Birth. They told me that, paraphrasing Paul in Romans, they had been saved and

Birth. They told me that, paraphrasing Paul in Romans, they had been saved and were living New Life, not earned by good works as in Hebraic Law, but by faith through God’s Grace. Jesus had “paid their bills’ through His sacrifice at Gethsemane. They both tried to explain inexplicable feelings of new energy, the unseen hand of spiritual guidance and peace. One told me that the wind of the Holy Ghost had taken him to the front of the pulpit, tearfully, thankfully, on his knees, to accept Jesus as his personal Savior. They described how they had opened their lives to the spiritual strength of /iving in Jesus. Many things about them changed: their tastes in food, from hamburgers to vegetables and fruit; from the jazz of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner and the cynicism of Frank Zappa’s “...only fourteen and knows how to nasty...,” to playing strum guitar and singing the hymns of Wednesday night healing services; from t- shirts hanging out of raggedy, Southern California, boutique store purchased, stressed jeans, to polished dark shoes, starched white shirts and gray or tan khaki slacks, sometimes with ties. They became cool, respectful, rational and more distant with me. They repeated often the scriptural story about young Jesus, accidentally separated from his parents on a visit to Jerusalem. When by standers asked Him about where His parents were, He answered, “| have no mother and father.” They told me that they, like God’s son Jesus, were filled to completeness with the Father and the Holy Ghost. On one hand, their experiences sounded like those of the activated mind state of Abraham Abulafia, a suddenly emergent Nevesh and my father’s metaphysical talks about personal transformation. My personal secular- computational brain God spoke to me of the mechanisms of sudden personality change, a phase transition in complex systems, in the context of the nonlinear dynamics of brain and behavior. On the other hand, their global changes in mind felt both alien and threatening. When | came to learn their churches’ full list of expectations, rules, requirements and sociopolitical policies, | found that | could not identify with this system of spiritual knowing at all. It felt rigid, righteous, unforgiving, even angry, and it frightened me. | never anticipated that my culturally enriched, intellectually sophisticated sons would be quoting Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. 123 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013623