Stanley, an out of work tech writer, is deeply unsatisfied with the lack of meaning in his life. Of the three places he feels should provide meaning in his life, religion, work and family, only one gives his life purpose: family. In PART ONE his lack of meaning starts to change. Out of desperation to support his family, he takes a short-term contract job on the other side of the country. He cannot afford to fly so he packs his car for the cross-country journey. The trip gets strange almost immediately when he reluctantly picks up a hitchhiker who transforms Stanley's religious views by answering questions that have kept religion at arm's length.
When Jesus walked the Earth two-thousand years ago, he preached a message that sent waves of change throughout humanity. But, he preached to a spiritually awake, yet illiterate and technologically primitive people. His message was communicated in a form they could understand, within the morays and cultural expectations of the time. In modern times, the situation has, in many ways, flipped. A large portion of humankind is spiritually asleep but living in a literate and highly technological society. As a result, we often have a hard time connecting with Jesus' message because it is couched in two-thousand-year-old terms and social norms. This book shares the tale of a new messiah, a man who teaches to modern peoples and cultures, and creates new waves of change from the settling waves of Jesus' so long ago. This new messiah instigates a journey with an unsuspecting traveler and teaches him the age-old message in modern terms. Together they explore many messages, including the growth of humanity in relationship to horizontal (worldly) growth vs. vertical (self-awareness and spiritual) growth, in the process changing Stanley's life, along with the people they meet along the way.
