It was many years ago when I began writing about my time in the village of Hoa An and the teachers and dear friends I met there who would influence my life forever. By their daily kindness and humble wisdom, they opened the door to Asia for me. All I had to do was pay attention.

It is sometimes said that writers are motivated by a need to understand, or at least wrestle with, some of life's mysteries. In Auspicious Journey I was driven to understand Why? Why had there been this war and what was my part in it?

If I believe in a world of cause and effect, as opposed to random chaos, then I must believe there has to be some larger reason for this, or any, war. Because of the great suffering of the old ones, the women, and the children, and all the men and women at war, who died then and are still dying, that reason, the real cause, the Why, must somehow carry equal weight in the sands of time.

However, as the date of publication for Auspicious Journey drew nearer I realized I still hadn't discovered why. Eventually, however, three main constructs began to emerge.

The first theme was that the war in Vietnam sprung from the unrelenting national and personal angst of being a slave-

holding nation. Held hostage by our steadfast denial, the horrible, crippling effects of the realities of slavery have been passed from one generation to the next without even an attempt at reconciliation or resolution. From "Gook" to "Sand Nigger" Iraq was just more of the same.

The second theme was the constant, unquestioned inevitability of the victimization of the Vietnamese women who were brutalized by rape, prostitution, and snuff crimes, all behaviors consistent with the institutional treatment of women as a convenient underclass.

The third theme was that these events have exposed the fragility of the belief of white male superiority we hold so dear.

Are we really waging war after war to protect such unsustainable nonsense?

When do we begin to understand that emotional intimacy, love if you will, can never be taken by force or influence or entitlement? When do we begin to understand that love can only be given and that the power of that gift is greater than the power of any army, or any amount of wealth, or influence.

And when do we begin to understand that love, that greatest of gifts, can only really be shared between equals? Thus, from Jesus to Jefferson, its promise beats in the heart of every child, every woman, every man.

I thought about that one day in Hoa An when the elders had requested that I meet with them where the trails intersected by the graveyard. Because of my habits of Western thought, and because I had worked with the priests at the Buddhist school, I asked to meet their priests.

They explained they had no priests. I was intrigued, but not convinced. I repeated my request and they again replied that they had no priests.

So, I asked, "What is your religion?"

One of the elders stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Luong"

Luong? I had never heard of it. I couldn't find it anywhere and I looked everywhere.

When I returned to Vietnam in 2005, I purchased a copy of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places from a street vendor in Ho Chi Minh City. Written by Le Ly Hayslip, I became aware of her association with the East-West Foundation in Oakland, California, and attempted without success to contact her there.

By 2018, Auspicious Journey had been published and my presence on the internet allowed them to feel comfortable enough to go ahead and provide me with her email address.

Sometime later we were talking on the phone when she used the word "Luong" in conversation.

I was so excited! I yelled, "Luong! Luong! What does it mean? What does it mean?"

She chuckled and explained, "When the French came to Viet Nam they were determined to convert everyone to Catholicism. They lined all the people up and asked them what their religion was. Wishing to be polite, the people bowed their heads and said, "Luong."

I persisted, "What does it mean? What does it mean?"

She chuckled again and said, "It means I have no religion - everything is sacred."

And there it was - everything I had been looking for in one self-explanatory statement, the simple truth I had been searching for from the first time I heard it where the trails crossed by the graveyard, so many years ago.

I have no religion - everything is sacred.