Reply #4: The memoir sounds very interesting.

[silverweb]

Everyone has some kind of personal spiritual quest. Even by denying the existence of a spiritual realm at all, they're assigning answers to their search for meaning.

I have little patience with dogma or ritual, and while there's a good deal of commonality and value in the basics of all paths I've studied, I back away the moment one of them gets dogmatic and/or authoritarian.

Unlike my more detached approach, Sobel apparently threw himself enthusiastically and wholeheartedly into each step of his quest. What an adventuresome fellow and what an incredible view he must have now in retrospect!

Whether the concept of the divine is a who (god/dess, gods), or a what ("The Force" or Nature), or a self-deluding dream, it's still a quest we each have to handle in our own way and our own time.

"God is a mountain and all paths lead to the top."

Sobel's memoir sounds like it will very entertainingly echo the experiences of many who have taken a winding, exploratory, tortuous route up the mountain. I look forward to reading it.