The next morning, thursday, was the first day my mood had totally changed. In fact, everything had changed. Whatever reservations I had about Lisa's response to my newfound joy the night before, something had begun inside me. That morning at the Prayer Chapel was the definite moment of transformation. While at the altar, I began to have definite impressions in my mind of...people thinking a lot about me beack home... It was rather unsettling. My mind had been set in motion once again, a sense of a different time, a different place...Jerusalem city limits, about two millenia ago. A public execution, a message springing forth..like a series of marathon runners...through the catacombs of the Roman Empire...the cathedrals of France...the public square of Wittenburg in Germany, 1517...on missionary ships crossing the Atlantic...in wheatfields in the colonies as preachers roused the masses...through revival tents in the Old West...all to this point now with the message that GOD LOVED ME. And once that settled in my heart, I could move on with courage.
That weekend I became more insulated from things going on around me to events going on within...I had no explanation as to why I felt so DIFFERENT (an understatement) from before, I sensed it was God, and my lack of dependence on food was, to me, an indication that I was being EMPTIED of self. He would provide as He saw fit, I reasoned. But my previous sense of reason and logic melted to the new understanding of God's will.
That Friday evening, I contemplated things such as the meanings of names (much like a recent thread), the meanings of song lyrics--just about every song I could think of took on a new context and significance that directly related to...whatever it was with Lisa. I had begun to see her as The World's Greatest Theologian--she had been quoted as saying that God's love was constant in spite of anyone's expectations of her to "perform" all the outward rules of the Christian life. A simple explanation to be sure, bu to me it was a REVELATION. In my formulas I had written in my notebooks
I had theorized that religious faith and artistic inspiration were on the same level. In fact, my new understanding of everything confirmed something in me: I was THE GREATEST SAGE, THE GREATEST PROVIDER OF WISDOM, I KNEW IT ALL NOW, I SAW, I BELIEVED. No one could touch my crystal orb of spiritual solitude
in which I communed with The Supreme Being. At least if I weren't the prophet of a new faith, I had discovered a truth, or sets of truths that no one else had considered.
It was as if God had pressed a Fast-Forward button in my mind. Things were flashing through my mind so quickly. What sort of conclusion was my mind to reach? What was God really trying to say? Now that I was the Big Kahuna of All Spiritual Knowledge, I had to prepare to deliver my message to the world. Of course it would seem as if I were a megalomaniac suffering from delusions of grandeur, but I really believed that I had unique ideas in regards to religion and things. When you have lived for years under the yoke of religious repression, radical new ideas would seem to be the birth of a new religion. Perhaps not everything that Jesus had said was entirely original, but considering His society and culture hungering for liberation, His words were a breath of fresh air. I didn't think of myself in anyway as a messiah, but as a person who could shake things up--I was a visionary. For all the charismatic antics at the church, I felt that they could use one.
On Sunday, there was no Lisa. No problem. I withdrew deeper into my web of thoughts and ideas. Song lyrics continued to speak to me--in particular, the album "Hemispheres" by the band Rush, which depicted a battle between two Greek gods, Apollo, the god of reason, and Dionysus, the god of passionate emotions, or "love". They both battled for control of human minds. This album spoke to me because it reminded me of the two sides of the human brain--the right, "intuitive, emotional" side, and the left, " analytical, practical" side. Which side had dominated my mind? I wondered.
The next day brought me deeper into my mind. I knew that a dramatic change had taken place in me,but I did not see how badly starvation or "fasting" had depleted me. I was almost a skeleton with oversized clothes barely hanging on to my frame. A marked difference from beginning the summer rather overweight.
But I hung on. My journey was my own. I was trying to make sense of everything with a new vocabulary, new meanings. That day, as reports of a major stock market crash gripped L.A., I ignored everything. In the evening, I continued my conversations with God--my articulation of my philosophy was a non-stop conversation with God--I was completely on a roll. I paused for a moment on a dimly-lit side street off Sherman Way in midthought.
Was God saying something back?
In the chilly fall night, I found myself suddenly enveloped by an
inexplicable warmth.
Lisa loves you.
I chuckled at this suggestion. She what--?? There was an immediate drawing, a pull, in my mental vision, calling me to focus on HER. I had never expected THIS, for all my stressing about her opinion of me, for all my soaring thoughts about her, how wonderful she was and her message of God's love changing me, I had never expected--or asked for--this.
Isn't it obvious? She thinks the world of you.
I laughed again, wondering how this could be so. What did I do, stepping into her life like that in August, that made her light up?? My heart sprang out with joy. So this is what it was all about. I had no reason for worry. This was the answer I had been serching for all along. I wandered back to my sleeping abg space to contemplate this blissful revelation from God.
But before I could roll out my bedding, an icy feeling of blackness
swept over me. Another message whispering deep in my psyche. Ugly, fearful images flashed before my mind's eyes, all of Lisa. All of Lisa, helpless, afraid, alone, in anguish. In an utter state of brokenness. Images of shattered relationships, dreams dashed to pieces, a fractured facade of happy life played out before the watching critical eyes of her church--did this have anything to do with the grim-faced mustachioed man standing by her car that one Sunday morning when I gave her my poetry? There even seemed to be a premonition of a medical emergency--my mind raced to find out what was happening. Premonitions of problems and crises she could no longer hide from anyone, deep horrors within that she kept to herself. AND NOW I KNEW. A sense of having given up all hope, a wish to end it all. NO!! My heart burst in total, abject, agonizing pain for her, i cried for hours for her in this darkest hour of turmoil. What was the meaning of all this--and why was I to know? This was my purpose--to reach out to Lisa in her deepest hour of need.
The next day began in complete terror. Overcome by the revelations from the night before, I ambled through the streets of Van Nuys, at a total loss of what to do and how to help her. As I passed by each paper vending machine, my heart froze in horror--the headlines screamed in bold black print: WALL STREET BLOODBATH!! I resisted the urge to panic as thoughts of Lisa's agony gripped me. In a heightened state of agitation, I paced around the neighborhood streets, playing out the scenarios in my head of what must have happened, or what would happen, etc., when suddenly I felt an urge, a call: RUN TO THE CHURCH--NOW. I sprinted there in minutes, to the church office parking lot just in time to see Lisa leave her car and enter the building. From behind I could see her with her head down, her hand wiping her temples as though out out of weariness or tears. My heart went out to her, and she carried it in. The panic surged in me like earth tremors so violently that to calm myself down, I began to sing ABBA songs. I briefly stepped into the church bookstore with no real purpose than to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to curb the rising anxiety in me. I wanted to give song lyrics from various albums to Lisa to cheer her up, so I asked the clerk if I could borrow them as long as I brought them back. He seemed puzzled by my request but said okay. So I went back out and continued to wait for her. I decided to write a cheerful message for her to perk up her day--the most important words I would ever write, I felt--but my hand was shaking so badly as I wrote it that its words appeared scribbled and slightly illegible: "Dear Lisa, I am writing this to wish you a happy day and that everything will go just perfectly for you! With love..."
(something like that.) Soon she came out with one of the pastors and she was very happy to see me. She called out my name and I gave her my handwritten message and a hug. She thanked me and said she was off to work (Tuesday, FOL taping day.) She wore a bubblegum-pink sweatsuit which I was sure would be switched to Blair's super-stylish outfits. She drove off and once again peace restored my soul. Mission accomplished. I could tell why she was so into me--I was blind to the problems that she was sure others at church were whispering about, I reasoned. Whatever the reason, I was CRAZY about this girl... The only thing I had wished was that I could extend that hug, to tell her everything was going to be all right. I could not bear the thought of her facing the day alone, on the verge of panic. Funny how this seemed to be more like me than her.