Reflecting (On) What's Wrong, Part 17
A Spiritual Experience
I decided to move to Las Vegas at the beginning of 1999. But the decision really dated back to October of 1998. I had traveled from my home in New York to a conference in New Mexico. I met up with a few of my college friends who had already moved to Vegas. They were there with some others they had met since moving to Vegas. We hung out and renewed our friendship, which had become long-distance. I met for the first time some others from Vegas who would later become good friends. The conference was all about reaching Generation X and postmodern culture. Some of it was great. Some of it was so-so. But our time together was meaningful.
One evening, just before a main session started, the group from Las Vegas passed by where I was sitting and invited me to join them. They were ditching the session to go find a quiet corner to pray and process the conference. On a whim, I left with them and we searched out some quiet corner of the retreat center. What we found surprised us. The room we had been in for our main sessions was not the largest room at the complex. We stumbled across a larger room, which was really a formal sanctuary with ornate windows, an elaborate stage, and seating for hundreds. It had been closed off during our conference. We turned on some lights and ventured in. We made our way to the dimly light stage and began talking about various subjects. One person began playing the piano as the rest of us listened. After an hour or so of causal catching up and reflection, someone suggested we gather in a circle in pray. So we did. We ended up forming a circle in a different way that what I was used to. I’m not sure why. We all ended up laying down on our backs on the stage. Our heads were all centered into the circle, with our feet facing away from the circle. If you were looking down on us from the ceilend, then our heads would have formed circle. Again, there was no real reason or premeditation behind this, it is just what we did for some reasons. We began praying together, as we stared up at the ceiling in that beautiful dimly light New Mexico sanctuary, miles away from civilization. I can’t remember all of the details of the prayer time that followed. I don’t even remember how long it lasted, though I suspect it was much longer than I then realized. Probably at least a couple of hours. Something powerful happened. Something mysterious. We all had a very similar experience of the presence of God. Words on on a blog cannot describe it with any degree of accuracy. But it was powerful. It was real. It was a spiritual experience. God met us that night in that room. After the powerful prayer time ended, we all sat in quiet awe for another long period of time. Two or three would huddle together and talk about what had just happened. After an hour or so, we went out for a late night snack at a local restaurant and continued to process together what we had experienced. It was vibrant and life-giving and refreshing and real.
Trying to Capture the Experience on Paper
The next day I boarded an airplane to fly back to New York. Everyone else in the group boarded a van to drive back to Las Vegas. As the plane took off, I pulled out a spiral bound notebook and began writing, in detail, my memory of exactly what happened in that room that night. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The plane landed in Chicago. I made my connection to another flight onto New York. Again, I pulled out my notebook and continued writing everything I could remember about that experience. I did not want to lose any of it. I wanted to have it to share with my wife when I got back to New York. I wanted to have it to share years later with anyone who asked about it. I wanted to have it to read over and over and reflect on what happened, and try to figure out what it was and what it meant and how I might possibly experience something like it again someday. I filled page after page in that notebook as I recounted each detail of the experience.
Eventually, I was exhausted. I placed the spiral bound notebook in the pocket in the seat in front of me on the plane, and drifted off to sleep for the final portion of my flight. I awoke as we made our final descent into Laguardia Airport. I was excited as I thought about my wife, who I hadan’t seen in several days, greeting me at the airport. I couldn’t wait to go out to dinner with her and recount my experience and unpack what it meant together with her.
Left Behind
She greeted me at the end of the jetway. We walked together to the car as I began to explain what had happened. When we got to a restaurant, I reached into my carry on bag to pull out my notebook and share my experience with her. But it wasn’t there. I couldn’t believe it. I had left the notebook in the seat pocket on the airplane.
For those who don’t know me, this is very out of character for me. I have my faults, but this isn’t one of them. I don’t lose things very often at all. I don’t even consider taking out that insurance on a cell phone when I buy it, because I’ve never lost one. I can only think of once or twice in my life that I have lost my car keys, and they turned up pretty quickly both times. I just don’t normally lose things or leave things behind. I’m too detail oriented most of the time. But this time, in my excitement and exuberance over my spiritual experience, I had done just that. I left my notebook behind. And it contained my precious memories of a most profound experience.
I called the airline in a panic and explained what had happened. I told them the notebook was unreplaceable and must be found. I gave them my flight number and seat number and asked them to help. They said they would check with the plane cleaners and see if they found any such notebook. You probably can figure out what happened. I never heard back from the airline. And when I called back to check, nobody had turned in any spiral bound notebooks from that flight. It was never found.
Losing the Notebook Was Part of the Experience
Sure, I could have tried to rewrite it all. But it would have been hard to have reproduced the detail that I had while sitting uninterrupted on those flights. It would have taken some amazing concentration. Somehow I knew that losing the notebook was really part of the experience. I sensed that I really wasn’t supposed to have that notebook. I wasn’t really supposed to capture the details of that evening on paper and then read it over and over again and share it with everyone I knew and dissect it and examine it and work to figure it out. That is, of course, what I wanted to do. But I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn’t supposed to put this experience under a microscope and figure it out. It was what it was. It was an amazing gift. But it happened and it was over. It wasn’t to be figured out.
A few days later, I shared the experience with someone else I respected. He sat and listened attentively and respectfully, which I appreciated. I even threw in the part about losing the notebook, which he immediately understood as being totally out of character for me. His reaction was interesting. He just said he was very happy for me, because I had had a spiritual experience . . . I had met God through an experience, not through my intellect, for one of the few times in my life. He expressed how fortunate I was, because some people are never able to experience such a thing. I wasn’t so sure that was the reaction I was looking for, but looking back, it was a keen observation.
Even as I write these words, I wonder if my computer will soon crash and take away this rehashing of that night! I doubt it, though, because the details of the night have long faded from my memory and were not well described here.
I moved to Las Vegas in early 1999, partially as a result of that experience in New Mexico. I was already thinking about making such a move, but that experience seemed to confirm in some ways my contemplation of such a move.
Contrast to the Usual Days of the Journey
There have been no other nights in my life quite like that night in New Mexico. I can think of a few other experiences that were profound enough that I might put them in the category of spiritual experiences. But they can easily be counted on my fingers. There haven’t been many. In my next post, I'll contrast that experience with the "normal" and routine days of my spiritual journey to date.
