Welcome to my blog and The Promise of Wholeness. Teachers teach what they need to learn and I am no exception. Pain is a powerful teacher and like everyone else I wanted suffering in my rearview mirror. Early in my career I noticed my clients never got better unless I mastered my version of the same illusion. Like a snake bit shaman, there were many poisons requiring remedies. My book and this blog reflects my personal discoveries and includes timeless wisdom from psychological, philosophical and spiritual sages.
Suffering is not a modern phenomenon so I devoured ancient perspectives and traditional wisdom about the human condition. When I discovered Steven Mitchell’s translation of the Lao Tzu’s Teo Te Ching, I spend four years listening to the eighty-four chapters of his audiotape over and over again until I understood each one. Another decade or two was spent listening to authors translate Carl Jung’s brilliant contributions to the field of psychology. I studied many of our most respected psychological, philosophical and spiritual giants similarly. Never for an instant did the idea to write a book of this nature crossed my mind.
When I was poor college student living in Columbus, Ohio, a Jehovah Witness representative knocked on my apartment door just like they did every month of the year. Something profound happened to both of us that day. Rejecting my urge to dismiss the young man similar in age to me, I agreed to talk about Jehovah for the rest of the day if he could answer one question to my satisfaction. He immediately agreed that God is all knowing and loving to my preliminary inquiries. Then I offered my main question, “If God knew in advance that mankind would sin and then created hell to punish us for all of eternity, is that a loving God? The Jehovah Witness representative bolted up from my sofa, said, “I need to talk to my supervisor” and rushed out of my apartment. I too spent the rest of my life exploring the answer to that question. The Promise of Wholeness: Cultivating Inner Peace, Mindfulness and Love in a Divided World and this blog is the result of my psychological, philosophical and spiritual discoveries.