I have always sort of been spiritual, but not as much so as since fall of 2012 when I was awakened spiritually. But as a teenager I began my spiritual quest. I grew up in a nonreligious home, but my family’s religious background was Christianity. So, I was raised with a basic understanding of Protestant Christianity. I never attended church with my family since thy were not church people, but I did attend when invited by friends. Growing up I had an interest in the occult and really began delving into it by the age of 15. I discovered Pagan spirituality and paths such as Wicca. I actually decided to start my own belief system at that age incorporating a mix of various world religions, philosophies and theologies. I sought to integrate common beliefs that were shared between the worlds paths and incorporated them into my own. Rather than seek the one sole truth, I looked for the truth in many different places and expressions. I quickly developed a vast understanding of many of the world’s religions and studied many different scriptures. I continued to do this my whole life even up until today. I never had a direct experience with God until I was 28. So, I sought God in a lot of places and missed Him. I later discovered it was because I didn’t have a genuine experience of the Spiritual. All my experiences up until then were theoretical, metaphysical and supernatural as opposed to genuinely mystical.
In 2010 I moved from the city of Moore where I grew up, to the city of Norman. This was actually my second move to Norman. The first one being around 2008-2009 when I was a Corrections Officer at a state prison in Lexington. About the summer of 2009 I moved back to Oklahoma City to return again in July of 2010. The second visit would be the start of my spiritual journey. In a sense, the college town of Norman became a personal Mecca for me, or holy land in the sense that my deepest spiritual illuminations and awakenings would occur here. The city and territory itself having significant spiritual value in itself aside from happening to be where I had these experiences. It did provide convenient access to the Norman Bahai Center where I began my relationship with God. However according to urban legend Norman is a sacred place for certain Native Americans as it is said to be protected by divinity against Tornadoes. Tornadoes for the most part don’t strike central Norman. At least not a big one. Moore is tornado alley however and has been the site of the two worst tornadoes in recorded history. I was also here for our big 5.8 Magnitude earthquake in November 2010 which also was a significant event for me.
In July of 2010 I had just arrived in Norman and had stayed overnight in a hotel here. I left the hotel (ultimately to stay for a week at the Salvation Army) on a Sunday morning and decided to go to the Bahai Center for religious service. I joined the Faith officially in Augusta. I had a very intense spiritual experience in the October time frame of 2012 (just before the Mayan apocalypse of the old world and beginning of the new that is believed to have occurred on December 21st, 2012). Even to this day I am not entirely sure exactly what happened or how it went about since the experience is beyond my ability to comprehend it as a simple human. In a nut-shell, one night I had a very power visitation by the Holy Spirit. It awakened me to my nature as a sinful human and that God Existed and that I should seek him out. I immediately decided to invest a genuine search not just for truth in itself, but into direct relationship with God. Since then I have had numerous vivid spiritual experiences and illuminations. Too many of different variety and content to detail in a single sitting, but this was when I was “quickened” into spiritual birth and life By God. An experience I continue to have and persue.
One thing I forgot to mention in my above spiritual relation was that I first heard about the Bahai Faith when I was about 15 or 16. I read some about it and liked it's teachings about the unity of the religions. As time went on I would relate to its teachings but never consider myself a Bahai until 2010. When I left that hotel I had no idea where the Bahai center in Norman was. I knew the address but that did me little good not knowing the full layout of the town. I wouldn't learn that for some years. I went to the approximate area of the city that it was located and kind of wandered the streets randomly, following my instincts about where to turn and where to go. Eventually I either identified the correct street or stumbled upon it, but I arrived shortly after services began. I talked to the Bahais and began regularly attending services and declared myself a member a few later. All this happened in conjunction with me starting a new life here in Norman. So it was all very symbolic to me. I always thought about my wandering through town looking for the center as symbolic of a spiritual journey of which I had little guidance aside from my own exploring and what I believe was Direct Guidance from God in the form of me blindly arriving at the destination which was the Bahai Center. I joined the faith in August right about the time of my 28th birthday. I also considered this symbolic. Since a full lunar calendar takes 28 days for a lunar cycle to complete and renew (just as one phase of my life completed...the spiritually dead portion and my spiritual rebirth comparable to the recycling of a new moon). Then my intense spiritual experience a year later in fall of 2012. I gave you the wrong date of when I moved to Norman. It was 2011 not 2012. Typo. So my spiritual awakening happened in fall of 2012. As the date of the Mayan date of the changing of ages approached on December 21st I considered thus synchronous with the ending of one cosmic age with the beggining of the new one...and the beggining of my spiritual rebirth. Although I accepted the Bahai Faith in 2011 I had not yet had a definite experience with the Holy Spirit until 2012. All this was in God's Good Timing. ATTG!
