Chasing God Until He Caught Me: Chapter Six - Divergent Roads

The Compelling Story of God's Relentless Pursuit To Rescue One Lost Soul

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood,

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there,

Had worn them really about the same …

- From Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken

In the Fall of 1979, the time for decision had finally come.

I was at the point where reenlisting would have made a career in the Navy a more practical choice.

As if some “unseen” force was guiding me, I decided to move on. I had had enough.

---

On November 9, 1979, I said farewell to my Navy buddies, most for the last time. Loading a truck with all my worldly goods, I headed North for Oregon.

During this time of transition, my philosophy of life was gradually changing as well.

I was reading a lot more and desperately wanted to get away from the party animal lifestyle.

Reasoning that competing philosophies could not all be simultaneously true, I began an earnest quest for the one that was.

Whatever and wherever it was, I was determined to find it.

Since I was already on the West Coast and had relatives in Eugene, that seemed a logical place to start.

---

A love affair with writing began when I enrolled in a creative writing course at the local community college.

What I had not anticipated, though, was the spiritual longing that descended upon me as I got settled.

Questions such as “What is my purpose in life?” and “Why am I here?”

Those questions led me to take another course, The Bible as Literature, in which we had to study the various writing genres contained in the Bible.

To be clear, it was a literature course, but it fueled an even more heightened hunger for truth.

Unknown to me at first, Eugene was a hotbed for what is today known as the “New Age” movement.

Immersing myself, it seemed I had finally found my “home”. The spiritual quest for truth would finally be over.

So, I thought.

“Enlightened” free-birds from all over the country constantly flocked to the city, looking for random crumbs of spiritual food.

For the next 2 years, I was an avid follower of various tenets of Eastern religious philosophies of life, all centered around the idea that we could grow closer to the Divine “as we defined it”.

I enjoyed the “free” lifestyle. For a season anyway. This quest, however, brought more questions than the answers I sought.

It wasn't long before I began noticing the inconsistencies and hypocrisy that weren't all that different from what I observed in the denomination I attended growing up.

Everyone was “preaching” peace and love, yet the vicious animosity and hostility toward those who believed differently was a complete contradiction.

I quickly realized that while New Agers loved to pursue truth, no one actually wanted to find it.

Except me.

Truth represented absolutes. And absolutes were heresy in New Age philosophy.

---

Early on, I became involved in the local chapter of Green Peace. Something I didn’t know at the time was that they had become heavily in debt.

I began doing “fundraisers” for them to help raise money for what I thought was the “Save the Seals” program. Until I found out that all of the proceeds went to pay off the local chapter debt.

The local leadership tried to keep this a secret, but things like that rarely stay hidden.

My conscience was ringing loudly. Consequently, I ended my affiliation with Green Peace.

My eyes were beginning to open to an interesting fact:

Human nature is the same no matter what is being espoused. Greed, fraud, selfishness, lust. Philosophies of life may be diametrically opposed, yet the underlying motivations are almost identical, albeit sometimes disguised.

Disillusioned, I thought, “If what I left in the form of ‘mainstream’ religion was not what it was purported to be, and if the wild lifestyle of a sailor was not what I was looking for, and if this supposed New Age philosophy that ‘God was in us’ was not what I thought it was, then what was left?”

Little did I comprehend the road I was being prepared to take …

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- From Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken

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