coming of age - a novel of spiritual metamorphosis


far as i know most tribes celebrate the passage from childhood into adulthood through a ritual of cleansing, re-orietation, re-knowing and re-awakening. it gives the young an idea of what to expect, particularly if during the ritual their ancestors talked to the initiates.

the young of today have a much more difficult time getting the hang of what it means to be an adult. our young are challenged by a host of possible voices, all of them powerful, all of them holding promise, and all of them calling out for belief.

science is one voice, technology another. religion. spirituality. pragmatism. these are but a few of the possible voices demanding to be heard and powerful in their influence.

angel hunting is about a young boy called by an inner voice to experiment with life to find meaning. even as a youngster, he felt that those spirits calling out to him were only surface creations. beneath what he could see and feel and hear lay another dimension, just as real, far more complete, and perhaps more meaningful. why hunt angels? he isn't sure. he doesn't particularly believe in them. yet that seems to be the voice calling out to him.

he becomes a sailor until he is shipwrecked. resccued by a prominent business-woman, he embarks on a career of making money. berayed over coffee money, he is hit by a van and accompanies the driver to an event called the burning man in the desert outside of las vegas. lost in the desert he meets blue dog, his spirit guide. br />
travelling to bolivia he becomes a student of the great awakened one who turns out to be a benevolent fraud. from there he finds a key to the lost city of atlantis which once again turns out to be illusiory. in princeton he becomes a cleaner for a scientist and his wife who believe it is possible to travel in a quantum dimension.

finally, after years of travel and almost learning something insightful, he returns home to work as a pizza delivery man. it is then, in a haunted house, he finds everything he experienced is not only possible but also true. in some quantum way they all exist at the same time. now, when he looks, he sees angels everywhere, going about their own business and only barely recognizing the existence of humanity.