About the Cabin

So what is the “Ivory Cabin”? As I was lying in bed one night I was contemplating how often it is that the people we look to for the facts about our world and the ways to think in it have become lifted up with pride and contentment. No longer do they live down among the common man and woman, they have left these “lowly” masses for the beauty of their “Ivory Tower”.

Religious leaders, scientist, philosophers, gurus, prophets, and teachers of all kinds act like they are the only ones on earth who can explain and understand the meaning of life. They have treated “truth” like a fairy tale princess and locked it up in an exceedingly high tower lest it be mistreated and abused by common humanity.

However this is not the only crime of the intellectually elite, not only do they lock what little truth that we humans have away in large words, pricey schools and prideful hearts, they also build walls and fences around each of us lest we should go beyond what we have been told and find it to be false, or find something new altogether.

Is this the way it should be? Is “truth” some elite thing that is only able to be known by a select few? Do we really know all there is to know about where we have come from and where we are going? Is there any grounds for the common pride that modern humanity has about the amount of knowledge it posses? I think that the answer to all these is a resounding “No” and that is one of the main reasons I dreamed up this web site. I want to lead the minds and hearts of as many as I can to take control of their own life and soul, to no longer fill their minds with the opinions of other humans, but to think and look for themselves. There is too much error and lies to do anything otherwise.

Truth is not some exalted royalty that never mingles with the masses, “truth” is a town crier, boldly standing on the corner of main street. There she weeps about the flaws and evils in each of our lives and societies, as well as lifts up our eyes so that we might see there is beauty, goodness, and hope enough to heal them all.

Not only this but the “truth” about the existence of humanity, where we came from and where we are going, is far from being completely known. There is a great many who profess to have all the answers but there are none who do. From birth we are taught to believe a certain thing or act a certain way, we are pressured by the culture and subcultures we are in to accept their “norms” (what is commonly accepted as “right” and “fact”) and their laws as “truth”. We are no longer taught “how” to think but “what” to think. Prejudice and dislike are used in place of reason and logic, while shame and guilt become the prods with which the “masters” keep us in line.

When you combine this with the current “relative” philosophies, where “truth” is nothing more than an opinion and all can do what is right in their own eyes, is it any wonder our lives, societies, and worlds are falling apart?

The above is the other reason I wanted to create this site, to teach people that not only is there more “truth” than any one book or human can know, but that all the truth which can be known are all parts of one “Grand Truth”, which we all live in and seek to know. This one truth contains all that can ever be known about ourselves, our universe, and all that is in it. None of us can know it all, posses it all, or reflect it all. All that remains then is that each of us humbly seek to learn this “Grand Truth” in love and mercy while remembering justice. No room for pride or hate, no room for greed or selfishness, only room for forgiveness, compassion, and revolution for our selves and all around us.

In this cabin all rank, race, religion, and roles are removed from all who enter. These are then changed from “personal possessions”, things which we would kill and die for, to mere facts and views of the world which can be discussed openly and lovingly in an effort to answer the most important question any human can ever pose, “What is Truth?”.

All who enter here are equal, mere mortals, seeking a reason for our common pain and a way to endure it with joy and laughter.

This is the “Ivory Cabin”, won’t you enter?

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About the Resident

I was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist, which is a sect of conservative fundamental Christians who believe in the Bible only. That being said, they are not as bad as I am sure some of you imagining. They are like all other humans some sincere, some fake, some good and some evil.

From the time I was young I had a deep appreciation for spiritual things but that did little to control my actions. I was put in a church school and told to do a mighty list of things, and forbade to do another mighty list of things, with little explanation as to why on either side. Add to this the fact that I was a little fat county boy in the midst of a slimmer, more elite sets of kids, and it is not surprise that I did not want much to do with the religion represented overall by my school when I grew up. There were some nice people who supported me, and some great friends made whom I now miss but nevertheless I found that evil and hypocrites do not wait at the door of church related buildings.

From 12 up to the age of almost 18 I paid little heed to spirituality. I retained my belief in a God but it was more an assent to the fact and a parroting of what I had been told all my life. All was well. God might be there, and might not be. I was flying high and okay.

My lovely little world however was never simple. I was always one to think and feel things deeply and I listened to all sorts of music, made all sorts of drawings, wrote all sorts of poetry and hurt a lot. Around the end of my 18th year, I had begun doing a lot of hallucinogenics and practicing a form of Aquarian Shamanism (being born on February second it just seemed right). At that time I developed the theory that all the prophets of the Bible were shaman as well, thus I believed the Bible to be the true book and the Native American path to be the true way.

Then one night I had a sudden and deep spiritual revelation as I listened to the book of Revelation in a self induced shamanic trance. It suddenly and violently dawned upon me that I could not mix the two - it was one or the other and that I was going to be lost if I didn't give up Shamanism. Thus I wept and studied and repented. Burning almost every single thing in my room because I felt that it had been corrupted by my practice. At the end of the upheaval I sat in my bed surrounded by plain walls and churned through the Bible like a madman.

It wasn't long after this that I got into a wreck which broke both my arms, dislocated my hip and hurt my thumb. This left me laid up and moving slow for awhile (that was about the beginning of the age of 19, January 2000 so you can keep chronology). During that time I immersed myself even more and read night and day. I was fascinated with God and loved Him so very much.

Even after I was well, I continued to study the Bible. Accepting no one's word for anything, I studied it cover to cover to find what it had to say about life. It was really a wonderful time. I felt free, I was learning much and there was a presence in my soul that was deep and real.

I began to preach and went to a bible school out west for awhile. After graduating I returned home and began to share all that I had learned. There was something different though, the more I had read the more of a stickler I had become for the rules. This was made worse by the fact that I was a SDA since they have a prominent author whose writings are full of helpful insights that are all too often made into strait jackets by the overzealous . I was sadly one of those. I had become a type of zealot, albeit a very genuine and loving zealot (if that is possible). My intentions were the best in the world but they were lost in translation. My view of God had become unbalanced and I was turning justice into tyranny.

Then the inevitable happened, I got tired of trying to touch all the bases. I was weary and felt like I was being oppressed. I felt like a bird in a gilded cage wrapped in barbed wire. "Yeah, I have eternal life", I thought, "but I feel like an Almighty teacher is slapping my wrist with a ball bat every other second over trivial offenses".

I was allowing myself not even the simplest indulgence and I could no longer take it. I threw the whole thing out the window. I immersed myself into my old ways with all the zeal of a man who is trying to forget. It didn't work though, I had been made aware of how valuable the human soul was and as I watched my friends destroy themselves at my side I wept inside. They were doing this out of lack of knowledge of how it affected their body, mind, and world yet I knew. I could teach them but if I did I would be a hypocrite, not to mention I would have to face the fact that I too was wasting my life.

Then one day I my world again broke. I had scored some Spiderman LSD and decided to go on a “trip” to leave it all behind. My plan failed catastrophically however and I should have known it would. LSD doesn't make you lose your mind it magnifies what is already within and without it, and I should have remembered this from my use of it before (it is sad how the need to run will block out reason and memory). I didn't however choose to remember this and dropped the acid.

Right as I was reaching the deepest part of the chemical experience, I became aware that I was killing myself, forsaking humanity and turning my back on all that was good because I had a misunderstanding. Well for those who know anything about LSD that is NOT the train of thought to have come roaring out of the station while your emotions are magnified to the point you can see them, touch them, taste them and hear them. I had the only bad trip in my life and it was enough. I was done.

After that I got back into the whole Bible and church thing with a fresh batch of devotion but with a lot more compassion for others. I had yet to learn to have compassion on myself too and thus began to fast so as to make up for the failure I had been for the last six months (It was now around November 2001). I wouldn't eat food because I wanted to show God I was sorry. I wanted to not eat or drink anything for 3 days because that was the fast Paul after he became aware of his evil acts (Acts 9:9). I wouldn't make it though and would thus feel a guilt which then made me fast some more. I did this so long that I gave myself an eating disorder and fell to 135-140 pounds. For a 6ft ¼ in tall male, that is 35-40 pounds below my ideal weight.

I was sincerely trying though and with the help of friends and family I got better. The thing that really helped me the most was that I started selling Bible Story and Health books to people. The focus on trying to help others (60%) and the information in the health books (40%) I was selling saved my life and stopped the massive anxiety attacks I was having daily due to the poor nutrition.

I began to get back in better health and all went off without a hitch for about 3yrs. Then I began to feel forced and trapped again. I was under so much stress over trying to care for myself, my grandpa, and still help the people in my sales territory that I began to have chest pains that would bring me to my knees. After a few of those I decided to kick the job and with much guilt I did so.

Shortly following that I again tossed out the whole religion thing for the very same reason. I didn't run as far or as fast this time. I was now 23 years old and I had gotten a lot of experience under my belt. I spent my time again doing nothing but chemicals and silly amusements to help me blur the hurt, this time I knew it didn’t work but I wanted the pain to disappear and I did not want to face it.. Even though I was high a lot and drunk I began to do a lot of very serious self study. Why did I keep breaking? Why does anyone break? I knew that Religious slavery was not the option, nor was Hedonistic gluttony or any form of self service. I had to find the way, it was there I just couldn’t grasp it.

I had been running and lifting weights by my beer regimen had caused me to gain a nice a beer belly. It was when one of my friends pointed this out that I decided to stop whining and do something both about my body and my spirit. I decided to whip my body back into shape and began to dig into all possibilities about existence.

I thus began by suspending all belief in any form of divine being and I read atheistic works. As I studied, it became too clear to me that even though they tried real hard to make their arguments sound scientific, the reasons they gave for not believing in a supernatural origin were anything but wisdom gained by observation. This was really almost a shock to me. I had heard many throughout my life support Darwinian theory as though it were as reliable as gravity, and it was amazing that it wasjust as much a question of faith as the beliefs I once had.

Thus hitting nothing I decided to move along to other ventures. I began to study the Bible regularly again but much more skeptically. I also at this time began to study the writings of Bruce Lee and Miamoto Mushashi. That was very hard because I had been told all my life that the Bible was the only book for wisdom and that it possessed all truth that a man could or needed to know. To my surprise however, I found wells of wisdom and gained for the first time the picture of the TAO. "Wow!" I remember thinking, "that is not what I was told!". It was amazing and beautiful.

From there I found books on world faiths and chewed through them. I read Confucius, Lao Tzu, Egyptian Book of the dead, Abraham Maslow, and others. At that time I tried to go and sell books again but my will and maturity wasn't respected and so I left the program at Tennessee and came back to Kentucky (it was now June 2005).

As I stayed here I continued my reading of other writings and the studying of life. I studied Druidism, Bertrand Russell, Freud, Buddhism and others. I also continued to study about the validity of the Bible, its history and transmission. During this time I was working at Pizza Hut as a Server, falling in love with my fiancé, and trying to piece together a world view that was not just a small little box that spit out easy answers.

Recently I ended my relationship with Pizza Hut (making my stay with them from July 2005- March 2008) due mostly to the fact that I could not stand to sit around and have all that I have learned go to waste. I saw that the world I live in, and the beautiful people in it, were being destroyed by systems of thought that are arrogant, intolerant, and devoid of the ability to admit they are wrong. I here include almost all systems on all sides of the Theist, Deist, and Atheist debates. All of us (me included) need to get humble and ask real questions and dig real deep into who we are and the way this world really runs.

This takes me to where I am right now this very instant. I am constantly digging for a deeper understanding of “truth” and this life in which I am in. Also I have begun the ground work on a book which I hope will inspire the weak, slap the prideful, and help this life I am living to not go into the great night without leaving something to better the world I will leave behind.

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