Three Proofs That God Exists

By Walt Runkis

Scientifically combining Eastern mysticism and Western metaphysics with miracles and magic, and elements from near-death experiences, death-related visions, proven accounts of reincarnation, archaeological evidence, and an esoteric grasp of the arcane mysteries, Three Empirical Proofs shine forth. This structure of empirical evidence proves, to a "statistical certainty," that all of these diverse phenomena are the intricately interrelated workings of the "Non-Mechanical Universe," the Cosmic Consciousness that we call God. Walt Runkis is an autodidact and Renaissance man: scientist, inventor, artist, goldsmith, author, and serial entrepreneur. He has two patents issued in immunochemistry, plus three patents issued and one pending in cryptographic network cyber security. Walt was born with a high IQ and an insatiable curiosity. His left brain delved deeply enough into chemistry and physics to give him a basic understanding of how the mechanical universe works, while his right brain stretched his consciousness far enough to know it is not a mechanical universe in which we live. Walt was a decorated Sergeant E-5 in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a Marine ASRAT for a year in Chu Lai and Marble Mountain, Vietnam (1965-66).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645364320

Walt Runkis

Walt Runkis is an autodidact and Renaissance man: scientist, inventor, artist, goldsmith, author, and serial entrepreneur. He has two patents issued in immunochemistry, plus three patents issued and one pending in cryptographic network cyber security. Walt was born with a high IQ and an insatiable curiosity. His left brain delved deeply enough into chemistry and physics to give him a basic understanding of how the mechanical universe works, while his right brain stretched his consciousness far enough to know it is not a mechanical universe in which we live. Walt was a decorated Sergeant E-5 in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a Marine ASRAT for a year in Chu Lai and Marble Mountain, Vietnam (1965-66).

Book preview

Unity

Dedication

Lord Jesus Christ

The Star that guides me

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

The Avatar who started the multifaith movement

H. H. Sri Swami Satchidananda Maharaj

He initiated me into the secret wisdom of yoga.

His motto: Truth is One; Paths are Many

My wife Sheila

She saved my life in more ways than she will ever know,

and made this work a better book

Copyright information ©

Walt Runkis (2019)

Cover art by Walt Runkis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Runkis, Walt

Three Proofs That God Exists

ISBN 9781641824316 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641824323 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645364320 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019941711

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005 USA

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Acknowledgments

Thank you, Luz Alva Bullock, Nikki Main, and Eve Carson, for recognizing the value of this work and guiding it toward publication.

Heartfelt thanks to Richard L. Damrow and Richard P. Sommerfeld for sharing their business expertise and their appreciation for my eccentric spiritual universe.

Special thanks to Major General John M. Wallace (USAF Ret.), General Manager of Canton Municipal Utilities, for supporting my research, sharing his wisdom, and being my friend all these years. And to Bert Massey, Frank W. Phillips, and Dale A. Flippo; you are the loyalist and brightest business partners, and kindest friends, I have ever known.

In addition, I owe a debt of gratitude to my coinventors of several inventions: Anthony R. Torres, MD, Donald E. Martin, Christopher D. Watkins, Jeffery J. Brom­berger, Peter A. Scott, and Paul G. Rudolf, PhD. You are all, without doubt, the most brilliantly creative scientists and engineers I ever knew. Working with you was both an honor and a joy. And to the best patent attorney ever, Dale S. Lazar at DLA Piper, without your brilliantly crafted legalese and generosity, my vision would have died aborning. You are, without doubt, The Mozart of Legalese.

Furthermore, I want to thank the unsung heroes: the investors and stakeholders who risked their hard-earned money to make my inventions a reality—especially: Joy Lambert Phillips, Steven Halpern, Robert D. Parker, Paul Feher, Gary and Victor Williams, Dick and Bunny Baxter, John Pahlman, and Sam Agnew for saving my bacon when I desperately needed a helping hand.

And last, but not least, special thanks to Melvin L. Morris, M.D. for critiquing this book and urging me to show more of myself. I added my inventions, jewelry, visionary art, songs, litanies, and stories. It’s more colorful now: more who I really am.

Preface

This is a factual account of miracles and magic. It employs a method called The Three Keys to provide empirical proof that God exists. The Three Keys are Eastern Mysticism, Western Metaphysics, and Science.

Miracles, by themselves, are not sufficient proof that God exists, but they can serve as elements of that proof. When Eastern Mysticism and Western Metaphysics are scientifically combined with miracles and ele­ments from near-death experiences, archeol­ogical evidence, death-related visions, scien­tific accounts of reincarnation, and an esoteric grasp of the arcane mysteries, the Three Empirical Proofs shine forth.

Three Proofs That God Exists is a distillation of over sixty years’ exper­ience. Part of it chronicles my spiritual journey, but it is not really about me. It’s about miracles and magic—non-ordinary events I call cracks in the laws of physics—that anyone can experience and may already have. It is my sin­cere hope that the body of evi­dence presented here will empower spiritual seekers to exam­ine their deeply entrenched beliefs and formu­late ques­tions potent enough to break the bonds of dogmatic think­ing that continues to stunt man­kind’s spiritual evolution. Three Proofs That God Exists reveals secret teachings and valuable insights aspirants can use to unearth the timeless wisdom only direct experience can cultivate. More import­antly, it offers serious aspirants a path to God-Realization.

Three Proofs That God Exists was created from the perspective of a Christian renegade, which means I am not, in the classical sense, a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or Jew. What I am is a God-Realized scientist and disciple of Christ. I had my first brush with the Cosmos in 1967, during a near-death experience, when I strolled in a celestial garden of unparalleled beauty and communed with a formless being of masculine voice. He admonished me to Look to beauty, look to the East, and never become a part of an organized religion. I ac­cepted his edict, and while I am tolerably well-read regarding spirit­ual matters, and for­tunate enough to have met a few very talented spiritual teachers, my evolution was guided mostly by the lessons my personal experi­ences taught me—provided the resulting insights held up to scientific scrutiny.

Scientifically proving that God exists is a tall order; some would say im­possible. While it is not impossible, it does demand much of the reader.

Proving God exists is not a task that can be accomplished with a couple of glib sound bites. Readers will have to work for it if they truly want to get their arms around it. The study of God, after all, is the study of infinity.

The Three Empirical Proofs and their supporting data were built brick by brick from a wide variety of eclectic sources. Three Proofs That God Exists is not a self-contained, quick fix, self-help book. It is a care­fully crafted journey that lays a foundation toward realizing your Higher Self. Its narrative style is an easy read, but don’t let that fool you; like life, the further you wade into it, the deeper it gets. Further­more, what it provides between the covers is only part of its value. It is also a resource manual that opens doorways onto panoramas that beg further exploration. Most will be satiated by what is included here, while others will want to follow pathways that lead to deeper levels of wisdom. Go where it com­fortably takes you and be happy.

Spirituality was never meant to be a spectator sport. It is, or at least it should be, a dynamic, ever-changing, intra­personal experience in which you must totally immerse yourself to get anything worthwhile out of it. Spirit­uality needs to be lived—and lived passionately—not merely watched from the pews. Most of all, to stay fresh and alive, spirit­uality must be continually de-dogmatized. Albert Einstein got it right when he cautioned us: The important thing is not to stop questioning.

The miracles and magic I experienced over the course of my life have shown me that Truth can come in almost any form and be found nearly everywhere. Wisdom is not the exclusive purview of any one religion, race, culture, group, or sect. It is a living legacy shared by every being in our eleven-dimension multiverse.

Soli Deo honor et Gloria

Part I

The Microcosm

The Prime Hermetic Axiom

Nobody

"For the believer, no evidence is necessary.

For the skeptic, no amount of evidence is sufficient."

Why would anybody want to read about me? Raucous laughter in­stantly erupts, echoing through the empty corridors of my mind. They wouldn’t, you fool, roars the Cynic from a dark recess, You’re nobody!

He was right, of course. I am neither rich nor famous and have no cred­entials scholars would consider compelling. And, except for a few patents hanging on the wall of my home office, I have no lacquered plaques from august institutions pro­­claiming my erudition for all to see. Neither do I have a generally sanctioned badge of authority that grants me per­mission to write and certainly no popular mandate to do so. Writ­ing about me would seem to be the archetypal fool’s errand. Still… the Fool is an important symbol in Kabbalistic lore, a body of wisdom that played a prominent role in shap­ing my life. And wasn’t the Fool on the hill, of Beatles fame, really the wisest of men? What­ever is the truth of that, I have definitely led a more interesting life than most. There must be people out there who would appreciate the miracles and magic I have witnessed and harken to the wisdom this experience affords me. It is for them, and for me, that I write.

My journey through life has taught me much, mostly because I was either brave enough, dumb enough, or fortunate enough to do things average people never dream of doing. My most rewarding experi­ences grew out of ordeals few people even bother to read about, let alone do. Fewer yet believe such things are possible. My road was indeed the road less traveled and, since I am aging now and not in the best of health, it would be a shame not to preserve some of my experiences and share the insights I gleaned from them.

I warn you, though; the wisdom I possess is not for everyone. People I euphem­istically refer to as the Beer and Ballgames Crowd will surely scoff. Staunch pragmatists, who possess the philosophical depth of cookie sheets, will laugh and sneer. And why shouldn’t they, after all? Most of them amount to little more than cardboard cutouts, post­uring like a line-up of buzzards perched on a split-rail fence at sunrise: wings spread wide, backs to the sun—enjoying its warmth, never its light—waiting to pounce on any rotting morsel that falls within their reach. People like that are always poised and ready to ignore the mir­aculous. A life like mine will have no meaning for them. Only those disen­chanted few who hunger for the spiritual meaning that hides in the haystack of the com­mon­place are likely to find my wisdom palatable. It is an ac­quired taste that can only be savored by those few who possess the courage to cast aside the shallow games assid­uously played by the some­bodies of this world.

What’s in store for those who choose to travel this less frequented path?

Well, to steal Galadriel’s line when Frodo asked what he would see in the mystic mirror, Even the wisest cannot tell.

What, then, can you hope to gain by reading further?

The answer is much, provided you are willing to gird your loins, roll up your sleeves, and enter that special dimension where only you can go. Before we begin, however, there is one postulate that must be ac­cepted: Nothing of great value in life ever comes from learning; it is only acquired through personal experience.

Learning may eventually lead to knowledge, but for knowledge to be alchemically transmuted into wisdom, it must be churned by cease­less effort and purified in the fires of experience. A talented teacher can help us find knowledge, but no pundit can teach us wis­dom, no astrol­oger can divine who we really are, and no sooth­sayer can ever channel cosmic truth on our behalf from incorporeal spirits visiting from on high—not without including a lot of gotchas at least. If you need to divine the future in order to snag a quick-fix enlight­en­ment, you should know full well that nothing worthwhile can ever be fore­told, with any degree of certainty, by anyone outside of your­self. For, like quan­tum events pre­dicted by Heisen­berg’s un­certainty prin­ciple, the act of observing invar­iably alters the nature of the obser­vation.

Wisdom only comes when we understand that the painful events we endure in life—the inevitable consequences of our choices through­out time—have multiple meanings in dimensions no seer-for-hire is likely to fathom. Besides, each of us already possesses Galadriel’s mir­­ror. There­fore, it behooves each of us to be our own seer and our own sage. The Great Vision, which brings the Great Wis­dom, ap­pears to each of us naturally when we quiet the winds of our emotions and quell the discursive thought-forms that continually agi­tate our minds. The Great Vision is always there, patiently waiting for us until we defiantly give ourselves permission to withdraw from the outer world of frenetic activ­ity, tear down the walls that separate us from our Higher Self and abide in inner peace.

It takes great courage to live in peace. Our modern technological world abhors this condition like nature abhors a vacuum. People who fit com­fortably into the prevailing world order generally seek to des­troy those who do not think, behave, and believe exactly the way they do. To live in peace, we must keep our own counsel and always mar­shal the courage to act from a sense of integrity, even when it is not in our self-interest to do so. Succinctly stated, the only people who are likely to re­ceive wisdom are those who steadfastly do what is right, even if it kills them, 100% of the time.

So, for those of us who care about such matters, how can we know, with any degree of certainty, what is right?

This is arguably the toughest question we will ever have to answer, but answer it we must, over and over again, each and every day, through­­out our lives. Main­stream theologians will probably disagree, but the per­ception of rightness can only come from within ourselves, and it does not bow freely to dogma and tradition. One of the hardest lessons I have ever had to learn is sometimes doing the right thing is not always the right thing to do, or, as they put it in the movie The Cider House Rules, Some­times you’ve got to break a few rules in order to do what’s right.

Then, how can we know what is the right thing to do?

All any of us can do is act from a sense of harm­lessness, compassion, and integrity and keep our minds in a steady state of peaceful aware­ness. When we strive for that, our steps will be guided toward finding keys that open the right doors, for things to magic­ally happen for us.

Achieving peaceful awareness requires that we suspend the normal input/output functions of the mind. In this quiescent state, miracles and magic are permitted to happen because the mind is tuned to the In­finite, much like a sitar. The sitar is a metaphysical instrument be­cause it has two groups of strings. There is a group of sympathetic strings which are tuned to a wide range of notes. These are never plucked by the musician. They are mounted below an upper group of seven strings the musician plays. When an upper string is plucked, the kinetic energy in the sound waves it produces causes all the lower strings, which are in harmonic resonance with it, to vibrate in sym­pathy. Thus the musician sounds the many by playing the few. This symbol­ically shows us how to receive Cos­­mic Wisdom, for when we stop beating on the sympathetic strings of our mind and allow them to rest in a quies­cent state of tuned poten­tial, they will vibrate in harmony when­ever the Master Musician plays the Great Raga.

There was never a time in history when it was easy to quiet the mind and search for wisdom. This is especially true of our modern world. Any­one who has tried knows it is devilishly difficult to live magically in the high-technology prison that sprawls across our globe today. I know something of this prison since, as an inventor, I have contributed a few pieces to harden its walls.

Who am I then? I am a scientist, artist, and philosopher—a Renais­sance man by strict definition. I was born with a high IQ, an insatiable curiosity, and an unflapp­able desire to succeed. My left brain delved deeply enough into the study of chemistry and physics to give me a basic understanding of how the mechanical universe works, while my right brain stretched my con­sciousness far enough to know that it is not a mechan­­­ical universe in which we live. I have had visions and adven­tures and near-death experiences. I have won patents, earned military awards, and written songs, poetry, and software. I also co-invented a piece of the puzzle to aid the quest for a more natural, immuno­logically grounded, therapy for cancer and, most recently, invented a cyber­defense wea­pon to protect sensitive infor­mation.

I fought in Vietnam and carved sculp­tures of gold, silver, and precious stones. But this book isn’t about me. It’s about miracles and magic; real mir­acles, not the Bible-thump­ing, born-again, hobble-gobble, carefully coiffured Televan­­gelists use to drug mobs of mindless minions into submis­sion—easy pickings for the ever-hungry collection plate. It is about a series of events that, if taken separately, could be easily explained away as mere coin­cidence. But, when all of them are grouped together and presented as a body of evi­dence, they lead to one inescapable con­clusion: it is not a mech­anical universe in which we live. This is the underlying postulate upon which my philos­ophy rests.

By using this postulate as a foundation for wisdom, this book offers a way of recognizing miracles in events that often pass for ordinary experi­ence and suggests pathways whereby imperfect people, in an imperfect world, can act from a sense of ethical perfection to lead a perfect life. The only hope we have of changing the world in which we live is to change the world that lives inside us. And by changing our­selves, the world in which we live is for­ever changed.

Star That Guides Me (Christmas card 2010)

(Digital giclée by Walt Runkis)

The Best Buck

"Then all at once I see it, and I know at

once what it is: epiphany."

— James Joyce

Back in the early sixties, while my high school classmates were get­ting ready for college and preparing to make their mark on the world, I marched off to join the Marines. I was a rebellious young idealist who dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen to see the world and escape the bore­dom of an educational system that favored mindless mediocrity over the creative spirit. Well… I did see a little of the world, but, as it happens, was quite unprepared for much of it—war, for example.

Like most kids from that era, I had watched the televised chronicles of World War II and Korea that were all the rage while I was growing up in the fifties. I had spent endless childhood hours playing Soldier with toy rifles and plastic hand grenades; but, in the summer of 1965, when I found myself going ashore at Chu Lai, it was quite a different matter. I soon realized I was not a born killer; I had only played at killing. And I was no hero either; I had only played the hero’s game. But neither was I a coward, so I accepted my fate, marshaled my courage, and did the job I volunteered to do. It must have been accept­able, since my re­search shows I should have been awarded 1 a Presidential Unit Cita­tion, two RVN Gallantry Cros­ses, and I was one of the youngest Marines ever promoted to the rank of Sergeant E-5, or so I was told.

My unit was ordered to Vietnam as part of the initial military buildup in support of the police action and, when we came home a year later, ours was one of the first groups to return. A few months later, I was dis­charged and flew home to Detroit to take the SAT exam for entrance into Wayne State University. My score was high enough that, despite being a high school drop­out, I was accepted for admission.

I decided to get a job and work through the winter, save my money, and start college with the spring term. Life was definitely look­ing up. I combed through the want ads searching for whatever job paid the most and found one that offered $1,200 a month guaran­teed—no experience necessary. I went for an interview and was promptly hired to sell books door-to-door for Encyclopedia Britannica. Don’t laugh; I was a natural. I had an innate passion for learning and spent most of my free time in the Marines studying Word Power, Ger­man, Japanese, comparative religion, and, most of all, logic and phil­osophy. I loved the encyclopedias, and my youthful exuberance closed sale after sale.

After a few months, I bought a nearly new Grand Prix, my one lux­ury, and, since I felt guilty about the extravagance, decided to give up my apart­ment in the suburbs and moved to the student quarter earlier than planned. I rented a room for $50 a month in a rundown housing com­plex located a few blocks from Wayne State. Every room in the house was rented to a different student, except for the kitchen and living room; they were common areas. Actually, my apartment was the former dining room, which was crudely separated from the living room by a makeshift unpainted plywood wall. It was not much to look at, but I was saving $350 a month on rent, and that was big money in those days, at least it was for me.

I moved my possessions into my new home on a sunny afternoon and was busy putting things in order when an incredible cacophony broke out. I could hear people running around shouting in the living room beyond the partition wall. Then, without warning, a fire axe came ripping through the partition, and, within seconds, the wall came crash­ing down—followed by a half-dozen police officers dressed in riot gear.

I cried out, What to hell’s go— but was cut short when a billy club plunged into my stomach. One of them hit me hard across the side of my head and, dazed, I dropped to my knees. Then another kicked me be­tween the shoulder blades, and I crashed forward, face down on the floor. They cuffed my wrists behind me so tightly it cut off my circula­tion. I could feel the blood pounding in my hands; the pain was excru­ciating. My nose was bleeding, and I was only half-conscious. Someone yelled at me to get up, but before I could move, two cops grabbed me, dragged me out of the house, and threw me roughly into the back of a paddy wagon. I was on my way to jail, with a truckload of people I had never met, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea why.

I learned at my arraignment that I was being charged with loiter­ing on the premises where marijuana or para­phernalia is stored, used, sold… At the time, I had never tried marijuana. I attempted to explain my situ­ation to my interro­gators but was sum­marily bound over for trial. In the regional judicial system of the day, we were all guilty—had to be—why else would the police have arrested us in the first place?

I was completely bewildered. Only a few months before, I was a non­commis­sioned officer, well respected, with a dozen men under my command. Now I was being treated like a common criminal.

After the arraignment, they took me back to the police station for more questioning and made much to-do about my Grand Prix. I told them—repeatedly—about my position at Britannica, but they had it firmly entrenched in their pompous little minds that I was a drug king­pin. So there was no reason why they should go to all the trouble of verifying such a ridiculous alibi. Instead, they decided to soften me up by taking me from the Detroit lockup, where I spent the previous night, over to the Wayne County jail, to be locked away with a select group of hard cases.

My charge was only a misdemeanor, so the bail was set at $500, the maximum allowable. I had plenty of money for bail, but I was in jail and could not access my bank account. My mother, a seamstress, did not have that much cash lying around, so she tried to get a bondsman to post bail. When he called the station to find out my charges, the police told him I was a habitual bail jumper, wanted on outstanding warrants in several states. It wasn’t true, of course, but no bondsman would touch me after hearing that.

That afternoon I was cuffed again, driven over to the big house, and taken to a detention area. At the entrance to the cellblock, there was a chain-link cage about ten feet square with gates on either side. The burly white guard who escorted me took off my handcuffs and told me to take one step through the first gate and stop—which I did. I heard the gate clank shut behind me. Without warning, the guard reached through the bars, seized me by the collar, and slammed me back against the gate. With his other hand, he reached around and grabbed me by the throat, pulling me tightly up against the bars. Then he whispered menacingly in my ear, This is an all-black cellblock, motherfucker. You won’t live until morning.

I suppose I should have been afraid, but I was too shocked to feel much of anything. Slowly I entered the cellblock. It was just a big cage, actu­ally; open space dissected by chain link fencing all around. Before me ran a long, fenced corridor. To my left, there were smaller cages that opened into it. In each of those were two bunks, one over the other, plus a toilet and a small sink. I made my way slowly down the corridor, look­ing carefully into each cell. Every unit seemed to be occupied. By the time I reached the far end, it was appar­ent that, yes, all the inmates were black—but that didn’t bother me. What made me un­comfortable was there were no empty beds. The entire cell­block was full.

During my inspection, I made a mental note that, about halfway down the corridor, one of the cells had five or six guys in it, and one of them was huge, easily twice my size. He had to stand six-foot-six and weigh three-hundred pounds, or, at least, so it seemed. In every society, there is always someone in charge, and I figured he had to be it and, if not, he couldn’t be far from it. In any case, I was determined to earn his respect. I turned around, walked quickly into the big guy’s cell, and said to him, Hey man, what’s the deal here? This place looks full.

He slowly rose from his cot, a mean icy stare fixed upon me, Yeah, honky, he growled. Then, moving menacingly close, his voice dripped with malice while he slowly added, There ain’t no room for you here.

As he approached, I felt adrenaline flood into my system. All my karate and hand-to-hand combat training would be of no use to me now. Part of me wanted to turn and run, but a stronger part of me knew there was nowhere to go. So I held my ground, looked him straight in the eyes, and, in the best tradition of Davy Crockett, flashed him a big toothy grin. Then, shaking my head in disgust, I snarled, Stupid pigs! They prob­ably can’t work it out if there are more beds than they’ve got fin­gers to count on. I just dropped the insult and turned to leave. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a faint smile soften the rigid archi­tecture of the big guy’s face. I knew I would live till morning.

I marched out into the corridor, forcefully kicked the fence a few times, and shouted, Hey guard, wake up in there! This place is full. Any of you fifteen-watt cretins ever learn to count?

The guard came charging in, scrambling to put on his riot gear. He screamed at me, Quiet down, you piece of shit, or there’ll be hell to pay.

Hey! This place is full, I shouted back defiantly. I don’t have a bed.

He snapped right back at me, hatred flaming from his eyes, Fuck you, asshole. Sleep on the floor!

In two seconds flat, two-dozen angry black inmates were along­­­side me in the corridor shouting at the guard, You got to give this brother a mat­tress! You got to give him a blanket! You got to give him a pillow! Michigan State Penal Code say you got to give him…

I lived harmoniously with my newfound brothers another three days until my mother finally reached a friend of mine who posted bail. It actually turned out to be a rather pleasant stay, all considering: swap­ping stories, learning secret handshakes, and all sorts of male bonding rituals. No one I met was evil. They were just a bunch of screwed-up guys who—to borrow the title of Richard Farina’s book—had Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. It was really quite instructive.

A few weeks later, I was tried with seven others from the student house and acquitted, In spite of the fact that the arresting officer lied under oath. From the witness box, he pointed a bony finger in my direction and swore I was standing right next to him when someone in the building sold him an ounce of marijuana. After testi­fying against me, the detec­tive swaggered past the defense table and winked at me as he passed.

My entire social foundation was shattered. Everything I believed in—truth, justice, and the American way—was all a lie. I was falsely accused and beaten and abused by people who should have respected me and cast into the lion’s den only to be befriended by murderers, thieves, and drug dealers. I didn’t know what to believe, what to do, where to turn. I thought this experience was the worst injustice I could ever imagine, but I was wrong—the worst was yet to come.

It was not long before the Detroit riots broke out. It was a time of mass insanity when people’s pent-up poverty-driven frustrations broke loose, and everybody, black and white, took to the streets in an orgy of burning and looting. It was a non-violent interracial riot, at least on the people’s side of the equation. The police, on the other hand, took off their badges and the license plates from their cars; they taped over the identi­fication numbers on the car doors and ran amuck. I actually watched them drive down a street in the Wayne State student quarter one after­noon shooting randomly into the buildings because some­one was play­ing a stereo through an open window. It was the Youngbloods sing­ing, It’s time to love one another right now.

The pièce de résistance, however, was when I helplessly watched from a base­ment apartment window while a policeman murdered an un­armed unresisting, black teenager by bludgeoning him to death with the butt end of a shotgun. After which, two other cops, who were stand­ing around watch­ing, threw the boy’s lifeless body over the fender of their patrol car, like you would a deer, and drove off into the sunset. Granted, he did loot a bag of groceries, but when the police yelled, Halt! he stopped, put the bag on the ground, and stood there with his hands high over his head, while the patrolman ran up and crushed his skull. Five other students witnessed the atrocity with me, and it took all of them to restrain me. I was determined to drive out to the country where my mother lived and get my guns. I was not some naïve kid. I was trained for this sort of thing. I’d show them what a well-seasoned Marine could do. It took most of the night, but my friends finally talked me out of it.

After that, I slipped into a deep depression. I did not start college; there did not seem to be any point in it. I quit my job, dropped out of society, and lived on my savings until the money ran out. I roamed the streets of down­town Detroit like a half-dead wraith, looking for some­thing—I knew not what. I hated society; I hated life; I hated myself. From time to time, I worked as a day laborer when I could get work. But mostly, I just drifted.

One day, I walked past a Dairy Queen and saw a poster of a foot-long hot dog and a giant shake being advertised for only 99 cents. I had not eaten in days, and that hot dog and shake looked amazingly good. I reached into my pocket and added up my net worth, 36 cents: not nearly enough. Tears welled up in my eyes. I walked around to the back of the restaurant, where some picnic tables were kept. I climbed onto one and sat on top with my feet on the bench, hunkering there, head in my hands, smelling the food cooking inside. A few months before, I was filled with hope and bright ideas. Now life didn’t seem worth living. I began to turn over in my mind various ways of killing myself. Should I walk into a police station with a shotgun and take out as many as I could before they got me or just quietly slit my wrists out in the woods somewhere? Maybe poison? I considered all the possibilities.

No, I decided. If there was any purpose at all for being born, sui­cide could not be it. I had to do something, but killing myself was no longer an option. Although, if I chose to go on living, I would have to find a way of supporting myself. I knew people who pan­handled for food. That might be alright, I thought. After all, what did I care? I wasn’t proud. Besides, I was a hungry veteran; why shouldn’t I beg for food? I tried to imagine myself as a beg­gar. No! I finally said, I am proud; I would rather starve to death than live as a beggar.

I knew I could always hitchhike out to the country and ask my mother to take me in. I would have a roof over my head and food to eat, but I quickly dismissed the notion as another form of beggary. I left home at seven­teen to make it on my own, and I was not going to slink back now with my tail between my legs.

Next, I remembered someone I met who shoplifted food. I rolled the idea over in my mind for a while and began to feel rage. I had no use for thieves. I would rather starve to death a thousand times over than sup­port my life by stealing from others. Neither could I go back to selling encyclopedias to people who could ill afford them. No, if I was going to live at all, I would somehow have to make it by my own wits and harm no one in the process.

Just then, I realized the whole time I was sitting there, I had been star­ing at a small gray square on the ground in front of me. The entire picnic area was strewn with tiny bits of litter, remnants of meals eaten there before. This bit was odd, however, and, since curiosity is a quality I have always had in abundance, I stooped down and picked it up. It was a perfectly symmetrical, half-inch square piece of paper pressed wafer-thin. Other than that, I could not see anything remarkable about it—that is, until I unfolded it. There in my hand was a dollar bill someone had obviously folded very carefully and placed in a wallet a long time ago. Otherwise, it would not have been so thinly pressed. As I sat there, gaz­ing at it in amazement, I suddenly remem­bered the story of Jesus being tempted on the mountain after fasting forty days in the desert, and I realized that all the avenues I had just explored, were really doorways into alternate lives I would never live. For if I had gotten up to walk down any of those roads, I would never have seen the path that was staring back at me the whole time. Instead, I grate­fully walked over to the window and redeemed my prize: a foot­-long hot dog and a chocolate shake.

My mountain was nowhere near as high, my temptation nowhere near as deep, nor my destiny anywhere near as grand, but, never­theless, my temp­t­ation on the mount was every bit as real. From that day on, I have never gone hungry unless I chose