One afternoon when I was four years-old, my mother settled me in the overstuffed living room chair.

“Now sit quietly. Think of your toy boat on the water. Or the clock over there. Just let yourself become still.”

I concentrated on the mantel clock with its slow, repetitive sound, as though it said tick-clock, and then clock, and clock, and clock again. The sound made me relax and grow still so that I drifted off across the water to the little boat my Aunt Doris had brought me from Knoxville and how it moved slowly, making ripples on the calm water.

Then I heard the scratchy sounds of the kitten’s claws on the nappy texture of the chair.

I remained quiet, very still, admiring the blue edging at the waterline of the little boat and enjoying the steady tick-clock sounds as clock’s pendulum swung with stubborn repetitiveness back and forth. I felt the kitten’s fur brush my neck as it climbed and settled on my left shoulder. The kitten pressed its nose to my ear.

My mother returned to the room, and I felt her pause beside the chair. I waited.

“Oh, it’s okay to pat Melissa now, if you want to. But do you see how she came when you were very still and opening your mind?”

I nodded, lingering in the vision of my boat as I rubbed Melissa’s head with my fingers.

“That is how we prepare ourselves to experience God.”

“Melissa is the same as God?” I looked from the purring kitten to my mother.

“Well, no. But God’s presence comes when we are quiet and allowing ourselves to be still. You were just now practicing.”

What I Feel When the Presence Comes

Maybe it sounds crazy. Many might call me deluded.

In the stillness, though, I feel this Presence come. Sometimes it is a ripple across my wrists, forearms, the nape of my neck.

I remember a summer evening when I was five and the moon’s silky light spilled across my bed. Something like a little kick jerked within me.

It was not a physical muscle but something in my spirit. I was just lying there with a tingle across my shoulders, arms, and chest. As my heart slowly beat, I was aware of my breathing. I was aware of the everyday world receding and I could sense a broader time. I sensed that this was God’s time, which is special, timeless, eternal.

Conclusion

It is natural to be skeptical when we have so many preconceived notions and perhaps even negative impressions of those for whom God is real. I myself would be right there with you if not for my own personal experience with this entity, this Presence that has stalked the human species since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth.

A suggestion I have for anyone who would like to go deeper with this. Find a church of Christian believers. There are many, and I suggest you visit several to find one you feel comfortable with. No church is perfect, but a community of believers can be a powerful help. Many are struggling with the same questions and problems as you. Such a community can guide as you learn to build a personal relationship with God that will literally change you and your entire life.

Surely there are many things we have in common with any who lived before us. We awaken, eyes blinking as we rise toward consciousness like swimmers moving toward light and air. We remember what it is to be in a particular era, our own time.

Like the breath of a child, or the breath of any who have peered out at our world with curiosity, wonder, fear, we are here. No matter what the era, we ride the softness of this planet and wonder in every moment who we are and why we are here.

For me, the answers are linked to this entity, this Presence that has pursued us since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth. Sometimes I go so far as to suggest that this entity has stalked us since our beginnings here.

Often, I associate this entity with the frightening, awe-inspiring danger of one of the big jungle cats whose growl begins as a low rumble, a vibration deep in its throat that can oscillate through many registers up and up until it is a wild, savage scream that causes a thrill of instinctive panic deep into every fiber of the person or animal that is about to become its prey.

Might that be a moment of connection with God?

Certainly, many in the Bible, reaching for ways to grasp the awe and often frightening implications of Creator of the Universe, saw God as awe-inspiring in much the same way.

Lion of Judah, for example, is one of the biblical names for God in the Bible.

But yes, here we are, each of us, the human beings struggling up from the nests we have instinctively made. Our warm beds, where for a few hours each dusky evening we lie down and for a time let go, moving out within sleep like quiet ships on the ocean, feeling the rhythms of the water.

We are transfixed like insects caught in amber. Though we think of ourselves as here in an era where we have made breathtaking strides in the world, we nevertheless are linked with all the ones who have gone before. In a very real sense, we are connected in Time. How can we not be, if we are intimately connected to the creator of the Universe and thereby to Time itself?

I was raised from childhood in Appalachia, deeply ensconced within the heart of the Bible Belt, where so many have had direct interaction with this entity, this Presence.

And yet I am troubled that there is so much baggage associated with the three-letter word we use to refer to an entity that is so much more than what we have in our modern era understood.

In our modern pride, we have largely dismissed God. Or perhaps we have sought to confine God to certain carefully controlled areas.

We say for example, “Oh, that is Religion.”

We have sought to neutralize the Lion of Judah reference to the Creator of the Universe. We have lost the primal connection, the first-hand experience. And we have lost the sense of excitement and adventure related to aggressive search, research, and acknowledgement of the universal experience of this entity that has stalked us since our beginnings here.

Sometimes I think of it as shattering this glass bubble we have allowed to encase us, where our assumptions about God are concerned. What about you?

When you think of God, or listen to someone expound upon the necessity for obeying biblical strictures, don’t you feel uncomfortable?

Whether you do or not, most can agree that our skeptical modern culture has many distortions and misunderstandings associated with God.

Nevertheless, I do believe we are on the brink of an unprecedented spiritual renaissance which will hurl us kicking and screaming into a renewed sense of adventure as we reconsider who we are as humans in relation to this entity that has pursued us—even stalked us—since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth.

My blog, my books, my products invite individuals who are interested in rediscovering our lost biblical sense of adventure and riveting awe in this entity to join me. I hope many will bookmark this blog and follow me. I can offer you new ideas on who we are in relation to God as we reconsider who we are as humans and what we are becoming.

It is as though we have sidestepped into another world. For a moment, it is nearly as though we have been shifted into another time.

How frightening.

Just the deep, measured breathing of someone, and in the darkness that person is not the person you know. Somehow that person has become disengaged from all the tiny markers and emblems of modern humanity, of personality, of learned behaviors, plans, responsibilities.

At such moments, something compels me to ask, who are we, and what are we becoming?

Meanwhile, you might be wondering who I am and what my blog will explore.

The opening of this blog hints at part of what I do: beginning to write about the world that we usually only barely notice. Ultimately, the blog presents new ideas about who we are as the human species and what we are becoming.

Ultimately, the blog explores who we are in relation to this entity that has pursued us since our beginnings here upon this planet, our Earth.

Of course, it is God. Today, however, there is so much baggage attached to that three-letter word. I prefer to refer to God as the Presence.

I was raised in Appalachia in the midst of the Bible Belt, surrounded by parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and community for whom God was absolutely real.

Here is something some might find a little strange about me:

Since I was a toddler, I have been aware of this entity, this Presence. I refer to the One who created the Universe and everything in it as the Presence because of the warmth, the nearness, the comforting reality of something real that is right there in the room with me or wherever I might be.

If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is this: it’s all true. The reality of God as presented in the Bible is absolutely true.

As I grew old enough to listen to my teachers and to the preacher at our church in Harlan, Ky, I learned that this must surely be the One the Bible refers to as God.

I was quite interested in the biblical teaching that each of us can have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I am a Christian and I grew up yearning to develop this relationship with God through Christ.

My mother and my teachers in our church emphasized that God had a plan for my life, and I struggled to understand it through childhood, adolescence, and far into my adulthood. Today, I know that God has called me to write and to deliver the message you will discover in my blog, my books, and in other materials I will create for those who are interested.

Along the way, I’ve had careers in teaching and in broadcast journalism. I even earned the Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Tennessee College of Law. Beginning law school at the age of forty, a father with a wife and three young children, was one of the scariest challenges God confronted me with as He continued to prepare me.

Yes, I know you might suspect I’m possibly deluded, and no wonder. After all, my journey with God has lasted many decades. I am seventy-one as I write this.

Presently, I am a performer at Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, TN. And yes, I am convinced that even this is part of God’s preparation for me. For twelve years now, I have performed for thousands who visit this world-class museum located near Dollywood in the Great Smokey Mountains, not far from Gatlinburg.

I expect that some of the blogs will deal with the Titanic. Regardless of what I write about, there will always be an emphasis on re-examining our assumptions about God as well as who we are in relation to God.

This will not, however, be your typical religious site. I hope that as you follow me, you will realize that–though the Bible is the foundation–the ideas here point the way toward the future of who we are and what we are becoming as we begin to understand the implications of what the Bible teaches in a way that resonates powerfully for our own era.

It is time we shatter the glass bubble we currently find ourselves in. Our own skeptical modern era has tried to shove God into a convenient corner. I hope to reanimate the sense of adventure and excitement once associated with the pursuit of God.

In the words of William Shatner in the original Star Trek series . . . to go where no man (or woman, I might add) has gone before.

Occasionally, a small beetle would fly into the window screen with a plunk. The light was turned off in my room, and I stood there in the dusky glimmer, my bare feet aware of the wooden floor. My bed was near the open window.

For a while, I observed the tiny yellow lights, fascinated with how they lit and glowed, dipped down, then up, then disappeared.

That summer evening when I was five, I had just asked my mother how we might communicate with God.

In Sunday School, I was fascinated with the story of the biblical prophet, Samuel. He was a boy like me when, one night while he was resting in his darkened room, he heard God calling his name.

And each Sunday I listened as the pastor at our church reminded us that Jesus will return someday, and I would go to my mother for answers.

She was a firm believer that each one of us can and should daily communicate with Him. I still remember her words.

She said, “We should be very still and reach out to Him with our most honest thoughts.”

“Maybe I should pray to ask Jesus to come back,” I said. My mother had fascinated me with her descriptions of what an exciting occasion that would be.

So I padded barefoot to my room, stood breathing, a little scared for what I was about to do. I watched the lightning bugs, listened to the crickets, felt a breath of breeze from the open window. Maybe even this was the breath of God?

I threw myself flat on the bed and cried out with my entire being—not in spoken words but with silent, yearning words pushing deep inside. With such desperate force, I pushed these words out toward what I sensed in the intricate mystery of the mountain night outside my window.

“Come back NOW, I shouted from a place deep inside myself.”

In my mind, this was a message to Jesus and to God.

I will always remember the immediate, powerful glow I felt burst deep within me then. It was as though the sun had just come out from behind the clouds and had somehow focused all its best, warmest, most joyous rays upon me.

So, yes. I had begun to be aware of this presence, even in my misery at kindergarten when I didn’t understand the activity book directions and felt shame for the messiness of my work. Or I felt confused when a sudden rage swept over me after Roger, proclaiming himself to be cowboy star Roy Rogers, poked me in the nose with his fist, and I immediately jumped him, grabbed by a rage I didn’t understand.

Throwing myself face down on my bed and saying, “Come back NOW” was the best I could do to follow my mother’s advice to reach out to God with my most honest thoughts.

I will never forget my five year-old year and the night I threw myself face down on my bed, there in the dusky light, listening to crickets and the tap of beetle bugs flying into the window screen, smelling the scents of hay and grasses, and mesmerized by the dip and rhythms of the lightning bugs as their tails lit yellow when they were rising on the current of the air. I will never forget that powerful rush of intense joy in response to my desperate plea to God, reaching out the best way I knew how.

That experience set me on a lifelong quest to experience the presence of God and the reality that we can each of us reach with this instinctive part of ourselves and literally touch this presence, this entity.

Sadly, today it is increasingly rare that people in our culture even believe this is true. We are losing it.

Have you had a similar experience of inner joy? You may have identified it with a connection with God like what I describe here. Or perhaps you have experienced something similar but you don’t necessarily attribute it to God. I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment!

I remember Old Central School in Middlesboro, KY with its high ceilings and tall windows looking out on a playground covered in tiny rocks. Cinders from the coal furnace that heated the school in winter were scattered near rusted oil drums converted to trash barrels.

On this day in late September, yellow jackets hover around those trash barrels, drawn to the sweet sap of discarded apple cores. Back then, many students brought juicy red apples to munch at recess.

Is it just me, or were apples juicier back in the 1950’s?

Yes, I think they were. I remember apple juice dribbling down my chin out there on the cinder-strewn playground. Anyway, it is one of those afternoons in late September. The atmosphere is warm and comforting, not hot, but with a depth of thoughtful warmth, as though the world has paused to breathe near the end of summer, reflecting on all the years there have been.

Perhaps reflecting on us, the strangers we must seem. Human creatures, bipedal, who have sprung up so recently in the history our world, this planet, Earth.

After recess, during Science class, our teacher, Mrs. Harbor, stands before us, gently smiling.

“Who knows the shape of the Earth?” she asks. “Have you ever thought about that before?”

I can still see in my mind the blonde-haired girl, Judy, who nearly always sprang quick as a hare to the challenge of one of the questions Mrs. Harbor would ask.

To me, it is as though our teacher’s questions are delicate little boats set in the water for us to admire, awed as one of them drifts out upon a pond.

Judy raises her hand, “Why, surely the Earth is round, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Harbor lets Judy’s answer hang in the air. We know she is thinking one of us might have a different answer. But Judy’s answer seems right. Hadn’t we just talked about Columbus before recess and how he proved that the world is not flat?

Mrs. Harbor does not say Judy is wrong, but she entices us with the latest theory scientists have just come up with.

“Yes, the Earth is round,” she says. “But scientists now believe it is not perfectly round. Perhaps it is more like this.”

Mrs. Harbor steps to the slate chalk board and with one quick, sure motion creates something that is not quite a circle. It is more elliptical, somewhat higher at the North and South poles.

But that is the world I was in back in Fifth Grade. Back in the 1950’s, before astronauts, before we had seen our world from above. Just a few years later, though, I felt a jolt of excitement to see a flier at the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park seeking candidates to become astronauts. I wished I could be one, but I thought it more reasonable to believe I could become an archaeologist.

Though I became neither an astronaut nor an archaeologist, I continue to be drawn to Science, and especially to physics and astrophysics. I respect the scientific method.

I do believe, however, that our assumptions about who we believe we are as human beings require a re-examination. And you, just being a citizen of our era, are likely to immediately ask me why. Ours is an era where the emphasis on Science and its method trains us to ask why, to demand proofs we can quantify. That is, we acknowledge what can be identified, proven scientifically. We are skeptical of what cannot be quantified.

Though part of me would prefer to answer the why with a stubborn child’s just because, I realize that such an answer is not appropriate. It is with some reluctance, therefore, that I state here that the why involves our glib dismissal of our spiritual capacity as a crucial element of who we are and what we are becoming.

And why you ask, do I have a child’s reluctance to bring a spiritual element into this discussion?

Why, it is because one of the assumptions of our culture is that the spiritual, especially in the context of this entity we refer to as God, is neither quantifiable nor worthy of scientific examination. For this reason, many today dismiss the idea of God out of hand as superstition. It is a badge of a past when people didn’t know any better.

I propose a blog and a series of books which challenge our skepticism about the existence of this entity we call God and begins to suggest a means of quantifying the existence of this entity and how our learning to explore it—even scientifically—is crucial to our understanding of who we are and what we are becoming.

No, I am not an astronaut, astrophysicist, archaeologist. Perhaps that doesn’t matter as much you might think. This is because part of our re-examination of who we are as the human species must involve a rethinking, a new approach to the scientific method. Not to dismiss what we have struggled to work out, but to figure out how to add an acknowledgment of our admittedly messy, often awkward spiritual capacity and how it must be factored into our scientific approach.

Certainly, I realize such a proposition sounds outrageous to many highly trained, scientific minds of our era. At first blush, it is inconceivable, perhaps. However, in the blog that I begin here and the series of books to follow, I will attempt a start.

The enormous task of beginning to re-examine our assumptions about who we are in relation to this entity that has pursued us since our first appearance here upon this planet is not a task for only one era. Humans pursue enormously challenging issues across centuries and even millennia.

Someone, though, must throw down the gauntlet, suggest the idea. I attempt to do so here, hoping that—though my ideas may be rejected by the best minds of our time—they might eventually inspire some future generation to step back and begin to examine my ideas in the context of working out who we are and what we are becoming in relation to this entity that has pursued us always. It is the entity we refer to as God. We err when we dismiss this entity as a relic of our superstitious past.

Like many scientists who study natural phenomena, I have a dog-eared notebook of my findings, my description of the experience of this entity. I call these my Field Notes, which will be the name I give to this blog.