CHAPTER 2

Keith continued playing at the Bla, waiting for “the discovery”.

In the meantime, though, we made a discovery of our own. We could write songs together. Keith made room for me inside his “creative bubble”, as he called it, and I was thrilled. But sometimes it had its drawbacks.

One day I worked several hours on a song lyric, then I found Keith in the living room and proudly handed him the words all neatly recopied on a fresh piece of paper. Keith read it silently. I knew he would tell me exactly what he thought, so I was holding my breath.

“Mel,” Keith said finally, “these rhymes are really trite.”

“Trite? What do you mean?”

“They’re expected. Like moon, June, spoon . . .”

“I didn’t even use those words.”

“I know, but you need to be more creative.”

“Well, forget the words I used. What about the message?”

“You’re not saying anything new. Anybody could write a song like this.”

“Do you realize how long I worked on those? Are you telling me there isn’t anything worth saving?” I was starting to get angry now—and hurt too. Blinking back the gathering tears I took the sheet of paper, wadded it up and threw it in the trash.

“Don’t you want me to tell you the truth?” Keith asked.

“Of course I do,” I said, pouting a bit.

“Look. I know you can do better. You just need to keep writing. Keep trying and don’t give up.”

I calmed down some. It was hard to admit, but I knew he was right. It really wasn’t a very good song. I had a  musical background—of sorts—but nothing like Keith’s  musical genius. I was glad he wanted me to do my best, but why couldn’t he say the same thing in a different way? Walking back to the trash, I retrieved the crumpled lyric. I wished this tension that suddenly rose between us over trivial things would go away—but I knew it sprang from something deeper than petty disagreements.

Keith had been on edge for several months. Sometimes we had great days. Others we’d just as soon forget. Keith had a strong sense of calling on his life, a spiritual destiny, and he knew it wasn’t being fulfilled. This was frustrating for him. Coupled with the fact that we were still adjusting to our first year of marriage, it amounted to some anxiety between us.

Married on Christmas Day 1973, we were now only three months away from celebrating our first anniversary. Sometimes I found it hard to believe I was actually married and living in a rented house in the suburbs—with a backyard full of fruit trees. We had plenty of time and space to write music. But for Keith, it seemed like there was no time. He was always in motion, always searching for something. Where had this drive and energy come from?

It didn’t make life any easier that the promise of a “deal” always lingered out there. We were constantly running all over town to meet with someone in the business. Besides partying and playing poker with a wide assortment of friends, Keith and I kept writing songs together. We usually worked really well as a team and we’d spend hours transposing concepts and ideas into word pictures and rhymes. Most of the time we worked hard, but when it got too intense, one of us would suggest a stupid rhyme or make a joke to release the tension. Once we wrote a  little jingle to help our friends remember our phone  number—349-2510. We sang it with a blues feel: “Three four nine, a quarter and a dime, let’s get together and buy some wine! Oh baby, uh uh huh, oh baby!”

What we really wanted was to write a “hit song” and get it recorded by a big-name recording artist. A lot of famous singer/songwriters got their big break that way. Keith kept making appointments to play his songs at major publishing companies hoping they’d “run” the song to a popular artist. They’d also tell us who was looking for new album material and we’d go back home and try to write songs in their style. We wrote songs for people like Cher, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. We wrote them, but they never got recorded.

One of the publishers Keith went to all the time was CBS in downtown Hollywood. Keith always brought our dog, Libre, up the elevator and right into the executive offices. He was never lacking in nerve, and before the CBS people knew what was happening Libre was laying quietly under a desk or a coffee table while Keith assured them she was housebroken. In spite of the clumps of hair Libre left on their shag carpeting, CBS really liked Keith’s music. In fact they liked it so much that they had just asked Keith to go on salary for $250 a week as a staff writer.

As usual, Keith immediately wanted to discuss the proposed contract with his dad. Keith and his family were close, and he was always phoning his parents or running over to their house. So we jumped into Victor and made the twenty-minute drive across the San Fernando Valley to Canoga Park. As usual, Keith’s folks were glad to see us. Keith joined his dad at the dining room table where they spread out the bulky contract for close inspection. This was not the first time they’d poured over a contract together, and Keith’s father was already eyeing some of the drawbacks of this agreement.

“The normal thing, since you’re unknown, would be for them to take one hundred percent of your publishing rights—but you can’t let them have that, Keith. If you do, you’ll be sorry one day,” his father began.

“I know. But do you think they’ll go along with that?”

“It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Keith’s mom was in the kitchen, making a pot of her wonderful chicken soup. Overhearing their conversation she poked her head out. “Honey, maybe you ought to go down to CBS with Keith and make sure he gets a fair deal.”

“I will if I need to. Now let’s take a look at all the fine print. . . .”

I wandered from the kitchen, where I’d made myself a cup of tea, and settled on the couch in the den. I liked visiting Keith’s parents. They were always so supportive of Keith. They had long ago recognized his talent and did anything they could to help him. Even if Keith and his parents didn’t see everything eye-to -eye, they had an obvious love for each other. And they’d welcomed me into the family with open arms.

Now Keith and his dad were deep into discussing different points of the CBS contract and I figured they’d be awhile. Looking across the room, I spotted one of Keith’s baby pictures. He was not only a beautiful little boy, but his genius had appeared early.

Keith once told me he couldn’t remember a time when his life was devoid of music or the potential for great success. When you were with him you had the feeling there were triplets, eighth notes and drum rolls pumping through his veins. He was definitely not nine-to-five office material. He wanted something more out of life.

Keith was third generation show business. His grandfather on his mother’s side was a successful composer, screenplay writer and a pioneer in the music industry. He worked for Warner Brothers and wrote for the singer Eddie Cantor. He’d also had the keen eye to put the three Ritz Brothers together as an act. He also owned Jaguar Records, one of the first rhythm ‘n’ blues record companies, and had once signed the legendary Hank Williams as an artist.

The same love of music was passed on to Keith’s mother. From where I sat now, in the den, I could see her as she swept the floor and watered her many plants. She was a pretty woman, with short blonde hair and an infectious laugh. Right out of high school she started singing popular music with the big bands. She was even offered a contract to sing with Benny Goodman, but turned it down to marry Keith’s dad when he was still a handsome baseball rookie on the N.Y. Giants farm team.

When Keith was born, it didn’t take long for the distinctive characteristics of this unusual child to emerge. His mom had often told me that, as soon as Keith was up off all fours, he walked as if he had springs in his feet.  Not the average heel-to-toe lift-off. Keith slapped his whole foot to the ground all at once, then power-launched his body forward from the ball of his foot. Though he was now over six feet tall Keith never outgrew that springy walk. To this day he walked fast and with purpose. I  always had to rush to keep up with him because Keith was always in a hurry—as if he was rushing to pack every moment with the most it could possibly hold.

Keith’s mom, who had studied voice for five years at Carnegie Hall, said that by the time Keith was nine months old he could hum “Rock A Bye Baby” on perfect pitch. His grandfather gave him a small record player he could work by himself, so he’d play his gold plastic 78 RPM kiddie records for hours on end, happily singing and bouncing along with the tunes. When he was learning to walk, he’d plop his diapered bottom down right on top of it, leaving his mom to replace many broken needles. But her patience bore lasting fruit. With his “Gerber Baby” good looks at the age of two-and-a-half, Keith won a kiddie talent show by singing, “Love and Marriage”—and his young career was under way. By the time Keith was three he could sing harmony to his mom’s alto—and to everyone’s amazement he was also strumming a ukulele.

It was the Green’s move to Canoga Park, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley, in 1957, that opened new doors of possibility. Keith’s talent continued to blossom under the watchful eyes of his parents-and so did his precocious nature. Unlike his older sister, Keith was into everything and on his first day in kindergarten he was benched by the principal for misbehavior. In fact, wherever Keith went, it seemed he found something to worry his mother about.

The first time he was in a department store he found the control switch for the escalator and pushed it, which brought the escalator to a screaming halt. This caused no small stir. Next he found the Coke machine and shoved his hand up the hole where the bottles came down. Naturally, his hand got stuck and he needed to be rescued, amidst his tearful screams. As he grew, however, his talent for getting attention—and for generating income— carried him far beyond normal limits for a kid his age.

By the time Keith was five he could play anything he heard on his ukulele. And at the age of seven, his parents bought him his first piano. They found Keith a teacher who liked both classical and pop music, and it was at her suggestion that Keith began to take acting lessons, too. Keith was seven when he did his first television commercial.

Keith’s eighth year, 1962, was an exciting one—and the year he began developing a “stage presence”. He made his live theater debut playing a little Italian street urchin in Arthur Laurent’s romantic comedy, “The Time of The Cuckoo”. The Los Angeles Times reviewed Keith’s performance at the outdoor Chatsworth Summer Theater and said, “Roguish-looking, eight-year-old Keith Green gave a winning portrayal . . . alternately amusing and pathetic.” Another review said Keith “stole the show”.

Keith also wrote his first song that year. His grandfather had taught him three rock and roll chords and that was all it took. Keith quickly became a prolific writer. One day he stayed home from school because he was sick, and he wrote the words and music to three songs.

That year, Keith brought the house down at the  famous Troubadour nightclub in Hollywood—later called Rocky’s. The Troubadour had one evening they called “Hoot Night”. They only allowed folk singers—rock and rollers were not allowed. So Keith learned two folk songs on the guitar. On “Hoot Night”, when he finished his first song, the audience gave him a standing ovation. He played an encore and they screamed and yelled and wouldn’t let him leave the stage again. Keith told everyone the only other songs he knew were rock ‘n’ roll. They shouted for him to play one anyway, and he launched into the Buddy Holly tune, “Peggy Sue”. That won him a third standing ovation!

Two years later, at ten, Keith moved indoors to legitimate theater. He played Kurt Von Trapp opposite Janet Blair’s Maria in a 1964 production of “The Sound of Music” in the San Fernando Valley. The local newspaper remarked about Keith’s talented performance.

Unfortunately, Keith got a different sort of attention from his sixth-grade classmates. Since Keith’s curls had now aged to brown, he needed some help from Lady Clairol to revive his once-golden hair for the part of Kurt Von Trapp. And once the production was finished, Keith needed to keep his hair blond for awhile to maintain a more “youthful” appearance. One day as Keith walked down the school hallway he noticed a few of his friends standing off to the side snickering. As soon as he passed by one of them called out behind his back, “Proxy locks! You big sissy!”

Eventually, Keith was able to let his hair grow out, but as the black roots inched their way upward they were not only a source of embarrassment—they were a painful reminder. They made it evident to everyone, especially Keith, that he was different somehow. As much as he  enjoyed being different, he also had the longings of any boy about to hit puberty. He wanted to fit in and be accepted by his classmates as part of the crowd. But that was not going to happen.

In January 1965, upon the release of Keith’s first 45 record produced by his grandfather and Jay Colonna, Teen Scene Magazine called Keith, “the youngest new face on the Hollywood scene.” This first solo release was called, “Cheese and Crackers” backed with “I Want To Hurt You”. A photo of Keith with a big smile appeared in Teen Scene with an address and the line, “We know he’d love to hear from his present and future fans”.

It was about this time that Keith’s father started to represent him as an artist. After years of exposure to the business of “show biz”, he became quite skilled when it came to dealing with record companies and legal contracts. He was also extremely honest when it came to business—or anything else for that matter. With his dad taking a bigger role in his career, things started to take off. One executive at Capital Records wanted to sign Keith to a recording contract but could not get it approved by his superiors because they felt Keith was too young. No one as young as Keith—including The Osmonds or the Jackson Five—was recording yet.

His dad moved on to Decca Records, where Keith was signed to a five-year recording contract. The Los Angeles Times watched with interest, and their music reviewer wrote, “Keith’s first disc will be released in March, and one of the many songs he’s written has been published. The name of the song is, ‘The Way I Used To Be’, which at Keith Green’s age doesn’t leave much leeway. He’s only 11. Absolutely nothing else can be heard when, with amazing gusto, the husky blond boy starts slamming away at the piano and singing all out in an alto that promises to become a strong baritone.” He quoted Keith, who said, “I’ve written about 40 songs and they’re still coming. I’ll never run out!”

Upon the publishing of Keith’s first song, at the age of eleven, he became the youngest member of ASCAP—The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. They flew Keith to New York to honor him along with the songwriter who was the oldest member. Keith’s youthful success made him somewhat unique in the music world. He was also flown to New York to sing on two national network television shows, and from there landed appearances in a television special with Sammy Davis Jr. and was on “The Jack Benny Show”, “The Joey Bishop Show”, and “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color”. He also did a program with Steve Allen who later asked him his secret of success. Keith replied in all seriousness, “I started when I was very young!”

Around this time, Keith also played his guitar and sang on a local morning television show. When he and his dad got home there was an important message waiting. They were to phone a certain extension at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. They phoned right away, and the mysterious caller turned out to be none other than Colonel Parker, Elvis Presley’s long-time manager. Keith’s dad listened, astonished, as Colonel Parker said, “Your boy’s got a great talent. If I wasn’t tied up full-time with Elvis, I’d take Keith on. But you call me if you ever need any help.”

In March 1966, Time magazine even pointed to Keith as a budding young star in a music article which looked at “harnessing the lucrative potential of the almost untouched pre-teen pocketbook”. They talked about the new merchandising angles aimed at four-to-twelve-year-olds. One of the up-and-coming young talents they expected to shake dollars from the pre-teen piggy banks was Keith. Keith must have read with growing excitement, as Time reported, “Decca Records has a pre-pubescent dreamboat named Keith Green. . . . He has already written 50 rock ‘n’ roll songs, which he croons in a voice trembling with conviction, ‘Youuu are the girl / I am the boy / Yes, it seems we’re in looove’.”

With such strong support and encouragement from his family—and their combined talents all focused on Keith—it’s no wonder Keith accomplished so much at such a young age. Keith himself was not only loaded with performing genius, he had the high energy and stubborn determination it would take to succeed. With everything lining up the way it was, Keith and his family just knew his career was about to take off. Like a rocket on a launching pad, all systems were go. But then, strangely, things didn’t quite fall into place.

Keith’s record release from Decca made it into the top ten in Hawaii. However, the major national breakthrough that was hoped for did not materialize. A short time later, Donny Osmond came on the scene capturing the pre-teen and teenage listeners that Decca Records had envisioned for Keith. Keith’s dreams suddenly came crashing down. Success was nearly his—but somehow it had passed him by. . . .

I heard Keith and his father laughing in the other room as they shoved their chairs away from the table noisily. They’d often joke about the outrageous things companies tried to write into their contracts. I wondered if CBS was any different. Looking at my watch, I realized they’d been talking for over an hour. As they walked into the family room they were smiling and slapping each other on the back. Whatever questions they had about the CBS contract they must have worked them through.

On the drive home Keith told me more details about what CBS was offering him. It was a great deal. Besides the $250 a week, there were no office hours. He just needed to give them eighteen acceptable songs in a twelve-month period. Even better than that, they were hiring him mainly to write commercial melodies, not lyrics. They didn’t feel his lyrics were commercial enough because they had too much “spiritual” content for their tastes—which was fine with Keith.

“This is incredibly perfect,” Keith said, beaming. “I don’t have to sell out my ideals to commercialism. Music is music.”

“That’s really great,” I replied.

“This new job is really a responsibility and a privilege,” he continued. “I need to be careful to stay honest.”

“Of course. They’re giving you a lot of money.”

“Yeah—that’s why I’m going to ask CBS to sign you, too.”

“What?” I shot back. “Why would you ask them to sign me?”

“Because I don’t want to be tempted to cheat.”

“What do you mean?”

Keith explained that, since we were starting to write a lot of songs together, if CBS only signed him, they wouldn’t own any of my share in a song Keith and I co-wrote. This would obviously benefit us financially. It would have been one hundred percent legal and ethical for us to get more publishing when we wrote a song together, but Keith didn’t want to be tempted by money.

“I don’t want you to write with me for the wrong reasons,” he said. “I’d rather make less money and have a clear conscience. I don’t want to struggle trying to figure out my motives every time we write together.”

“But I’m not as good as you are,” I protested. “Why would they want to pay me anything?”

“I’m not going to ask them to pay you anything. We’ll still get just $250 a week. I only want your name added onto the contract.”

When he suggested his idea to CBS a few days later, they were astonished. It was an unusual request, but it meant they were getting two writers for the price of one. It also meant they would own any acceptable songs I might write by myself as part of our yearly eighteen song quota—which at that point seemed highly unlikely. They accepted Keith’s offer and we both became staff writers for CBS.

As much as Keith was caught up in the world of music, there was still another part of him—a side that ran much deeper. Keith was caught up in what seemed to be a lifelong spiritual search. The incident that happened with Harmony a short time before, outside The Bla Bla Cafe, had been a real turning point for him. Keith shocked himself when he quoted the words of Jesus into the wolf-like face of Harmony. On one hand it felt a little odd to quote a Bible verse, since our spiritual life seemed to be so stunted. Yet Harmony’s response went a long way toward impressing Keith that some kind of power had forced Harmony out of his weird state the moment Keith had spoken those words.

One night Todd, who was Keith’s best friend and almost a permanent fixture in our house, came over for dinner. He and Keith had known each other for years and they’d even kept a journal together at one time. They were such good friends that sometimes I got a little jealous of their deep relationship. And it didn’t help matters when Keith, who was so used to talking with his buddy about everything, occasionally forgot who he was talking to and called me Todd. But Todd was a great guy and I usually enjoyed having him around. Just now he and Keith were immersed in a debate about some scripture in the Bible, and I slipped out of the living room to start making the salad. As I listened to them from the kitchen, I was impressed by Keith’s unquenchable thirst for the things of the spirit. It was one of the things I loved about him. . . .

Spiritual roots ran deep in Keith’s family. Keith’s grandfather had been a Christian Scientist for sixty years. His mom was raised in Christian Science and when Keith’s parents married, his dad followed suit. As Keith grew up he saw many physical healings. And he often saw his parents study the Bible, or Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health. Keith and his father formed a publishing company named after one of the names of God, “I Am that I Am. . . .” I Am Music became the cradle for all of Keith’s early songs.

Keith was raised in a good, moral atmosphere and he was basically a good kid. What it was exactly that brought on the sudden changes as he entered his teens, no one knew. But when Keith hit puberty, it hit back. Maybe it was the disappointment of having his dream with Decca Records suddenly vanish into thin air, or maybe he was just sucked into the 1960s revolutionary spirit of southern California. Keith grew dissatisfied with himself and the life he was living. Growing up in an atmosphere of moral purity, free of alcohol and drugs, had a wonderfully preserving effect on Keith during his early years. Not being exposed to those things at home kept him from developing destructive habits—for a while anyway.

When Keith graduated from junior high and entered high school he came at it from a whole different universe than most other kids. While most of his friends were trying to figure out what they wanted to be when they grew up, Keith started the tenth grade as an “almost-was”. He almost made it, but didn’t. Underneath lay the dull pain of failure. Never being a quitter, Keith’s bouncy step kept him in a forward momentum, winning talent contests, writing songs, and waiting—it seemed, forever, for that magic door to open and lay the world at his feet. There were, however, some dangerous curves ahead.

By the time Keith was fifteen he was growing more and more restless, and his relationships at home grew stormier. He was getting more argumentative, harder to understand, and less tolerant. Keith felt like his parents didn’t understand him at all. From his point of view, they suddenly looked old-fashioned and “totally uncool”. The California “scene” was promising something more to life than Keith was experiencing, and he wasted no time pursuing it. He already had more money in the pockets of his blue jeans than ten kids his age and decided to use it to finance every parent’s worst fear.

In July of 1969, four days after the holiday fireworks, Keith withdrew his bank savings, tucked his coin collection in his backpack and financed a get-a-way with two older friends.

On the road Keith started keeping a record of his daily thoughts and activities in a notebook. This journal would become a lifelong friend and he confided his innermost feelings to its pages. In fact, it captured so much of Keith’s heart and who he was that, once we became serious, Keith sat me down and, with great excitement, read all of his journals to me out loud.

When he did that, I couldn’t believe how he kept track of things in such detail. He’d often stop to fill in details, too. I felt honored to have him let me into his private inner world like that. His entries were always interesting, and at times even embarrassing—because he held nothing back, not even his relationships with other girls, or his innermost dreams, fears and failures. But that was Keith’s all-or-nothing nature. He wanted me to know absolutely everything about him—the good, and the not so good. He needed to know I accepted him for who he was without any illusions.

So I heard them all—from beginning to end—starting with the first entry, written in a car the first time he ran away at fifteen:

The Beginning—July 8, 1969

Sorry about the messy writing. We’re driving. Hi there. My name is Keith Green. I’m splitting Canoga Park. Our final goal is Canada! We’ve been planning to leave for two months. We have luggage, organ and amplifier, $175.39 and my coin collection worth about $100.00. I hope to get some jobs along the coast of California singing and playing. We’re going to go as far from L.A. as we can. I feel really sorry about my parents. I love them. They’re goin’ to feel bad.—Later.

Their “trip to Canada” took them only as far north as San Francisco. There they met a young Eskimo girl and they all rented a cheap hotel room to live in. The guys got backbreaking jobs, unloading crates of tires from railroad boxcars. It was a time of first experiments. Keith also wrote:

That girl I met in ‘Frisco was named Carolyn. . . . She really kind of dug me. She  didn’t know how old I was. When she found out, she was really surprised. We had it all figured out. We were [all] gonna get an apartment and Carolyn [was] gonna cook and clean. Then we all started getting crabby. I told Carolyn to get lost. I wanted to get rid of her. The rat I was. [One of my friends] started talking about his probation hassles and I started thinking about home. . . . We decided to go back.

The great runaway lasted a total of four days. Keith called home, and his dad flew up and rented a real limousine from the airport to pick him up in. Then they flew back to L.A. together. On that trip Keith had his first taste of manual labor, which he hated—and his first taste of life on the road, which he loved.

In the next few years Keith would run away from home two more times. One time, in fact, his parents hoped to teach him a lesson, and they allowed him to be thrown in jail as a runaway. He spent his time there writing songs. Having no paper, he scratched out words on the cell wall with the heel of his shoe.

When Keith entered his junior year in Canoga Park’s El Camino Real High School in September 1970, his life had become a blur of friends, parties, music and trying to stay one step ahead of the principal. Playing the class clown from a back-corner desk, Keith’s wild antics and lack of attention in class gave him problems with his teachers, but never with his grades. Keith had a nearly photographic memory—his mind stored facts and figures like a filing cabinet. He could just reach in and pull out the desired information at will. El Camino had two hang-outs—the upper lawn and the lower lawn. Between classes, everyone who dabbled in drugs and thrived on loud music hung out on the upper lawn. It was there that Todd and Keith first met.

One afternoon, Todd saw Keith obviously “hitting” on a girl he knew. She didn’t seem interested but went along with the game of brotherly love and hippie-hugs. Keith pursued girls like someone hunting deer in a game park. He stopped his pursuit that day just long enough to sell Todd a marijuana joint for $1. From that day on they became, in their words, “doper brothers”.

Besides the dope, Todd and Keith found there were two more important things that bound them together. One was their love of music, the other was their hunger for spiritual things. Todd and Keith both played guitar and they would frequently “jam” on the upper lawn together. Todd was quiet and thoughtful, which complemented Keith’s extravagant emotions. Todd’s lean good looks, warm green eyes, and long straight brown hair appealed to the ladies. But his shyness was a handicap. No matter, Keith took care of that. When they were out, instead of just finding a girl for himself, he hunted for pairs, usually giving Todd second choice. But their bond of friendship was ultimately founded on something less tangible than girls, drugs or music.

Keith was like a magnet. It seemed like whatever he was into, he had a way of drawing others into his orbit, like a big planet with a huge gravity field. Keith was like this with his spiritual search. He and Todd would sit and talk for hours on end watching the sunrise and wondering about life, the universe, and God. There had to be more to life than what they were experiencing with their five senses. Everywhere they looked they saw people drowning in mediocrity, traditions, and the boring daily grind. Keith had no intention of winding up like that. There were new things to taste and experience. Why be narrow-minded when the world was full of beautiful things and beautiful people? Everyone was saying “if it feels good, do it”—and they did.

Couples everywhere were starting to live together openly. Now it was the “in” thing to do. It was “prehistoric” to think a marriage license could hold a relationship together. Who needed a piece of paper if you really loved somebody? And if you really did love someone, you wouldn’t want to tie that person down. Stephen Stills’ hit song summed it up: “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with!”

Everywhere Keith looked people were basically saying forget “the system”—women had burned their bras and men had burned their draft cards. Someone even burned the American flag. Nothing was sacred. Everything was up for grabs. And no one over 30 could be trusted. The true power to bring about peace would not, could not come through brute force—but by embracing the world and each other in brotherly love. What was needed was a Peaceful Revolution. The perfect example was when a demon strator at an anti-war rally walked up to one of the National Guards and put a flower down his gun barrel. Flower-power was born.

It seemed like seekers everywhere were united in a common theology that dressed itself in bare feet, Indian beads, headbands, wood stoves, incense, eastern music, and organic gardens that sprouted green beans and homegrown marijuana. Keith joined in the search.

That search led him to Box Canyon, a desolate place in the mountains on the fringe of Los Angeles County. Box Canyon became a popular place to film western movies—and became equally unpopular when it became known as the hide-out of the infamous Charles Manson and his hippie “family”.

Keith started doing Saturday night concerts in Box Canyon at a place called The Fountain of the World, a mansion-like building that resembled a small medieval monastery. A huge white sign out front bore the cryptic letters F L K W—standing for Faith, Love, Knowledge and Wisdom. Over the main entrance was a sign, “He Who Enters Here Walks On Holy Ground”. A large stone stairway led down inside the building which was constructed in dark stonework and stained glass. Inside were lots of tables and chairs and a small stage. This organic-looking church was the perfect place for the sandaled, beaded and bearded to hang out amid the smoke of incense and pot. Keith and Todd were right at home. What impressed Keith most about The Fountain was its founder, “Brother Jeremiah”. Brother Jeremiah wore sandals, a saffron colored robe and frequently performed skits with spiritual significance. He also inspired Keith to uphold some word of truth in the songs he wrote—and to be more careful about the content of the ones he chose to play from his “top-40” repertoire. Keith’s concerts began to draw quite a crowd.

Keith had been raised as a Christian Scientist, but “organized religion” started to feel “dead” to him. What he saw in Brother Jeremiah seemed fresh and alive. It was at The Fountain of the World that Keith’s questions about life began to pile up on each other. Behind all the heady spiritual talk, people were still people. Why couldn’t everyone live in harmony? Where was the love and the unity? It seemed like everyone had given up on high ideals and, instead, they were looking through the fragmented prism colors of windowpane LSD. Keith’s friends were finding their answers over the radio and in the rosy glow of the hash-pipe. Maybe the secret of life would be revealed by getting back to Mother Nature—back to life as it was before modern man polluted the world with  machines, smog and greed.

One person Keith was especially impressed with was a guy who called himself “Cougar”. Cougar lived close to The Fountain and Keith frequently went to his house to party and talk. Cougar had rejected materialism and the conventional way of life and, at eighteen, he seemed to have all the answers. Keith thought everything about Cougar was cool—where he lived, what he said and how he said it. Cougar wasn't just preaching brotherhood, he was living it. This, coupled with Brother Jeremiah’s influence, seemed to open up a world of mystical truth for Keith.

In the summer of 1970, the second time Keith ran away from home, he felt he made an extraordinary breakthrough into the spiritual realm. Keith got as far north as Seattle this time. While he was there, he “tripped” on LSD. Parts of the trip were frightening—but Keith felt like he saw things clearly for the first time. In fact, he was so excited that he called Todd from Seattle to tell him, “I found God!” When Keith returned home, all he wanted to talk about was his spiritual experience.

“Todd, you wouldn’t believe it. It was like I was one with everything around me.”

“But how do you know you found God? Did you see him?” Todd asked skeptically.

“No, but I felt him. He was warm and pure. It might seem crazy but I know he was really with me.”

“Did you hear his voice?”

Keith hesitated. “Not out loud. But I heard his words clearly in my mind.”

That made Todd eager for a similar experience. A short time later, they took their first psychedelic trip together in Keith’s backyard. Lying on lounge chairs looking up into the starry, night sky, Keith read to Todd out of his “Life Notebook and Journey Guide”. Keith’s notebook now began to fill up with his philosophy of simplistic naturalism—borrowing from the ideals of the hippie movement, his drug trips, and his understanding of Christian Science.

As Keith and Todd continued sorting through the various things they believed in, they came up with their own philosophy. They gave it the mystical name “New Dawn” which they borrowed from a line in a David Crosby song—”the darkest hour is just before the dawn”. To them “New Dawn” referred to the time when all mankind would live together in peace and brotherly love. It also included the eastern idea of karma—that you have to pay for past sins in your next reincarnated life. If you blew it on earth, you always had another chance in your next life to do better.

With this new philosophy and his zealous idealism, it was natural for Keith to “evangelize” his friends. He was that way with everything. For instance, if Keith fixed his sandwich a certain way in a restaurant, he would tell everyone at his table, “You gotta try this, man. You’ll love it!” Imagine his determination when it came to trying to lead others to where he’d been spiritually.

Keith got into the habit of gathering several friends together—usually at someone’s house while their parents were gone. Then they’d all drop LSD together and sit in a circle on the floor, holding hands while Keith proceeded to “take them to the light”. As they started to come on to the “acid”, Keith would begin describing the visions he saw out loud. In his mind’s eye he could see a great, blue-green sky, arching over a vast, empty plain. Moving rapidly across the sky were multi-colored clouds, churning and tumbling together. The clouds changed shapes constantly, the last image merging into the next. Keith called out the different images as they came—an eagle, a lion, an Indian doing a rain dance. As the sky filled with shadows, it was like entering a long dark tunnel. But straight ahead, in the middle, was a pinprick of light. As they raced toward it through the billowing blackness, the light ahead grew bigger and more brilliant. Keith’s voice grew louder with excitement as he described the quickly approaching blaze of light, flecked with radiant prisms. Suddenly they’d burst through the blinding light together, releasing their hands, and falling into a heap on the floor—exhausted but exhilarated.

But even these “spiritual exercises”, as Keith called them, raised questions in his mind. What was this light at the end of the tunnel? Was it God? If it was God, what was he really like?

Keith and Todd spent lots of time together, that fall of 1970, trading their journal back and forth. Their philosophy started to take shape:

Diary of God’s Children—October 25, 1970, 4 pm.

Me and my brother Todd are musicians and songwriters and children of God. (As everyone is.) We feel we have been placed together for a reason—to help the Peaceful Revolutionary movement!

But for all his ideals, Keith’s life was filled with contradictions. He wanted to purify his body and became a vegetarian—but on the other hand he bought peyote from friends in Oregon. Keith rationalized taking drugs to trigger his spiritual experiences, even as he teased Todd about taking vitamins to enhance his health.

October 28, 1970, 9:30 a.m.

Our dream is to have a big musical family, sort of like a communal living type thing. We’d like to grow our own fruits and vegetables. So I told Todd if he wants to start getting into the commune living type life, to stop  taking vitamins, because we can’t grow them.

If being careful about what they ate was a step toward purity, they were well on their way. Keith and Todd were not as careful, however, in relating to the girls they were meeting. Keith convinced Todd that the best romances were the ones with no strings attached. Which seemed like a pretty good deal to two teenaged guys. Still, Keith confided in his journal that “ . . . sex is not  important to the Brotherhood Movement”. But even though his mind told him it wasn't important, his body was sending different signals.

In the first week of November 1970, Keith ran away from home a third time. To him, it was the first step in launching this peaceful Brotherhood Movement.

Keith hitchhiked up to Seattle to chase down his dream of a musical family. His hopes centered on  Timothy, a guy he’d met the first time he ran away. Timothy was the leader of a rock band in Seattle and Keith hoped they could start a musical group together, one that would bring a message of peace to the world. Keith felt he and Timothy were brothers in the spirit, and that the message of true brotherly love would be spread for the good of mankind through the music they’d make. Keith believed intensely that Timothy was the one who was supposed to start this band with him.

November 10, 1970, 9 pm.

We’re 30 miles south of Portland. This is my 24th ride and probably my last. I paid this guy $6 for gas. He’s taking me to Tim  . . . the time is right for us to come together. I miss brother Todd. He’s so much a part of it all. Now that me and Tim are coming  together, oh, the music!! We will write together, play together, not only be one, but express oneness. . . . A better day has come!

When Keith found Timothy, in a tavern where his band was playing, he was really excited because the new songs Timothy had written reflected the brotherhood philosophy. However, Keith had shown up unannounced and was surprised to learn that the band was about to go to Idaho for three weeks. But that didn’t throw him. He decided to go to Bellingham until Timothy returned. Still optimistic, he felt a strong sense of destiny about this time away from home. Three nights after leaving home he wrote, “I’m up here for a reason and I haven’t found out what it is”.

While he was waiting for Timothy to return, Keith spent most of his time making new friends, playing his music, and wondering why he was in Seattle. After about a week, Keith decided to take an LSD trip which was somewhat of a departure from his latest belief that organic, or natural drugs were superior to those made in a test tube. What was striking about this acid trip was that Keith thought he saw God. He was so excited about it, he wrote in his journal while he was tripping, which was in it itself quite a feat. As the LSD took effect the words on the journal pages grew into large, uneven scrawls:

November 20, 1970, 11 a.m.

It’s snowing!!!!!!

I’m tripping!!!!!!!!

It’s toooo beautiful for words. . . . It’s going to be a long, long, long, cold dark age  before the dawn.

God walked with me. Into the sun and out of the snow. He said, “Look at the snow, in it are crystals of brotherhood holding softly but tightly together. For in them you will see the secret to hold through the dark ages ahead. . . .”

He left me with a warm, loving, but assured embrace that light is ahead and said “Keep Faith”.

Later that day, he also wrote,

That trip really was something. I feel different from the guy that took it. I feel like I went to another change. Good feelings. But one thing is for sure. The Dark Age started today. Got to get together with Todd and Tim soon.

Unlike the other times Keith ran away, this time he decided he’d keep in touch with his parents. They started by sending letters back and forth through a friend in Los Angeles so Keith could keep his exact location a secret. His parents were grateful for the contact and didn’t call the police.

November 23, 1970, 11:30 a.m.

I’ve been away from home now for two weeks. I hope my people [family] are taking it all pretty well. After a few months they’ll have to. Anyway after they get used to me being gone, they will really be better off, for it. They will see. It’s right for me to be here. . . .

Keith felt he was learning a lot about himself, and a lot about life. But being out on his own had its ups and downs. He was ecstatic about receiving a “3-minute standing ovation” at a coffee house he played in. But he was also forced to buy boots at the Salvation Army because his shoes had holes in them and his toes were getting “wet, cold, and frozen” in the snow. He didn’t have a car and didn’t know where he was going to sleep from one night to the next.

As each snowy, rainy day of the Pacific Northwest slowly passed, everywhere Keith turned people were gearing up for the Christmas holidays. Twinkling lights and wreaths were starting to decorate store windows and homes. People all around him were making holiday plans with family and friends. The Christmas season was a difficult time for Keith to be alone. The one thing keeping him going was his hope that when Timothy returned they’d put together a spiritual band with a spiritual message. He hung onto that dream waiting for the three weeks to pass.

Even beyond wanting to work with Timothy, Keith was on his own personal pilgrimage—watching, listening, and hoping. He was also asking many questions. Was there really a way to tell right from wrong? And how could he be sure he was going to spend his life doing what he was called to do? He felt like he was just stumbling in the dark.

At the beginning of December, Keith talked three guys he knew into going to a Sunday morning Christian Science church service. Four nights later he went again. The services underscored what he’d surmised from his own studies—that there’s no literal hell, and that only certain parts of the Bible are the “inspired” Word of God.

Afterward, he and his friends somehow ended up at a Christian coffee house. The evening exploded into a heated debate.

December 10, 1970, 12:45 a.m.

. . . We went to a “Jesus Freak” coffee house and they tried the trip on me about believing the whole Bible, word for word, even the part that says God kills my brother and I just don’t believe that. Not my wonderful Father!

I’m still trusting my bro' Jesus Christ and Father God, who are one together, and one with me, and we’re one with everyone. But it’s easier to say, that the universe and everything in it is one! Peace through unity.

Keith was irritated by being confronted with the fundamental Christian belief that, although God created us, a redemptive process was needed to enter into a relationship with the Creator. That thought was new to Keith. He didn’t like it. Keith believed that if he could only have “perfect thoughts” he would experience God’s perfection in body, mind, and spirit.

The other thing that really bothered him was the belief that the whole Bible was the inspired Word of God. Keith believed there were certain “inspired parts” of the Bible—but everyone knew it was written by men, and men make mistakes. Anyway, didn’t the Bible say that God was a loving Father, full of mercy and peace? So how could a loving Father punish any of his children? These “Jesus Freaks”, as Keith called them, had challenged his thinking, but failed to convince him.

As Timothy’s return grew closer, Keith’s anticipation ran high.

December 25, 1970, Christmas day

I am at Tim’s farm. Tim isn’t here. He probably won’t be here till late today.

I also called home! They are trying very hard, but they still don’t understand. Sometimes I don’t understand it either! But my Father knows.

Well, it’s X-mas day and I feel like giving! I want to play! I am going to crash! Brother Tim; there is a reason! Good night all. X-mas comes and goes, but feelings last.

Unfortunately when Tim finally did arrive, after all the waiting, the much hoped for musical dream did not materialize.

By the end of the first week in January 1971, Keith knew his time in Washington was coming to a close. He made some New Year’s resolutions—to “put down dope” and also to keep sex “in check”. He returned home on January 9th because he missed Todd, and the “settled, stable feeling of home”.

Throughout the spring and summer of that year Keith aggressively pursued a new dream—a record deal. He hung out with Todd and, in fact, they became inseparable as they focused on their dream of putting a band together to play music that would lead people to higher levels in their spiritual search.

They wrote songs about all their beliefs, and with guitars in hand, sang them everywhere to anyone who would listen. However, they didn’t expect to have a chance to sing for their all time favorite woman singer/songwriter—who was also one of the most popular and talented women in music at the time.

On the first day of May, Keith wrote, “Drum roll . . . we played for Joni Mitchell.” Joni, a top-selling recording artist, was one of Keith’s musical idols. She lived in a rustic area of the Hollywood Hills, and Keith had taken the trouble to find out exactly which house she lived in. On this day, Keith and Todd hitchhiked to a friend’s house and on the way noticed Joni's gate was open. They got their friend and his guitar and the three of them walked back to Joni's.

Keith, of course, had the nerve to knock on her door. There was no answer, so they decided to serenade her house with a song they’d just written. As they sang the last note, the door opened and there stood Joni Mitchell. To their amazement, she invited them inside.

Keith sat at her piano and sang her all the songs he was writing for his album. He even asked her to write the liner notes, and Todd nearly died of embarrassment. Keith also wrote, “She gave us organic apple juice. It was all such a beautiful dream. . . . I wish it never ended. I left a piece of my soul with her.”

Probably one of the most surprising things about the afternoon was that, although Joni was at the peak of success, she had some unanswered spiritual questions, too. On one hand, Keith already believed the truth was something much deeper than position or possessions. But he was also disappointed. He had such an immense level of love and respect for Joni he figured if she didn’t have the answers, who did? He later wrote, “She seems troubled with an inner-conflict. I love her. God help her and us all. You are our only salvation. I feel so discontented today. I feel unfulfilled. Searching for something to quench my thirst for fulfillment.”

In September 1971, the long-sought recording contract finally became a reality.

Keith’s first album, with Amos Records, would be called “Revelations”. The bulk of the songs centered on his philosophy of peace and hope through the unity of mankind. In mid-’72, when Timothy came down from Seattle to play on the album, it seemed like the dream of a “brotherhood band” was about to happen. And then—just like Keith’s hope of becoming a pre-teen idol—this dream came crashing in, too.

On June 1, 1972, Timothy wrote a “guest entry” in Keith’s journal:

[Keith] seems to be dwelling so intensely on all the confusion . . . and personal grief . . . he seems to have too much going on inside to realize why I came here. I pray for what is right. Why are we here? Why are we all here?

Shortly, their dream of working together came to an end. When Keith realized the vision was dead, he laid it to rest this time with a tinge of sadness, knowing it would never be.

Though the hoped-for musical family with Timothy did not happen, Keith and Todd continued to hold on a little longer to their dreams. They quit playing for “drunken dances” because no one was paying attention to the message of the music. And they continued their search for a meaningful relationship with God. They were both accepted into the Rosicrucian Order—a mystical occult group espousing ideas like astral projection.  After doing some of the studies, they couldn’t agree with all of the teachings and dropped out of the order—and Keith scratched one more thing off his list of possibilities.

That same summer of 1972 Keith heard about an event in Colorado called The World Family Gathering, that was supposed to usher in the New Age. In July, Keith drove all the way to Rocky Mountain National Park hoping that in such a beautiful setting, with thousands of other seekers, he’d find the answers he was looking for. But there was no sense of family at this “family gathering”. Instead people were rowdy, getting high on everything imaginable, and often out of control and violating each others rights. It ended up being a rather mindless, prolonged party—not the spiritual event Keith had hoped for.

When Keith returned to California he had one more thing to scratch off his list. In fact, it seemed like he’d been scratching a lot of things off his “list of potential truths” lately. Over the past several months he’d been on a reading marathon examining the works of Hess, Jung, Heinlein, Castaneda, Gibran, Baba Ram Dass—and the Bible. Keith was finding interesting food for thought, but nothing was totally satisfying. He’d had his tarot cards read, his astrology chart done, and even gone to a lecture on the mystery of the pyramids. The World Family Gathering was a bust, Joni Mitchell didn’t have all the answers, the “Revelations” album was not taking off, the musical dream with Timothy died, and he’d burned all his Rosicrucian Order notes to “symbolically and physically cast off the chains of wrong belief”.

Even Keith’s old friend Cougar ended up letting him down. It was Cougar who first inspired Keith with his brotherhood philosophy, but now he was totally devoid of all “brotherhood” beliefs. Not only that, he’d become part of “the establishment”. Keith wrote, “Cougar got frustrated with me and lost faith in brotherhood, and started acting like a 9:00 to 5:00 freak.” Keith couldn’t get over the fact that his “teacher” had sold-out to materialism and no longer believed in any of the things he once preached with such passion. Keith felt ripped off. Not only that, but if Cougar had given up, maybe the truth was impossible to find. Maybe there was nothing beyond this life.

And then a startling event shook Keith at a deep level. Keith’s nineteenth birthday was near the end of October, and he planned a special way to celebrate the end of a season in his life. He planned to take one final mescaline trip with a close friend of his named Bill, a record company executive in his late thirties or early forties. Keith, who had been trying to quit drugs, felt this trip would be his very last.

On the evening of October 21st, Keith drove to Bill’s house in the Hollywood Hills to kick-off his “farewell to drugs” trip. Psychedelic drugs are portioned out in small amounts called “hits” or “tabs”, and usually taking between a quarter of a tab and a whole tab is plenty to get you where you want to go. But on this night, perhaps because Keith wanted to go out with a bang, he dropped three hits.

He was in for one of the most terrifying experiences of his whole life. When they were in the heaviest part of their trip, Bill started playing with Keith’s mind. One of the frightening things about taking psychedelic drugs, is that most of the time it’s impossible to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. You see and hear things that are not really there, and actual reality is either obscured or terribly distorted. The worst thing that can happen is to have someone you really trust mess with your mind when you’re in that vulnerable and confusing state.

As Keith and his friend sat in their car on a high cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Bill told him he’d made an appointment that night to meet with people from another planet. It sounded crazy, but after three hits of mescaline anything could be true. It was a dark night and the moon looked pure white.

“Come off it,” Keith said. “You’re not serious.”

“I am. I’ve made contact and they should be here soon.”

“Come on, don’t mess with me. . . .”

“It’s true. They’re meeting us in a few minutes. And they want to take you back with them in their spacecraft.”

They talked back and forth like that for quite some time, and Keith started to panic. What if it was true? In all his readings, he’d heard stories about people who’d met aliens. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst from his chest. The negative energy was real, and very frightening. Dark forces were reaching for him. Occult powers seemed to be pushing him close to the edge of a black and empty place. He fought with all his might to keep from falling in.

When the trip was over Keith did some heavy soul-searching. He had a very strong sense that all of the eastern/mystical/occult paths he’d been walking might actually be leading him in the wrong direction. The spiritual darkness he’d felt that night was an unfriendly presence that he never wanted to experience again. But even as he cut all these things loose, he still had no certainty of where to turn. A few days later he wrote:

October 28, 1972

Towers of happiness built on the sand of confusion usually tumble down. I’m digging deep, I’m digging deep, gotta find that solid rock foundation. I’m digging deep, I’m washing with water and cleansing in soil. When I reach a solid self, if there is [one], then I’ll build a cabin of home in my heart. And maybe share it with another solid soul.

As the end of 1972 drew near, Keith had scratched so many things off his spiritual search list he barely had one left. He had narrowed things down quite a bit, and spent a lot of time reading “them two books—the Bible and Science and Health”. For a few weeks he thought he’d get totally into Christian Science. He went to the local Reading Room, and had a deep conversation with his grandfather. Just when he thought he’d take the plunge, he suddenly changed his mind. He wrote, “I dig the teachings, but the organized machine scares me.”

Even though Keith was turned off by the idea of  an  organized group, there did seem to be one common thread running through all the teachings Keith had studied. That thread was the person of Jesus Christ. Everybody seemed to say that, at the very least, Jesus was a “good guy”. Some said he was the Son of God, others said he was  a prophet, others said he was an ascended spiritual  master—even Buddha thought Jesus was okay. Everyone said something different, but it was all positive. And to top it off, Jesus even said good things about himself. He said he was the only way to God.

Keith had been running scared since the mescaline trip he took on his birthday. He doubted everybody and everything. But Jesus himself seemed like a safe bet. So Keith decided to deal with Jesus directly-not through any man, and not through any organization. He wouldn’t even call himself a Christian because he didn’t want to be one. He thought they were rejects. Losers. Besides, Christians were so straight, it seemed that in order to be one you needed to have a barber in the family and sleep in a suit and tie. Keith was not ready for that, but he was ready to deal with Jesus one on one. And that’s exactly what he did.

Keith opened his heart to Jesus without really knowing who he was or what it might lead to. He only knew he had a deep need and prayed a simple prayer.

December 16, 1972

Jesus, you are hereby officially welcomed into me. Now only action will reveal your effect on me.

Keith had taken a step toward Jesus in a small, but definite way. The next day he had a long talk with Todd. “Todd and I reached an agreement finally today. Christ is the common denominator to all our trips so far.” Keith closed out the year with a hopeful heart, feeling he’d stepped onto the right path. But he was still uncertain about where it might lead. On New Year’s Eve he wrote:

Gotta Find A Home

My roots dangle. Un-nourished, I refuse to root here! Gotta find a home and get it settled and peaceful. Gotta find a place inside where I can rest between crisis. . . .

Please, Jesus! I know you more each day and recognize the signs you show me. The immaculate birth makes you special above all men and strengthens all the links to the Christian trip—keep the signs coming. I’d almost given myself up for lost. . . . Bless you. Beloved clean brother on highest.

Keith was doing all he knew how to do in trying to get closer to God. He would often fast for one or two days a week—and he was trying to make sure he prayed every day. Still, Keith was groping. “God is a concept. . . . Everything is getting numb. I am so numb. I need to feel again. I am almost dead.” Keith was working on finishing the words to a song he was writing called “Manchilde”. The second verse was for Timothy:

Oh, I am a Manchilde

Lost between the tame and wild

I’m tired though the journey’s just  	beginning

A road I traveled led to you

And we’ve been through a lot it’s true

For being such close friends it wasn't all 		that smooth

I just wanna thank you because you’re 			you

And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you

If I could only stop thinking of me. . . .

A short time later, perhaps to show God that he really meant business, Keith decided he wanted to start wearing a cross. He wrote, “Gotta find a cross to wear. I’ve already got one to bear.” One afternoon he went into a little secondhand shop and he saw something that caught his eye. The man behind the counter lifted a small, silver cross out of the glass case and handed it to Keith. He held it in the palm of his hand. It wasn’t much bigger than a dime and it looked really old.

“Man, this thing looks ancient,” Keith said.

“It’s over 150 years old,” said the shopkeeper.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. It was worn by a monk in an Ecuadoran monastery.”

Keith turned it slowly over in his hand. The man said it was silver, but it looked more like old brass. It was obviously handmade—uneven and rough around the edges. Keith could barely see a faint raised outline of Jesus lying on this beautiful old cross. The shopkeeper explained that was because the monk had rubbed it and rubbed it every time he prayed. It was almost rubbed flat at the top. The cross had a certain mystique to it, a sense of spiritual history. Obviously, somebody who really loved Jesus had worn it. Maybe, Keith hoped, that same intensity of devotion might rub off on him.

“How much is it?”

“Ten dollars.”

Keith had $14 of poker winnings in his pocket from the night before. It was just enough to buy the cross and have a few dollars left over. He paid the man and left the store with a determination to make an even deeper commitment. It seemed like everybody had someone they were following, a guru or a spiritual teacher of some kind. Keith decided that he would be comfortable making Jesus his spiritual master.

Keith got into his car, slipped the cross around his neck and started driving. As he drove he found himself praying to a God he didn’t know. It wasn’t a tidy little religious prayer—like the cross it was rough and uneven—a prayer of desperation. Keith knew he’d reached the bottom of his list. Everything was scratched off but Jesus. If Jesus didn’t come through he didn’t know what he’d do.

But before he could get any words out, gathering tears started spilling down his cheeks and running into his beard. His chest started heaving with deep uncontrollable sobs. He drove through the blinding tears as an overwhelming urgency filled his heart.

In between broken sobs, he choked out a prayer. “Oh Jesus, Jesus . . . if you’re really real . . . if you are who you say you are please prove it to me. I need you. I need something. . . . Show me the way. Prove that you’re real, and I’ll serve you forever. . . .”

I popped my head out of the kitchen to see if Keith and Todd were winding up their extended spiritual rap yet. It had gone on all evening—through supper, a card game, and now the dishes were done too.

I slipped off to go to bed figuring they’d be up half the night talking. It seemed to me there was lots of spiritual talk these days, but few real, lasting changes.

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, an old feeling overtook me in a wave. A sense of hopelessness. Of going nowhere.

Or was this feeling something else? Was some kind of “new dawn” experience heading Keith’s way after all? Maybe everything in his life before now, the fall of 1974, was only a prelude.

But Keith was always so far ahead of me. Would I be ready when it came?