kidding? Get me out of here.
So Liz comes over and sits down to talk to me. Oh, Stan, I haven't seen you for a while. You're back. And she knew I was obviously changed.

(27:23):
And so she was just being nice. She was loving me in the godly sense. So this is what happened.
This is the most important part of this entire podcast here. And so I turned to her. And do you talk to yourself, Michael? I do.
OK, I talk to myself all the time and I answer myself. OK, so I'm talking to myself and I turn to her and I'm listening to her.

(27:48):
And I really appreciate her. But I could tell she was one of them. And I remember in high school, my guys, we would talk about this.
We all knew we're not Christians. We don't know God. But Liz, she actually she's a real Christian. She knew him.
And it was the same Liz. She came and sat down and I looked at her and I said to myself, she knows him.

(28:13):
Having the relationship. And I always knew that because I always knew I didn't. And so I said, she knows him. And I didn't say that.
I looked at her and I said, and there was a slight hesitation between him. She knows. And then I hesitate. I said, you.
And Michael, there's all this hullabaloo about saying the sinner's prayer, whatever.

(28:36):
That's all I did is I said, she knows you. And literally, it was like coming up out of the liquid in the in the matrix.
And suddenly I was like in a completely different world. And I was I was awake and I realized I had been completely asleep.
I was like totally whatever you want to call it. Born again. It was like so astonishing.

(28:57):
And I just said to God, I said, God, break my leg if you have to. Don't ever let me leave you.
So this all happened in this interaction in a few seconds.
And she's asked you this question and she's looking at you and you have this existential paradigm shift.

(29:18):
Oh, she noticed I came unglued. Oh, yeah. I just wanted you.
This something just happened, you know, and I was like, you know, that that old song, Love Potion Number Nine.
That's what it was like. I was going to everybody. Oh, this just happened.
You know, OK. Oh, that's nice. What do we do with this guy?

(29:39):
You know, because once you see it, you've got to tell it.
I went home. I drove home and my folks were in bed. I walked in.
They were reading and I walked in and I explained it to them and they told me, God, they said, well, Shazam.
You know, this is good. And then I went in my bedroom and I grew up with the Bible.
I mean, I've told the new the whole thing. The songs memorized and everything.

(30:03):
So I walked in the in the room. I opened up one of the gospels and I started reading.
I read the account about the Gardening of Seminary and the crucifixion.
And Michael, I was just weeping uncontrollably.
It was like I had never heard the story in my life.
And I was so broke and I just was so astonished at what he had done.

(30:24):
And then immediately everything was different.
And I just I went into Corvallis and I just started.
I would either find Jesus people or I would make them.
And then I moved into Varsity House, which is a Christian co-op there.
And I just became the incurable Jesus freak.
What year was that?
Early 72.

(30:45):
You came to the 70s Jesus bug independent of the cultural influence.
Oh, yeah. Nobody. Yeah, it was nothing.
Because all around you, the rest of the world was doing the same thing.
It was. But I wasn't a part of it.
And actually, ironically, you know that movie, the Jesus Revolution?
It's a movie about the Jesus movement.
Oh, I want to watch it. Oh, it's fun.

(31:07):
The guys in the movie were the ones that discipled me after I became a Jesus freak.
So what happened from the perspective of the Jesus movement? Yeah.
It's very accurate.
So anyway, what happened was that there was the thing that happened at Calvary Chapel.
And then there were these Christian communes that just exploded and they were called House of Miracles.
Well, when I was living in San Bernardino and I was working at the steel mill in Fontana,

(31:31):
just down the road, there was this place called the House of Miracles.
And we would hear about it on the street that there's these radical Jesus freaks there.
And they have like actual miracles that happen there.
So I heard about it down there. It had nothing to do with it.
But of course, I was I was being a radical Jesus freak in a conservative Baptist church.
And I was going to college and I figured out I I I sat down in state.

(31:58):
Yeah. We're going to say I said because I had transferred.
What were you studying? What? I was studying biology and journalism and philosophy.
Why did you do that? Well, I was studying biology because I was why make the choice to go to OSU at all.
Just momentum. OK.
I've been going to college at San Bernardino Valley College and I just transferred up and it kept going.

(32:23):
And and I love journalism because I love writing and I did a lot of writing.
But those are rabbit trails. But anyway, what happened was this is something and it's funny because, you know, Mary, your friend,
she she is I actually gave her several graceful exits of the conversation.
She said, no, I want to hear more. I want to tell you.
And then I said, I said, well, Mary, I've got to go.

(32:44):
And she said, I'm going to come down and visit you because I want to hear more. OK.
But I mentioned this here. But so I don't know how you guys are related because you're both my dad.
So, yeah, I mean, it's weird, but I can't deny it. No, no, it's it's spiritually.
We're both we're both father. Father, it's true.
Anyway, so so so what happened was I was going to Oregon State University

(33:08):
and I didn't deserve this. This was so amazing because I was raised as a theistic evolutionist.
Totally. And I never thought anything different. I never even heard anything different.
The guy that taught me our college class in the First Baptist Church was the head of the OSU biology department.
He taught evolution. So I'm taking these biology courses, a bunch of three of them from three different professors.

(33:31):
And then at the end of the year, I forgot my notebook in the lab.
So I had to go back to the lab to to get my notebook.
And I walked in and there's hundreds of students because you never get to talk to your professors.
Period. You just don't get to because there's too many kids.
And so I walked in and all three of my professors are standing there in their lab coats with their clipboards.

(33:53):
And I said, I'm going to ask him about this because I was kind of curious.
So I walked up and I said, I have a question. They turned around.
They recognized me as one of the the minions in the in the aisles.
And I said, all year long, all three of you have been teaching us evolution is fact.
I like to know what do you guys really believe about that?
Do you believe it's a factor of theory? I was just asking him.
And Michael, they unloaded on me, all three of them.

(34:16):
They knew just what to say. And they all three told me, we are paid to lie to you.
I'm quoting them. We have absolutely no idea how life came to be.
The only thing we know for a fact is it was not evolution.
They said it is not even a mathematical possibility.
And I said, why are you teaching it to us then as fact?

(34:39):
And they said the head of the biology department has told us that the truth doesn't matter here
and that all that matters is for all these students to have something, their exact words,
something that they can be philosophically comfortable with.
So we teach them evolution as fact so they can just know that's what happened.
But we know it's not even a possibility. And that had a radicalizing effect on me.

(35:01):
How old were you? At that time I was 19.
It sounds like you feel extremely confident in your accurate recollection of their exact words.
Yes, because it was burned into my mind.
That was what I asked them and that's what they said.
You have a better memory than me.
Well, Michael, the reason is because it was like there are things that you remember very well

(35:23):
because it's burned in your mind. I don't remember words though.
My brain doesn't remember the structure of words.
Yours probably does more than that.
Well, I remember when I asked Teresa to marry me, she said no.
She said she thought I was going to ask her to leave.
And so I said, I'd like you to do me a big favor. I said, I'd like you to marry me.

(35:45):
And she was so shocked. She said, well, I won't say no.
She actually literally said the word no. Oh my goodness.
No, she said, she said, well, I won't say no.
And because she was crazy in love with me and I had fallen in love with her.
And so what I did was after she said, well, I won't say no, then I said, well, that narrows it down.

(36:06):
It does.
Anyway, that's...
Some people say maybe for a long time.
Okay, so this is kind of your transition.
Yeah, that was the transition.
And you felt less and less at home in Theloneth.
You started making Jesus people or finding them.
Well, after being in San Bernardino for a year and using LSD.

(36:27):
And all of that happened.
Yeah.
And then you had your transformation at the church when you were going home.
And now it's launched as a card carrying Jesus freak.
Jesus freak. And so what's next?
I never recovered.
I went to my room at Varsity House and I sat down and I made a list of everything that I could reasonably expect to gain from a college education.
And then I went through the Bible and I made a list of everything to which I should aspire and labor.

(36:53):
And then I took those two lists and I compared them.
I looked for anything on the...they were a full page list.
I looked for anything where there was a coincidence between what college had to offer and what Jesus was expecting of me.
And they didn't coincide on a single point.
So then that was my decision.
I quit college.
And then I just worked.

(37:14):
I was working at the OSU bookstore and I worked there for a couple of years.
And then I just worked there and just did Jesus freak stuff.
While you were working?
Yeah. I had to wear a tie every day.
And so I had a big button on my tie that said Jesus power.
Oh, sweet. Oh my gosh. You were a hippie.
Oh, totally.

(37:35):
What would you dress in to go to work at the bookstore?
Well, to go to the bookstore I had to wear...because back then it was bell bottoms.
Oh.
I'm sorry.
Colors? Would you wear colors?
I wore nice colors but nothing wild.
Okay.
But you didn't wear white shirts. You wore like green and blue and things like that.
Solid colors. And I wore pants.

(37:56):
Because I was required to dress to suit the manager.
And so that's why I just dressed that way.
And what did you wear when you were out doing what you wanted to do?
Oh, just a t-shirt and bib overalls.
And barefoot. I walked all over Corrales barefoot.
My feet were so tough.
And I would run barefoot like just in the city.

(38:17):
I would just go running barefoot on the sidewalk and my feet got really, really tough.
And the reason...it was just this maniacal thing.
But I thought I can't depend on always having shoes.
And most of the time I'll have shoes.
But if I ever have to go barefoot, I want to be able to go barefoot.
And so I wanted my feet to get really tough so I was going to toughen up my feet.

(38:39):
There was this guy that I met that had gone barefoot for like a year and a half.
Jeff Smith.
And he actually ended up in the Jim Roberts group.
I had met him before then.
And his feet were like leather.
And I admired that. I went, whoa, that's mighty cool.
And so I was going to try and toughen my feet up.
So how did the Corrales bib overall chapter end?

(39:02):
Oh, okay.
So Jeff Smith, he stayed in our house in my apartment for a while.
And he told me...the Lord spoke to him at night before he left.
He just got up and left because the guys that I was with were treating him really badly.
He just left.
But he said, the Lord told me last night that there's a Christian commune somewhere in town here.

(39:23):
And you're to join that organization, that ministry.
And whatever it is, it's just here in town.
And I had no idea what he was talking about.
So I was just waiting for this to happen.
And so there was some friends of mine.
They were secular. They were like cabaret artists, cabaret musicians.
They were doing a concert in the OSU Student Union one evening.

(39:45):
And I was there just in the audience looking at them.
And I looked down in the hallway, and there was this little girl in boots and a long skirt and this blouse.
And she was trying to hand out gospel tracts to people walking by.
So I looked down and I was watching Christians just walking by and being rude and ignoring her.
And I just felt like I was watching the lions eating the Christians.

(40:09):
I just felt terrible. I said, I'm on the wrong side of this.
And so I went down and I said, who are you?
And she was actually this 15-year-old girl that was living in a Christian commune in Corvallis.
And that was the Shiloh house.
And so I knew that was exactly what Jeff had said would happen.
And so then I went over to the house and then I said, OK, this is it.

(40:31):
This is what I'm supposed to do. Where was the house?
Oh, I think on 14th Street. It was just an old house.
And they had a little commune there. I had no idea.
How many people live there? Maybe eight.
And also there was a girl, this 17-year-old girl.
And she was the daughter from the East Coast. She was the daughter of psychoanalysts.

(40:54):
Both her parents were psychoanalysts. So she was nuts.
And she read the Chronicles of Darnia. She was like a juvenile teenager.
And she decided that Darnia was real or that Aslan was real.
She said Aslan is real. And so she was in to go find Aslan.
And so she hitchhiked all the way across the country.
She ended up living in the walnut tree in the backyard of the Shiloh house.

(41:17):
They didn't know she was a girl.
And she dressed in a way to make sure no one knew what gender she was.
And so what happened was they explained the Gospel to her.
And she went, that's Aslan. And she became a radical Jesus freak.
And then she ended up marrying a friend of mine.
And they had children. And he was a church pastor.

(41:39):
And that happily ever after.
So this chick with an Aslan delusion finds her way by happenstance across the country
into a tree in the backyard of the Shiloh house where they explain the Gospel to her.
And in the explanation of the Gospel she finds the answer to why she hitchhiked across the country.
That Jesus is Aslan.
And then you're like waiting there on this message, this cryptic message that there is this group that is waiting for you.

(42:06):
Did he know about them? Had he met them?
The guy that gave you the message?
No, it was a prophecy. He had needed to know anything about them.
And so what happened was I had already signed up to go firefighting.
So I went and spent months fighting forest fires all over the place. Got injured and hospitalized.
And then as soon as I got done with the fire season, I went to Karbalas.

(42:27):
I sold everything I had, which wasn't much.
And I got a backpack, went down to Eugene where the headquarters were, walked into the Shiloh house.
And I was in Shiloh then for five and a half years.
Oh, so the Karbalas was a branch of the central...
Oh, there were 50 houses all over the country.
There were 50 Shiloh houses all over the nation, everywhere.

(42:50):
Where did it come from?
Springfield. We had a huge headquarters there.
We had this big campground where we trained disciples that would go out all over the country.
For years we were there.
And so, but that was, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself there.
So in Shiloh, we would send out teams in vans and we would go and open Shiloh houses in different places all over the nation.

(43:13):
I was on a team that trained, we worked and trained and saved money and bought a van.
And we went out and opened a Shiloh house in Syracuse, New York, in zero degree weather.
And opened a Shiloh house there.
And then I got transferred down to Louisville, Kentucky, and I became the head person there.
And then I was sent to Champaign, Urbana to pastor a house there.

(43:36):
And that's where I met your mother.
So she was part of a Shiloh house.
Oh no! She was a lost Jewish girl that was considering suicide.
And she had your sister who was a newborn and they were just living there in an apartment.
And what happened was she called our house because she was looking for some reason to live.

(44:02):
And so she thought, this is a good place I could volunteer.
She had no idea we were Jesus people because she'd never heard the gospel before.
She was Jewish.
So she called and then I went over to her house and we explained the gospel to her.
And then she became a radical Christian.
And then she joined the ministry and then we got hitched.
And oh, and then we had you.
Yeah, that did happen.

(44:24):
And I was working at the sawmill in Wren and raising kids.
And then I was sitting on the forklift and it's a beautiful day and there's nothing around me anywhere.
And this is a very rare event in my life.
I don't want to make it sound like this is something that happens.
This is extremely unusual.
And there's an audible voice coming from behind me that says, go to Chicago and preach the gospel.

(44:50):
I mean, I got off the forklift and I looked around behind me like, who was that?
It was audible like that.
Did it sound like the same voice that was saying, you're going home?
Yeah, it did.
Yeah, now you mentioned it did.
Go to Chicago and preach the gospel.
Just said it one time.
So I went home and I told your mom what was going on here.
You know, like this voice happened.

(45:12):
I don't know what this means, but we're supposed to go to Chicago.
And then like we had bought a piece of property from my parents with a little trailer on it.
And somebody showed up at the house and offered us like a huge amount of money for the property.
Way, way, way more like more than twice as much as we had paid for it.
And then the mill shut down and I bought a Volkswagen bus, had the engine rebuilt.

(45:34):
And we took off and we went down to to visit Keith Green down in Texas.
That was a very odd experience, but I've got so many rabbit shells.
And then we ended up up in Chicago.
And so after the Lord told me to go to Chicago and preach the gospel,
two of the guys that were under me in the in the champagne Urbana house,
they called me out of the blue and they said,

(45:56):
we would like you to come out here and start a church coffee house ministry in Chicago.
And so that was a confirmation.
And then I told the Lord that I needed to hear more confirmations.
And so my parents out of the blue, they came to me and they said,
Stan, the Lord showed us that you're going to go someplace out east.
And so it's like that's crazy because that was not what they would want.

(46:20):
And and then I called a friend of mine from Michigan that he was going to come out and visit.
And I called them and he said, Stan, not only am I not coming there,
but the Lord told me you're coming here.
And so it was it was redundant.
So we went to Chicago and we opened this big Christian coffee house
and we would we would have great music groups there and we packed the place.

(46:42):
We'd have like 300 people there in a night.
It was just crazy.
And then we had a home church that would meet there and I was there for about a year.
And then at the end of that year, then I was working in an office building for a hospital organization.
And then at the end of that year, that's when your mom and I we met Robert and Gloria Malisman.
And then that's when we faced up to the fact that our marriage was biblically adulterous.

(47:08):
So we put the marriage aside and that wasn't going to work to stay there.
So we went back to Oregon and then we were just we were very isolated there and raising the kids together.
But we had put the marriage aside.
And then I ended up.
Isaac was born. And the reason is because after like several years, we gave up because no one would agree with us.

(47:30):
We figured maybe we were wrong because absolutely nobody would agree with us that we should have put the marriage aside.
So we came back together and had Isaac.
And then two weeks after Isaac was born, then I went to India with K.P.O.A.
And that started the whole India thing. What first gave you the idea that there was something wrong with your marriage with mom?

(47:53):
Where did that idea? Oh, OK.
OK. For your mother and I, before we married, it was very clear to us that you couldn't marry a divorce.
Your mother was divorced. She divorced her husband to marry me.
And it was very clear that that was not proper.
That was you can't do to divorce and marriage.
The only thing that I can see in the scriptures was a man.

(48:15):
If his wife is adulterous, he can put her aside and marry someone else.
Someone who's never been married. That's the only exception.
So we recognize that before we ever married a long time ago, and we concluded that we talk about it with this.
This would be adultery.
And so all of the leadership of the Shiloh ministry with one voice told us that that was not right.

(48:37):
And that actually we were completely misunderstanding the scriptures and it was just fine for us to marry.
And they they did so very forcefully.
And what we found out later was half the people that were married in that ministry were in adulterous marriages.
And so in other words, it would have been really squirmy if if we had not married because it would be adulterous, because other people were married in the same situation.

(49:00):
So we returned to that.
Then we originally concluded that and then we became convinced by other people that it was just fine.
And then years later, after we had like the three children with Jessica, then we were confronted again by that while we were living in Chicago.
And we realized we were right the first time we were right the first time.

(49:24):
And now this time we put our marriage aside and we were resolute in that in that matter.
We really it was a struggle because we couldn't find anyone to agree with us.
Everyone said that we were wrong, but the Bible said we were right.
So what do you do?
So you feel like if it hadn't been for the pressure from the Shiloh house that you guys would never have gotten married.

(49:46):
Oh, no, we would have not married.
It was obvious. It was clear.
But they just how do you feel about having made that choice?
Good question.
My view of this is that it's all to the glory of God that God knows what's going on at every stage of this.
We were in earnest whether we were blundering or whether we were being wise.
We were earnest and we were being led along by strong forces, doing the best you could with everything.

(50:11):
Yes. Yes.
And your mom, especially she has a remarkable sensitivity to the Lord.
And she's one of the most sincere women I know.
Absolutely. So so I just view it as the sovereignty of God.
In other words, God knew what we were going to do because he knew you.
But obviously from the scriptures before you were born, there's nobody that's an accident.

(50:33):
God explains something.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so and so your mom and I, our view was that, well, the Lord caused all this to happen.
And the thing is, we made our choices, but the Lord knew what we were going to do.
But the end of the matter is the glory of God. And now I am in a position where because we do a lot of marriage counseling.

(50:54):
And I can with unique authority talk to people about the subject of divorce and remarriage in the scriptures because I've I've I've lived it.
Yes. And I paid it.
It was very, very difficult what your what your mother and I went through in putting aside an adulterous marriage against the tide of everybody was extremely difficult.

(51:22):
So when did you first meet Jim Roberts group?
Oh, for me, it was back in 1972.
They were camped out in Avery Park.
So you met them before you ever went to. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
I had them come and stay in my house.
And you met them before before Jeff Smith, before anything.
Jeff Smith. Yeah.

(51:44):
Jeff Smith was actually with them.
And then after they left, then he moved in for a few days.
And but no, what happened was what your interaction with Jeff Smith is when you first it was just it was just after that.
OK, Michael, here's what happened.
I'm this I'm this clueless Jesus freak and I'm working at the OSU bookstore.
And so I'm walking across the quad and there's this this really scruffy looking guy in impossibly scruffy looking clothes standing by the side of the sidewalk on the grass.

(52:16):
And he was handing me a track saying Jesus loves you.
And I froze in my tracks, turned around.
I came back and I interrogated him mercilessly.
And I found out where they were.
And they were all camped out illegally at Avery Park.
And so then I went out there and hung out with them in every park.

(52:37):
And I invited some of them.
They can come and stay in our place.
And that was how I met the Jim Roberts group of when they were just brand new.
The Jim Roberts group hadn't been on the road very long at all.
And I met them there in Corvallis and this have the one the entire the entire group of them.
It was probably I don't know, 50 people or so.
The entire group was in mass arrested by the police for illegally camping and they were thrown in the county jail.

(53:04):
Wow. Yeah.
And then and then there was a pastor in town that I knew and he had this old station wagon and he went there and he picked them all up because they were all just released just after the sentence served.
And they were out there on the front of the lawn and standing in a circle praying quietly.
And the police said, if you guys don't don't disperse, we're going to arrest you and put you back in prison.

(53:25):
I was there. That all happened.
And then they this friend of mine that was a pastor, he went and he picked up the entire group of them one load at a time in his pickup and took them all and hosted them in his house with his family and took care of them.
And then they they went on the road.
They headed for Florida.
But before they left, Jeff recognized that I was I had potential, I guess.

(53:49):
So he came and he stayed at my house then and until he decided to leave.
And before he left, then he said, there's a Christian commune here in town and you're supposed to join them.
That's all he said.
So then at what point did you guys actually join up with the Jim Edwards group?
After Isaac was born and I was in India, we had connected with them because they were living up in Portland.

(54:16):
And actually, one of the sisters from the group, Rahab, came and stayed with your mom to help take care of Isaac while I was in India.
It was very, very nice.
And we met some of the brothers.
So then your mom and I, we moved up to Portland because I was going to work full time for Gospel for Asia, representing the work in India.
I was under deputation.

(54:38):
We had plenty of support and we were going to live in Portland and I was going to be arranging things in the whole Northwest United States for the Gospel for Asia ministry.
And so we went up there and then we knew there was a Shiloh house over there.
So we were uninvited because you don't just get invited to a Shiloh house.
But we found out where they were.
We just showed up with all of you.

(55:00):
And then your mom met Sister Anava and they went upstairs and talked for a while.
And then she came down and she said, it doesn't matter what you do, I'm joining this group.
So I then, you know, for me, it was like by default, I had no choice at all.
She was joining them.
So in order to keep the family together, we just all joined the group together, sold everything and took off in our Mercury Marquis, packed with a bunch of Jesus people, driving cross country.

(55:28):
Drove off into the sunset.
Yeah. And we actually ironically stopped at Jeff Smith's house in Wyoming.
And then you disappeared for a little while.
For another five and a half years.
In Shiloh, I was gone for five and a half years.
My parents never saw me, but they knew where I was.
And then in the Jim Roberts group, I disappeared for another five and a half years until I finally grabbed you children and left.

(55:51):
What year was that?
Oh, years. I don't know.
I know. I have the same person.
I don't know.
I'd have to do some math in my head.
One of the years that had a summer in it.
Yeah.
I remember it was warm.
Yeah. And we got on a bus.
It was a close call.
We got on a bus in Denver.
I remember the terror of that moment.
Oh, it was dicey.

(56:13):
I can still see it.
It was dicey.
And we got on the bus.
We made it to Ed and Linda Matson's.
And so we stayed at their house and had a great time.
And then started the next stage.
Yeah.
How would you describe that?
That stage?
Well, there was a house that I had found because I was really good at finding houses for the group to use.
And so there was a house over there on Ivy Street that I had found originally.

(56:38):
And we just went over and took over that house and moved in there.
And I got a job with a painting company and put you guys in a private school.
But that was a bus.
So we just kept you home.
And then my mom came and she had really helped out.
She came for a while and lived with us there and really helped out with you kids.
And then Teresa had left the group and she had gotten a driveway car that took her to Portland instead of Seattle.

(57:06):
So she was stuck in Portland.
I said, well, you can stay here.
So she and Louise came to the house then.
And then after a while, I just said, well, why don't you do me a big favor and marry me?
And so you have a very crystal clear memory of the moment of shift into the Jim Roberts group.
Yeah. I remember.

(57:29):
Do you think that mom remembers it the same way?
Listen carefully.
OK, I would love to know.
OK, but I have no idea because your mom was was very seriously damaged as a child, as a juvenile.
She started using really, really hard drugs at 13 all the way up until not long before I met her.

(57:52):
And and when I first met her, she was so mentally fried.
It took a long time for her just even to figure out how to think it took.
She recovered.
She recovered amazingly, but it took a long time for her to recover.
She was very, very damaged.
Do you think that she remembers that part the same way?

(58:13):
She what?
Remember it. If she remembered it, she would remember it the same way because she would remember the truth.
She's a she's she devoted to truth.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And she would remember it.
And you could. But and that's a bit of a digression.
So five and a half years.
And then the stage in Portland.
Yeah. Where do you feel like that stage went to?

(58:35):
Like how long?
I was I was working in the painting company and we decided to get married.
And then we were trying to figure out where do we go?
Are we going to stay in Portland?
And of course, our main concern was was you four children.
And Portland is not a conducive place for child raising.
And if I remember right, we were living on a neutral block between Crips and Bloods Territories.

(58:59):
It was. Yeah, it was a dangerous neighborhood.
And and the house.
How did that feel for you to live there?
Know your kids were like it was insecure.
It was insecure. And but the neighbors treated us really well.
OK, we just got because we were so poor.
We were not the gentry and we were just these Jesus freak hippies.
You know, so anyway, I wasn't really aware of that.
Like, well, you were too young.

(59:21):
You were you were in like the third grade or something.
I was. Yeah. The only grade I attempted some schooling.
Oh, it was so good to get you out of there.
Anyway, so so then we decided, well, where are we going to go?
Because we had decided to marry. But where are we going to go?
And and then I knew Steve Gregg from the Jim Roberts group because we actually had an encounter in Bandon.

(59:46):
We were camped in Eugene and we met Howard O'Connor, the Jamaican.
And I met him street witnessing. And then he invited us back to the school.
So a bunch of us from the Jim Roberts group went and camped out there at the at the school.
What school? And at the Greek Commission School, which was in Bandon.
At Bradley Lake. And then actually, as a result of that encounter, some of those guys ended up leaving the group

(01:00:11):
because during the course of our debates with Steve Gregg over the scriptures, which was a lot of fun,
there were some holes that were poked in in the in the teaching of Jim Roberts group.
And so there were some people that said, OK, I'm not sure if I want to stay in this group.
But we decided to move back down to Bandon because there was already a home fellowship there.

(01:00:32):
There were people there left over from when the school was there.
The school had moved and it was up in McMinnville now.
But there were still people in Bannon. So we just moved down, found a farmhouse on Prosper Road,
which you remember the farmhouse and the swing rope that you fell off of and the big tree that you climbed to the top of.

(01:00:53):
And all the creeks that Isaac and I saw all summer.
Those creeks are so that same creek is what's behind the yellow house now.
I remember. Yeah. So then we just moved to to Bandon there.
And I I was working as a plumbing apprentice, just barely getting by.
And you've I mean, we're getting into pretty recent history and yeah.

(01:01:16):
And you've had so many adventures. I mean, that's that's many.
That's a whole nother podcast. Well, we did.
We did house sitting to save money. So we lived in Chip and Clara's way out in the woods.
And you remember Chip and Clara's and then we moved to moved to Dorothy's house and she let us live there for free because it was it had been empty for eight years and we fixed it up.
And we live there. And then we moved across the street to Danny's house.

(01:01:39):
And that was that apartment that we had. It was like a two story thing.
And we lived there just for for a while until we were able to get enough money to buy the place that we live in.
And now we've been there ever since raising kids and having incredible adventures.
Oh, oh, never ceases. It just gets bigger every year.

(01:02:01):
And I mean, I've had parts in and out of this whole story ever since I was born.
So well, that that thing that happened on the piano bench when I said she knows you and then I woke up, that whole thing that started there is still going on.
So you feel like that really is continuity. Do you feel like that was the opening of the chapter that you're currently?

(01:02:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the beginning. That was. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
All these other chapters are are just like time and space and incidental. That's the chapter.
OK, so that brings us to now when we're in a chapter that has been being written for a long time.
Who are you now? I'm I'm stalwart about my belief in eschatology in the last days that Jesus is coming back.

(01:02:45):
And which is the analogy? What? What is eschatology?
That's the that's the familiar with the word, but the knowledge of the last days.
OK, like the tribulation, the Antichrist of the world, et cetera.
And Theresa and I, we are like like detectives, like every day we are going through,
going through the Bible and comparing notes and figuring it out.

(01:03:09):
And along with, you know, who Jason Smith is, he's he's kind of a collaborator with us.
And so we are still looking for and hasting to the coming of the Lord.
And also, there's this interesting verse in the Bible.
People don't catch this, but it says that we're to be looking for the Lord's return.
It says, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

(01:03:31):
And that's kind of an interesting phrase because it means we're supposed to be able to see the day approaching.
And we believe we do. And so my goal and this is the end of the chapter here,
because I'm 72 and and so but assuming that I don't die, which dying is great.
I'm dying would be just like sitting on the piano bench, but times a thousand, a million.

(01:03:56):
So, you know, my goal is to continue abiding in Jesus.
And it's not a shoe in. It's not an easy, certain thing.
I have to decide every day to to do that, to abide, because there's always a temptation to just go into godly habits and religious stuff and lose contact with him.

(01:04:19):
And so I'm struggling every day to stay in contact with him, to abide, because that's what he said.
He said, if you abide in me, then you'll bring forth fruit. If you don't, you won't.
Period. And and I see yourself as abiding in Jesus. It's the same way that we're abiding in each other right now in a relationship.
Same way. Just like hanging out and chatting. Well, yeah, we do.

(01:04:43):
You know, and but usually when he talks to me, it's because I'm messing up.
He'll he'll point out something like the Bible describes it as you'll hear a voice behind you, a quiet voice saying this is the way when you turn to the left or to the right.
And that's my experience. That's my learned experience is exactly like it says.
It's like I'm walking in the way and his quiet voice is so quiet.

(01:05:08):
And that voice, you know what I mean, Michael, that's a voice. It's subconscious.
It's not audible. It's just a subconscious voice.
But I know it's him because it tells me things I wouldn't think of or I don't want to hear.
I know that voice. Yeah. And and and it'll say this is the way turn left, turn right.

(01:05:29):
You know, this is the way stay in the straight and narrow.
And the main guide I have is just the scriptures. That's how I know.
I'm not the mystical person is going. The Lord guided me and told me to go here.
He does that sometimes. I mean, there's a lot of that in your story there.
Well, but well, incidentally, but Michael, we're talking about we're talking about 50 years here.

(01:05:50):
Yeah. And it sounds like that's exactly who you are.
Yes. You are a person who says this is where the voice is guiding me. Yeah.
OK. OK. You, my friend, are a mystic. I will cop to that.
That follows the voice as you perceive it. Yeah. OK.
But yeah, Teresa's even more so than I am.
And the thing is, I I thought this isn't Teresa's story.

(01:06:13):
No, it's not. But she is in my story. Hopefully I'll get and also her her sensitivity.
Her sensitivity, which your mom had that, but her sensitivity to hearing from him
is a really convenient resource for me.
It's really, really nice because she will hear from him.
And and then like she'll hear in the nighttime, he'll tell her something and she'll just tell me in the morning.

(01:06:38):
And she's always really careful to say exactly what the words were.
And and I keep careful track. So far, it's never been wrong.
So far, witchcraft, just prophecy.
Oh, OK. That's fine. Then question for you, just because my morbid curiosity, I want to see what you say.

(01:07:00):
I have been doing a lot of studying about human energy fields, the kind of metaphysical energy work,
chakras, all that stuff, energy, yes, flaying out of hands, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
To me, it's all just super interesting. Look through someone else's lens at something.
I believe is really there and is maybe what the way it looks to them, maybe not at all.

(01:07:21):
And I believe the same thing when I hear your description of the spiritual world.
I believe that what you see is there. And I believe that that's what makes sense to you.
Yeah. What do you think is is the correlation, if any, between all of these other stories that people have about energy work,
about not not like Ouija boards, not the dark, not the not the cryptic things like let's leave all that stuff out.

(01:07:44):
I'm talking about just the people who are like the sound healing and the and its correlation to what you're talking about
with the leading of God and stuff like that. And on the spirit world versus the energy world. I don't know.
Do you have any thoughts about that? I don't know.
You know, there were some people that were doing miraculous works and the disciples, they said, hey, we got to stop these guys.

(01:08:06):
And Jesus said, leave them alone. They're either for us or against us.
I just got through reading today that if someone is someone acknowledges that Jesus is Lord, then he's with us.
In other words, it's not a complicated thing.
You have to go through some ritual or something. It's simple enough.

(01:08:27):
I know there's dark power and and and because because you know, like, it's very unusual.
I've seen so many miracles in India, but in India, they have massive amounts of supernatural events that take place there among the Hindus.
Because those demons that they worship, they're real and they have real power.

(01:08:50):
And so what it all comes down to, it has to do with Jesus is Lord.
If Jesus is Lord, you know, if that's if that's your understanding, then I may not join you, but I'm not going to oppose you.
For example, as long as the person practicing says Jesus is Lord, then you're going to just skeptically allow.

(01:09:12):
No, no, really, really believes that.
OK, so I'm talking about the energy work of people who have a completely different worldview.
And maybe they don't even have a concept of Jesus like internally.
They're just doing their energy work. Then I'm sure that those powers and those energies are real.
So you think there's no correlation between what you're talking about and that?
No, no, because I mean, Satan, Satan appears as an angel of light and a messenger of righteousness.

(01:09:38):
So there's all kinds of stuff like that. But fair enough.
I don't have to judge those things, but I don't have to participate.
Oh, that's absolutely true. And I appreciate that perspective.
And I appreciate you answer a difficult question.
What are you most afraid of?
I'm afraid of the wrath of God, judgment of God. I'm afraid of what Keith Green talked about.

(01:10:00):
I don't want to fall away from you.
The reality is, I just don't want any distance between me and him.
And aside from that, I'm not afraid of anything.
I just don't want any distance.
The separation, the separation between me and him is the only thing that I fear. That's it.

(01:10:21):
What I feel like I'm hearing is that this chapter started with what felt to you like a waking up.
The one and only thing that you feel fear about is that you will fall back.
Exactly. Good summary. And to fall asleep again.
And the thing is, Michael, I've seen people do that and it terrifies me.

(01:10:43):
And actually, because when I talk about waking up, that wasn't just, I mean, he actually came into me.
It wasn't like I'm suddenly feeling better or I'm awake. It was like I was a different person.
It was totally changed.
I can understand how that would be terrifying.
Yeah. I don't want to fall asleep. I don't want to lose my connection to him because that's the only life I have.

(01:11:05):
Last question I have.
If there was something in any ineffable or effable way that you would want to leave your children and grandchildren and all of the people that you have influenced and that have you in their consciousness with when you're gone,
because, you know, you're old. You're not going to be around forever.

(01:11:27):
What would you want to leave them with at this point?
The greatest of these is love.
That's it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I really appreciate you taking this time.
Yeah. So can I go home now?

(01:11:48):
You are free to go.
We'll do this again.