Chapter 4

What happened at the temple—the fire and David’s coming to our little apartment at the seminary—was preceded by an event that I never clearly understood, but I will relate it as best I can now, although it takes us back a little in time.

Timothy Wu was a young and very evangelistic student at the seminary. Since we shared a passion for personal evangelism, we became friends. I was feeling overwhelmed and inadequate as I now faced holding a Bible study in the Hare Krishna Temple, and I thought it would be good if Timothy came with me. He readily agreed, and we set a time to go into the City.

My relationship with David was naturally strained; he was wary of me and me of him. Other devotees were polite but guarded and defensive. David and company would throw questions at me that I could not answer, although I was learning as much as I could about eastern religions. To make things more uncomfortable for me, I could find nothing at all on Krishna Consciousness in the seminary library.

As was my agreement with the Swami, Timothy and I had to sit through the Kirtan before heading down to the basement for the Bible study. After a prayer, I introduced Timothy and asked him to give the teaching. He started with how he had become a Christian and moved right into a very fine account of the Gospel message. He was speaking rapidly and passionately.

After the meeting broke up I headed upstairs, and after discussing the study with some of the devotees for a while, I looked around for Timothy but didn’t find him. I went back down the basement steps and saw Timothy and David engaged in animated conversation. They were both yelling, and it looked like they might be headed for a fist fight. When they noticed me watching them, they calmed down and backed away from each other. Timothy approached me, and we both turned and climbed up the stairs and up and out of the temple.

On the ride home we did not talk about what happened with David at the end of the Bible study. Timothy was silent about it for some reason, and all my attempts to find out failed. The best I could get out of him was, “Wait and see.” Something had happened, that was for sure. “What do you mean? I want to know what you guys were arguing about.” For some reason, he refused to tell me. Years later I figured it out. Timothy did not think that I, a good Baptist guy, could understand that he had received a “word” from God or a vision. It was almost three weeks before I found out what transpired between David and Timothy.

A little less than a month later I made another trip from the Hare Krishna Temple to Mill Valley. This time David accompanied me on the way back to the seminary. He was silent for most of the ride, but as we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, he told me what had happened between him and Timothy that night. Timothy had given him a prophecy, a word of revelation that within three weeks God would take David out of the temple. All I did was listen.

Driving north on Highway 101, now in Marin, David told me about a dream he had had the previous night. He saw himself in a very large open space with peoples of the world all around him. All of a sudden he heard a trumpet blast and looking up, he saw Jesus in the clouds with a host of angels. People all around him were lifting up their arms to receive Jesus, and as they did they floated up and joined Him in the air. David said that he looked at his own feet, and they were firmly stuck to the ground. Fear rushed through him, and he woke up to find that his makeshift basement altar was on fire. He tried to put it out, but it was already too large to extinguish. He grabbed what he could and raced up the stairs. Then he ran down again, picked up some paint cans and a brush—supplies he had used to paint out the base­ment prior to his using it as a bedroom—and began writing in large letters those Christian slogans I saw on the walls of the temple. As the fire trucks started to arrive, he found a phone and called me.

Now his life was going to be very different.

As an endnote: Timothy Wu and I remained friends. He was the Bible Study in the Temple youth pastor at a Chinese Church in San Francisco, and he invited me to preach to their rather large assembly from time to time—and this was while he was at the seminary. I remember now the last time that we did evangelism together. Dr. Francis DuBose, professor of missions and evangelism at Golden Gate Seminary, had become a friend and mentor to me. Sometime in 1968 I asked him and Martin (Moishe) Rosen, who later founded Jews for Jesus, to be on the board of directors of Evangelical Concerns, a vital group composed of mostly American Baptist pastors. Around that time that Dr. DuBose asked me to conduct a tour and evangelist foray into the Haight-Ashbury. I did this several times, and on the first of these Timothy Wu came along. Timothy and I met the students on the corner of Haight and Ash- bury streets, divided up into teams of two, and agreed to return in two hours, bringing any converts with us. At the appointed hour the students began to arrive back at the appointed place. I brought two with me, and none of the students brought any, but Timothy came walking down the street with a whole group of hippie kids, twelve being the number I recall. We held a prayer and discipleship meeting right there on the street. Timothy preached and taught, and so did I. A larger crowd gathered, and several more professed faith in Jesus. This was the Jesus People Movement. And this was not the last time I would see something similar happen on that very street. But descriptions of some of those events will emerge when I talk about Lonnie Frisbee.

We remain with a fallen nature

Paul was shipwrecked at least three times. The last one happened while he was being taken to Rome after he had appealed to Caesar, the Roman emperor, which was his right as a Roman citizen. The story is in Acts chapter twenty-seven.

The captain or pilot of the boat did not listen to Paul but sailed west from the Island of Crete out into the Adriatic Sea bound for Rome despite the fact it was well into the stormy season. The ship, being driven by a tempestuous wind, arrived off the coast of Malta, an island south of Sicily. Hoping to enter a suitable bay, the crew did what it could but the ship hit a hidden reef and was stuck. However, in accord with what the angel of God told Paul, all hands, 276 of them, made it safe to shore.

Luke did not intend for his recounting of the tumultuous trip to Rome to be used as an analogy, but it may well serve as one. For those on board, those who were shipwrecked, God did not abandon them but brought them safely to shore.

Indeed, God is able to do this, even in the most extreme circumstances. Consider Romans 8:37-39:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There will be those who will be quick to point out that the context of the passage is God’s everlasting love and nowhere is it mentioned that those who sin willfully in rebellious disobedience will be covered in this graceful and great love.

Somehow what concerns so many are the obvious sins, especially those that are sexual in nature. Seemingly forgotten are the lesser sins, as if there are indeed lesser sins. How anyone can read the list of the works of the flesh recorded in Galatians 6:19-21 and declare their hands are clean is almost beyond comprehension.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry sorcery, enmity, strife, jealous, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Let me suggest a time of prayer and reflection concerning the sins mentioned above; look into your own heart and mind and you might find you have missed the mark on some of them. Missed the mark, well, how about ignored, minimized, dismissed,  disregarded, misidentified, and the sentence could get longer; yes living is messy and as much as we may not want to, we fall into behavior and states of mind are less than God would want for us.

We may be tempted to excuse ourselves by pointing out that others are guilty of sin as well. We must own our personal sin and bring it to Jesus, our sin bearer, and confess our sin and ask for forgiveness. This, as Christians, we know is what we do. It is we who sinned and stand in the need of prayer.

Certainly the impact or results of some sins is far more dramatic and damaging than others, but any sin is committed against a holy and righteous God. And who can, stand? Only those who are clean? Let me state this strongly and directly — we are all guilty.

Paul, after listing the works of the flesh presents the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 6:22-23). Do I dare ask if anyone reading this claims that he or she exhibits such fruit on a continual basis? I think I will, as I have asked myself on a number of occasions, and never once have I been able to say that I am in compliance.

Essentially we are all dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. We must all rely upon the truth of passages like Hebrews 7:28: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Though these great and gracious truths are plain and evident, I can still hear it as I have heard in a hundred times: “God will only forgive when a person repents and turns away from sin.”

Repenting is a lifelong process. A friend, shortly after his conversion prayed, “Lord, show me my sin.” A month later he prayed, “That’s enough for now.” Early on we have no idea of the depth of our own sin and the utter holiness of the Triune God and the discovery is shocking. We see, and do agree with Scripture, that we have a fallen nature. We rejoice that the Apostle John spoke directly to our yet sinful condition and explained that we are to confess our sin to a faithful and just God who forgives our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. (see 1 John 1:8-2:2)

Ungracious legalism is deadening and demoralizing; it is most certainly not quickening and moralizing.  The legalist is anxious that an emphasis on grace with result in cheap grace and lax morals, even libertinism. The exact opposite is true. God’s graciousness draws us toward holiness not away from it. Those Christians who give up on themselves as totally worthless failures are heading to a serious condition both spiritually and emotionally.

Where is the balance between self-confidence and a faithful dependence on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not easily, if ever, reached. No doubt living in the presence of God in heaven is the answer. Meanwhile we go on repenting, striving to please God, and refusing to hear the damning voice of the accuser of the brethren.

One further question must be asked here: Could failures, of whatever kind, reveal there was actually no real conversion in the first place? There will be an attempt to answer this serious question in chapter nine.

Luke 22:47:62

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.         Jesus now with His disciples, in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mt. of Olives, is approached by a crowd, and John, in 18:3, says it is composed of Roman soldiers, and officers from both the chief priests and Pharisees.

2.         Judas indicates who is to be arrested by a kiss. Jesus’ response, in verse 48, is variously understood.

3.         Jesus’ disciples ask Jesus if they should pull out their swords, but one of them, and John says it is Peter, pulls out a sword and cuts off the right ear of Malchus (this according to John), but Jesus stops further bloodshed and heals the man. Only John names Malchus since at the point is writing his Gospel, it is safe to do so.

4.         Jesus asks them why they did not come out to arrest him when He was at the Temple, but He knows that this moment is the power of darkness. (see Colossians 1:13)

5.         Jesus is taken first to the home of Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas the current high priest, this is revealed in John 18, and the palaces (houses) of both are likely right next to each other.

6.         Peter enters into the courtyard, via John as we find in John 18:15–16, and proceeds to vigorously deny that he knows Jesus, and this three times.

7.         After the third denial, a cock crows, thus in fulfillment of what Jesus had previously said to him. (Luke 22:34)

8.         At this Jesus looks at Peter, likely through a passageway, Jesus inside and Peter outside, whereupon Peter recalls that this is exactly what Jesus said would happen.

9.         Peter leaves the courtyard of the high priest weeping bitterly.

“Kent will go insane or commit suicide before one year is up.”

The “prophecy” was given by a woman whom I had helped and encouraged through a troubled marriage over a period of years. Now, one week after my resignation from the charismatic church where I was senior pastor in San Rafael, California, this same woman made her pronouncement from the pulpit, while my teenage daughter sat in the congregation. The pastor who then replaced me announced that my entire family was to be shunned from that point on. This, again, while my eldest daughter was present. The year was 1980.

My dear daughter came home in tears and told me what had happened. I was determined from that point on to keep from going crazy. And I would certainly not kill myself. (I ran into this very woman some years later and she denied having made the statement. My guess is she was disappointed that her “word from God” had not come true.)

Not that I did not think of killing myself on several occasions—I did. Going through the divorce was pure hell, and all these years later I have not completely recovered, but I would never give that false prophet or her eager hearers the satisfaction of seeing her predictions come true. Is this a bad motivation?

No satisfaction for my enemies

There it is—reason #1 for not killing myself. Whether it is the healthiest of reasons does not matter to me. Sure, I have a number of other reasons, which I will get to as this book proceeds, but #1 worked at the time and continues to serve me well.

I have always had enemies of one variety or another. Some I may have imagined, others were real. They were not the kind of enemies with whom I might fight it out with bare knuckles, but enemies nevertheless.

There are some people, sad to say, who would like to see me dead. This is no doubt true for most of us. But I am not going to give them the satisfaction. Not at all. There is no question that I have failed people, let people down, and abused trust put in me. And I can feel pretty bad about it. Oh well! Whether these people learn grace and forgiveness is not my problem; I have forgiven myself as best I can, despite the fact I cannot forget; I have been forgiven by God, so I refuse to live a life of guilt and shame.

There is a saying I like to remind myself of from time to time: “The devil is an accuser.” That is not all the quote but enough to tell me I have another enemy, unseen and flying below the radar. And I am not going to give that bastard any satisfaction either. Another point about the devil–he has been “a murderer from the beginning,” and that was spoken by Jesus who would know.

A murderer from the beginning. That enemy—I refuse to satisfy him either. No, I am going to live and fight back.

This first chapter about me

Before getting into some of the stories from others I wanted to open up with my own experience so you can see this is not merely an academic treatise. No, I am more than an observer, I am a player. I have been there, as they say, and I have something to contribute.

I have been through two divorces, and that is enough to drive anyone to the bridge, I mean the Golden Gate Bridge, which is just a short distance down Highway 101. I also have five kids and eight grand kids; but more than that, I have been a pastor of three churches for the last forty-plus years. Right, I am an old dude now (almost wrote dud), but I am still here and going strong, even though I have felt like giving it all up on any number of occasions–discouraged, probably depressed, angry, and saddened all at once, with the thought of killing myself stealing across the brain and lodging in the heart.

Mostly I have dummied up about my feelings and would never think of talking to a therapist. I haven’t even talked to my closest friends about my dark times. I am mostly an upbeat, type-A guy, and those who know me would be shocked to learn I have even felt bad enough to think of suicide. Not that I sink down into that pit, but I have looked over the edge. Come on, most of us have peered over at one time or another. It is really nothing that needs to be hidden. On the contrary, the whole subject has to be brought out into the open. So I admit it. Does it make me a bad person, or a sick person, or a person to be avoided, or pampered, if I have thought about killing myself? No, maybe it is better to engage with those who can take me like I am. The rest can hang with those who are balanced, focused, purpose-driven success stories who skip lightly over the mountain tops and never slip into a valley.

That is enough about me. What about you? How are you feeling right now? Maybe you would like to send me your story so that I can put in the sequel to this book. Try me: kentphilpott@comcast.net. I might get a flurry of mail, so please be patient with me. 

Chapter 3

I raced into the City, down 19th Avenue, left on Fulton, right on Stanyon, right on Fredrick, and then I saw the fire trucks and smelled the smoke. I parked just up the street next to old Kezar stadium (original home of the 49ers pro-football team), jumped out, and ran to the door of the Hindu temple. Fire hoses snaked into the temple from the fire truck, and people were running in and out. The place was chaotic. I stepped back and saw, in almost foot-high letters painted on the walls, Christian phrases like “Jesus is the Way,” “Lord Jesus Christ,” and more. As I began to move in the direction of the basement where most of the activity was happening, David suddenly appeared carrying bags of his personal belongings and shouted at me to take the bags he was carrying, so he could dart back down the stairs to the basement. In a moment he was back carrying more bags, and we ran out onto the sidewalk and down the street to my car, into which we threw David’s few possessions. We hustled back to the temple, David disappeared again, and I simply stood in the middle of the room contemplating this place of the Kirtan rituals and studied once again the altar for the offerings to various Hindu gods. Then I noticed a little cluster of Hare Krishna devotees huddled in the back behind and to the right of the altar near the kitchen, which had been the source of some really good Indian food fed to the devotees and visitors like me. The little group of former hippies turned Krishna worshipers moved toward me and began yelling at me.

“You did this, you caused this” one guy was yelling at me. He never attended the studies in the basement, but I recognized him. “I just got here. How could I have done this?” I yelled at the guy. I was stirred up; the old fight or flight adrenaline was taking charge.

I was a young man, not big but not small, and I stood my ground and faced them. At that point David rushed by carrying more stuff. As I turned to follow him, two of the devotees grabbed me from behind and shoved me up against the door of the temple. One had his hands on my throat and was squeezing as hard as he could. I was almost out of breath when a fireman ran up behind us and swatted them away. I fell down gasping for breath and saw the devotees lying around on the floor after their brief encounter with a San Francisco fire fighter. Gathering myself up quickly, I headed out the door and up the street to the car. David was already inside it, so I jumped in, quickly started the engine, wheeled down the street, and somewhat dazed, headed for 10A Judson Lane, Mill Valley, my home in the student housing section on the campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. There was no place else to go, nothing else to do. I was excited, and I was also scared.

The adventure had only just begun.

Two

Paul was shipwrecked at least three times. The last one happened while he was being taken to Rome after he had appealed to Caesar, the Roman emperor, which was his right as a Roman citizen. The story is in Acts chapter twenty-seven.

The captain or pilot of the boat did not listen to Paul but sailed west from the Island of Crete out into the Adriatic Sea bound for Rome despite the fact it was well into the stormy season. The ship, being driven by a tempestuous wind, arrived off the coast of Malta, an island south of Sicily. Hoping to enter a suitable bay, the crew did what it could but the ship hit a hidden reef and was stuck. However, in accord with what the angel of God told Paul, all hands, 276 of them, made it safe to shore.

Luke did not intend for his recounting of the tumultuous trip to Rome to be used as an analogy, but it may well serve as one. For those on board, those who were shipwrecked, God did not abandon them but brought them safely to shore.

Indeed, God is able to do this, even in the most extreme circumstances. Consider Romans 8:37-39:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There will be those who will be quick to point out that the context of the passage is God’s everlasting love and nowhere is it mentioned that those who sin willfully in rebellious disobedience will be covered in this graceful and great love.

Somehow what concerns so many are the obvious sins, especially those that are sexual in nature. Seemingly forgotten are the lesser sins, as if there are indeed lesser sins. How anyone can read the list of the works of the flesh recorded in Galatians 6:19-21 and declare their hands are clean is almost beyond comprehension.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry sorcery, enmity, strife, jealous, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Let me suggest a time of prayer and reflection concerning the sins mentioned above; look into your own heart and mind and you might find you have missed the mark on some of them. Missed the mark, well, how about ignored, minimized, dismissed,  disregarded, misidentified, and the sentence could get longer; yes living is messy and as much as we may not want to, we fall into behavior and states of mind are less than God would want for us.

We may be tempted to excuse ourselves by pointing out that others are guilty of sin as well. We must own our personal sin and bring it to Jesus, our sin bearer, and confess our sin and ask for forgiveness. This, as Christians, we know is what we do. It is we who sinned and stand in the need of prayer.

Certainly the impact or results of some sins is far more dramatic and damaging than others, but any sin is committed against a holy and righteous God. And who can, stand? Only those who are clean? Let me state this strongly and directly — we are all guilty.

Paul, after listing the works of the flesh presents the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 6:22-23). Do I dare ask if anyone reading this claims that he or she exhibits such fruit on a continual basis? I think I will, as I have asked myself on a number of occasions, and never once have I been able to say that I am in compliance.

Essentially we are all dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. We must all rely upon the truth of passages like Hebrews 7:28: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Though these great and gracious truths are plain and evident, I can still hear it as I have heard in a hundred times: “God will only forgive when a person repents and turns away from sin.”

Repenting is a lifelong process. A friend, shortly after his conversion prayed, “Lord, show me my sin.” A month later he prayed, “That’s enough for now.” Early on we have no idea of the depth of our own sin and the utter holiness of the Triune God and the discovery is shocking. We see, and do agree with Scripture, that we have a fallen nature. We rejoice that the Apostle John spoke directly to our yet sinful condition and explained that we are to confess our sin to a faithful and just God who forgives our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. (see 1 John 1:8-2:2)

Ungracious legalism is deadening and demoralizing; it is most certainly not quickening and moralizing.  The legalist is anxious that an emphasis on grace with result in cheap grace and lax morals, even libertinism. The exact opposite is true. God’s graciousness draws us toward holiness not away from it. Those Christians who give up on themselves as totally worthless failures are heading to a serious condition both spiritually and emotionally.

Where is the balance between self-confidence and a faithful dependence on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not easily, if ever, reached. No doubt living in the presence of God in heaven is the answer. Meanwhile we go on repenting, striving to please God, and refusing to hear the damning voice of the accuser of the brethren.

One further question must be asked here: Could failures, of whatever kind, reveal there was actually no real conversion in the first place? There will be an attempt to answer this serious question in chapter nine.

Scripture Must Be Fulfilled in Jesus &

Jesus Prays on the Mount of Olives

       Luke 22:35–46

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. :     

Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.         Jesus had sent out His disciples, two by two, as recorded in Luke 9:1–6, and they were to take more provisions with them as their needs would be meant.

2.         Now, just a couple of days before the crucifixion, Jesus reminds them of this and now He directs them to do the opposite, even take a sword along.

3.         This counsel need not be taken literally, but Jesus is warning them of difficult times ahead and He quotes Isaiah 53:12 where the prophet states that the coming Messiah will “be numbered with the transgressors’ meaning He will be despised and treated as a dangerous enemy.

4.         Jesus now leads the way to the Mt. of Olives, where Jesus commonly retreated to in order to pray.

5.         He went some short distance away to pray, and when that prayer time ended He returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He then said to them that they pray that they will not be vulnerable to temptation.

6.         Jesus does not describe this temptation, but it will come. Many commentators state that the temptation will be driven by fear.

7.         Verses 43 and 44, though present in the English Standard Version with which I am working here, is absent in the best manuscripts, Siniaticus and Vaticanus plus papyri 75.

Chapter One

Hamlet was depressed, and seriously so.

His father, the king of Denmark, had been murdered by his uncle, the king’s brother. If that loss were not enough, the uncle, now the king, took Hamlet’s newly widowed mother as his wife.

The whole sordid affair plays on Hamlet’s mind especially the way his mother has behaved. She quickly “moved on” and wed, without knowing it of course, his father’s murderer. Hamlet is soured on women and marriage in general. His feelings of love for Ophelia, to whom he had given his love, has become a source of anguish for the young man, so much so that he will say to her: “Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?”

Hamlet was desperate; he did not know what to do. He had learned about the truth of his father’s murder by the ghost of his father. This was not the sort of evidence that could be brought to light and believed. Hamlet felt absolutely alone and very angry.

Not seeing any way out of his torment, he contemplates suicide. If he could simply cease to exist—it might be the answer. So then he utters the famous words, “To be, or not to be…” perhaps Shakespeare’s most repeated verse. If he could only die, sleep, be no more, then the heartaches, the shocks, and all the suffering humans are prone to experience might vanish.

But his mind will not let him off that easily. There was the possibility he might dream—and this thought gives him pause.

“The dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of…”

Hamlet’s question of whether it is better to live or die is one nearly all human beings will ask themselves. I have. Perhaps you have. Perhaps you know someone who you suspect might be thinking along such tragic lines.

Brother Gary

My brother Gary came back from the war in Vietnam wounded in mind and spirit. What he experienced as a combat engineer there in the year 1968 robbed him of his ability to work through his pain. Though his other brother and I and our parents sought to encourage him and give him new hope, we failed, or rather we were not able to break through to the place he had gone to hide, and one morning he drove his Volkswagen Beatle to a nearby Lutheran hospital in the San Fernando Valley, parked under an American flag, and shot himself. Forty-one years later my brother Bruce and I (our parents are gone now) can still become immersed in sadness discussing the suicide of our beloved little brother.

The sorrow of that event, mixed with many other suicides I have come to know as a pastor of churches, is the reason I am writing this book. The killing of oneself is all too common. It seems we read of one in the newspapers every day. Perhaps it is not epidemic, but it is common. And we must speak of it; it must come to the light so that it is in some way stripped of its power.

Let’s talk about it

If people can talk about their feelings of suicide, it may be a step away from the pain and hopelessness that most often lie behind the desire to kill oneself. It seemed to me that a book with such a title as this one might be useful. It seemed to me that if I could find some people who were willing to talk about why they decided not to kill themselves, when they in fact had seriously contemplated doing just that, it might be incorporated into a book that would be believable, a book I would feel good about giving to others who are in a desperate place.

Story Contributors

I have gone to several groups of people for their stories. First, I asked for help from convicts at San Quentin Prison at San Quentin, California. I have been a volunteer there, in a number of capacities, for thirty something years. For the last eightteen years I have been the baseball coach there and have gotten to know a number of the men fairly well. When I broached the idea of the book and asked for their help, many came through and provided some solid material I could use for this book.

Second, for the past twenty-five years I have led a “Divorce Recovery and Loss” workshop, sponsored by the church I pastor, Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Valley, California. Upon request, many of the alumni have prepared stories of their struggles associated with divorce, separation, and death and how it is that they decided not to kill themselves.

Third, I asked people who attend Miller Avenue if anyone has a story to contribute.

Fourth, the local newspaper ran a story on the project I was engaged in and invited anyone to anonymously send something to me on the theme.

The result was quite a good number of communications.

The stories of people who have seriously considered suicide will be woven into some of my own thinking about Hamlet’s dilemma, “to be or not to be.” This is the question we will look at in the chapters ahead.

Chapter 2

During my years at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (Southern Baptist), I was anti-Pentecostal and did not yet know what was meant by “charismatic.” As far as I was concerned, speaking in tongues was of a demonic origin, and short of that it was at least wrong doctrine. We had little or no fellowship with Pentecos­tals. In Marin County that would have been limited to the Assembly of God churches or maybe a Black Pentecostal church of some kind.

One night in February of 1967, while I was driving home from my part time job as shoe salesman at the J.C. Penny store in Corte Madera and while listening to Scott McKenzie singing, “When you come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair,” it was as though God spoke directly and personally to me: “Go to the hippies in San Francisco.” That was it and that was all. The very next day, a rainy Thursday evening, I did just that and the adventure began.

That night, while I was peering through the window of Hamilton United Methodist Church on Waller Street, a young hippie approached me and wanted to know if I wanted to meet someone who knew a lot about religion. I jumped at the chance, thinking, “This is the hand of God,” and said yes. He brought me just a few doors away to an old Victorian house and introduced me to David Hoyt. David was living in a house full of lesbians; he was the token male and bodyguard for the ladies, and his room was under the stairs that climbed up to the second floor. It was really just a janitor’s closet, but David had made it into a bedroom that was probably the same size as his jail cell at Lompoc Prison from which he had recently been released. David had entered prison at age nineteen, a biker convicted of drug smug­gling from Mexico. He had become a jailhouse guru of sorts and had decided on Hinduism as his religion of choice. By the time I met David that evening, he had risen in the eyes of Swami Baktivadanti to one of the chief devotees at the Hare Krishna Temple on Frederick Street, just blocks away from where David was then living.

We began a Bible study under the stairs, just David and I, but in a few weeks David moved his living space to the basement of the Hare Krishna Temple. To continue the studies, I had to get permission from the swami.

I recall meeting with Swami Baktivadanti in his sparsely furnished second-story apartment a few doors down from what we called the Hare Krishna Temple. He asked me, “Why do you want to come to the temple?” Not expecting to be asked this I replied, “Because David asked me to.” “Are you a Christian?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered, “and I am learning about Hinduism.” “What do you know about it?” “Not much,” was all I could honestly say.

It seemed to me that the Swami was conflicted; he knew it would be applauded if he let me do the Bible study, since he was trying to appear ecumenical. But deep down I was convinced he was afraid of me in some way; more importantly, he did not like what I represented.

“You must attend the Kirtan. If you do that, you can have your study.” I agreed to the terms, and the very brief meeting was over.

Once the Bible study started at the temple, more people started attending, which continued for some months. The devotees were all white, young hippies and were extremely serious about all things reli­gious. I was rather shocked that they had such a keen interest in the Bible. Though I disliked having to sit through the Kirtans, still the chance to tell the growing group of seekers about Jesus overcame all else.

So it continued week by week until a particular Saturday morning when I received a phone call from David asking me to rush in to meet him at the temple. I jumped in the old Ford and did just that. My life was about to change dramatically.

Here is a link to see a video I highly recommend. Doreen Virtue is interviewed by Chris Lawson about the rise of mediumship among Christian leaders. I consider it a must see. Here is the link: