I met Jesus in a diner in Lexington Park. I don't remember what he looked like, but his name was Bob and he was from Chicago.

In 1972 I was a year out of the Navy and living near my former base in Southern Maryland. It was a peninsula at the mouth of the Potomac Rivewr and nobody ever "passed through"; there was no where to go but back the way you came.

Having no plans and no job, but a few close friends, I ended up staying for a couple of years, growing my hair, working where I could and hanging out with the local stoners. It was an interesting group.

There was Steve, who was soon to go to jail for a year for possessing marijuana. Jay, who never got busted but was usually holding anyway. Razz - short for Razzle-Dazzle - was Steve's girlfriend and the smartest of us all. There was Jude and the Prince and Spic and Starkey; Lane who lived in a lighthouse and swore at God from the light tower during thunderstorms; Lynn and April and bug-eyed Ray. Others tended to come and go as circumstances permitted. We talked a lot - about sex, about getting high, about the general level of cultural repression, always about music. Being in our 20's and, therefore, immortal, we tended not to spend much time on religion.

Mostly we hung out at Pearl's diner. Pearl's was next to the movie theater and across from a strip club (remember, this was a Navy town.). Pearl, the real Pearl, tolerated us, the juke box played Led Zeppelin and "Mississippi Queen" and you could get breakfast anytime ("mountain of hash - $1.25").

Bob just appeared one day. From Chicago. Here to visit a relative or something, it was never clear. What was clear was that he could become the calm center of attention with ease. I think he was thin. I think he didn't have a beard. Glasses? Who knows? Not someone you'd ever pick out of a crowd. But Bob came to the table every day.

Bob talked easily about God and reincarnation and spirit lives. He wasn't selling Jesus. He was selling us on the idea that a sense of spirituality was there for the asking, that peace in this age of war was possible. He talked about the after-life as a place of refreshment and learning between lives. He was selling us on the idea of being open to more than we could comprehend. He radiated calmness. I don't mean he seemed calm. I mean that peace radiated from him like heat from a stove. Peace became a feeling rather than a concept. Suddenly talking about God didn't seem so wacky.

Bob stayed for two weeks. We sought him out individually, some of us with problems, some with questions, some just trying to get a better handle on who this guy was. Every day we gathered and talked about things greater than our individual selves. One day he announced he was leaving and then he was gone, back to Chicago.

Life went back to normal, as it always does. We were temporarily left feeling like the town-folk after the Lone Ranger had departed. "Who was that man?" We all agreed that we'd never met anyone before that exuded such a strong aura of humility and knowledge and peacefulness. We talked about him for a few weeks, but life went on and we moved from crisis to crisis as our lives dictated. About a month after, I got a package in the mail with some books on spirituality and reincarnation ("The Wheel of Rebirth"). I read them eagerly, managed to retain some of it and slowly, painfully, began to grow up.

I've lost touch with everybody from those days - don't have any idea who's alive, who has grandchildren, who lives where. And I don't know where Bob is or where he went after he left us. But in those days after he left we talked about what we never said aloud before - that Bob was the most Jesus-like person we ever met. There was usually laughter at that, the nervous kind, but we felt as if a Holy person had walked among us.

I've never believed that Jesus was the only son of God. There was Buddha and Mohammed, Gandhi and King, Thomas Aquinas, Lao Tze and thousands more, most never recorded by history or remembered beyond their time. Boddhisatvas - enlightened souls who voluntarily return to live to help others find enlightenment. One of them was named Bob. From Chicago.
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