To form the Menominee River Fellowship, John and I and two other couples pooled our money and bought two dilapidated duplexes in the same neighborhood. John and I and another couple lived across the street from the West End Bar. We met in our living room where John led worship and I played the guitar. One day a scruffy young man came to the door asking if we would hire him to reroof our house. We didn’t have money to hire people, but when I learned he was living in the cab of his truck, dubbed “The White Rabbit,” I invited him to move into our finished basement. His name was Jim and he was a Sufi. A man called Sai Baba was his guru. Jim sat in on our meetings and admired the way we were trying to live, but he balked at our belief that Jesus was the one true God.

After a couple of months Jim left to visit a Sufi community called The Farm. I was surprised sometime later when he called me with startling news. He explained there was a “holy” man at The Farm who never spoke and went by the name of Freedom. People liked to sit near Freedom when they practiced meditation in order to pick up on his vibes. One day while meditating, Freedom “left his body” and went into another spiritual plane. (Not unlike the voice I heard at Outward Bound.) While in this other realm Sai Baba accosted Freedom and tried to take over his body. The encounter was painful and Freedom resisted. He called out for help, but no help came. Then, much to his surprise, when he said the name of Jesus, immediately Jesus appeared and released him from Sai Baba.

Freedom returned to his own body and told the others what happened to him, explaining it this way: There are many moons but only one sun. A moon reflects the light of the sun, but only the source of light, not the reflection, is worthy of worship. Jim and the others became Christians. Jesus set Freedom free.