I thought you might like to have a look at the unedited foreword to my new book:
Foreword
My name is John Davis and I have an interesting story to tell you. I travel around the country telling my spiritual stories, or modern day parables based in fact as I like to call them, teaching, and facilitating healings. But I wasn’t always a speaker, teacher and healer. I, for twenty five years, have been a comedy sword-fighting comedian at renaissance festival around the U.S. That’s right, for over two decades have been wearing tights and living in the woods.
It was during my years living the glamorous life of porta-potties, beat up vans, and low pay that I began to question a lot of my beliefs. You see, I was raised catholic. My mother, an Irish catholic mother of the highest standing, was so faithful that she got her master’s degree in liturgy. That degree landed her the position of head of liturgical doctrine at her church, which basically means that when the priest wants to do a sermon he has to pass it by my mom. She then gives her blessing and the priest happily runs off to deliver his message.
Raised as a good catholic I was an altar boy, went to C.C.D. for twelve years (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for you heathens. If it snowed, the church sidewalks were always cleared by my trusty shovel and aching hands. All those years of catholic upbringing lead me to an interesting place: I became an atheist. You see, the fear of God didn’t sit well with me. I remember a time in my most evil youth that my even more wicked brother swayed me from the faith by taking me for ice cream and putt-putt golf instead of church one Sunday morning. My career as a brazen blasphemer began that day in my eighth year.
The Sunday morning after “the alleged incident,” I sat in the choir loft next to Mom, who also the played the organ for the mass. The parish, in forty part disharmony, ended a hymn and the priest launched into his preapproved sermon. “Mortal Sin” he began. His sermon went on to tell of the severity of the punishment that would be laid upon any soul that would dare to sin against God. In the middle of his sermon, the priest, who I knew well for his weekly visits, mentioned that knowingly missing mass was a sin. I was doomed. Who knew that the ice cream and put putt would be so costly? I burst into tears and confessed to a higher power (Mom) what my brother and I had done. Mom tried to console me, but I knew it was over, my short life passed before my eyes. I’m not sure but I think that my brother’s life also passed before his eyes later that day.
After years of feeling lowly, unworthy and afraid, I decided there had to be a different way. I chose the atheistic path and though I am no longer an atheist I am grateful that I went that route. By becoming an atheist, I experienced the true fear of a world without faith. I became morbidly curious about the possibility of nuclear war, and knew that we were on our way to global mass destruction. I began having what I now know was depression. You see when you have nothing to put faith in, there is no hope. You are accessing your experience only through information at hand and most information we as a society generate is negative. So I believed we were headed to a negative place.
In reality the couple years as an atheist was a great base line for finding my eventual faith, a spiritual faith and not a religious faith. How I came to that faith is my interesting story. I tell you this story as a means of conveying a message. You see along the path of finding my personal spirituality I made several very profound realizations. Each realization built upon the last until they unveiled a simple path to God/Universe. I found a divine simplicity to my life. It was so simple and yet so completely powerful. I had found the awareness spoken of by the avatars of old: Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, and many more unnamed enlightened beings. To fully show the realizations as I discovered them I must tell you some of the stories that transpired. My story, from the beginning, was much like a lot of people’s stories. As I said I was raised in a good Catholic family, number six of an eventual seven kids. After my sojourn through many spiritual belief systems, I had settled into being a seeker. I had always been looking for the next teacher, the next guru, the next person who would take me to the next rung of the ladder. I was now in a place of just experiencing the world through spiritual eyes.
The stories ahead are meant to teach, not in the style of a classroom, but in the style of the enlightened ones of old. Through reading the stories and then through realization of the principles and then inspired action you will begin to see the simple path before you. As you step out onto that path, you will witness the life of your desires unfold.
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:36PM