Rider on the White Horse

There was once just an ordinary man who lived an ordinary life. The life he lived was content and happy. He was a helicopter mechanic for the U.S. Army. He loved his job, and was honored with the responsibilities that came with it. He also had two sons whom he loved dearly. Their names were Noah and Nikolas.

This man didn't always believe in God. His faith was lost very early in his life. He had been too naive to believe that a higher power existed that created the Universe, and could protect from harm. Just after his 18th birthday he was involved in an accident where he was a passenger of a car traveling over 100 miles per hour. The car collided with a semi-truck and although he was wearing a seatbelt, was ejected and thrown into a field. He then stood up, and walked away to safety. This was nothing short of a miracle. This left people scratching their heads and wondering how this was possible. His grandmother told him that he had a purpose to fulfill, but he wasn't so sure if it.

So the man went on through life accepting everything as chance. He came from poverty, so he accepted that he was going to have to work fro everything that he was going to have. After a lot of trial and error, he found aviation. He was fascinated by it. Aviation gave him something that was ever-evolving, and that the world would always have a need for. He went to an aviation college and acquired the credentials required to maintain aircraft.

One night in February of 2011, the Holy Spirit came to him and removed all doubt that there was a God; also removing doubts about the Bible, and that it is the Word of God, written by men inspired by Him. The man was so moved that he couldn't speak for several hours. It was very overwhelming to him. He immediately changed his way of thinking, and way of living. God had only revealed enough to this man to make him believe; The plan God had for him was yet to be known.

For the next few months, the man followed as righteous of a path as he had thought was humanly possible. He had a thirst for the Word of God, but for an unknown reason, didn't look into a Bible. One night at the airfield that he worked at, a co-worker, who was a good friend of his, gifted him a Bible. One thing the man was aware of was that it was the living word, meaning that you were supposed to open it, and the words meant for you to read, were to be before your eyes.

Over the next couple of weeks he opened the Bible at random and scripture stood out to him, but was unclear what was meant by it. Examples of these were Matthew 10:34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the Earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.". These words were in red, meaning that they were the words of Jesus Christ Himself. This didn't make sense to him, because he knew Jesus to be the Prince of Peace. Another scripture that stood out was Daniel 7:13. One Like a Son of Man puzzled him. It was to his understanding that Jesus, the Son of Man was to return and take the chosen and saved. Along with many other verses, he grew more confused to what God was trying to say to him, but he continued to walk as righteous as he possibly could.

It was middle of summer of 2011 when the man had an epiphany that could be best described as an adrenaline rush of pure meaning. This wasn't imagination, nor anything that could be imagined. It was so overwhelming that the man thought he was dying of a heart-attack. It was like his soul detached from his flesh and returned to as being the all-knowing God. Suddenly the man knew reasoning behind everything that has happened in his life. He knew secrets that had been kept from people, things that he had never thought of or even cared enough about to want to know. It was understood to him to use care with the knowledge given to him. His initial reaction was to tell his pastor. His pastor coincidentally worked at the same airfield that he worked at. There were also two other pastors who worked there , totaling three on on this airfield.

On the evening of the day the man had this realization, he called to meet his pastor. Upon meeting with him, he explained to him what had happened earlier that day, but the pastor rejected him and what he was saying. The pastor said he was sounding a lot like the Antichrist, due to his claim of knowing how to stop war. The man wasn't discouraged though, because he knew what he experienced wasn't imagination. He went to the other pastors, but got the same results. His claims caused him trouble at work. Even though he had only discussed this with the three pastors, management immediately learned of it, and they called him in with the company of another pastor from off of the airfield. He told them the same thing. They were concerned that he was not fit to be a mechanic, so they requested that he go see an appointed doctor. Instead he went to go see one that a friend had referred him to. Despite his unusual claim, the doctors couldn't find a reason to deem him unfit for duty. So, instead of returning to the career that he was comfortable and happy with, he was led to California.

He made it to California in early August. He started in Santa Barbara, and found someone heading North. They traveled together all the way up to Mount Shasta, CA. Mount Shasta is known by Native Americans as one of the Holiest places in the country. The locals talk about how sacred the mountain is. It is also known to be one of the Earth's chakras, the most primal chakra at that even. How the man found himself there could only be understood as a divine path for him paved by God. While there he attended a full moon ceremony. The ceremony consisted of a drum circle, and people dancing around to the rhythm of the drums played. The man wandered around by himself just observing the ceremony. All while the ceremony was going on, people were coming up to him at random, and telling him he should go to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a town on the coast of the Southern half of California. He couldn't understand why people were telling him to go there, but he felt the Holy Spirit was speaking through these people. The next morning after the ceremony was over, he met with his friends and informed them that he was leaving for Santa Cruz.

Most people in their right minds wouldn't dare venture into the wilderness heading to an unknown place, for unexplained reasons, but this man knew he was of sound mind and that his faith was in the right place. He wanted to find the answers to why he was on this journey, and why Santa Cruz.

He made it to Santa Cruz. When he got there he felt compelled to find a church. He was directed to a church on Elm Street and Pacific Avenue. They were not opened when he got there, so he took note of the next service, and continued to explore the city. This was the first time he witnessed homelessness first hand. He walked around the city all day until dark, and that was when he realized he too was homeless, and alone. Hunger sat in the next day. He waited at the church until the afternoon when it opened. The church served a lunch to the hungry. When he walked into the church he was unsure what he was going to say, but his intuition gave him a feeling to open a Bible and mark it. He marked the Bible and handed it to the usher. The page he marked was the page that the preacher asked everyone to turn to first for the sermon. The man thought as incredible as that was, should be enough to grab someone's attention, so maybe they might take the time to listen to what he had to say. Again he was ignored just as he was before, so he knew at this point that he could not project his message in this city. In between lunches he ate what he could find, even searching in trash cans and dumpsters. He wandered Santa Cruz for the next few days aimlessly, until he ran into a man who was also homeless. This man was named Michael. Michael mentored him on how to survive homeless in the city. He showed him where to get food at certain times of the day, and where to shower. He even showed him where he could go to earn a bicycle. It was a place called Bike Church.

The man went to Bike Church, and over a day and a half, organized the bike shop and earned the parts to build a bike. He was so tired of walking everywhere. While assembling his bike, he was reminded of a gathering in the desert of Nevada. The gathering was called Burning Man. Just before he left his friends at Mount Shasta, they told him to meet them at Burning Man, but at the time he just shrugged it off as impossible. Now that he was reminded, he reconsidered. It was on the seventh day of being in Santa Cruz, when he left on the 400 mile journey to Black Rock City, Nevada, which is also known as Burning Man.

Traveling with nothing more than a backpack with food he collected, and a couple bottles of water, he got directions from people he came upon. He would only ask for directions one leg at a time. First he asked how to get to San Jose, then to Fremont, and finally Sacramento. Sacramento was where he was going to sleep for the first time on this trip. Every person he asked for directions from thought he was crazy for trying to make it that far. There's no telling what they would have thought had he told them his ultimate goal was nonstop to North Nevada. He had initially started telling people that he was headed for Burning Man, but got frustrated with people saying that was impossible. Regardless of what anyone else thought, he knew what he had to do, so he continued on his journey. He pedaled all the way to exhaustion, but kept going until he reached Sacramento. It was nightfall on the second day after leaving Santa Cruz when he arrived, so he found a park near downtown that he could rest in without being bothered. While he was in the park he thought of his family and friends back home while he drifted off to sleep.

Sunrise came the next morning and he was already up. He went in search of someone who could direct him the best way to get to Nevada. He was unaware of the terrain he was up against. The Sierra-Nevada mountains were what separated him from Reno. Reno was the next target on the journey. It didn't take much convincing to deter him from trying the mountains. It would have been a plunge to certain anguish. Instead he phoned a friend who he considered family, and asked if they could buy him a ticket to Reno to avoid the treacherous range.

On the bus he met people who were also heading to Burning Man. This is when he discovered the scale of this gathering. 50,000 people from all over the world were coming to assemble a city in the desert. Once he realized this, he caught his second wind, and the 110 mile trek he had coming to him didn't seem so bad. He got off the bus in Reno, and rode to the Northern edge of the suburbs. Spanish Springs was the town on the very edge of civilization before reaching the open desert. He stopped in a store to fill his bottles, and asked about the area. The locals didn't advise to travel the desert in at night, so he found a shadowy place behind the store to rest before the long ride through the desert the next day.

As soon as the Sun rose, he was awake, and making sure he was ready to take this leap of faith into the desert. The next possibility to fill his bottles was over forty miles from where he was leaving from. He left about an hour after waking up. He rode the shoulder of the two lane highway, while fifty-thousand people in their cars and RV's passed him in the empty, lonely desert. The man thought to himself "Why on Earth would I be going to this gathering of people, whom wouldn't even pick me up?". There was no doubt to where he was heading, especially as a white man, because there was nothing but Native Reservation out there. Some locals warned the man of how bitter the Natives were, and the history behind it all, but this made no difference to him. He made it to a point where he could fill his bottles, and some very hospitable Natives from the reservation allowed him to do so. Again he was off, back on his trip to this gathering. The man rode all but about ten miles of the desert leg of the trip, when a good samaritan picked him up. He was very thankful.

Arriving in Gerlache just before dark, the man had to avoid questions about how he was getting in, and questions like how much he paid for his ticket. These are questions "Burners" like to discuss when they get together. The man didn't have a ticket, and was planning on sneaking in, but didn't want anyone to try to intervene. Despite having little water, he headed to the edge of town, to the final stretch of the journey to Burning Man. He climbed through a couple of fences and through some rough desert vegetation and could see the city. It was a massive display of art and lights right in the middle of a dried up lake bed. The man was told that it was only four more miles to the city, which ended up being twelve. He avoided spotlights of security for at least six of the twelve miles. Spotlights are used to catch people trying to sneak in to the city. It was at the very end when the man ran for it, and was caught within an eighth of a mile from the "finish line" for the lack of a better term. After a stern talking to, and threats on incarceration the city's Perimeter Exodus escorted him back to Gerlache; 12 miles back to where he had just started. The man was heart-broken.

Back in Gerlache he found a spot to sleep for the night. He woke up at dawn and made a sign that read "I NEED A MIRACLE". After about an hour, two young men from Israel came to him and told him of a route that would surely get him into the city. He took their advice as a Godsend, and diligently trekked on this route. Once he got to the point of infiltration, he had to wait until it got dark before he could attempt to sneak in a second time. As he watched the Sun set over the city while sitting atop the adjacent mountains, he prayed to God for success in this attempt. As it got dark he made his way down the mountain with his bicycle, and to the last bit of cover before the openness of the vast desert. About two miles was all he had left; across the salt flat to victory. The man was out of water, and dehydrated from being out in the Sun all day. With 'do or die' motives, he went for it. He was trying to close the gap between the city as fast as he could. He couldn't see any patrol trucks anywhere. He pedaled as hard as he could, and as he got closer to the city, the lights seemed to be getting dimmer. This is when he realizes that God had sent him a dust could to ride in on. This was too similar to the clouds Jesus ascended into Heaven on. This was far too surreal. He had just traveled from a city that meant 'Holy Cross'. Even the bicycle he rode was an Ascent. When he entered Black Rock City, it was if he entered Heaven on Earth. People were dancing everywhere, and music he had never heard before. He was ecstatic beyond imagination.

For the next seven days he met people from all walks of life, from all over the world. He met people from Ireland to New Zealand, and everywhere in between. Every person was as kind as the days light. It was as if the best in the world had met for this annual event in the desert. This place was the most indescribable experience he had seen so far in his life. He was in such astonishment that he was beside himself. It was unsure to what was in store after all this was over, but there was no doubt that he felt at home there.

He met a man on one of the first nights he was out witnessing the display of amazing, mind-blowing handcrafts. The man's name was David, and he was ironically from the same town that the man had gone to aircraft school in Michigan. They spoke for a while, and when David learned of the journey that he had just taken, he gave him a wooden, pentagon-shaped medallion with a map of Black Rock City etched into it. He said that it was the best story he had ever heard of getting into Burning Man, in his eleven years of attending.

The last few days the man stayed at a camp with a couple named Lenni and Sherill. He considered then like parental figures. He stayed along with a girl that he had met who called herself Saki. Sherill kept everyone fed, and comfortable, and they all shared stories about their lives back at their other homes. He couldn't have found a better group to hang with in all of the city. In these times he was able to forget about the extraordinary task bestowed on him.

On the seventh day the mass of the city started to dissipate and the man hitched a ride out of the desert, which took him to San Francisco. Coincidentally, San Francisco is where Burning Man originated 25 years prior. Once he arrived there, he was back to being homeless again. Alone, hungry, and homeless. He walked the rigorous hills of San Francisco, while decompressing from the experience in the desert. He found food where he could, and slept in Golden Gate Park at night, under the cold, foggy sky. At the point where he understood that his presence there was futile, he phoned his mother, and she bought him a bus ticket home. He left California on September 11, 2011. His days out in the wilderness, and away from home numbered 40.

Finally home and around familiar faces of loved ones, he was constantly reminded of what he has to do, and the reasoning behind the drastic move he had made. God revealed things periodically that he could not ignore. The man wanted nothing more than an ordinary life again, but every attempt was a failure. Accepting this, he went back out to California, and worked as a servant for an elderly man with emphysema. He allowed the man to work vicariously through his body, and help repair the estate that he lived on. Once he was finished with this he moved on, finding himself in Kentucky around mid-June. He attended the National Rainbow gathering in Bristol, TN, and soon went back home to Alabama. When Burning Man 2012 came around, he traveled across country to attend, then eventually made it back home again.

The end of November 2012 came and he had accepted the fact that an ordinary life, living an ordinary existence wasn't feasible. All attempts were dismembered by the Universe. It became clear the the attention of the world was imperative. He needed the attention of the world to project his message. Whether anyone believed him was not of his concern. He just wanted this task off of his shoulders. This was a fulfillment of a Biblical Prophecy, that was promised by God. It was to bring truth to his children. For some reason this man was chosen to do this. He did not wish to gain anything from this, nor did he want anything for that matter.

This man was aware of the dimension of Heaven described in the book of Revelation. He knew that it was in conjunction with the distance Earth travels in one year, and what is meant by that. He knows what the face in the Moon is and what it represents. He also knows what causes cancer and how to prevent it. He even knows amongst other things, how to stop war, and ultimately bring world peace. How could this man possess this knowledge and walk around the Earth not sharing it with the rest of the population. Believe that he has tried to give this on an individual basis, but God didn't intend for it to be done that way.

Jesus said instead of peace, he brought a sword. In the story of King Arthur there was a sword in the stone that only the chosen king could retrieve. Perhaps the Bible was the sword that Jesus was speaking of; A sword that only the chosen king could understand the purpose behind. In Revelation 19:15 it says "Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations." This could be the truth found in the Bible, that he was chosen to bring to the worlds attention. Could this be the 'Rider of the White Horse'? Even if he was, he couldn't present himself as that, because Revelation 19:12 says "He has a name written on him, that only he knows himself". With all this being known to him, he sat down and started to write this story.