Reflections of a Mystic Drifter

By Jack Savage

The story of one man’s journey throughout a lifetime to reach a deeper understanding of faith while remaining true to his own revelations. A search that led him to like-minded people so that he might finally be able to practice his convictions without ridicule of the mystic he had become. A place where mystics have been accepted for two millennia and still is to this day. This is a timely look at the importance of faith in everyone’s life and their own very personal journey to a relationship with their higher power. An understanding outside the influences of others and the acceptance we should all have of the various avenues to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662418600

Book preview

Hometown Background

How does one become a drifter, let alone a mystic? Well, since I’m not destitute at the end of my life, I hope to explain the first in detail and the latter as I go along, defining my gradual acquisition of becoming a mystic and how I became one over a lifetime. For as you may find, in my humble opinion, that mysticism is not the superior pontiff or prophet’s domain only. It, in fact, dwells in all of us to the degree we each seek our own destiny and choose to believe that such things exist for the common man. Like all things on planet earth, it doesn’t come without trial and error and effort. So watch who and what you bow down to, especially if you’re not in alignment with them, within yourself, or still yet your inner self.

In my own comprehension, I have an inner self called my brain. I think with it. I reason with it. But I sure as hell don’t talk to it. Oh my god! Ethyl, he just swore! Well, get used to it. If you want to climb the mystic mountain, you have to get used to some harsh realities. There are many money-making mystics out there along the way, and they have become so numerous that God himself would have a hard time counting them.

Fortunately, He doesn’t have to because their end is all the same. No matter what we may believe in, karma, Buddha, Allah, Christ, or anything else, they, the money-making charlatans, will come to an end. As an ex-Bible thumper, I know that Christ warned, Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. To me, He was talking about the way faith would be destroyed by these false-power hungry-money grubbers. If you want me to translate that any further, forget it! I haven’t the time. Go get a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance with a biblical dictionary if you have to, but we’re on our way, just try to keep up so I can finish my premise.

I’m not going to do the legwork for any of you. I would often tell my own children, LIU, look it up, and the same applies to the hyper skeptical. Although I don’t profess to be a Christian or Christlike, I will also admit that I’ve met many, of other faiths, who were closer to the ideal than those in my own supposed Christian country, and if you got this far without falling off the horse, cowboy, then there just could be a bright future for you. Most true mystics, regardless of how they attained the title, didn’t get prosperous or popular.

Now that I have just inadvertently demonstrated my ability to be blunt, remember, I also said I was a realist. Let’s get to the background of a man who not only became a drifter but learned to relish it. When it came to parents, I hit the jackpot. Although very much alike, with similar backgrounds, they were also quite different. Though I had an excellent childhood, my common personality traits with my father left me as more of a daddy’s boy, and I practically worshiped the man—my brother and sister, not so much. We all got along as a family unit quite well. There were underpinning tensions between my mom and dad, but I was oblivious to all that for most of my formative years.

My parents were both raised on dairy farms in southwest Wisconsin and were, in fact, neighbors, but a lot of the similarities ended there. Mom’s family were more progressive farmers, and they had gotten their start through my great-grandpa Eldridge. My dad’s father, Cap, on the other hand, was a drifter himself, the last in a family of fourteen. He earned the money for their dairy, working on riverboat paddle steamers and putting up lines for rural electric cooperatives, and God only knows what in between. His father, my great-grandpa Jacob, even worked on the transcontinental railway before homesteading. Grandpa Cap bought their dairy outright by the sweat of his brow and raised five children in a much smaller place. Thank God, my dad’s family were good in school, and my mother took note of it when they rode the bus together, or I would not be here today. Both my parents valued the idea of further education, and I know it was a contributing factor in their coming together. My dad often said my mother married him for his brains, and it wasn’t a joke. I swear by all that is holy and unholy if you please. It was gospel.

Almost all the understanding I have of my dad’s father is through secondhand information, and I only have one clear memory of him when I was a toddler. My uncle, who bought the dairy after my grandpa’s death, filled me out on most of it on visits back there as a young man. I got to know my other grandfather, Frank, firsthand as he didn’t pass away till I was in the seventh grade. They both died at about the same age, but the poorer family had more intelligence, and I took special note of that as well. They had survived the Great Depression, as my mother’s family had, but they did it through thrift and ingenuity. They were much closer to one another, and even my mother has admitted to that. My grandpa Cap was gregarious, drank beer on occasion, and even played cards. He died of a heart attack in a tavern in Potosi, Wisconsin, doing just those same things on a Sunday afternoon. Mom’s family toiled away. Grandpa Frank was the deacon of the local church, and they were tea toddlers, who kept a stiff upper lip. Both families lost their patriarch in the same space of time on earth, and personally, I would have rather been more like the former than the latter. And guess what? I am.

My parents were public school teachers in the small town of Shullsburg, Wisconsin, the cheese mecca of the universe. I had an idyllic life, not necessarily a privileged one, as teachers were not overly paid back in the day. Tutelage, time, and attention were overflowing. I had a brother who was only thirteen months older, and we managed to have quite the adventures, no doubt giving our poor mother fits, as two heads are better than one. I also had a little sister four years my junior. We were constantly being nurtured by both parents and learning from each other, as well as a host of neighbor kids. All the children of the day played outside, and imaginations were in full use constantly. Socialization was never a problem because relationships with others were our mainstay, and electronics were limited to television in the evening with the family as that was the norm in caveman times.

While life was settled in those days, my folks, in particular my mother, believed in education through travel. We frequently stopped at highway historical markers in my home state and took long-distance vacations over the summers. Even after my dad got an advanced degree and a tighter schedule in the summer, we continued the tradition every year. I personally was a body in motion that never wanted to rest. Although I can’t speak for my siblings, I relished travel of any kind and still do to this day. You could say I got the traveling Jones at a tender age, and it has stuck with me.