21 A Miracle America

 

     After bombing out from my audition at Fisherman's Wharf, I ran into a young lady sitting at a card table, "Did you see our sign —We're inviting people for an open house dinner—I live in a big house with a bunch of artists, we have a farm up north and distribute food to the needy..."
                  I looked at the sign which read 'Creative Community Project,' asked her if they did dope, and she shook her head. I wasn't interested in anything like that. In spite of having a beard and long hair, I wasn't into it. She said doctors and lawyers lived at the house as some one nonchalantly grabbed a sandwich from a big cardboard box beneath the table. It would be strange for a doctor or lawyer to be getting their lunch from a cardboard box, but the thought never occurred to me.
                  "You look familiar," Debbie said.
                  "So do you, like Doris Day." That inspired her to sing the song — A Secret Love. As she sang a butterfly landed on the table and appeared to look in my eyes. It left when the song finished. A man stopped by the table, but she didn't invite him to dinner. He had tattoos and a leather jacket, so it seemed reasonable to exclude him. I asked her every question except, "Are you a religious group?"
                  We sat in the little park in front of Ghirardelli square and I played a few songs. She liked I Can't Help it but When I'm Beside You I am Beside Myself. I left promising to come to dinner, and headed off looking for a place to stay. A young couple from Toronto said that I could stay for two days while I looked for a place. Actually, I didn't find a place, all I did was find a wing-nut for my harmonica holder. 

I CAN'T HELP IT BUT WHEN I'M BESIDE YOU I AM BESIDE MYSELF

While walking through Ghirardelli Square
Where flaming dragon kites fly
I met someone positively fair
Who lifted my heartstrings high

I can't help it but when
I'm beside you
I am beside myself
I can't help it but when
I'm beside you
I am beside myself

I thought the light shone through me
Like a balloon I would be free
But there were just so many strings
That I just couldn't even see

I can't help it…

You landed where it all began
With flowers in your hair
The Golden Gate just couldn't span
The love that you came to share

I can't help it…

 

Half an hour early I showed up for dinner, and helped in the kitchen, while waiting for Debbie. The house was quite beautiful, with ritzy wood paneling. Debbie arrived with a lot of people and everyone gathered in a circle. Matthew M introduced everyone; had them say their names and where they were from. A moment of silence was observed before the meal. Over dinner Debbie listened to me tell my story, about living in Toronto, being a musician, quitting my job at the Crazy Alarm Company, losing my apartment; having an appendectomy, and falling out with some friends. There was no furniture in the place, everyone sat on the floor to eat. Debbie listened intently as I poured out my heart. I was impressed by Dr. Durst's lecture and agreed to go up to "the farm" after the slide show. An antique bus waited outside; about a half dozen guests got on board. The inside of the bus was decorated with nature pictures cut out of magazines. They drove me to the place where I was staying, to get my green canvas Trapper Nelson backpack. Fortunately my friend was on the phone and didn't ask a question or hang up. Past the Golden Gate Bridge we went under the double rainbows which were painted over the tunnel's entrance. Debbie sat very close, almost embracing me. I felt a motherly spirit about her. About two hours later after midnight, we arrived at Boonville. Crossing the swinging bridge the "brothers" went to the Chicken Palace; the "sisters" slept in green trailer.
            The next morning some one with a guitar came in and played the Red Red Robin. It was August the 9th, my first day with "the family." Our group had breakfast sitting in a circle. A few groups had broken off from the main circle. Debbie was always right beside me, holding my hand. At breakfast we shared our lives. They called it "Cereal Drama."
                  The farm was at the bottom of golden hills, beside a river and a few huge trees. The skies were pure blue day in and day out. After breakfast we had lectures alfresco. I didn't take any notes till the Cause of Crimes when they listed the seven fallen natures. After two days of lectures, I went to Camp K, which was an old girl scout camp with a main lodge an kitchen just above a trickling river, and a dozen Kiosks scattered up the wooded hill.
                  It was inspiring for me to see so many people on the bus. Dr. Durst gave the weekend workshop. Then I went back to the farm to work for a week to pay for the Seven Day workshop. I had the money, but felt I might need it. So I signed on as a crew. My job for the week was to work in the kitchen.

            One night I prayed with Debbie for the first time in my life, and talked about it at breakfast, that I had prayed underneath the stars. We were seated in a little group outside by a brook. I had expected them to say 'O that's nice,' and go on to something else, but they were very sincere. I had never been grateful for anything in my life, and especially to God, I didn't even know if I believed in God. I was moved several times throughout the workshop. My heart had been really hurt, and it was starting to heal. Joshua said that we should be praying all time.
                  At one point in the green trailer after a lecture, I noticed Debbie singing the Impossible Dream with conviction. There was incredible determination in her blue eyes. At that point I realized how serious everyone was; they hadn't stopped for a moment. Debbie had always been by my side. I asked if they ever had a break from all this, and she said, "It goes on every day." I realized she had the kind of dedication it takes to change the world. The next morning Debbie presented me with a hand painted card depicting Boonville, with the bridge in front and a rainbow over the mountain. Inside the "love bomb," were the lyrics to Climb Every Mountain.
                  We were picking apples with our crew, and I offered Debbie an apple saying "Here's some forbidden fruit. She told me that the fruit wasn't literal, but that it was the sin of premature love. I just said "O."
                  At last we were all preparing to go to Camp K again, three bus loads. The whole time had been a great experience for me. Debbie had to off 'pioneering.' As we were sitting around waiting for the bus I saw someone with a Divine Principle, and asked "Who wrote all this, who is behind all this?" Debbie said, "Sun Myung Moon." I asked her to repeat it, because it was unfamiliar to me, so she wrote the name in majestic handwriting. I had never heard the name before. 

Friday, August 17, 1979
On the bus to Camp K

Dear Debbie, 
           I woke with the Faithful Farmers; sat in the trees by the trailer and learned the song See Through Children's Eyes. On the way to the hill the whispers of distant prayers seemed to blend in with nature's music. I was a bit negative walking to the campfire, wondering 'What's it gonna be like without Debbie around.'
                  We took the Hay ride to the hill and watched The Creation Skit, put on by Bethies' group. It went over well. It was fun with the sleeping bag snake crawling along, and someone yelling 'Jump it!'             
                  The other day I saw some bluebirds flying though the valley rolling in the wagon behind the tractor. I was sitting in the back and played "My Last Night in London." Joshua was glad to learn that I'm staying; putting aside my music career and all. He said any commitment to God is good.            
             I tied for second place in the pancake eating contest. Joshua and Bethie wore cowboy hats at the end of the long picnic table by the buckeye tree and hammed it up. I sat in the back of the pickup on the way to the bus and sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot...
                  We went to the Berry Patch in the back of a stake truck, I played California Cottenfields watching a red tailed hawk in the sky. During meditation I sat by the river and wrote a letter to Miriam in Toronto. Our group had a wild time in our cabin with Bethie in work boots doing the Highland Fling. By for now, Stefan

         I joined the Farm crew and had French toast by the Buckeye tree. A guest burnt some smutty magazines in the chicken palace stove, which let out quite some heat. Had a tearful prayer in the dry golden grass. We ate lunch in the cow pasture, and did Activity A. Lying back hearing If I Had a Hammer in the background made me think of the Kingdom of Heaven. Three busloads were moved from Boonville to Camp K. 

          The first section of my thin red journal documented my trip to California; the second part the lectures. There were two yellow pages of music agents that I had torn out of an LA phone book. The last pages have charts: One of mileage and gas fill-ups on the way to California, the other a Spiritual Checklist. The entries I made in my journals at the time were sparse, with most of my energy being used to keep lecture notes. Joshua shared that our relationship with God is like a television set we think is broken, but actually just needs to be plugged in. Susan shared about America, when she sees a penny in the dust, she is reminded that 'It's In God We Trust.' There's a guest who does the pulling my shoe lace routine, as if each shoe were a talking doll. He pulls one and sings the first bar of Walking on Air, and pulls the other singing Little Soft Shoe.

              The seven-day lecture series was given by Noah Ross: Noah was bending over backwards lecturing about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. "God is a the greatest artist; the first cause; the universe, molecules, particles, high energy particles, whole universe made up of energy. God expressed his heart into the universe. The cosmos is impregnated with God's heart. First heart and then intellect. Look at everything and it will move you in a different way. Orange has certain powerful intense brilliance. Blue watery coolness. Colors correspond to a different emotion within you. Internal Character and External form. Love will put Jonathan Livingston Seagull out of business. We want a dynamic love. We have to swing into the castle with a marigold in our mouth. Look at the un bitten flower," he took the other marigold from the vase, "A flower is the symbol of the heart; love is like an explosion, our heart is like an atomic bomb. God's ideal is mirrored in everything; a reflection of something else already smiling at you. Behind the flower you can hear the voice of God saying 'I Love You.' The sun is exploding. The Sun is symbolic of God's love in the Universe. Is it just a bunch of photons. When you see the sun smiling at you don't you feel warm inside. Everything in nature was created by God just for you. Leaves look like hands waving at you. God is waving at you. Trees bow to you.
                  "Cosmic value can be yours," Noah said later in his lecture on Christ. "Jesus has God's value. Some people think Jesus is God. The Bible says Jesus is a man. For by one man's disobedience.. Jesus is like Adam. Jesus brought spiritual life. Some people think Jesus is the creator. You can't squeeze infinite God into a finite shape."
              
              On September. 4, 1979 I wrote about my rational for my belief in God: "I always believed in the laws of nature and the goodness inherent in me when I was the golden child sitting in the apple tree thinking that man could be in harmony with nature. There has been something inside me for a long time, ever since I went downtown with the baby sitter and told her that she shouldn't be licking Kim's ice cream cone, that it was wrong to lick another person's ice-cream. She said she didn't want it to melt."

We drove into San Francisco on the bus; I stood up in the front to play Walking On Air and Yellow Caterpillars. I looked back and saw the double tunnel with rainbows that I had seen a month before. Matthew spoke on being a good spiritual parent. "Having a spiritual child shows you how selfish you really are. It is important to be wise, watch what you say during group discussions, about our life's goals. Talk about our ideals in regards to universal ideals, give examples of how the goal was fulfilled. Relate how the family is helping you fulfill those goals. Every feeling is an expression of God. Satan may ambush you or attack you at any moment. Each of us are here due to ancestral merit. When a guest has heard the introductory lecture and has seen the slides of the farm, establish two things: If he wants to go to the farm, or if he is interested in going to the farm but there are obstacles in his way. We must be under the assumption that God has chosen each person to go up to the land; you have and hour and a half to save his spiritual life."
                  "This is my first day in San Francisco as an “Actionizer.” Sept. 10, 1979. I came here on the bus last night from Camp K, near Santa Rosa. Sat beside Allison with the rest of the Actionizers, after spending a month with them in Boonville and Camp K. Last weekend I was in Matthew's group and he shared about his first two weeks with the family." 'The Chicken Palace at that time had thousands of chickens in it. After a couple weeks Matthew had become negative, but in walking through the field he came across an egg just as it was about to hatch. He picked it up and brought it to the trailer and started crying as he saw everyone in a circle singing by the fire, in the golden light considering how he had almost thrown it all away.'

                  Watched a video of Project Volunteer, and Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Science Conference. Led the songs with someone holding a songbook, waving it all over the place. Sitting one the lawn at the huge white Hearst street house, we read an intense speech where Rev. Moon talked about marching on Moscow. All the references to Moscow were in parenthesis with the words, 'Don't read this to the Actionizers,' in the margin. Those were the only passages I looked at, sitting beside the group leader. It was pretty heavy.
                  I saw the movie It's a Wonderful Life and read A Profit Speaks. We went to the Ocean. Felt pain in my stomach from having a cold for two weeks. Must have been from everyone holding hands, and the wall to wall sleeping bags. In the evening the Actionizers moved to Hearst Street. I chanted 'Bring second self today,' with my witnessing partner in the sand by the historical ships. We had ice cream on the way back from Santa Rosa. Mine was mocha almond fudge, coffee and chocolate chip. I was wearing blue Jean cut offs, a red Hawaiian shirt with blue argyle socks. September 12, 1979.

By late October the rains came and made a little waterfall where we had been earlier skipping stones. It was towards the darkness when I waded through the stones and sat on a rock. Had a deep prayer of repentance, felt deep consciousness of inner self and heart. No great visions of saints wading and splashing in the swirling water, I figured they were up to something important. I thought I'd keep on the path and out of the woods. There was a tiny waterfall near the meadow with the yellow caterpillars in one of my first memories of childhood. I spent one month at camp K caring for a guest, a young man who was negative most the time. We worked on the upper lodge. When he left I returned to the city and went carpet cleaning with Catherine Green and Bill Star. I endured the marathon schedule for one weekend.

KEEP ON THE PATH
AND OUT OF THE WOODS

A rain comes to the darkness
And all nature will overflow
With the light new blades of grass
Our spirits are beginning to grow

Keep on the path and out of the woods
You'll reach you dreams for sure
As we find deep in our childhoods
Our hearts that once were pure

The rain has made a waterfall
From the river rising up
We open up to take in it all
And our hearts are such little cups

Keep on the path...

The moss has grown on all the trees
The forest has all turned green
There's new life inthe breeze
Taking us where we've never been

Keep on the path...

©1979 Stefan des Lauriers (October 25)

 

One evening I convinced an older brother to go witnessing with me, arranging the carpet cleaners to meet us at a corner that would take forty five minutes to walk to. It was there that I met Kevin V, a backpacker from British Columbia. I ended up taking him to the farm that night. At Cereal Drama Kevin shared his life story. I was tired by meditation and nodded off in my prayers. At song practice Kevin adjusted the thong of my sandal and said he wanted to understand spiritual law. He said he liked the song Dust on Your Dulcimer. Woke up before five and Kevin woke up too. I tried to get him to go back to sleep but he said he wanted to pray. I couldn't argue with that. He cleaned the kitchen floor and shaved off his beard.
                  I went to the early meeting in the barn not so far off, where the singing and fervent unison prayers couldn't be heard by the guests. There we discussed the progress of the guests and received spiritual guidance. When members got drowsy the group leader had everyone raise their hands to shake out the sleepy spirits. After, I spent an hour playing guitar and writing a letter home, enclosing a travelers check to pay for phone calls I had charged to ma's number. I had called a few friends and asked them to come to the farm, but no one came. The letters I sent them must have been a wild departure.
                  On November 27, 1979, I went out witnessing after pledge, and ended up at the Greyhound Bus Terminal on 7th and Market in San Francisco. Everyday, everyone would wake up before five and would put on Sunday clothes for a brief service where we bowed before a picture of Rev, Moon and his wife, and then had unison prayer. The unison prayers were quite loud and most of the members would pound there fists in the air or on the floor. After Pledge most would go back to the sleeping bag rooms for a nap, but on this day, I went out with someone. It was just before six o'clock when we ran into twenty one year old Martin, a red haired carpenter who had been traveling since he was thirteen. As we were talking the security guard came and scared him off. We shared about this at the liquid breakfast meeting.
                  The front room of Bush Street was bare to the beige carpet where we sat forming a big circle and passed the coffee around. At the end of meeting witnessing pairs were assigned. Everyone survived on liquid from midnight until noon. Then at exactly one minute after twelve lunch would begin. At liquid breakfast someone shared about the universe being like the body of God; with the earth like the heart; and The Family being like white corpuscles that go out to restore the diseased cells. How God's heart is filled with joy when this happens. Someone said you will know them by their fruits, and you will know the brothers by the toothbrushes in their back pockets.
                  Went witnessing and met a young man who had been traveling for the past three years. I went up to the farm with our guest and a few others. When we got in our sleeping bags in the Chicken Palace I gave my guest a back rub while he shared about how he had lost seventy dollars in Afghanistan, on a bad donkey deal.

                 Early in the morning the guest with the large Harley Davidson Buckle left. Joshua told me that he shouldn't have been brought to the farm in the first place, that his missing front teeth spelled trouble. The members were desperate to bring spiritual children, and some lacked spiritual wisdom.





Some one told me that witnessing is like staffing a hospital. "You have to have doctors and nurses before you bring in the patients." In the Chicken Palace a guest tried to fire up the stove and dropped firewood by mistake on Kevin who was still asleep.

         Joshua had me join him at song practice, and started the creation lecture by saying, "Someday the Chicken Palace will be a museum, with exhibits of crystallized sneakers." Sang Great Engineer at dinner. Joshua told me that I should stick with my guest so that he didn't make a base with someone and go off traveling. Two guests left in the morning that way.

           Woke up at five one morning and headed to the study session with a big halo around the moon. Walking up to the sheep barn I had thought it was like going to the manger where Jesus was born. Joshua opened the door with a smile and I took my place on the inner barn's carpeted floor. Bethie read from a speech, entitled How To Witness; To State Leaders. One line that stuck out was Father quoting Mohammed Alli, who said that he could beat Reverend Sun Myung Moon. As we all laughed at the punch line I looked across the room lit by three Coleman lanterns and saw my spiritual son smiling at me.
                  On the way down to the green trailer, Bethie said that I should become a song leader and lecturer like Joshua, that I should put out an album and make a lot of money. I told her that I was involved with a lot of artists, and was writing a book. She said that artists are hard to reach. Apart from Bethies' suggestion, no one seriously encouraged me to pursue my music. Whenever I brought it up I was told something like: "It's more important for you to concentrate on your spiritual life."
                  I helped in the kitchen, pouring the orange juice. It was sunny outside. We cut up apples and put them on racks to dry. My guest talked of New Guinea; about visiting natives and seeing volcanoes exploding. Then an aspiring juggler talked of Morocco, and running with the bulls in Spain. Bethie asked me to sit between the two during the lectures.   Studied again in the sheep barn. Joshua said that a conductor of pure gold would offer no resistance to God. The standard of love that makes God shed tears of joy is an eternal constant. That would later become the inspiration for the line, "The sun shines on the mountain, And the streams are charged with gold." 

My guest told me he wanted to go on traveling and Joshua tried to convince him to stay, to no avail. I walked him to the front gate. I ended up working in Annie's group with the faithful farmers trying to locate an underground pipe between the Chicken Palace and the green trailer. Had a wild wheelbarrow race with the farm crew. Bethie was sitting on the steps of the green trailer with the glory halo around the sun behind a large tree watching over us.

                  I walked up the hill to sing at sunrise again the next morning. I finished the first draft of A Miracle America using a melody line from my Whooping Crane song. As I sat playing my guitar the fog rolled out, but not enough to see the sun. While praying, a bank of pink golden fog appeared like a delta emptying into the ocean. As I watched the clouds moving I thought about the many times I'd sung in the golden hills with hundreds in a circle singing "Clouds clothe the sky in white array..."
          I milked Bambini the cow and had breakfast with the Faithful Farmers. During meditation time, a fifteen-minute time when silence was observed, I was up on the hill, sitting in a sprawling buckeye tree on a chair made of fine Spanish moss. Sat there and read the letter my mother sent me; a letter which included a poem called Hope. I knew my mother had kept poems and prayers in a puzzle box; this was the first time she shared one with me. When I first started writing poetry I kept my poems in a puzzle box.

On God's Day, January first, not long after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan we ushered in a new decade with about a hundred or so Actionizers camped out at a tiny house in Sacramento, fearing that deprogrammers would kidnap some of the new members. Deprogrammers knew that on church holidays we usually gathered at one place. I had read articles in the Santa Rosa Democrat Press about incidents at Camp K, and had spent a weekend in the upper lodge listening to workshops while protesters who screamed at the gate were drowned out by Joshua and others playing electric guitars constantly. The guests were oblivious to the protesters. I had seen the older brothers get into their sleeping bags fully dressed ready at any moment to spring to action. For a new member, or any member, there was always the chance of being kidnapped by deprogrammers. At least with Carter leaving office, we had hope that Ronald Reagan would ensure our religious freedom and stand up to the Communists.

         Andrew, one of the new members witnessing with me displayed the kind of determination it took to witness to people. We met a girl and had only three minutes to talk before her bus came. It was January 26, 1980, in downtown Sacramento where I witnessed out of a small house with a few members. The girl asked what we did and I said, "We believe in being sincere and caring for people." We were unable to give her our address, so I calmly wrote it on a piece of paper and handed it to Andrew, my witnessing partner. "Go after the bus and give this to her." Andrew ran extremely fast and caught the bus at the next stop. The girl was astonished that Andrew had done that. Afterwards we thought Andrew was missing, but he was just meditating in the closet. It was surprising to learn how many young members hid out in closets.
                  After a months stay in Sacramento, I was back in San Francisco again. Wherever we went, we would be ready to be reassigned at a moments notice. There was a postcard of San Francisco of the top tiers of the Golden Gate towering above the fog. When I see that image I am reminded of something that happened while taking a three day fast. I was witnessing with Stephen D and took a break in a skyscraper to read one of Father's speeches. One paragraph, where Father spoke of Korean farmers picking up human dung with their bare hands to use it as fertilizer had me reeling. I kept reading the passage over and over, and I was so weak from the fast that the words were moving and getting blurred.

                  Towards the end of February we were told that two hundred of us would be be attending a workshop at Hearst Street to prepare for CARP. Tiger Park, the leader of CARP said that we should keep a diary of 1,000 inspirations. (The Collegiate Association for the Research of the Principle was Rev, Moons' campus ministry.) I got to the number three before losing count: On March 27, 1980; two hundred Carp pioneers and myself sat on the lawn at Dr. Durst's place and listened to Father. The day was clear and blue; after we had Big Macs and Korean food. Kevin V was there with me. I wanted to sing,but I didn't raise my hand, and Noah Ross tried unsuccessfully to get Father's attention, on my behalf.

Kevin V came into the prayer room during the workshop, shook my hand, and asked me if I'd seen him in the last row crying when I sang Hearts in Harmony. He said there were many times when we were together at Camp K when he had been crying, "You're a great spiritual father."
                  Woke up at Hearst Street in the dawn amid a roomful of snoring sleeping bags by a big open door, as someone handed me a package. It was a letter from Debbie, my spiritual mother, with a copy of the Way of Tradition. We had a series of workshops and then were divided into teams to be sent all over America. One of the guest lecturers was Fred Swartz, who conducted a campaign against Communism. The brothers were all dressed in dress shirts and ties, and were crammed into one big room with the windows closed. A few members had 'pink eye' and some stood up to keep from sleeping. Usually when lectures were going on people would be nodding off and snoring. Some brothers hit themselves on the back to keep themselves awake.