Paul had told me many stories over the years about his efforts to help these kids, back in a time when the rules were a little looser, and compassion sometimes meant bending them. He would occasionally take a few kids from detention on a Saturday and bring them to Como Zoo, offering them a rare chance to just be kids. There was no official approval for these outings—he did it out of his own pocket and on his own time. For most of the kids, these outings were a brief glimpse of what life could be like outside the system, where trust and fun were not luxuries but normal experiences. However, Paul admitted that not every outing went smoothly; sometimes he had to return the kids in handcuffs, a painful reminder of how deeply entrenched their issues were.

Then one day, Paul did something extraordinary—he arranged for me to observe a day of closed juvenile court proceedings. It was a rare opportunity, one not typically extended to outsiders, but Paul had managed to get the judge’s approval. His only instruction to me was to remain completely silent and uninvolved. I remember the tense moment when the judge entered the courtroom and asked everyone to identify themselves for the record. When it was my turn, the judge simply raised her hand, signaling for me to stay silent. And so, I became an invisible observer, a fly on the wall in a world that most people never see.

The morning was uneventful, filled with routine first appearances and motion hearings handled by the attorneys. It felt no different from what you might see in an adult courtroom—procedural, almost detached. But the afternoon was a different story. The cases turned darker, more disturbing, as probation violations were brought before the judge. The ages of the kids struck me first and the charges were beyond comprehension. One boy, just 11, was back for violating probation after committing yet another carjacking. Another, a 9-year-old, was led in by a sheriff, clutching a teddy bear, charged with pointing a shotgun at a witness in his older brother’s homicide case. One kid just did his 10th car jacking. Other cases consisted of theft, burglary, drugs, weapons, larceny, vandalism, trespass and gang involvement.

The day unfolded with a grim monotony, each case blending into the next, each child a tragic echo of the last. By the end of the session, I felt a heavy sense of despair. What I had witnessed was not an exception but the routine—a daily churn of young lives on a trajectory that seemed almost predetermined. There were no hopeful moments, no signs of redemption—just a system processing children who, sooner or later, would end up in the adult prison system.

Leaving the courtroom that day, I understood better than ever the weight Paul carried with him from his years on the job. His efforts to bring a sliver of humanity into the lives of these kids were both heroic and heartbreaking, knowing that for many, it would never be enough to change their fate.

One of the best known was Melody Park Drive-In, also known as Drake’s Drive-In, located on Old Highway 52 in Marion Township. Owned by Marciel and Mildred Drake, it became famous for its root beer, which was made fresh every day. Its distinctive sign featured a lanky cowboy that made the restaurant easy to spot from the highway. The property was later sold to Richard Amdahl, owner of the neighboring Amdahl’s Olmsted County Nursery, who eventually sold both properties after retiring from IBM in 1990. Today the site, at 3237 Marion Road SE, is occupied by Dillon Radiator. During construction of the new building in 1999, workers uncovered numerous heavy glass root beer mugs buried beneath the property—a tangible reminder of the drive-in’s popularity.

The Drakes also opened Drake’s Purity Diner in 1954 at the corner of First Avenue and First Street SW, next to the Chateau Theatre and Dodge Lumber Company. Unlike most restaurants, it operated from a genuine Pullman railroad car. In 1957 the diner was sold to Robert Lynn, who renamed it Lynn’s Purity Diner, later shortened to Lynn’s Diner. Eventually the railroad car was replaced by a conventional permanent building.

Another member of the Drake family operated Drake’s Lunch Box, located one block south of the Rochester Dairy Queen on North Broadway. Bob Drake, Marciel’s brother, and his wife Marge served customers from another Pullman railroad car. The restaurant offered walk-up service and became known for its friendly service and excellent french fries.

Rochester was also home to the Driv-ett Diner, established in 1951 by Vernon Wendland and Russell Hoven. Two identical Valentine prefabricated diners were used—one located across from St. Mary’s Hospital at 1223 Second Street SW and the other behind the Avalon Hotel at 301 North Broadway. The Second Street location changed names several times over the decades, reflecting the changing restaurant scene in Rochester. It became Lynn’s Driv-ett in 1957 after Robert Lynn purchased it, Lynn’s Restaurant in 1966, Darrell’s Restaurant in 1976, Taso’s in 1986, and finally Presto in 2005.

These places are remembered through old photos, menus, signs, buried mugs, and the recollections of people who ate there. They were small businesses, but they left a clear trace in Rochester’s everyday history.

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This is the first civilian human centrifuge in the United States. It was built at the Mayo Clinic under the direction of Dr. Earl Wood to study the effects of high gravitational (G) forces on the human body. The research began during World War II, much of it under military secrecy, and included test subjects such as Charles Lindbergh. Many historians believe this work contributed to the development of safer, more effective military aircraft and gave the Allies an important advantage during the war.

The centrifuge itself was a remarkable example of ingenuity. Dr. Wood and his team built it from steel pipe, recycled 40-ton flywheels salvaged from an old brewery, and even a used automobile engine. In the early years, there was no shortage of volunteers because the researchers often served as their own test subjects.

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Dynamic Spatial Reconstructor (DSR)

The Dynamic Spatial Reconstructor (DSR) was one of the most ambitious medical imaging projects ever undertaken. Developed at the Mayo Clinic during the 1970s and early 1980s under the direction of Dr. Earl Wood, it was the world’s first high-speed, multi-source, three-dimensional CT scanner capable of producing detailed images of moving organs such as the beating heart and expanding lungs.

Conventional CT scanners of the era could produce excellent images of stationary anatomy but struggled with constantly moving organs. The DSR solved this problem by using 14 synchronized x-ray sources and 14 detectors arranged around the patient, capturing an entire three-dimensional volume in a fraction of a second. This made it possible to observe complete cardiac cycles and blood flow in ways that had never before been possible.

Although originally conceived as a non-invasive tool for the early detection of heart disease and lung cancer, the DSR ultimately became even more valuable as a research instrument. The data it produced established benchmarks for cardiac imaging and helped validate many of the non-invasive imaging technologies that followed.

The machine itself was extraordinary. The scanner’s gantry measured approximately 15 feet in diameter, 20½ feet long, and weighed nearly 17 tons. It incorporated 14 x-ray tubes, 14 rotating television cameras (later upgraded to CCD cameras), multiple video disc recorders, and sophisticated electronics and reconstruction software that pushed the limits of computing technology at the time.

Despite its groundbreaking capabilities, the DSR was too large, complex, and expensive to become a practical clinical instrument. Advances in conventional CT technology eventually achieved many of the same diagnostic goals at a fraction of the cost, and the Mayo Clinic ultimately decommissioned and scrapped the one-of-a-kind machine. Its influence, however, lives on in modern high-speed medical imaging, which owes much to the pioneering work accomplished by the DSR.

Unloading

Medical Sciences Building

At first glance, this Medical Sciences Building from the 1950s looks unremarkable, but its design reflects the practical needs of a world-class research facility.

The interior walls are constructed from removable wooden panels, each a few feet in size and secured with screws. Instead of tearing into walls whenever a laboratory needed to be reconfigured, technicians could simply remove a panel to install new wiring, plumbing, tubing, or equipment. It was a remarkably flexible design that allowed the building to evolve as research needs changed.

The laboratories were equally well thought out. Much of the plumbing for laboratory sinks was made from Pyrex glass to withstand the corrosive chemicals used in research. Beneath the basement floors, an underground creek flows through the site.

This building also has a personal connection for me. Its elevator served as the prototype for the working elevator model that I built years later. Click here to see it.

Surplus

I bought all sorts of surplus equipment from the Mayo Clinic warehouse, including an old EEG machine. It was a massive piece of equipment built from stainless steel and vacuum tubes—perfect for transforming into Control 3. When I paid the attendant five dollars, he smiled and said, “The casters have to be worth that much alone!”

More than forty years later, I discovered there may be much more to this machine than I ever imagined.

Mayo Clinic established its electroencephalography (EEG) program in 1935 with a custom-built system, laying the foundation for what became a dedicated medical department by the late 1940s. Around that same time, Grass Instruments introduced the Grass Model III, the world’s first commercially available eight-channel EEG console. Although designed in 1939, wartime production delays meant it was not manufactured until 1949.

That same year, Mayo Clinic engineers developed a sophisticated electrode selector specifically for the Grass Model III. The design became widely adopted and remained in use until digital EEG systems eventually replaced it decades later. Dr. C. W. Mayo reportedly used this system during more than fifty lengthy surgical procedures.

The machine I purchased is a Grass Model III. Based on its age and serial number, it is believed to be one of the units used during this pioneering period that helped establish EEG as a practical medical technology. Because the original serial number plate is still intact, Mayo Clinic is researching its historical records to determine whether this is the very machine used by Dr. Mayo himself.

My Dad, Don Erdman, was one of the first employees taking on the dual roles of announcer and Chief Engineer. He also had a limited role in sales. He was a graduate of Brown Institute for both broadcasting and electronics with an FCC Radiotelephone First-Class Operator License. As engineer he built out the studio and performed routine maintenance at the studio and transmitter. As announcer he did the morning drive as a one-man show including spinning his own records, rip and read news, weather, commercials, and of course announcing. It gets to be a bit humorous with the number of roles he played in this short broadcast recording.

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Recording of KOLM Broadcast

Taken From: ¼” 2 track 10 ½” tape

Restoration: Speed correction, selection of cleanest track, click reduction, tape splicing, removal of small sections of irreparable tape, equalization

Scoping: Music has only brief beginning and ending

Recording of KOLM Jingles

Taken From: ¼” 2 track 10 ½” tape (original tape available)

Restoration: Speed correction, selection of cleanest track, click reduction, tape splicing, removal of small sections of irreparable tape, equalization

Scoping: None

History

KOLM-AM

KOLM-FM

I was driving my 4Runner down a gravel road while Andrew took photos. While keeping an eye on the sky Andrew noticed that the funnel must have just crossed the road ahead of us. The road was pelted with gobs of goo.

We turned and trailed the storm only to be stopped by downed power lines. That is when we realized that this was a farm. There was nothing much left. People were emerging from a shelter but there was no house. A tractor was toppled hundreds of feet away.

This tornado entered Beadle County at approximately 6:37 pm doing F2 damage to a farmstead. The aerial survey confirmed this to be a long track tornado of approximately 24.5 miles lifting 3.5 miles southwest of Huron at 7:18 pm. This tornado was on the ground for a total of 50 minutes.

The tornado reached its peak intensity 2 miles south of Wolsey where F3 damage occurred. Winds in this area were estimated to be around 200 mph with the tornado 400 to 500 yards wide. This tornado finally lifted southwest of Huron but then the supercell thunderstorm began strengthening again as it continued east.

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First Previous of 3 Next Last

Naturally, I had to tell someone about this brush with fame. I tried calling my buddy Doug, but his line was busy. So, in a moment of misplaced enthusiasm, I decided to swing by his house on the way and share the news in person. What I hadn’t accounted for were the treacherous, winding county roads coated in fresh ice. Halfway there, common sense finally kicked in: if I kept going, I’d either end up in a ditch, late to pick up Nabors, or both. Regretfully, I aborted the side trip and made a beeline for the airport, arriving just in time.

Jim Nabors and his manager, Stan Cadwallader, were already waiting when I pulled up. As the skycap loaded their luggage into the trunk, I couldn’t help but notice the brass plaques on their immaculate suitcases: “Jim Nabors, Honolulu.” Fancy. Nabors climbed into the car, warm and friendly, but his attention was focused on an animated discussion with Stan about Sharky’s Machine, Burt Reynolds’ newest movie. Though Nabors wasn’t in the film, his close friendship with Reynolds clearly made it a hot topic.

The snow picked up as we drove, and I could feel the tension in the car. They were eager to get to the warmth of the hotel. The big black Lincoln handled beautifully, but I underestimated just how icy the roads had become. Heading down Broadway, the light at the Highway 14 intersection turned yellow. And then came the quintessential Minnesota driving dilemma: hit the brakes and risk a skid or gun it through the light?

With Jim Nabors in the back seat, I played it safe and hit the brakes. Big mistake. The tires had about as much grip as a hockey puck, and we began sliding straight for the ditch. Desperate to salvage the situation—and my dignity—I straightened the wheels and floored it. The Lincoln, now channeling its inner snowmobile, plunged into the ditch, plowed through the snow, and somehow popped right back onto the road.

“Shazam!” Nabors exclaimed, his voice so perfectly Gomer Pyle it was like a scene from a sitcom.

Trying to lighten the mood, I quipped, “That’s just how we drive in Minnesota!” Nabors laughed, gracious as ever, but Stan looked like he was reassessing his life choices.

By the time we pulled up to the Kahler Hotel, the black Lincoln looked more like it had just conquered a bobsled run than chauffeured a celebrity. The front grill was caked with snow, a frosty badge of honor from our impromptu detour. Nabors stepped out, thanked me warmly, and disappeared into the hotel, leaving me with a story that made surviving Minnesota winters feel downright glamorous.

I learned quickly that corporate espionage was a major threat to IBM.

On my first day there was “breach of confidential material” warning on my desk when I came back from lunch. I left some papers and a calendar on my desk. My boss said IBM has a clear desk policy. Whenever stepping away I need to lock everything up, including the calendar.

When dealing with confidential documents, we had three choices: have it in hand, have it locked in your desk, or securely dispose of it. Throughout the hallways there were disposal stations. The lower part was a full-blown steel reinforced safe. The upper part was like a mail drop. Slide papers into a rotatable drum and they drop into the vault registering a deposit. Periodically a small vehicle would mate to the disposal station and automatically transfer the contents from one safe to the safe on board.

Backgrounder

In the middle of the 20th century, IBM was the most famous, the most admired, the most widely respected company in the world,” said Quinn Mills, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, and the author of “The IBM Lesson” and other books about its history and culture.

By the late 1960s, IBM had become the apex of how companies treated workers and thought of their roles in society.

Its culture was called “cradle to grave,” meaning if you got in, they would take care of you. There were lavish carnivals for workers and their families. Around the country, there were country clubs and golf courses where workers at all levels could play for virtually nothing.

The most famous of those values was what they called “respect for the individual,” and with it came one of the most astonishing policies in American business. For more than seven decades, IBM never laid off workers. If business changed, workers might be retrained and forced to adapt. There was the possibility of being moved across the country or overseas, giving IBM the internal moniker “I’ve Been Moved.”

But if you did your job, if you worked for IBM, you had job security. Founder Thomas Watson believed it was good for business.

“He believed people worked better when they were secure, not insecure,” Mills said. Watson “believed people would make a full commitment to the company if they knew they could count on the company to make a full commitment to them.”

It can be incredibly difficult to become an IBMer. Successful applicants would take up to seven months to get through the interview process and start work.

IBM Rochester

By 1980, the plant had grown to 2.3 million square feet with over 6,000 employees responsible for creating and building a wide range of computer systems and business machines sold to governments and business customers. The workforce had grown over 7,000 in 1985 and exceeded 8,000 in 1990 when President George H. Bush presented the Rochester facility with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. It was the highest honor in the nation for quality. Rochester was at the center of the IBM universe when it rolled out the hugely popular AS/400 series. By 1996, the company had shipped 400,000 of the business computer systems to sites throughout the world.

My daughter Phoenix, fifteen years old, thinks that the USA in 2008 is the normal world. She has never seen a teacher strike a student, for example. If a teacher in her school hit a child so hard that his desk toppled over, that teacher would be unemployed and probably unemployable by the end of the day. Students today know that battery by a teacher is so egregious that they would get up and leave the room after an instance of such violence. She would simply not believe me if I told her about the time an English teacher attacked a student when I was in eighth grade in 1964 in Rochester, Minnesota, at Central Junior High School. The child made the mistake of addressing a teacher as Mr. J instead of Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson, who I remember as large, determined that assault and battery was the optimal pedagogy in this situation and was so eager to educate the child that he ran into the room. (l have no memory of ever seeing a teacher run inside of a school. Outside at school picnics, yes, but not inside.) He chased the student into the classroom. The student had nowhere to flee from his lesson but to his desk.

Phoenix also thinks that clean, safe, and rationally constructed school buildings have been the norm in Minnesota history. I have told her about the physical education classes I was subjected to and seen her glaze over with incredulity. She responded to me in the same way she did when I told her I had to walk ten miles to and from school every day and that both ways were uphill. Children always drop into wait mode whenever an adult begins a sentence with, “When I was your age…” Even if she hadn’t, the reality of Central Junior High School, which I have ever since attending it written the name as Central Junior High “School”, is so alien to her that she simply doesn’t believe me.

Take the swimming classes, for example. The pool was in the Coffman Building across the street from Central. To go to Coffman, students had to walk through a tunnel, which was lit by naked light bulbs about seven feet off the concrete floor until the greasers swatted all of them with their books. (Greasers used half a tube of Brill Cream every day. After combing their hair straight back, the pale scalp was visible through the little crevices left by the teeth of their combs.) If you were lucky enough to get to the tunnel before the greasers, fine. If not, you guided yourself through the utterly lightless tunnel by placing a hand on the steam pipes attached to the wall beneath the smashed light bulbs. In the wintertime, the pipes were too hot to touch so you tapped your fingers on the pipe every couple seconds to keep yourself walking straight through the tunnel. The return trip was always dark. Did anybody in administration ever wonder why the school bought thousands of light bulbs every year?

I can’t tell you why they called the locker room in Coffman a locker room. There were no lockers. To give the impression of giving a rat’s ass about the students, the administration had installed some hooks and a few benches. The floors were probably concrete, but they were hard enough to be marble. I couldn’t really tell what they were made of though because they were black and I doubted they had been painted that color. Here and there were bits of skid strips that hadn’t been worn away by decades of the wet feet of miserable teenagers. I was sure that sometimes the janitor spread a slurry of cattle slobber, ash, and grit on the floor.

First we were ordered to strip. As if in a scene from Schindler’s List, forty naked boys were herded into a shower about sixteen feet square with about eight shower heads, one for each of the big boys, In Phoenix’s locker room, which has lockers, each shower has its own hot and cold shut off valves. The water for the showers in Coffman in 1964 was turned on in such a comical and bizarre way, I don’t expect readers born after 1980 to believe me, but here goes anyway. First of all, there was only one crank to turn on all of the showers at once, both hot and cold water. The crank wasn’t even one of those steering wheel-like valves in the submarine movies from many years ago. It was a wrench that hung loosely on a square-shaped knob on the valve. Believe it or not, to grasp the wrench a skinny, trembling, naked boy stood on the bottom railing, a round, wet, slippery pipe, and leaned out over the top railing, while being jostled and yelled at by the other boys, across a one-story drop to a concrete floor. A quarter turn of the wrench started the showers. There was no temperature control, so the big boys pushed the little ones under the flowing water until it was warm and then pushed us into the middle. We cowered there, finishing our shower with water deflected off the hillocks of muscle and hair that had claimed the showers.

It gets worse. After all of us were wet, we were marched through another tunnel to get to the pool. This tunnel was always dark and always flooded with several inches of freezing water separated from the Minnesota permafrost by three inches of concrete. The cinderblock walls perfectly reflected and amplified the screams of forty running boys having ice water kicked up onto their backs by the boys behind them.

Once in the pool, we swam laps for forty minutes and were then allowed five minutes of free time to play. The teacher announced the end of pool time with a whistle. The last boy out of the pool, usually the unfortunate one who had just jumped off the diving board, was awarded a rosebud. The man in charge, who the parents were told was a certified teacher, obliged the slowest boy to bend over and swatted him on the wet ass so hard that a red welt – the rosebud – appeared on the white skin. And it gets still worse: When a boy spat a loogie onto the slimy tile floor, the teacher forced him to lick it back up. I’m not making this up.

The hiring practices at Central Junior High “School” must have required of candidates a profound and abiding hatred of children. A streak of sadism improved the probability of employment. Certainly, these policies were never committed to paper, but I can’t account for the historical facts in any other way. And Rochester was a relatively enlightened community. I shudder to think of the “education” inflicted upon the children in Alabama, Saudi Arabia, or Rhodesia in 1964.

I am pleased that for Phoenix, ice water on her naked back, blows to her face, and instructions to lick spit off the floor are not normal.

[NOTE: Frank has a neuromuscular disorder and is wheelchair bound.]

This evening I attended an introductory session to the upcoming class Creating a Life That Matters. Apparently, this has been a life-changing event for past attendees. Some changed careers, started pursuing life-long dreams, changed relationships, and even redirecting their own spiritual journey. We were each given a few minutes to share why we are taking the class and what we are expecting from it. Not surprising the responses varied widely given the group’s social diversity, levels of education, and lifetimes of accumulated religious baggage.

It was Frank’s turn to speak. He said that he just doesn’t know how to contribute to the church since he can’t give money nor volunteer like everyone else does. He paused as he became noticeably despondent. The awkward silence was pierced when he blurted out that he was considering physician assisted suicide. I don’t know which was more riveting; my empathy for him, or the chilling reality of what this class may uproot in me. It’s as if his singular statement continued to reverberate through the silence as we all meekly tried to become transparent. I am pretty sure that I was not the only one to let out a sigh of relief when Robyn replied by default as the only clergy in the room.

On the way home, with the safety of time and space, I gained the courage to respond to Frank. Even with my own life-long struggle with the abyss of depression, I must admit that I can’t even imagine myself in his place. However, I also must admit that during that silence I saw something in Frank with amazing clarity and purpose.

I believe that we are all ultimately called upon to reconnect with our source so that, out of our own abundance, we can give unqualified love back to creation. As our gifts become less focused on the physical and worldly constructs of our daily lives, we find that their relevance begins to fall away in favor of true connectedness. As we realize that everything emanates from God, our source, we also learn that we are not of our bodies and its accomplishments. We ultimately become free when we surrender to the intentional energy that brought us into existence and from which we are currently materialized.

As we delve into the world of the invisible it does feel a little like the twilight zone. It is far less risky to only accept things that we can see, touch, smell, hear, or taste and reject everything else. However, just as school children we learned to form abstractions from the tangible, as spiritual children we are learning to move our consciousness from the world of form to the invisible realm.

This may be a difficult concept if you think you are your achievements. God writes all the music, God sings all the songs, God builds all the buildings, God is the source of all your achievements. I can hear your ego loudly protesting. Nevertheless, stay tuned to this idea. All emanates from Source! You and that Source are one! You’re not this body and its accomplishments. You are the observer. Notice it all; and be grateful for the abilities you’ve accumulated. But give all the credit to the power of intention, which brought you into existence and which you’re a materialized part of.

Dr. Wayne Dyer

As children, we likely started the journey to reconnect with our source in very tangible and, in retrospect, simplistic way. We learned generosity by putting a few coins, which our parents slipped to us just moments before, into the church collection basket. The finer points of tithing were modeled to us as 10% of our allowance money was parentally pried from our hands and into the collection basket each Sunday. However, there is no substitute for guilt to learn how to give sacrificially when asked by relatives what you will do with the windfall of cash gifts you received at your first communion.

Over time these experiences coalesce into effective habits so that as adults we feel rewarded by the act of giving itself. We transcend those parental antics of money shuffling as we start earning our own money and can simply write out a check for the offering plate. Some of us have graduated to more sophisticated giving by combining automatic withdrawals with formal tax and estate planning.

We used a similar progression to learn the value in the regular giving of our time and talents. Here too some have graduated to the level of donating pro bono services. Just as with our monetary gifts, the giving of time and talent gives us a good feeling knowing that we are doing important work.

Is this sacrificial giving?

Are we giving back by grace alone?

Perhaps.

Or, perhaps while growing up we also grew a little complacent, thinking we know all about giving time and treasure.

What if we didn’t have hands to sign a check? What if we didn’t have able bodies to volunteer for Cherish Our Church? Do we have to be able to see, touch, smell, hear, or taste something for it to exist? Surely, we are much more than our hands and feet!

Can we grasp the essence of a gift coming out of pure love and grace? Our true gift is not a check, or cash, or some object, or even our time. These things are merely chattel representing a far more profound gift: the gift of ourselves when we have reconnected with our source. Through God we experience the abundance of life energy that is neither created, nor destroyed, is without form, yet paradoxically is what everything tangible is made of. The concept that a thought is the same as an action is no longer just for mystics, it is the foregone conclusion of Quantum Mechanics. The giving of oneself simply does not require nor rely upon anything connected to this world!

Perhaps giving my means of our earthly treasures and talents is not so much a pinnacle, as it is a rest stop in our journey toward the source of true giving.

To attain inner peace, you must actually give your life, not just your possessions. When you at last give your life – bringing into alignment your beliefs and the way you live then, and only then, can you begin to find inner peace.

Peace Pilgrim

Perhaps we should view any physical form of a gift to be like training wheels. As children, we wouldn’t grasp the concept of giving by using automatic withdrawal from a bank account; we need something tangible to put in the collection basket. However, is there much difference between coins passing from parent to child to church, and dollars passing from employer to adult to church? I think we gradually come to learn that any physical form of a gift is merely a metaphor bridging the gap that still separates us from God.

Our gifts will likely take on many different forms throughout our spiritual journey. Some people could argue that a gift in physical form is childlike and not very valuable. Others could argue that a gift with no physical form is not reality based and has no earthly value. I don’t think that any one is more or less valuable than another. (While intangible gifts may be more spiritually mature, they don’t translate so well to earthly needs like paying our bills each month. Fortunately, those needs seem to be matched by the gifts of those who still use a primitive cash metaphor as part of their spiritual journey.)

It’s always about service. The highest pathway that we can get to, the Pathway of Surrender, is also called the Pathway of the Spirit. Jung talked about the archetypes of the Warrior, the Athlete, the Statesman, and ultimately the Spirit. When you’re asking the question about finding your purpose, you’re in the Athlete or Warrior stages. You’re asking the question, “What am I here for?” based upon what you are supposed to do with your body and your talents. But when you get past that, you realize that this isn’t who you are—you are not your body. Then you realize that the only thing you can do with your body and with your life is to give it away.

Dr. Wayne Dyer

I believe that God matches us up perfectly with our role in life. We can’t fail nor disappoint since the outcome was always known; we just need to act with complete faith and trust. I also believe that we are manifested here on earth to learn lessons from one another, and until a lesson is learned we will repeat it with different circumstances and/or teachers. I suspect that we often think we have graduated from a life stage not realizing that there was an underlying life lesson to be learned, or we fall short of grasping the essence of a lesson and then wonder why life keeps dishing us up the same drama. To me it seems insurmountable to understand what it would be to give in the form of pure energy without the bindings of our worldly bodies and possessions. I probably will take tiny incremental steps to fully understand these things.

Not all students require small incremental steps to learn abstract concepts. In the real world of education, a student that is particularly bright will likely skip a grade or two. Exceptional students may advance past high school and go directly to college. Prodigies advance to graduate school. Then there are those singularly gifted students that are so far out of the box that they drop out of school as they transcend the traditional curriculum. These individuals fully immerse themselves in the real world and learn as they go.

Frank, it seems to me that your laments about giving may reveal a very special blessing and calling. It seems to me that God has pushed you into the deep end of the pool of a life lesson. Forget the baby steps. Forget the training wheels. Forget the metaphors. These are all relics of what binds us to a hopelessly flawed world. The fastest way to learn something new is to take it head-on without the encumbrances of metaphors and a series of approximations. However, the clear majority of us can’t grasp concepts without taking many smaller steps. Head-on immersion would be like giving a jet plane instead of a tricycle to a child who wants to grow up to be an airline captain.

We can easily hear the need for money without leaving the shallow end of the pool. But just as there is someone ready to give a dollar for everyone needed, so too is the need for things less tangible. It may be harder to hear at the deep end of the pool, but someone has a need for every one of your gifts.

I have no way of knowing if my intuition is accurate, but I believe that you will emerge from the “deep end of the pool” with an ethereal strength and a knowing that holds me in awe.

I personally am convinced that you have been well chosen and qualified to advance to the “head of the class.” Your consistent presence and perseverance is testimony to your amazing character.

Peace,

Peter

Over many years of travelling I have developed a few rituals, including one with the sun setting over the ocean. For years this ritual has retained its power and awe since it has never become routine. It is a singular event to witness an ocean sunset. The sun appears many times its normal size as it approaches the horizon and then suddenly disappears. There is nothing subtle or gradual in that last moment.

It is this unwavering decisiveness of the sunset juxtaposed against the vast openness of the ocean that makes for a compelling ritualized reflection on the state of my life.

Normally I would stroll along the beach waiting for the transition to occur. In that instant transition from light to dark I look inward to see who I am at that precise moment. No apologies. No excuses. No shyness. Just an unvarnished look at myself in this moment of creation.

In the moments leading up to the singular event my thoughts and emotions can’t help but work overtime trying to control and negotiate a spin on who I am. However, upon the absoluteness of an ocean sunset time stands still as does my inner dialog. It often becomes a moment of clarity between me and my maker.

I usually get quite excited about my little ritual; but not this time. I have been in a horrible place emotionally, spiritually, and physically after facing a decade-long betrayal. I simply wanted to bypass the ritual and go back to the hotel so that I could spend full-time feeling sorry for myself. But the power of this ritual is that it is indeed a ritual.

A few minutes before sunset I casually wandered off from my friends and sat on a wooden bench by a few dozen strangers. I tried to feel the majesty of the ocean but instead I became intrigued by the street musicians. While listening to love songs I realized that I am surrounded by happy couples. Great. Now the ritual is about feeling abandoned, unlovable, and ultimately alone. It became impossible to continue with this charade.

Then power of the ritual started to occur as the vastness of the ocean became compelling. My thoughts quickly became focused on the billions of creatures living in the sea, and peoples from all walks of life living in the here and now. It is this humbleness that puts my life in context while simultaneously gaining perspective in looking up at the stars. As the sun transitioned I started to anticipate that warm feeling of contentment which usually happens as the ritual reveals that I am OK just as I am.

As the sun began its plunge it felt like all these happy people are here for the seemingly singular and cruel purpose of illustrating my aloneness. In that moment of clarity, I became bitter and resentful.

My attitude and I walked out on this contrived ritual and slithered toward the beach to be alone. I must have looked quite pathetic as I crossed paths with my friends. I went to the edge of the water and just sat down. I took off my sandals and fiddled with the sand trying to emulate a person enjoying vacation. I did notice that my friends discretely avoided my presence once they caught up to me.

I figured that I could pull myself together in a few minutes and then meet up with them back at the car. It seemed fitting that the water was icy cold so I didn’t bother to retreat from the advancing tide. I picked up on my previous thoughts of being alone in the world.

I looked up and saw the ocean and stars from a different perspective. I was so enamored with my own pity that I didn’t even notice the ritual sunset. I continued my thoughts of the magnitude of the creation that is alive out there…in the here and now. My mind usually begins to multiply this vastness by an eternal timeline as I look out beyond the stars. It is quite humbling to be just one out of many billions. Now multiply those billions by generations that span eons of time. Certainly puts my struggles, triumphs and ego in perspective. Of course tonight the feeling of humility is lost since my ego is expecting all of creation to be feeling sorry for me. And they clearly don’t. What I am feeling now just doesn’t matter.

Now I feel like I have sabotaged my own sacred ocean sunset ritual.

I look down as I push sand around to disconnect from this jaded reality. I feel numb and lightly close my eyes hoping that it will all go away.

Sometime later a surfer dude walks by and jokingly says that I should get out of the water. Sitting up I realize that the rising tide is now crashing waves over my legs. Completely soaked I stood up and brushed the sand off myself as I walked toward the car. I noticed more than a few people looking at me as I continued to pull myself together. Strange. They all seemed inconsequential. Not good. Not bad. They just were. I felt a profound sense of oneness and purpose as time literally stood still. No inner dialog. No thoughts of what happened or would happen next. Everything was just OK.

I scrambled for some levity when I got into the car with my friends, but this tranquil feeling had me transfixed and speechless for at least half the trip back to the hotel. As the roads transitioned from beach trails to massive freeways, I began rationalizing what had just happened. These ideas got shot down before I could even finish them. I didn’t need to analyze anything! It was so obvious that a child could figure it out.

Jesus just washed my feet.

A very special thanks to Andrew Sonnek who captured the above image unknown to me at the time. Please treat yourself by visiting www.afsonnek.com.