The conversation that started it all

It's January of 2014, I'm currently living in West Hollywood, specifically in the neighborhood of Laurel Canyon where it is free spirit central. My housemate and I are hanging out, drinking coffee and chatting in the dining room.  This room that has seen so much. From Halloween parties that hosted acrobats doing ariel dances from the ceiling to a birthday celebration where the invite encouraged people to bring their loved ones and for some that included their giant tortoise and another their dog that is trained to sit on their shoulder like a parrot. This neighborhood, this house, as you can tell, it's a special. 

People dripping in creativity come through this house. Creative not just in their art or how they dress or what special way of eating they have (because there are many!) but also in their beliefs. People that hang out in this house are passionate about their beliefs and how they center themselves spiritually. They ranged anywhere from Buddhism to Taoism to Atheism to Kabbalah to Judaism to Core Energetics to Reiki and so on. That's what I loved about living in LA. The variety, the color and the flavor.  

So it was quite surprising to me when my housemate started telling me about a friend of hers who had met Jesus. When she said this I assumed this friend of hers had an emotional breakdown about her life, was tired of something she was doing and/or had a special moment where her heart felt like moving towards the deity known as Jesus. That is what most of the stories I had heard sounded like. It was very emotionally based.

But she said, "No, she like met him, in person."

Me: "What do you mean?"

Her “The dude just showed up”

Me: "Showed up how?"

Her: "The dude just showed up, like in her room"

Apparently this friend of hers had a face to face encounter with Jesus. My automatic response to that was “but that's not possible!” ...but I stopped myself and didn’t say anything. I just let it sit in my brain for a second. We moved on to another subject. It stuck with me all day. I had never heard of anyone saying they had met Jesus face to face. I had never in all my years of growing up and attending church with my parents (because I barely went after that) had I heard anyone EVER. SAY. THAT. I’d never even heard the word “encounter” used as in reference to a mystical experience. So later that night I was processing it. At first I was confused, could he do that? What about that whole second coming theory? If Jesus came to visit someone face to face wouldn't that break this rule about the return? The return that I had heard so much fear mongering about that it would literally give me nightmares as a child. 

But as I kept thinking about it,  I realized "visiting someone" wouldn’t exactly be the same thing as returning to Earth forever.

And even more than that I realized, if he’s the son of God then he could do what ever he wants, right? That seemed kind of right to me.

So it was settled. Turns out there could be a whole lot more.

Because I mean apparently Jesus does cool stuff like visit people!

And I'm over here struggling to want to associate with this historical figure because I loathe his music genre.

I sat there and I prayed a prayer that basically went something like this

“Hey God, I want a supernatural experience too. I want a story." I remember after I said that prayer I opened my eyes, expecting to see an angel or even Jesus himself. But there was nothing. Just me in a room by myself in Laurel Canyon. No dude showed up. Have you ever been embarrassed about something you did that nobody saw? I rolled my eyes at myself and went to bed that night a little deflated. 

Little did I know that prayer had set a series of events into motion. In 11 months everything in my life was going to change, my reality was going to turn upside down and my paradigms were going to crumble.

And I was going to get a story.

But first, the artist formerly known as Prince!

(Details in next chapter.)