THE MOMENT

It was mid-afternoon one beautiful spring day in 1990. I’d been to Nashville to see a friend and was headed home to Lebanon about 20 miles east on Interstate 40. My old worn out VW bus seemed to be struggling at 65, so I let up on the gas to 55.

I’d been clean and sober for three years and my mind was experiencing more peace and calm than I’d ever known and so, again, I had pulled out the little book on spirituality, The SPIRITUAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE by Joel S. Goldsmith, the little book I’d been carrying around with me for over twenty years. I had carefully and painstakingly begun again to try to understand this incredible truth that my mind and soul had recognized and was so hungry for. For over twenty years I’d clung to this incredible little book but until I got sober the only spiritual truth that had stuck to me was that spirituality will not stick to a drunk. That day I was gloriously stone, cold sober.

I saw the little town of Donelson passing by me to the north as my mind settled into a quiet, meditative state about the oneness of God and all reality, the spiritual thoughts were sweet and comforting and I guess I was just finally ready.

Suddenly, my mind slipped out of time and space into a beautiful, detached peace, a boundless calm; the many fears and concerns that still haunted my mind was gone. I saw through and right past the cares of this life. Nothing before or after this one moment mattered because the presence of God​ had welled up from somewhere deep in me. It didn’t come from above me or outside of me but from somewhere inside of me. I knew at that moment I was experiencing the presence of God. I knew the infinite truth at that moment. I had it all…. I didn’t care if my human life ended at that moment because I had touched the top of the eternal mountain. I was safe; I was with God.

Ever since that moment, my life has been some variation of that experience. Every day in short bursts or extended experiences I see and experience God in a multitude of ways as His love and joy expands and enriches my earthly life.

Jack