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Pizza Dude Says: How My Spiritual Journey Began Part II

9/16/2017

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My family wasn't overly religious or spiritual when I was growing up. We had a church, and occasionally said "grace" before a meal...usually if it was a holiday or a larger gathering. As I recall, I went to church with my mother and grandmother fairly regularly until I was about 12. My father went sometimes, too, but not too often. I said my prayers sometimes before I went to sleep, but it wasn't a particularly solemn or spiritual thing for me...I was just doing it because I was told somewhere along the way it was a good thing to do. 

Church, for me, when I was a kid, wasn't really an enlightening or aesthetic thing at all. It was just sort of something you did, you know. It was more of a community--a gathering of families. I think it seemed a bit like school to me in a way, but I doubt I ever considered that when I was a kid. Though I didn't dread or dislike Sunday School with a handful of other kids, I didn't necessarily look forward to it either. It was nice though that going to Sunday School meant we got to miss the boring parts of the main church service, and we only came in during the part where we sang, prayed, drank juice, and ate crackers. There was a kid in my Sunday School class (I can't remember his name) who used to wait until our teacher had us all close our eyes for prayer, and he would let out a loud fart during prayer. I always secretly enjoyed that part of it, I'll admit. But the very best part of going to church on Sundays was when the main church service let out..it was like when the school bell rang after a long day and you felt free. The adults would gather in the hallways and talk about God-knows-what, while we kids ran off to drink punch, eat cookies, and play extended sessions of grab-ass in the gymnasium. 

Now this isn't to say going to church served no purpose for me. I did make some pretty good friends there, and I do believe some good seeds were planted in me. Though I didn't understand the depth of things or why we were really learning them, I do remember the stories...you know, all the ones you hear about: David vs Goliath, Noah's Ark, Jonah & the Whale, etc. I even got a button and bible presented to me by the minister for memorizing all the names of the books of the bible in order. 

By the time I was 12, church became optional for me. My mom and grandma would go (my grandma lived with us by then), and I would generally choose to sleep in late instead, and watch the Denver Broncos game when it came on. Yes, I had officially reached that age where football was much more interesting to me than bible stories, cookies, punch, and grab-ass in the church gymnasium. And I'm very grateful my parents gave me the freedom to choose. I honestly believe that very freedom to make my own choice was a huge part of the profound spirituality I would find within myself many years later as an adult. We all still went to church together (even my dad) for special things like Easter or Christmas Eve services and what not. And that was the beginning of a long stretch for me not really thinking about or acknowledging God. It wasn't that I didn't believe in God, it just wasn't something that ever entered my thoughts. 

As I got into my teens, my grandmother influenced me a lot spiritually without me ever realizing it at the time. She was so sneaky spiritual lol. She would tell me these stories from her past--sometimes from when she was a kid, sometimes from when she was an adult. She never once mentioned God, church, or the bible in her stories...she was very clever! She would tell me stories about how much she loved the times of the Great Depression she grew up in. How it was such a beautiful time because no one had anything...everyone had lost everything, so no one looked down at others. There was no class warfare. It was just people in neighborhoods coming together to help one another any way they could. Her parents had died when she was young, and she was adopted into a very wealthy family that owned a hotel. But her parents lost the hotel and restaurant and everything else during the Great Depression. This was a strange concept to a kid, you know, so of course I asked her how losing everything could be so great. She went on to tell me about lifelong friends she made while standing in the soup lines, and how one person would find enough work to buy several loaves of bread...and how instead of keeping it for themselves, they would go round the neighborhood and share it with other families that needed it. That did start sounding pretty nice to me, though I hadn't completely bought in at that age. To this day, my grandmother is the only person I've ever had tell me what a wonderful time the Great Depression was. There were many other stories she told me along those lines, but I won't share them here. They all seemed to have a recurring anti-materialistic, caring-for-others theme to them. It wasn't about what you had or didn't have, it was about who you were as a person. This most certainly had a huge impact on my spiritual journey as I got older.

In my later teens I started contemplating the concept of God and church more. My entire family had stopped going to church by this time...even my grandmother (who still lived with us). I still believed in God of course, but couldn't wrap myself around the concept of a CRUEL God, and this is when I really started questioning organized religion as a whole. And I don't mean just Christian churches, but ALL religions. It all seemed so hypocritical to me. All these different religions claimed to be the ONLY right one, so at very best only ONE of them was right and all the others were liars...but it was more likely to me that they were ALL liars. If a child were raised in the "wrong" religion, how could a just God condemn them for something that was forced on them by their family? Were they really given a choice? No. Not if they respected their families. Another thing that affected me during this time were all the mega-church televangelists riddled with scandal. Drugs. Fraud. Prostitution. Sexual abuse. Child molestation. And on and on. And these were the people that were going to guide me into the Light? I don't think so, dude. Homie don't play that. I'll find my own way to the Light, thank you very much!

And so I pushed God and faith aside entirely for many many years after that, and didn't feel even the least bit guilty about it. I graduated from high school, and moved to the Chicago area to become a rock star. And that's enough of my story for tonight.

Thank you for coming along with me on this crazy spiritual journey.

I love you.
XX
​Kev
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Pizza Dude Says: Something Different From Me...How My Spiritual Journey Began Part I

9/10/2017

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I want to start this entry out with a little disclaimer:

1.You shouldn't worry about what I'm about to write. I'm not going to go into theology, religion, and dogma and such. Just as I wouldn't want anyone telling ME what to believe, I don't want to tell you what to believe either, though I'm always hoping people believe in something greater than mankind, whatever they may choose to call it.

And...
2.I judge no one, not even myself. I am me, flaws, quirks, and all. And you are YOU, flaws, quirks, and all. We all make both good and poor decisions at times, and we all have our paths that we can't always see. I am neither above nor beneath any other human being, and so I don't see you that way either. 

I'm not sure how many parts there will be to this entry, but I expect it will take at least a few. I want to be thorough, and I don't like to make a single blog entry too long so that it becomes tedious. In these entries, however many they end up being, I'm going to stick to some strange experiences I've had in my life over the years...things that I believe helped shape me into the spiritual being I am. I believe you are a spiritual being too, whoever you may be, because I believe we are ALL spiritual beings. And, further, that we are all literally connected, despite not being able to "see" that. These experiences I'm going to share here are things I have told very few people about in my life. Things even my own children don't know about me. But my heart is calling me to share now...I suppose so that maybe you are encouraged to turn within yourself and find your own Love and Light within you. Basically, if I can do it, you can too. We live in strange times now, and it's time for more and more things to come into the open. That's what I feel inside. It's time to stop being afraid; time to stop keeping things hidden that might serve a positive purpose for someone else in need. And I'll clarify once more, I'm NOT referring to religion at all. You should know I've never been a big fan of organized religion of any kind, though I acknowledge its place and benefit for millions of people around the world. But it's not for everyone. Some need it, some don't. Neither way is wrong. Just different paths to the same top of the mountain, you know. That's how I see it anyway. 

Though I was born in Frankfurt, Germany (on an American military base), I would really consider the beginning of my spiritual journey taking place in a town called Sapulpa, Oklahoma. My biological father was in the Army, which is why I was born in Germany. We moved to Oklahoma when I was about 1 year old, which is where his family came from. His mother, my grandmother, was a full blooded Cherokee Medicine Woman...so he was half Cherokee, and I am one quarter. I mention this because I think it pertains to my spirituality. I have always felt an odd connection not only to nature and the Earth and Universe, but to frequency itself. I sincerely believe this is due to the Native American blood within me. Even from a small child, I was able to "hear" certain people, even when they were silent. When I was a child I thought I was "feeling" them, but as I got older and studied electronics I discovered what was actually happening was that I was hearing ultra-high frequencies that are normally considered to be beyond the range of human hearing. Anyone that has experienced this will know that when you hear high enough (or low enough) frequencies they become more sensations than sounds. You feel instead of hear. As a teenager, I finally put 2 and 2 together and realized that all things give off frequency. To this day, I don't understand it enough to expound on it, but I know it's true. Everything in our universe is in a constant state of motion...down to every single particle of everything that exists. Trippy, huh? 

And with this aforementioned Medicine Woman grandmother is where some of the strangeness with me really began. I don't recall it myself, of course, but this is how my mother relays the story to me:

I was almost 2 years old and I still wasn't walking at all. I could take steps if someone held me up, but I still couldn't walk on my own. My mother became very concerned, of course, thinking I might have some sort of disease or what not. As the story goes, we couldn't afford to go to a doctor at the time to get me checked out, so she decided to call my grandmother. My grandmother came over and looked me over thoroughly. Then she told my mother, "I'll be back in a little while. I have to go get something from the woods." A few hours later, my grandmother returned with a bird's nest. She tried to explain to my mom what the nest was--my mom only remembers that it had to be a nest from a specific type of bird, but she can't remember which. We speculate it might have been a robin's nest. 

Next, my grandmother, the Medicine Woman, told my mom to bring me outside, and so she did. Then my grandmother placed the bird's nest on the ground and lit it on fire. Once the flame was large enough, my grandmother took me from my mother's arms and held me in the flame. My mother says I never cried or seemed to express any pain at all. When my grandmother was satisfied, she took me out of the flame and stood me up on the ground. And I've walked just fine ever since. 

So this is what I consider the beginning of my spiritual journey...in this body anyway. Who knows what other existences I might have lived? I certainly don't know. 

Thank you all for being a part of my journey.
I love you.
Kev.
​XX
1 Comment

    Kevin

    Dad. Son. Lover. Making the world better one delivery at a time. Or at least trying. I love you!

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