Beginnings

One of the greatest things about being caught in the middle of a full-fledged, white-knuckled, crying-in-your-sleep, what-the-FUCK-IS-THE-MATTER-WITH-ME nervous breakdown is that it forces one to look for God is the strangest places. A typical Christian in the thick of emotional collapse may find himself on his knees as he lights a candle in front of an alter or confessing his darkest secrets and sinful desires to a priest in an uncomfortable broom closet.I've come to look elsewhere. During particularly dark times, I have found God along the Pacific Coast Highway, in the back of my vocal chords while screaming songs while getting onto the on ramp of the 101 freeway, or even meditating on a blade of grass in the median while at a stop light along Highland just shy of Hollywood Boulevard.

I used to buy into the mantra that it could be worse. I could be sitting at a bus stop in the rain, eating out of a trash can, or swatting flies off of my dying child in 120 degree heat after a massacre in a Sudanese village.  My face could have been burned off in a terrible plane crash or I could have lost a testicle or two in an unfortunate roller coaster accident. The country is at war, the economy is fucked, and I have a steady job and a place to lay my head. In the eyes of others, I am beyond blessed. I get this point of view.  I get all of it and all of those sweet souls that have so generously offered that very cliché advice are right. It could be substantially worse. But try getting that through your brain as you vomit on the bathroom floor and pray for an earthquake to collapse a freeway bridge as you cross it so that maybe you can get knocked into a coma and wake up two years down the road when everyone in your life has forgiven or forgotten you and you can start over.

In the last years, I have come to view Los Angeles a godless breeding ground of people in search of validation. The “look at me now,” fuel that drives so many people. The “I will be happy when…” ghost that so many chase like dogs at a race track. What I have come to realize is that for so long, I was one of those people I hated. It was the need for validation that led me to my bathroom floor. It was my desire to show the world that I was lovable and talented that brought me to the point in my life that I no longer cared to live.

It was that point that my search for God began. A half dozen self-help books and a prescription of Lexapro didn't seem like a long-lasting recipe for inner-peace so I began to search elsewhere. In the midst of all the egoic flash of Hollywood, the external indulgences in fashion and culinary adventure, and the general Godlessness of the Entertainment business, Los Angeles, at a glance, fails to live up to its title of the City of Angels. That said, it is that same sprawling, unfocused spirit that makes this fair city a breeding ground for experiments in faith. Yoga, colonics, cleanses, aura purification, meditations, charkas, crystals, oils, deeksha, fasts, The Artist’s Way, Tony Robbins, Debbie, Deepak, 12 Step, A New Earth, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, God, mother universe, heavenly father, divine friend, and the list goes on and on and on. Unlike the bible belt, there are a million paths to God in this City of Angels. Given that I was not raised in a religious family and have no deeply routed, pre-conceived notions of what God is, I decided that I would walk some of these roads in an attempt to find the inner peace that each of these faiths, dogmas, beliefs, and ideals portray.

In the last year, in addition to the darkest places, I have found myself at the gate of many beautiful spiritual practices and despite all of their dogmatic differences; I’ve found one common factor amongst all of them. The people that I meet are happy. They, as most, have had that dark-night-of the-soul, but in the moment, when put in the company of like-minded individuals manage to find a little bit of peace.

My goal is to see Los Angeles for the blessing that it is and more specifically, to see my own life for the blessing that it is. I want to see all the different ways that people find peace and happiness and God and the infinite love that resides underneath all that we are. In the past year, as dark as it has been, I have had many profound spiritual experiences based on principles of many different faiths and each one has been a rung in my climb to inner-peace. My intention is to continue this journey and to write about it in hopes that people in this city of angels can find the God or Goddess that resides within them as well.