About the Author

I prefer to remain nameless as I am not looking for any credit or recognition in the writing. I will try to keep writing free from biases unless they are in the "Opinion" category. Nevertheless, biases sometimes sneak in. The reader will be better informed of possible biases by understanding the writer's background and that is the intent of this section. In non-opinion writings, sources will be referenced and provided.

Birth and Upbringing

I was born and raised in a small town in the suburbs of a medium sized city in the northeast of USA. My mother was raised Jewish and father was raised Catholic. I was raised Jewish, following my mother's lineage and my father did not mind that difference. Looking up my family tree I had the roots of interfaith being grown well before I arrived on the set.

My mother's father (Grandpa George) was very progressive and loved to study and learn about other faiths and religions. While he was serving in the U.S. Navy overseas, he took a likening to the far eastern teachings in addition to his traditional Jewish practices. He was highly involved in interfaith communities in his local area and would commonly be found having peaceful discussions with practicing local Muslims, Christians, as well as local atheists.

On my Father's side, his mother (Nana Agnes) was an extremely devout Catholic. She was still volunteering and helping at her church up until she physically couldn't anymore at the age of 92. She and George had talked on a number of occasions about their faith and they always showed respect for each other. Where there were differences between them they were either celebrated or, minimally, tolerated, but there was always mutual respect between them. I had the benefit of seeing this as I grew up which helped shape me into who I am today.

Trajectory of Faith

My journey through my Jewish upbringing was not so clear cut. While I was given a Hebrew secondary name, Reuben, attended after school religious classes, and completed my Bar Mitzvah as a member of a Jewish synagogue. I was a bit turned off by most of the Torah's stories but that didn't stop me from hearing the positive messages through the teachings of my Family and Rabbi.

Just after my Bar Mitzvah we moved to a different state and I recall us looking into a couple new synagogues but not finding one that the family liked. We fell away and stopped regularly attending. During this same time I had a less than wanted interaction with a peer during a sleep away camp that shook me into depression that I hid well from my parents.

During high school I had dated a self proclaimed "good witch," Wiccan. She shared with me her faith and I listened intently and tried to learn from her things like aura reading. I liked what she taught but I don't think I ever succeeded in learning. She did help shape my eventual faith even though we were only together for a few months. What I found odd is that she said she could see that I had a guardian angel with me. I didn't know at the time how impactful this one thought was until much later in life.

I completely fell away from belief in the traditional God of the Torah and New Testament and settled on agnosticism. I wasn't ready to give up belief altogether, I was just thinking that we can't really know and there isn't any good testable physical evidence for God.

College and Faith Through Experience

I quit out of college during my second year, my lingering depression got the better of me and I just couldn't bring myself to continue being so far from support structures. During my first year my faith was shook due to a drug experience. Without romanticizing it, it was the scariest and also most profound moment in my life up until that point. The experience culminated in ego death and the appearance, at that time, of what I thought was a Hindu God before me. Everything seemed and felt very real to me but to onlookers, I was just resting in a bed, nothing magical or spiritual.

This didn't convert me, it just showed me that the brain itself is a powerful meaning-making machine. It can create meaning from nothing, it can define shapes in a shapeless world. Human's can have divine experiences but that doesn't make it a capital T truth. What I did feel, though I know it was caused by my brain chemistry, was a sense of pure love that didn't seem to come from myself. This! I thought. This, must be God. So my beliefs were yet again shaped from my experiences.

Military Service and Beyond

I chose to follow in the footsteps of both of my grandfathers by joining the military after leaving college the first time. I did serve in the U.S. Air Force and finished my Bachelors degree (Business Administration) while stationed in Hawaii. I had married after college and prior to military service.

My first wife actually came from Jehovah's Witnesses but we didn't really talk too much about faith. She had been disfellowshipped (a term they use for shunning, and more recently call this "removal") from the religion for us conceiving out of wedlock, even though we lost that baby on our pre-wedding night. We did end up having two children together and although her and I are now divorced, we work well enough together in the co-parenting relationship.

The Air Force trained me for my secular career as a contracts negotiator and manager. This is still the same job that I perform today only as a civilian and in the space sector. It has been a very rewarding career but a major life event shook my beliefs once again, right near the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal Tribulation

Following divorce and numerous poor life choices I experienced a deep psychotic break. Contributors were numerous and included expanded drug abuse, not taking prescribed mental health medication, and environmental life stressors. This psychosis lasted over 18 days and was only broken after receiving antipsychotic medication. The experience itself, visions, delusions, auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations pushed me to the limits of existence. Externally I was clinically insane and eventually criminally insane. Internally I was in a battle for my soul which was a very real experience to me at that time.

During this internal narrative I was to negotiate with God over the destruction of my soul entirely, I now see this as not a real experience in the sense of the shared reality of our world but still a worthwhile experience in the context of my life. I still am working to reconcile this personal journey and am writing about that experience on the side. I am extremely grateful to be a part of the 32% of psychosis victims who make a full recovery.

One of the terms of my negotiation was that I would dedicate time and energy to promoting peace and humanity in the world. Maybe this is a holdover delusion from my experience, but I am a man of my word even if that bond was made with a projection of my mind. This publication is me holding to my covenant and based upon my youthful faith, a covenant is not something to break.

Expectation and Thanks

I don't know where my journey is leading me but my expectations for this publication are to just add more positivity to this world before I leave. If the writing here has made a positive impact on your life, well, then I guess I have succeeded. Thank you for taking the time to read this and anything else that I have written.