Ep2 In The Shadow Of The Mountain; Christopher L.Knox stories

The speaker talks about how they uploaded their podcast to various podcast distribution sites and created a video channel on YouTube. They then mention their past of carrying a Bible and their recent trip to Vancouver. They discovered a Christian coffee house and eventually embraced Christianity. They stayed with the Jesus People's Army for a while before eventually leaving. The speaker also mentions their history with drugs and how reading the Bible helped them learn to read. So, hello. Episode 2. I did the first episode posted last Saturday I believe and then I messed around. I put it on YouTube. I've signed up with an app that distributes it to the podcast to all the different podcast providers. Spotify, Apple, Podcast, PodBeam, Pod.com, a whole bunch of different podcast distributor distribution sites I guess that's what you call them. So anyway, you can check that out. Plus, they require that I do a video and post it on YouTube. So I set up a video channel. Just Think it's called and on that video channel the way it's set up I can do like other videos like set up other videos and do like just my story which I'm thinking of of doing as well without the commentary part or less commentary. I don't know if I can talk without commentary. So I'm an opinionated guy and I'm analyzing stuff all the time. So if you knew me back in in the early 70s you might remember that I carried a Bible with me all the time. I had it in a pouch on my belt. I should have brought it in here. I still have that Bible. It was a full King James Bible but it was the size of a like it was the print was tiny. I can't read it now. I mean I can't. It's a nice little Bible but it's King James version. Hard to read and I carried that with me. So the reason I carried that with me I'll get into later but let's get back into the story. So Gina, Woody and I and Joe took acid after the trip. The next day Gina, Woody and I went to Vancouver. We had a phone number, an address and a name that Gina said an angel had given her. This was the day after the trip so maybe she was still tripping. I don't know. You never know. Anyway so we went to Vancouver. We went to the address at the address was a pancake house type of restaurants you know like Denny's or Smitty's or something like that but it wasn't it wasn't I don't think it was a chain. It's still there. That building is still there. The restaurant is still there. I don't remember the name. I don't remember the address but I can take you there. It takes me a little while to sort of get my bearings but when I'm in Vancouver periodically if I'm in the area I'll go by there. There was a phone booth in front. Now for those of you younger than 20 or 30 maybe even you may not have ever seen a phone booth but they used to be all over the place. Phones that you could put money in. You could pay a quarter and dime or whatever it was and make a phone call. So we went to the phone booth. So the restaurant didn't pan out. We went to the phone booth and we we phoned the phone number. It turned out the number was for a house over by UBC. We were more downtown closer to the City Hall was the address was closer to City Hall. So the phone the house it turns out was it was a communal house so it was like a commune but it was in the city and it was one house and people were coming and going all the time. So we asked for this guy and they said oh well he doesn't live there anymore. So there was a guy with the name but he didn't live there anymore so then we were talking and Gina was telling him yeah well I had a vision from an angel or a visit from an angel and they gave me this number and the guy said oh far out you know we were from a commune on Vancouver Island and they were communes so this kindred spirit. So we went and he said oh you guys can crash here man you know. So we grabbed a bus went out to the address dropped off our stuff our packs and sleeping bags and whatever because back in the 70s and 60s when you hitchhiked around you pretty much always carried a pack and a sleeping bag or a blanket or something right. So this was in March so it was still a little cool and from there we spent some time there we met the people that were there. I don't remember any of their names I still have some faces imprinted in my memory but I don't remember their names and then we later oh I didn't mention that this while we were in the phone booth there was these these placard or posters they were posters plastered all over the phone booth and then we noticed all over the walls of the restaurant next door and they were advertisements for a free coffee house so the coffee house was a Christian coffee house it was set up by Jesus People's Army which was some of you may have seen that new movie that came out this last year about the Jesus Freaks and how this sort of Jesus Freak revival thing happened. I haven't seen the movie myself I don't even remember what it's called but it was apparently quite popular a lot of people went saw it I'll probably see it eventually but anyway so it turns out that the the coffee house was about it was two doors down from from the restaurant I'm shaking the table the coffee house was two doors down from the restaurant so we noticed that and decided that we were going to come back from that house so we went and dropped our stuff and go to the coffee house and you know we figured angels you know Christian coffee house whatever so that's what we did so we I can't remember if we took a bus or if the guy gave us a ride sometimes it seems like somebody gave us a ride to the coffee house other times my memory says we took a bus you got to remember I'm 65 now I was 13 then so things get faded and I don't have a lot of pictures from that era to help sort of stimulate my memory I do have some and I'd like to share some of those with you I did on my first video which is pretty awkward you can look at it on on the YouTube channel which will be posted along with this an address or a link to it so that night we took the bus or got a ride and we went to the coffee house and there was free music and it was free in three free admission and there was you know a guy talking and you know then somebody would play some music it was pretty I think it was controlled it was you know not anybody could get up and play or sing it was pretty much organized that only the people that were affiliated with the with the group which was called the Jesus People's Army could get up and and speak so while we were there somebody came and sat at our table with us and talked to us and guy got up and preached I don't know if I would have called it that at the time but that's what it was he got up and preached to us and you know classic sort of you're a sinner and you need Jesus get repent and get saved and stuff it was all new not totally new to me because I did have Baptist neighbors when we lived in Birmingham and I'd heard a toned-down version of of that message when I was a kid you know before 10 10 years old maybe 11 years old so anyway we sat through the whole thing and Gina and Woody were first to to embrace this idea of becoming a Christian believing that Jesus was the Son of God and that you know he died and and rose again and like I said it was I kind of heard about it before but it wasn't something I was overly familiar with I was has it I was hesitant you know I was just turning 13 in the end I I acquiesced I guess you would say and I bent the knee and prayed the sinner's prayer I don't even remember if that's the kind of thing they did I don't think there was a sinner's prayer which has become popular nowadays I don't personally agree with that sort of method I think as as God calls you and draws you it's something that happens internally and in your heart and in your mind in your brain like in your soul so spirit soul mind body it's sort of the whole thing and believing believing it is something that has taken me years to to fully understand though at that time I changed my life changed immediately I stopped doing drugs it sounds a little funny I stopped doing drugs at 13 but I had started drugs which I don't know if I said in the last one my mom turned me on to marijuana when I was 7 years old and the first time I took LSD I was 11 and those stories I want to get into too but right now I just want to finish this one so we ended up taking a bus back to the house after like it was late at night and we went in and the people at the Jesus People's Army they offered us a place to stay so we grabbed our packs and came back the next day to to the coffee house and they had a printing press in the basement so there was almost always somebody there they had an office and and there was you know there was leadership they were organized they were pretty organized so I mean you can check it out Google it everything's on Google now or you can Google just about everything the Jesus People's Army I think they started in Seattle and they moved up to Vancouver and then the history of that this Jesus People's Army is drastic like it is horrible like what happened to them later but God again my opinion God removed me from that group of people before they were overtaken by a cult called the Children of God which is something else you can Google and they're horrific but whatever they're all they're all things that were happening in in that era so when we came back we ended up staying there for quite a while in fact Gina and Woody I don't they stayed there for months I stayed there for a few weeks and then went home my dad was coming up from Alabama so I went home and visited with him but I by then I was pretty well believing that the Bible stories were true and that there was something in there that I needed to pay attention to and there was some fear involved that's partly why I carried that Bible around because I had read revelations like I wasn't a really good reader because I dropped out of school in grade six and I was out of school for a couple years the only thing I ever read was comic books like the Silver Surfer was my favorite and the Hulk and Spider-Man and I guess Fantastic Four though I don't remember reading them but I know that Silver Surfer came out of out of the Fantastic Four he was my favorite him and the Hulk and those I say that now it's a little funny but those those two comic book characters play heavy into my my story part of my story so I learned to read actually by reading the Bible and that was mostly King James my reading and writing my writing is still pretty atrocious I have a pretty good vocabulary but if I just sit down and write it's hard to read so anyway it ends up that it was a Friday night that we went there and for the coffee house and then Saturday we spent the day with him and then Sunday these this is my memory I can clarify it too but Sunday was a baptism in English Bay and I went and got baptized Woody got baptized and Gina got baptized never a bunch of people there was probably 20 or 30 people they were all hippies and we all went down to English Bay and it was a big group and we we got baptized and then I may have mentioned before the Jesus People's Army had had a newspaper they had a printing press in the basement they printed a newspaper and on the front of the newspaper was a picture of me that week's newspaper or bi-weekly or whatever of me being baptized and when I came up out of the water there was like there was clouds and the clouds had parted and there was a rainbow that created a like a cross there was this beam of light and then a rainbow that went across it it was like a cross and as I came up this girl that was there there was a man and a woman the girl that was there baptizing me she said oh God has a really really big plan for your life so I went through my whole life I'm 65 I was 13 then thinking I had this big plan some interesting stuff happened to me and and maybe maybe the plant maybe the plans yet to come I don't know but it was an interesting thing that sort of drew me kept me going with my Christianity even after I left Christianity for a while when I was 16 I pulled out from it I'll get to that story next okay so now I'm gonna try and do some recording of a song I wrote I wrote the song I believe in the 90s early 90s and it's been modified over the years so it's before I play it or after before I post it I'll give a little bit more background on it anyway tune in next time for part 3 or episode 3 thanks a lot guys so many times so many let the things in this old world and then I start again on the wrong road again I'm on shaky ground until my and I see resting and there's something about that piece something about that piece yeah there's something about that piece something about that piece something about that piece it's like the morning kind of snow the pillow boy and the sun and the dew it's like the birds that sing the song that sings draws me to you and you cannot see me now and I'll do my very best to explain you can't see why never be the same because there's something about that piece something about that piece yeah there's something about that piece something about that piece and from the time I was born till I met you there was nothing to compare with ever through all the fire and the pain and I never was alone never was alone everybody's living in their own way walking in their own shoes walking in their own head sleeping in the bed the one they choose everybody is walking in their own shoes everybody sleeping in their own bed it's the bed the one they choose everybody's walking in their own bed everybody's walking in their own shoes everybody's sleeping in their own bed it's the one they choose the sun they choose the moon and there's something about that piece something about that piece and there's something about that piece something about that piece and I know that there's something something about that piece and I know there's something something about that piece something about that piece