Thomas (the doubter) is my baptismal name. Joseph (the father) is my first communion name. Andrew (the fisherman) is my confirmation name. You may correctly surmise from the above litany of names that I had a Catholic background. WWII was ending when I entered first grade, yet, for me, the most memorable warfare was just beginning. I spent the next eight years in the best torture chambers that parochial schools could provide. The good sisters hit my knuckles with the steel edge of a ruler seemingly for inappropriate smiling, whereas the "pious" brothers brought board to my butt for untoward thoughts. My mind would not stay tame, but I refrained from direct rebuttal, since I at no time had the right to contradict a "sanctified" person. I talked with my Mother who seemed concerned, but told me it was a sacrilege to offend a "holy" person. Case closed. As an attempted consolation, I was allowed to witness the private "saying" of a Mass in our home. After the service, I asked the then drunken monsignor the nature of God, and he cursed me and called me "an impudent son of a bitch."

Well, I have been looking for God my whole life only to find Her in my back yard and feel Him unfold in my heart. Catholic schools ended my sandbox days, but not my playfulness. Surprise! I learned to pray anyway, in spite of unrequited barbarism. I resorted to neither bars nor obscenities. I have been on the scent of the Universal Christ for a "'coon's age," perhaps wounded but hardly crucified. I am: a recovered Catholic, ex-Sikh, student of Far and Near Eastern mysteries, mystical poet, elastic dancer, and mantra making man.

The biggest surprise of all is that I dig Christianity: real salt of the earth, taste-it-on-your-tongue Christianity. This is the kind of Christ who lives throughout the U.S.A. in people's kind and loving presences, un-assailed by dogmas and regaled in majestic parables. I am just a kid again, leaning to surrender to the feminine dimension of Christ. In the Aramaic, the name Eshoa (Jesus in English, Yeshua in Hebrew) means "God restores," and in his native tongue, God was either-gendered and a caring parent. My wife Rahmaneh is helping me (through her investigation of the Aramaic words of Eshoa) discover an enthusiasm for Christianity which I felt was beaten out of me. "Jesus Saves!" I thought I would never hear myself speak that way. He saves from the arrogance of divisive thinking, the "them and us" syndrome; he saves us from an all knowing God outside ourselves, and an afterlife for the pious and hell for the evil. In fact, in Aramaic, "evil" is termed "bisha" which signifies "unripe," So how do you like them apples? It is as simple as Adam and Eve, but the story is vaster than an evil temptress and the progeny of original sin.