“What a long, strange trip it’s been” Robert Hunter, from the Grateful Dead song Truckin’
It’s a beautiful spring day in 1991. We are sitting on my front porch, discussing what has been going on with me for the past nine months. I was enthusiastically trying to express to a close friend and confidant simply and concisely why I was so deeply embroiled in an intense and wide-ranging gathering of information on a host of traditional and non-traditional spiritual paths when I passionately exclaimed, “I just want to know what Love is!”
I haven’t seen or even talked to Steve in almost three years. But Steve is one of those few friends in life that no matter how long between or how infrequent our contact has been when we do get together, it is as if we just talked the day before. There’s no breaking the ice or getting reacquainted, and no need to feel each other out before pouring out our innermost thoughts to each other.
Steve and I are both startled by my outburst. After all, who doesn’t know what love is? We just sit there in silence. Steve has nothing to offer, and I don’t feel the need to say anything more.
As it turned out, silence was the best advice anyone could have given me.
I really don’t know how long or short our conversation was or what led to my sudden outburst, but the power and instantaneous effect it had on me is indelibly etched in my soul.
I was nearing 40 years old at the time. That was sort of a benchmark for me. My older brother David departed this world at 39 years old, it was not the first death that had a major impact on me and it wouldn’t be the last. But he was barely 5 years my senior and his passing had brought me face to face with my own mortality, the fragility and uncertainty of future days. Would I surpass my brother’s age?
It is 2024 as I am writing this. My wife Donna and I quietly celebrated our 50th year of marriage a couple of months ago. W have two wonderful children, adults really, but they will always be children in my vocabulary, although certainly not in our relationship. We have three equally wonderful grand-children.
The Truth is Life is good, it always has been that way. But it didn’t always appear that way to me. The realization that brought about and underlies this new perspective was just one result of the Quest for the Truth about Love that was set in motion that spring day in 1991 when the Question was revealed by my own unexpected words.
I wondered then where the question had come from, the Question that drove a Quest that radically changed this life’s direction. My wonderment remains but has since slipped to the background as an ever-present subtle feeling of joy.
Now, over 3 decades later and having gained considerable clarity on the nature of and manner of the Quest the time has come to share significant events and insights that have followed in the wake of the Question. I invite you along in the hope that the exploration might bear fruit for you as well.