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The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper whether little or great, it belongs to literature.

Sarah Orne Jewett

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The seven was in my right hand the day I was born. But I never saw it until I reached out twenty-five years later with my whole heart, mind, body, and soul, and thought I love You.

Dante was right by knowledge, love, freedom, logic, and wisdom, one can only travel so far. One must make that leap of faith to continue on the journey toward truth.

Robert Allan McNeil

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I would like to share with you a story of a search for truth and a journey toward faith. It is a journey to understand the nature of man. It is a journey to understand the nature of knowledge, love, freedom, and their relationship to one another. It is the journey to understand one’s self and the very fundamentals of life that we experience every single day of our lives. It is a journey to discover if there is a God of the creation and just what His relationship with us is.  It is about a young man who is in search of the truth about life and the nature of his own humanity.

I am an ordinary individual with no unusual or special skills, except that I am tenacious in this pursuit. If I have any strengths, it is that I am philosophical by nature. It is not something that I picked. It is just the way I am.

I was occasionally criticized for being that way at family dinners when growing up during my teens. Discussions would sometimes become heated when I challenged and debated my parents, and older brother and sister, in discussions about current events, beliefs, and assumptions.

Sometimes I would make a solid contribution to the discussions and sometimes I was just an amateur. My three younger siblings would sit there and listen and watch the family dynamics to which they belonged, at times with smiles on their faces to see who was going to be the last one at the table. But of all the dinnertime conversations that went on, one very clear self-perception became focused. It was that philosophy was my strong suit.

pg. 5

During those years, it was a time when I would begin to gradually strip off my childhood and grow into my teens and early adulthood. I was searching for my own self-identity and independence by learning about my own passions, strengths, and weaknesses. I needed to acquire and assess the knowledge and skills that I needed to know, to understand myself and to make a living. It is a time of one’s own first major transformation of self-knowledge. I think it is one of the most difficult and stressful times of one’s life because it is just the beginning of one’s own journey to understand oneself and to understand the world and to have the courage to do it. It is a time when one has to trust one’s own instincts and not to default to one’s own culture to do the heavy lifting.

Later in my early twenties, I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life, and I remembered dinnertime admonitions during my teens of “would you stop being so philosophical.” I decided to put all that “stuff” away and be someone who would make a living as a carpenter, or maybe a musician, somebody with unique skills that were marketable.

pg. 6

A sound career choice, and a wise decision to be sure, but that was like telling a musician to play a musical instrument and not know how to read and write music. A lawyer to practice law and not to understand the foundational concepts, of what all just man-made laws are based upon. It just did not fit. I knew I could not go too much further if I did not understand my own nature as man and my relationship with God, if there was One. What was going to be the foundation upon which I was going to build my life? It was not clear to me. I was confused and I was starting to get angry at life, myself, and if there was a Divine Craftsman, then God.

pg. 7

One’s feeling of anger is a natural human response to confusion, lack of clarity and misunderstanding. It is not a bad thing in itself. Anger is an emotion that tells one that something is wrong and it motivates one to do something about it. The tricky part is figuring out what to do and how to express it.

Within this emotional and intellectual turmoil, I discovered a poem called Desiderata, written by Max Ehrmann in 1927, (1872-1945) which helped lead me out of this confusion. This poem has been the cornerstone of my life ever since. It got me to start to believe in myself.

pg. 8

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time

Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism

1927

pg. 10

The universe may be unfolding as it should, but is humanity always unfolding as we should?

A copy of The Gnostic Gospels was discovered accidently by a shepherd in the Egyptian desert, at Nag Hammadi, in 1945. In the Gospel of Thomas, saying # 70, Christ said that: ” if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  

In Luke’s gospel, 17:21, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.”  The truth is within you, and the truth is eternal. It is true today, as it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow.

pg. 11

At that time in my life, I decided to return to school and I moved back to my parents’ house. My parents had a dog that was usually tied up in the backyard most of the time. I decided to take him for a walk one day. I discovered some trails and woods which led me on a journey, that I am writing about a quarter century later. Some of the best times of my life were being philosophical by nature and angry at twenty-five, while running trails.

Running on those trails and thinking about life and the nature of my own humanity, saved my life. Now I think the Lord must have smiled at His creation, at least that part of it.

I did not consider myself to be a religious person but I would say that I was theological. Theo, meaning the Divine Craftsman, if there was One, and logical, meaning man. pg. 12

So as I took my daily run with the dog through those trails, my thoughts turned more and more toward the philosophical, the nature of man and an understanding of what motivated me. If a God did fit into the picture, then just what was His relationship to His creation? A couple of lofty questions I must admit, but it was not just that I wanted to know. It was the fact that I thought I had the right to know. I had to clearly understand my own nature as man and if there was a Divine Craftsman, then just what was His relationship to His creation? Thinking back now I thought of that old saying that went, “be careful what you ask for because you may just get it.”

pg. 13

Henry David Thoreau said, “that of all Mans’ follies perhaps his greatest was his disassociation from nature.”  This budding athlete was raised in the city of Boston, a city of asphalt, concrete and families with faith, hope, and love for one another. That is one way of saying that we were as dysfunctional as any other family in the city of Boston or anywhere else. Time and experience are the only things that gives us understanding of ourselves and life, our siblings, and parents. We have longer relationships with our siblings than our parents had with us.

I really did not experience and learn to appreciate the beauty of nature until this time in my life. I would run those trails during all four seasons and it was never quite the same and it was never boring.

I would startle a pheasant as I passed and it would sound like a jumbo jet taking off in flight. The sun would come through those trees and create rays and shadows which would always keep me coming back.

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As a starting point for my search for truth I thought that I would have to intellectually start stripping away every assumption and belief that I had and then rebuild the beliefs when logic and wisdom dictated. This was the beginning of my living of Christ’s words, “unless a man be born again, then he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” It is to be born again, in one’s spirit and intellect and in the Truth.

pg. 14

So I pictured myself as one man alone on a planet in search of my nature as man and my relationship with God, if logic and wisdom would lead me to One. What I was searching for was knowledge of myself.  I thought that I would have to define what the nature of knowledge is before I could even understand myself. So I started there.

pg. 15

What is the nature of knowledge? Is it perception, understanding, comprehension? Is it the understanding of anything, everything, myself, and the universe, and everything in it? What I needed was a definition of knowledge. I thought knowledge is Mans’ perception and understanding of himself and the universe around him. The number of disciplines of knowledge is infinite. We are the universe struggling to understand and comprehend itself. Mans’ need for knowledge is insatiable. It will never be satisfied. There are only momentary pauses in the quest for the joy of understanding.

When I was in Florence, Italy in 1970 I was reading a biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti, (1475-1564) The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone on the steps of the Cathedral of Florence in front of the Baptistery. This is when my real baptism started. It was when I started asking questions, that I had been thinking about since I was four years old, if not earlier.

pg. 16

One of the passages described Michelangelo’s search for the marble from which he would sculpt his David. At the quarries outside of Florence at Carrara they found the piece of marble that he wanted. One of the workmen asked Michelangelo if this was going to be the piece of marble from which he was going to create his “perfect man”, his David. Michelangelo responded by saying no. He was not going to create his perfect man from that. His perfect man already existed within that marble. All he was going to do is chip away at all the imperfections to allow that perfect man to stand freely.

Of course, the historical David was not a perfect man. Historians have identified many of the flaws and imperfections of David and others within history. Time tends to mythologize cultural heroes.

pg. 17

I thought that we were doing the same thing with knowledge and our own imperfections. We are chipping away at knowledge over the years to allow ourselves to stand freely. The understanding of knowledge is freeing ourselves from ignorance, poverty, disease, hunger, and enabling us to achieve our visions and freedom. We seek to unravel also the mystery that is man and the nature of the universe. I realized that I was motivated to gain knowledge as is every other man, woman, and child, in whatever time, past, present, and future. The disciplines of knowledge may be different, but they all had the same motivation, understanding. The truth already exists and I was just beginning to comprehend and understand what it was. One piece of the puzzle fell into place.

pg18

As I continued to run those trails over those months, I turned my attention to that most confusing and consuming of emotions and concepts, love. What was it? Where did it come from? How does one define it? The poets and philosophers have tried to describe it, but has anyone actually given an accurate definition to it? I found the dictionary definitions of love inadequate. They described the motivations and results of love as feelings.  Was love only feelings? My instincts told me no. Was it some nebulous concept forever poorly defined and often misunderstood? I needed better definition. Does the soul of love possess and reflect both intellect and emotion? Are the tools of love and our relationships both intellect and emotion? pg. 19

How could I reconcile the different forms of love? The love one has for one’s child is different from the love one has for a wife, lover, or husband. The love for a friend, neighbor, brother, sister, parent, they were all different. Love had many faces and I knew that Christ had said that “no greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends.” I found the current definitions of love insufficient for me. So as I ran those trails I turned my thoughts to define the concept of love. Was it just emotions or emotions and intellect? What is the common denominator of love?

It IS LIFE!

If there was an epiphany that I experienced in this entire journey then it was now. It was when I realized that I could not separate life from love. Where there is no need to share life there is no love. It is a relationship. There it is. It was like not being able to see the individual tree because of the forest, the person because of the people.

pg. 20

Love is intellect and emotion, thoughts and feelings. Love is to possess intellectually and emotionally, the need to share life by enhancing another’s life to achieve a mutual growth toward freedom. Love always leads toward freedom. Love is how well we share life. It is the measure by which we are judged by our fellowman, and ultimately by the God of all creation. Love may require more of us than we ever thought we were capable of giving, to ensure the freedom of our loved ones and our fellowman. It is dealing with the everyday creative conflict of life, so that there is growth.

When I walked out of those woods that cool and sunny Sunday morning, so many years ago; I knew that I understood the most fundamental and important principle that I needed to know. Love is the intellectual and emotional need to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom. The foundation of love is the intellectual need, and understanding which leads to the emotional need and understanding to share life for a mutual growth towards freedom.  The second piece of the puzzle fell into place.

pg. 21

While recognizing Mans’ need to love, there is also a need to have love reciprocated from another independent intrinsically free being, to love and share their life with you. It is when someone else’s life makes one feel so alive and so necessary. Man needs to have love go in both directions to love and to be loved. Life cannot exist and prosper in a vacuum. These are our relationships that are felt both intellectually and emotionally. The conscious need to share life intellectually and emotionally is what love is all about. It may make one vulnerable but love will always enhance the freedom of the individual. It is a choice and a risk that one must take to fulfill one’s own humanity. It is to know that someone else’s life is as important as one’s own. The third piece of the puzzle fell into place.

pg. 22

I now knew that I needed to gain knowledge, to love, and to be loved. But I also knew that I needed to share knowledge. I needed to understand knowledge, manipulate knowledge, and share knowledge. It is one’s work. Mans’ need to create is the fourth great motivator.

Creativity is the expression of one’s intellect and emotion by the exercise of knowledge that is shared with one’s fellow man. No matter what one’s work is, it is a discipline of knowledge, and that knowledge is shared with one’s fellow man in some manner. Creativity is the understanding, manipulation, and the sharing of knowledge. It is one’s work or hobby that excites and expresses one’s soul whatever the discipline. It is the relationship between knowledge and love. It is striving for the perfect balance between knowledge and love which will lead toward a mutual growth of freedom.

pg. 23

Most if not all of us begin our work life at jobs that do not fit this description. Most of those jobs are manual or service jobs with low pay that do not express and excite one’s soul. But they do teach us certain disciplines like showing up on time, teamwork, and responsibly performing our job duties. Work provides us with a regular income to sustain our lively hood. It allows us to begin to identify and understand our own passions and motivations of whom we are. None of us has the same desires and dreams. Each of us has to discover what is within us. The passion and the innate talents and skills that are within us lead us to our fulfillment and joy in the future. Identifying them is the labor of our lives. When one does discover one’s own discipline of knowledge that excites and expresses one’s own soul, then one is on our own road to so much more.

pg. 24

My understanding of myself as man was growing and deepening with each run that I made on those trails, but I knew that I was not finished. The piece that was missing was the concept of freedom. I knew that man had to be free to make choices, decisions, and even mistakes. We strive to make our livings at an infinite number of disciplines so that we may satisfy our need to be free, physically, intellectually, emotionally, financially, and even politically. We hope to be rewarded for our work to satisfy our own financial need to be free and also to express our knowledge and creativity with our fellow man.

Regrettably we even have to fight wars for our political freedoms by using knowledge without love to achieve this freedom. This leads to the destruction of life, liberty, and property. That is a window into the gates of hell.

pg. 25

There are five elements of freedom: physical, intellectual, emotional, economic, and political. The core elements of human freedom are physical, intellectual, and emotional motivations. The economic and political drives toward freedom support and amplify these core drives.

Man is a combination of physical, intellectual, and emotional motivations that drive man to be free. The three consist of distinct characteristics but are not exclusive to one another. They interact with one another.

Physical freedom consists of an ability to physically move our bodies from one state or place to another without being impeded by internal or external forces. Internal forces are one’s own physical health and well-being that prohibits movement. External forces are other people and or circumstances that prohibit freedom of movement.

pg. 26

Intellectual freedom is one’s search for knowledge. It is freedom of thought, speech, press, religion, association, and the freedom to pursue knowledge and truth. It is the freedom to act.

Human emotional freedom cannot be separated from this intellectual pursuit because we are both. Passion for truth and knowledge is the fuel of this intellectual endeavor.

Emotional freedom is the state of being independent and intrinsically free but inter-dependent on the love of others. It is our relationships and how we feel others perceive us. It is our need to be understood and to be loved. It is our need to understand and learn to love one another’s needs by exercising knowledge, love, and freedom, to help fulfill those needs. Love is the intellectual and emotional need to share life for the mutual growth toward freedom. pg. 27

Economies are societal relationships that we have established to exchange goods and services. Financial freedom is the tool by which we obtain goods and services. The exercise of knowledge in relationship to our fellowman is the means of gaining our financial freedom. The navigation of this particular road to freedom is loaded with pitfalls. It is a constant challenge to balance knowledge with love which will lead toward a mutual growth of freedom.

Man first existed within nature. He then established bonds and relationships with his fellowman to increase his chance of survival. Within a democracy he established a representative form of government as a trustee of the community’s decision-making process. One of the responsibilities of that trustee is to ensure and protect the individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. pg. 28

On June 15, 1215, England’s King John agreed to and signed the Magna Carta. It is the first legal agreement within English law that states of a collective agreement of the leaders of the provinces and not only regal decisions that are also the instruments of the rule of law. It is the beginning of Mans’ experiment with democracy.

With each one of these motivations I could have written chapters and men and women have in the past and will in the future. I knew that I was seeing something very important. I knew that I was beginning to see and understand myself. I was looking at myself and understanding who I am as man. It was what I wanted and what I needed to know. I am motivated to gain knowledge, to love, to be loved, to create, and to be free.

pg. 29

It is not just a matter of how well we explore and define what the nature of knowledge is and what freedom is. It is also critical to explore and define what the nature of love is. One’s understanding and recognition of the dual nature of love as intellect and emotion is an essential step in the understanding of our own nature as man. Intellect serves and satisfies emotion and emotion drives intellect. The process is cyclical. Intellect and emotion are distinct but interdependent in their unity with one another. Love is driven by intellect and emotion and consummated by both. Love is also the catalyst of our understanding of knowledge and freedom. pg. 30

Knowledge, love, and freedom are like food, water, and air. If one does not have enough of each then one will surely die. How one comes to understand the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom and their relationship to one another is the challenge of one’s life. No matter who we are or when we are, we all live within the rules of life. The foundation of which is the understanding of the relationship of knowledge, love, and freedom to one another. It is the trinity of life. They are the rules of engagement within which life unfolds. Our body, our intellect, and our emotions are the essence of that trinity of life.

I was beginning to feel more complete but at the same time I began to look at other people with more understanding. I realized that I had not only defined who I am as man; I had also uncovered who my fellowman is, who men and women are. I felt a more complete understanding of them and myself as individuals, past, present, and future man.

pg. 31

I realized as time went on that this is not just what my nature is or what Mans’ nature is, but this is what is meant by the words, “In His Image and Likeness.” I realized then that I was starting down a path that I had not totally foreseen or fully expected and it was starting to scare me as much as it excited me.

In the Gospel of Thomas, verse 2 which I think reflects that same experience of insight that I was having now! Jesus said, “Let the seeker keep seeking until he finds. When he finds he will be disturbed. When he is disturbed he will be amazed. When he is amazed, he will be invincible to everything. And when he is invincible to everything, he will be at rest.”

pg.32

I knew that I had to understand the relationship of knowledge, love, and freedom to one another. I had discovered and realized that in order to have growth, there had to be a balance between knowledge and love. Knowledge comes first and love flows from the former if there is to be growth. Dante said the same thing in his Divine Comedy. It is like an Algebraic equation that identifies the value of a variable that is an unknown.

If there is an imbalance between knowledge and love, there is an inhibition of freedom and a loss of life in a worst-case scenario. It is as the English philosopher, John Locke called a natural law. It is a natural law that is interwoven into the very fabric of life. I later came to realize and to know that it is God’s law and it is as eternal as God is Himself. It is what man calls the rule of law. It is probably the most important natural law to understand and it illuminates why things happen as they do.

All just man-made law is based upon this natural law. Accidents, tragedies, injustice, and evil acts are a result of an imbalance between knowledge and love. Knowledge by itself when acted upon in relationship to other men and women, is an evil act when it is not balanced with love. pg. 33

Knowledge is like a glass bottle filled with water. If it is utilized by men and women to quench the thirst of themselves and another, then it is balanced with love and there is growth. If it is utilized or acted upon without love then it is but broken glass with no water inflicting cuts and pain to all that come in contact with it. It is no longer fulfilling its design. It has destroyed itself. Sooner or later it will be swept up and disposed of or time will do it for them. This balance of knowledge and love which leads toward freedom, is key to understanding why things work well and why they do not.

These three abstracts are the only tools that we have to understand ourselves and the universe that we live in. There are an infinite number of disciplines within each of these three abstracts, knowledge, love, and freedom.

If for example a doctor shares his or her medical knowledge in their practice, then it is balanced with love. The love is their desire to share life with another by enhancing another’s life to achieve a mutual growth toward freedom. The doctor’s knowledge hopefully alleviates the patient’s illness and the patient tells the doctor, “I feel much better and the check is in the mail.” If the doctor exercised his or her knowledge without love then it would become as deadly as any weapon of war.

pg. 34

This natural law, of the relationship between knowledge and love and the balance between the two, which leads toward freedom is universal both in time and place. This is the inherent baseline of love and the inherent baseline of the universal rule of law.

If there is an imbalance between the two say too little knowledge exercised, it becomes ineffective and does not bring the benefit of a positive resolution to the situation or the enhancement of freedom to the individual. If there is specific knowledge and it is knowingly exercised and not balanced with love, then it is an evil act. The key to growth is always a balance between the two. Knowledge is the tool. Love is the relationship. Freedom is the goal. pg. 35

If the individual sacrifices their own freedom for the well-being of another’s freedom, then that is mankind’s reflection and exercise of a Divine love. It is a Divine love that never diminishes the life of another.

The search for these three abstracts, knowledge, love, and freedom is the most powerful driving force within man. The understanding of each and the relationship of the three to one another, are the secrets to understanding life. It is why God gave us life. There is an infinite number of plots and stories but there is only one theme. The balance of knowledge with love that leads toward freedom is central to any story. The search for knowledge, love, and freedom is the driving force of humanity.

pg. 36

It was the first week in April 1976, when I reached a juncture in my search for truth. I now felt I had a pretty good understanding of my own nature as man and the relationship of knowledge, love, and freedom to one another. I saw men and women evolving toward a more perfect state, chipping away at knowledge and sharing it, freeing themselves from ignorance, disease, hunger, poverty, and fulfilling their visions and freedom while traveling on a long journey through time.

But what was the Creator’s relationship with His own creation? I was leaning more and more in the direction that there was a Divine Craftsman because of my understanding of the nature of man and the definition of love as the intellectual and emotional need to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom.

pg. 37

I thought if I had a group of children and I put them in the woods to find their own way to survive and prosper without helping them by showing them the way, then I would be irresponsible, negligent, and even criminal. How could a God create and not show the way if it was based on love? How could mankind be held responsible and accountable for our actions to both God and our fellowman, if God made the rules but did not abide by them Himself?

If I am to understand who my Creator is, I have to look at the creation. I am part of the creation. I have to look deeply within myself to find the reflection of my Creator to find truth.

pg. 38

William Ernest Hocking explores this search within his treaties, Meaning of God in human experience: A philosophic study of religion first published in 1912. In it he states “Consciousness, self-knowledge, knowledge of man and of reality, this is the great result of our insertion in history-nothing else matters.” (pg.495, sixth edition, 1924)

I know that in order to survive I have to understand myself and the universe around me. I need to share life and have others want to share life with me. I need to express my understanding of knowledge and creativity to influence the world around me; and I need to be free physically, intellectually, emotionally, financially, and politically.

pg. 39

If the creation is a reflection of whom the Creator is, and He loves His own creation, then would He not have to physically and spiritually become one with it at some point in time? Logic and wisdom were leading me to say yes. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) once asked, would Hamlet understand who Shakespeare was just by looking at the workings of the play? He thought not unless Shakespeare had inserted himself into the play at some point.

So on that April evening in 1976, as I was listening to music through headphones, I thought of where I had been and the questions that I had asked myself. I was absolutely amazed at how far I had come. I never really thought that I would come up with the answers that I did and the point at which I was at now. It was clear to me that I had to see if God was there.

I thought should not God want me to know that God was there and that He loved me if I am sincere in my search for Him? If God is there and He knows that I am alive, then should not I know also that God is alive and be sure of it? How can one truly love one another if one is not absolutely sure that the other one is there? I had no idea what to expect if anything at all.

pg. 40

So with my whole heart, mind, body, and soul I thought of a crucified Christ. A deeper and more inner essence within me told me to mean it even more. I felt like a trapeze artist flying through the air hoping that someone would catch me when I let go of the physical world. I thought I love You.

At that point a “Voice” came back and said: “Listen to the lyrics,” and those lyrics were, “nobody goes there, nobody shows where, nobody goes where you can find Me.” The timing of the “I love You” and the direction to listen to those lyrics was absolutely perfect. I felt like I had just had the wind knocked out of me. I knew at that instant, my spirit and the Spirit of Christ were joined forever.

pg. 41

As I recovered from this shock I looked down at the paper that was in front of me and the pen in my hand. I saw that I had drawn the number 7. I didn’t even recall doing it. For some reason I looked at the palm of my right hand and I realized that I also had a 7 there. I had never seen it before. It was defined and clearly visible. The top of the 7 split my palm in half. I thought what was the significance of 7, seven days of creation or seven deadly sins? I didn’t know. I stood at the bureau in my bedroom for a long time thinking about what had just happened. I felt drained and was shocked at what had just occurred.

One of the most unusual guarantees of our Declaration of Independence of the United States of America is our right to pursue happiness. “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

pg. 42

It was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 (1743-1826) and inspired by the English philosopher, John Locke. John Locke in 1689 (1632-1704) argued that “the law of nature obliged all human beings not to harm the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” John Locke states of life, liberty, and property, which are the rights of man. Thomas Jefferson states of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which are the unalienable rights of man. No other government in the world asserts a government’s responsibility to protect this right of the individual to pursue happiness.

I suspect Jefferson quoted Lock’s law of the rights of man in his original draft. My instincts tell me, that people, like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, pushed back on the use of the word property, or the concept of property as being an unalienable right of man.

pg. 43

In Jefferson’s original draft, his second paragraph’s opening sentence states: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal … “When Jefferson gave Franklin a first draft, Franklin crossed out “sacred and undeniable” and wrote in “self-evident”. Franklin was a newspaper publisher, editor, and writer all of his life. He was also a scientist. He was one of the most famous people in America and Europe.

America’s original sin was slavery and the ownership of other people as property. If Jefferson truly believed that the pursuit of happiness was an unalienable right of man, then I think that he would have explored and defined what the nature of the pursuit of happiness is.

pg. 44

I knew then, that Mans’ fulfillment and happiness were met when first, men and women could gain and understand the knowledge that they needed. Second was when they could express their love, intellectually and emotionally, with others. Third was when they could receive love from the ones with whom they intellectually and emotionally shared life. Fourth was when they were able to understand knowledge, manipulate it, and share it with their fellowman to express their creativity and last, but not least, was when they were free, physically, intellectually, emotionally, financially, and politically. When all these motivations are fulfilled, the individual is happy, and it is a lifelong journey. Happiness and fun are the feelings of being alive and a connection to others. When we have some aspect of some or any of these motivations fulfilled, we have varying degrees of happiness.

pg. 45

Life is a dynamic process, and the parameters often change. On this lifelong journey the individual must come to a point where logic and wisdom reach out with love, to make that leap of faith, to continue on the spiritual journey toward fulfillment and happiness. When the individual makes that leap, Christ will be there, and He is as real as the individual. He is the Creator of the individual, the incarnation of the Divine Craftsman. He said, “I shall be with you even until the end of time.” The impact of that union of Spirits changes both, for an eternity. It is very real. It is one of the truest feelings of love which I have ever felt in my life.

Over the next few days I was reading Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Divine Comedy. Dante had Virgil as his guide and I had Dante as mine. Virgil was born and lived in (70 B.C.-19 B.C.) and was a Roman poet who represents the logic and wisdom of man in Dante’s journey. I thought how incredible it was that a man like Dante who lived seven hundred years ago and wrote this classic piece of literature was still teaching about life. The written word is indeed very powerful. May every generation have a Dante come along to reflect and write about the truth of Man’s nature, culture, and understanding of life in their own time. Let them also strive to understand the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom and what their relationship is to one another.

pg.46

One of the many insightful things that was observed by Dante was that love was the only thing that expanded within this universe. If one gives love away it is like a flame. Each time it is passed to another it never diminishes the flame of the giver.

As an example when a man and woman love one another and intellectually, emotionally, and physically become one, they create something that is greater than either individual, a new life and a relationship, as a family. He was right love does expand, but I knew that was not the only thing that expands. Somewhere, somehow, I didn’t know when, I had heard that the universe itself was expanding. I had no knowledge of Astronomy but that was to change very soon.

pg. 47

When I read of Dante’s expansion of love concept and my association of that concept to an expanding universe, I was working evenings part-time in a local variety store, the J&R, “the little store”, at Medway, Massachusetts.

It was a Monday night, April 12, 1976. It was then when I suddenly felt what I could only describe as the Grace of God begin to flow through me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I thought, “You love me that much?” This was something that was not supposed to happen to me. This sort of thing may have happened to other people in history books but certainly not to me. I thought “are You sure You got the right guy?” You must be seeing something in my future that I have not seen yet. I was absolutely amazed and astounded at the feeling and I wondered if any of the customers could see anything flowing through me as they came into the store. I knew they couldn’t but it was an incredible feeling. I felt it continue to flow through me as I closed up the store later that evening and it continued to flow still when I got home and went to bed. I still felt it when I woke up the next day. It continued through the day flowing through me like the current of a river or a rip current that was receding with the tide at the shore of an ocean. I now knew the significance of the seven that I had drawn and the seven in the palm of my right hand. It was for creation. As abruptly as it started, it stopped. I guessed God had made His point.

pg. 48

When I started this journey I had a lot of questions and I thought that I needed answers and that I had the right to know the answers for sure. Well after this there would never be any doubt in my mind. I knew for sure. Now I began thinking what did God have in mind for me? I didn’t ask for anything like this! One does not pick something like this!

pg. 49

My “heart” is my spirit and emotion. My “mind” is my intellect. My body is my means to express my intellect, emotion, and spirit. My soul is defined by all of those.

If my soul does exist and my heart, mind, and spirit are imprinted and interwoven upon it, then that opens a passageway into eternity. If my soul does not exist, then my spirit, intellect, emotion, and body will return to the dust of the universe from which it came. The gift of life is indeed the miracle of life.

pg. 50

Love is what ignites the spark of life which allows the light of intelligence and love to shine within the creation.

The price of admission to life and being alive is very expensive. It is the inevitable death of the body.

Along this journey the most important things are: what we learn about ourselves, and life, and how well we share it with others.

I looked to the sky and felt something in the right rear of my brain as if the blood started to flow there where it had not before. I remembered thinking, “I swear my mind just expanded.” Then with more than lightning quick speed or even quantum physics speed, I felt a void in my body and then it returned, as if my soul left my body and then returned within a second. I continued to look up and it was as if someone had put a blue dye in my eyes. I had never seen the sky that blue that beautiful. I felt the “Presence” leave and I walked the rest of the way back home thinking about what had just happened. I knew I just felt the same “Presence”, the Lord’s Holy Spirit of Love, which the Apostles had felt on Pentecost Sunday, two thousand years ago.

pg. 52

I knew now that God had something special in mind for me. I felt a closeness to my Creator that I could not have imagined before I started running those trails. It all seemed so impossible, but it was all so real.

Jesus said, “who-ever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and who-ever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but who-ever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.” This saying was referenced in Matthew, 12:31-12:32, Luke, 12:10, Mark, 3:28, and Thomas, saying # 44. I knew now what Christ meant by that because I knew the definition of love. It is the intellectual and emotional need to share life for a mutual growth toward freedom. If one blasphemed against the Lord’s Holy Spirit of love, then one has committed murder.

pg. 53

Christ said to His disciples that if He had not entered into this world then man would not have sinned. Man sins when he exercises knowledge and it is not balanced with love. Of course, man has always sinned but he could not have been held responsible and accountable to God for his actions if God made the rules but did not abide by them Himself. No one is above the law not even God, Himself. The Lord became one with His own creation to abide by this law, His law.

I now knew why Christ had lived and died. The Lord came into this world because of His love for us. His life and death made us responsible and accountable for the ownership of our own lives and accountable to God and to our fellow man.

pg.54

Man has exercised knowledge that has not always been balanced with love and man will continue to be challenged to find that balance. Man has sought to understand and develop a relationship with his Creator throughout history. The Lord I am sure, is quite secure in the knowledge of whom He is. I believe He wants us to be secure in the knowledge of whom we are as man. Christ said, ” The sabbath exists for man, man does not exist for the sabbath.” Religion starts within one’s culture, community, and family.

The search for truth starts within one’s soul. It is a very hard and lonely journey which leads one to understanding and joy. It is a journey that, ” if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you, if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. ” We are the children of the universe born from love and stellar dust. We are all God’s children.

pg. 55

It is Mans’ exploration of his relationship with life and his understanding of his own humanity. It is Mans’ exploration of his relationship with a Deity and his own mortality. 

Truth is built upon knowledge, love, freedom and logic and wisdom. It begins with the understanding of ourselves and our own nature as man. It is our understanding and relationship to the various disciplines of science. It is the understanding of the nature of knowledge, love and freedom and their relationship to one another that leads one to an understanding of one’s own humanity and the nature of science and the world around us. It is this understanding that is witnessed within a community that gives life to a religion. It also leads one to begin to understand the nature of God.

pg. 56

The church of God is not a dome of structured rock or the frame of a wooden structure. They are places for people of faith to come together. Truth is not exclusive to the religious and political organizations of the clerics.

The church of God exists within the hearts and minds of each and every one of us. It is our understanding of the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom, and their relationship to one another. It is our understanding of our own humanity, and our need to gain knowledge, to love, to be loved, to create, and to be free. It is a recognition and understanding of that natural law, of the balance of knowledge and love that leads toward freedom.  It is you and I who are a product of the creation. It is you and I and our relationship to God and to one another, who is the church. A relationship with God is not driven top down but bottom up. I found that He met me in the middle when I was ready.

pg. 57

May 15, 1976 was a Saturday. I was at home that evening at around six p.m. I was sitting on the side of my bed thinking about all that had happened to me and where it was leading. I had never felt closer to the Lord. I knew that there was not a thought that went through my mind that the Lord did not know about. I knew that firsthand, when I thought back to the moment, six weeks ago, when logic and wisdom brought me to the point when I reached out and thought of a crucified Christ and thought “I love You.”

That Saturday evening as I sat in my room, I thought to myself that if I looked up at the bedroom door that I would see Him standing there and I would not be a bit surprised. Well of course when I looked up Jesus was not standing there but just then in the center of my mind the figure of Christ came into view. I could see and feel the power of the Divine Christ.

pg. 58

Jesus wore a deep rich red burgundy, colored robe. His arms were beside Him with His palms face out. His hair was brown shoulder length. I could not make out the features of His continence. But it was the power that He generated that I shall never forget. The fluidity of motion around the Figure was clear and circling Him. I fell back on my bed feeling my heart racing and my breathing rate doubling and thinking, “Oh my God, You do not know what You do to people.”  But as soon as I got through half that thought, I knew that Jesus only generated as much power as I could handle then and there. I knew there was an infinite amount more. I thought that Christ could not have generated that kind of power on Calvary because there would have been no one left standing for miles. The image of the Divine resurrected Christ only lasted for a few seconds, but I would never forget it for an eternity.

pg. 59

Up until this point I had never associated power with Jesus. I had only felt His humanity before this.  Now I had seen and felt His Divinity. As I lay there recovering from this encounter my heart and breathing returned to normal and I thought of the fact that I could not see the features of Jesus’s face and I wondered why.

All these events happened over twenty-five years ago. Every time I have looked at the palm of my right hand and thought of what happened so long ago, I thought it was just so unbelievable but so very real. It was as if the index finger of God had moved just enough to touch the outstretched hand of man as depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The painting is beautiful but it is a false depiction of man’s creation.

Darwin speaks the truth about the creation and the evolution of man and the evolution of all life on this planet over the last 4.5 billion years.

Distance gives one perspective and objectivity to past experiences and events. Some things are hard to absorb and understand when one is close to them.

pg. 60

My sister, Janice once asked me why I believed Christ was who He said He was. He always said that He was the son of man.

The Divine Craftsman needed to become one with humanity within the history of this planet. He knew of all the joys and sorrows that humanity would experience over the lifetime of the planet. He knew of all the natural and manmade tragedies that man would suffer.

It is a much more powerful question than if I just believed in Him. The question as to why one has a certain belief is a much more difficult answer to articulate. That is why I have begun to put pencil to paper since I could not articulate the reasons when I was asked that question. I decided to write for my own clarification about this personal journey toward truth. And in the writing the mosaic of my life was becoming increasingly clear. Writing is what organizes one’s intellect and emotion of one’s soul on paper.

pg. 61

The universe began from the radiant energy of the “Big Bang”, smaller in size than the period at the end of this sentence. If that is not the definition of a black hole then I do not know what is. If that is true then I shall let the astrophysicists do the math on that one. I can picture a couple in the next universe over having breakfast one morning and looking up at one another and saying, “did you feel that?”

We now know that our solar system is the product of the gravitational collapse of the debris and dust, left over from the explosions of first-generation stars and has an age of approximately 4.5 billion years and a life span of 10 billion years. The Earth orbits in a habitable zone to the sun for approximately another billion years. We orbit a very stable and very average star.

Five of the most common elements in the universe and within ourselves are hydrogen, helium, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. When a planet is in the habitable zone of a sun’s solar system, these elements along with others, given enough time, approximately three to four billion years will lead to the evolution of life. Chemistry comes first and leads to biology. Billions of years of evolution and natural selection lead to sentient beings striving to understand themselves and the universe around them.

pg. 63

We can see the same process taking place in many areas of the night sky. The Orion Nebula is one such stellar nursery. We know that our sun exists within a galaxy of over 200-400 billion suns and many of these suns have planets orbiting them. Planets are left over debris and dust that form when the star forms because of a gravitational collapse. About half of the solar systems are binary or multiple systems where more than one sun comprises the system. Our galaxy exists within a cluster of galaxies and these galaxies exist within a universe that contains trillions of galaxies whose stars have nurtured the evolution of life on trillions of planets. Most if not all galaxies possess black holes at their centers. I would further reason that the universe is probably one of many. The creation could be described as a multi-verse.

pg. 64

One of the key questions today in cosmology is whether the universe’s expansion will come to a halt and then begin to contrac collapsing in on itself, “the big crunch”, and in essence forming another radiating black hole which then would explode in another “big bang” creating another universe. We could have an oscillating universe that would continue for an eternity as it has an infinite number of times in the past.

As a ball is thrown into the air it leaves one’s fingertips at its highest velocity but as it ascends its momentum slows down because of gravity’s exertion. It eventually comes to a stop and then starts to descend. In order for the universe to come to a halt in its expansion, there would have to be enough dark matter in the universe to halt its expansion by a gravitational pull. Astronomers are looking for this dark matter that makes up to ninety percent of the universe. It could be in the form of black holes, neutrinos, planets, brown dwarfs, or something they have not discovered as of yet. If they find there is not enough then it will expand forever eventually becoming a dark void and lifeless. If the expansion rate is decreasing then it is recycling on a grand scale.

pg. 65

The most recent data suggests that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing because of something that is called dark energy and not decreasing. If the expansion rate is increasing then the galaxies will recede from one another forever and their stars will exhaust their energy and die along with the solar systems and life that they have nurtured. Only time and the study of the universe will lead us to grasp a more complete understanding of the Divine Craftsman’s design.

I visualized a creation that was a multi-verse that was teeming with life. I visualized it as being like a pot of boiling water. Each bubble is expanding and contracting or maybe just expanding, but many are going on at once. A creation that never had a beginning and will never end but will always change structure and form. Energy and matter are the same thing, but different forms of one another.

pg. 66

If our universe is more than thirteen and a half billion years old, then the question that I asked myself was, what was the Divine Craftsman doing previously, “twenty-five billion years ago, fifty billion years ago, a trillion years ago, an infinite number of years in the past? Something that was outside of our own universe’s timeline. I thought that He would be doing the same thing that He is doing today, creating and sharing life.

The reason I believe there is a continuous creation is that I believe that the Divine Craftsman is always true to His own nature. He possesses all knowledge. He always loves and shares life. He always wants to be loved. He always creates and He is always free to do so. That is why I believe the creation never began and it will never end. Each universe begins and ends but the creation does not. It just has to be big enough and I do not think it is my place to put limits on God’s abilities. We know there is one universe. It is probably one drop in an ocean of universes. In John 14, verse 2, the Lord said to His disciples, “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

pg. 67

The view is what I remembered most from that day. I had just arrived at a Greek island. I was nineteen and had been traveling Europe for the last two months. I left my backpack at the youth hostel and hiked up into the hills to see the sunset over the harbor. A cruise ship sat anchored while the sun glistened off the aqua blue water. I sat there thinking what a beautiful sight it was. But as I did I realized that there was something missing. Something that made the experience feel incomplete. I thought what was missing was that I was not sharing the view with someone else, preferably a beautiful young woman. No matter how beautiful or satisfying the moment it always seems to be incomplete when it is not shared with someone else.

pg.68

In an article entitled, The unfinished universe – Does creation tell a story? Which was published in Commonweal magazine, March 14, 2003. John F. Haught states: “Even the passing of an entire cosmic epoch – such as the predicted dissolution of our own expanding universe – would not entail its absolute disappearance. Its history, down to the last detail, is internalized forever in the life of God.” I thought that sharing the view, sharing life, must also make God’s life more complete. I thought the Lord must also have a need to share the view with someone and He always has and always will. I thought that if the creation never began and it will never end then He must enter His creation early on wherever life has taken a foothold with beings who are also made in His Image and Likeness to show the way. In our galaxy alone there is a probability of a million civilizations that He has to become a part of and His life and death becomes a symbol of the ages as it has become on Earth.

pg. 69

 

So I asked myself who were those beings of life who were associated with Jesus, the angels? If they were real then I now realized who they were. They were life forms who were also made in His Image and Likeness perhaps in another universe in the distant past or in our own. Those beings of life were the resurrected bodies and souls of individuals similar to me who were born sometime, somewhere, in the creation. All life starts within the creation. No one is given life in a vacuum. They too were responsible to define their own nature and the nature of knowledge, love, and freedom. They also had to understand the relationship of the three to one another. They were now sharing life with God watching the creation unfold for an eternity.

pg. 70

Jesus spoke of their nature in Luke 20, verse 36, and Matthew 22, verse 30. “Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. “Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

In Luke 10:22, Jesus said: “All things are delivered to me by my father. And no one knows who the Son is, but the Father: And who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal him.”

In John 14:6-7 Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

He also said, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.”

He also said in Thomas, saying # 70, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

“Nobody goes there, nobody shows where, nobody goes where you can find me.”

” The truth is within you and the truth is eternal.”

pg 71

Robert Allan McNeil

 

 

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