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60-year-old Jesus sat down next to me. When he announced that he was fulfilling the life’s mission he had been given several decades ago by “God, my guiding angel, a higher power, whatever you want to call the real voice from an invisible source,” well, he had my attention. I turned my chair to hear his story better. It was riveting. The “Voice” had charged him to help churches return from internal politics and power grabs to doing the two things most important. “To become again,” the Voice said, “places where people can learn to be genuinely good and cel ebrate the joy of life with others.” His story should be a book. His character was not unlike Francis of Assisi. And he had apparently achieved some measure of success with the help of a few cooperative churches. When our two-hour

conversation ended, he asked me if he could take a “selfie” of the two of us. As he stood up, I began to think how much I hoped his name would be John and how our conversation had occurred within the shadow of the giant Mount Royal cross I had set out to see. As he turned back around, I said, “Uh, I don’t even know your name.” He responded, “Jeanne Pierre. You know, John Peter.” Of course, I thought. But then, he took off his heavy coat, and I saw the words “Santa Cruz” on his T-shirt, which translates to “Sacred Cross.” Walking back down the moun tain, I began to reflect on the lyrics of the four “Beatles” I had met. Life tunes from four ordinary men who “sang” quietly of their own goodness but also, indirectly, of the badness of others in positions of power. Four

songs about the human heart. Goodness, I mused, is not found in gender, culture, political party, or pigmentation, nor is evil. Each desti nation begins with the orientation of the will. Evil is imposing one’s will on others or institutions for selfish gain. And the only solution is found at the top of a mountain. At the Santa Cruz. ✠

GARY W. MOON, M.DIV., PH.D., served as the founding Executive Director of the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture and the Dallas Willard Center for Christian

Spiritual Formation at Westmont College. He continues to direct their resource develop ment initiatives by serving as the director of Conversatio Divina: A Center for Spiritual Formation , www.conversatio.org.

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