Transcendent ExperiencesHouseIn the summer of 1986 I started dating Debbie, who would become wife #2. We met at the Lutheran Church where I was playing the organ. And we basically fell in love from the first date. On Valentine's day 1988 I had a problem. According to my financial advisors my computer business was growth too quickly, and I was throwing away too much money on rent. I needed to buy a house, they told me. The problem was I dreaded the idea. A mortgage, landscaping, property taxes, broken water heater, home owner's association dues...yuck. The whole, complete, entire idea was depressing to me. Renting my little 2 bedroom beachfront house was just lovely for me, thank you. So, I said, let's go looking for a house. In theory a very happy, nice thing. I mean, there are worse problems to have, right? But I was so irritated. I felt compelled for purposes of financial stability to do something I had no need, want, or interest in. And every house we saw was worse than the next one. Outrageously priced, no land at all, and almost always sharing a common wall with the neighbors. Who needs that? Forget it. But, what the heck, it was a nice day. So, I said, how about if we take a trip out to the San Pasqual Valley, about 30 miles from where I was living. I had done some business out there, and found it quite pleasant. So...we headed down the freeway until it turned into a residential street...I stopped at the retirement home on the corner and asked for directions to San Pasqual. I either got the wrong directions or went the wrong way anyhow, and wound up in an area 15 miles from where I thought I wanted to go. We came up and over a large mountain, into a place called Valley Center. It was gorgeous. I didn't even know this place existed, let alone having visited there before. We saw a sign that said "Open House--->". We followed it...and again...and again. We walked into simply the most beautiful place I had ever seen. On top of a hill with 5 acres of orange trees, with a view of forever. Well, literally 85 miles as the proverbial crow flies, including a panorama of Mount Palomar, home of the one-time world's largest telescope. And the layout was just so perfect, with exactly the right amount of room for the computer business office, Debbie's 2 children, and us. 20 hours later I was in escrow. And it happened...just...like...that. The one and only house we ever entered on our house hunting was the one we bought. And it was 30 miles from where I lived, in a place I didn't even know existed. As Jesus says in The Last Temptation of Christ, "Thank You, Lord, for bringing me where I did not know I wanted to go." And I went immediately from dread and anger to a hope and desperate prayer that somehow, by some miracle, a toilet scrubber like me could actually live in such a Paradise. As of this writing I have lived here over 13 years, more than twice as long as I have lived anywhere else. Well, the entire experience changed me. Not just having a place to really call home, but the entirely transcendent way it all came about. If I had turned right instead of left, or gone straight instead of right, or if the realtor had not been having the open house at exactly that hour, or any one of hundreds of possibilities, the entire event would not have happened. Countless lives and parties and concerts and business meetings and start parties on and on have been shaped or touched through that one event. So we are back to an old theme. Kismet, chance, fortune, destiny, or God? And for me, Dear Reader, any single event can be isolated and dismissed. But after a continuous lifetime of such events I have simply become convinced that there is more to the story than we know. Especially when I see that every "rotten" thing that's ever happened became a springboard for new growth and renewal...I don't know...The best way I know to say it is that I experience myself living inside of God. As a part of God.
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