My Spiritual Atheist Friend

My friend Michael and I met at Flesher's Field Wednesday, when the air was crisp and cool, the sun warm on your skin, and the Autumn leaves swimming in brilliant color. We found a path carved into the woods. I was so excited to find it there right near my home. Michael was much more matter of fact about it as he lives in a dome house in the woods and walks in the woods every day.

Being the artist-type, I kept stopping and staring at the canopy of branches overhead, and watching the sunlight dancing over the leaves. Michael, being the woodsman, started identifying trees for me. Hickory. Hawthorne. Sassafras (which has a sap you can scrape off and chew like gum, and whose bark has a wonderful scent, I was told).

While we were looking at the trees Michael started talking about Geronimo, and how he would stare at the spaces between the branches of the trees and it would alter his reality. He said that Geronimo could make himself invisible practicing that, and had walked away unseen in the middle of skirmishes or capture. I told Michael that I remembered he and I practicing that once years ago, and how I suddenly felt a huge rush of energy surge up through my body. During our conversation Michael asked me if I thought there was spirit in the trees, and I said that I thought there was a divine spark in all living things on earth. He seemed a little surprised by my answer - maybe because he hasn't believed in God, and yet my belief is that the spirit he feels in the woods is God. I said I think even rocks might have that divine spark within them, and Michael said he knew they had an energy. Once, he said, he read how rocks could be stacked in a certain configuration to create some kind of energy field. Because he was good at balancing them, he built up a tower of rocks according to the instructions and said that you could feel the energy when you were within a few feet of the structure.

Funny how with this friend of mine who declares himself an atheist, I have the most interesting spiritual talks. I think he just hasn't been exposed much to the concept of God. I was feeling kind of guilty later for not even bringing Jesus into the conversation, but also realizing at the same time that I don't want to falsely create a conversation in order to push my beliefs at him. It suddenly came to me that I don't need to talk about Christianity, what I need to do is become more and more familiar with the words of Christ, because I think Michael would totally get into the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Michael thinks Christians are all right-wing, conservative, Republican evangelists, and he's always kind of loathed them. I think he's getting an inkling from me that not all of them are. I suspect there are a lot of anti-Christians who have been so turned-off to the media portrayal or their own experience that they've never really learned much of anything about Jesus.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to stare at the spaces between the branches more often. It was interesting that just today I read this article about an encounter with expanded consciousness written by a Christian.