Introduction

The Story
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9

A Few Personal Stories
Francis
Faith
Anne
Silva

Once Upon a Time - Page 6

The Process in America

We arrived in New Orleans to find a nation in upheaval. Our first night there, we turned on the TV to see Lyndon Johnson, besieged by the Vietnam War, announcing that he would not seek a second term as president.

In the French Quarter, we met a flamboyant local attorney who worked for the Catholic Church and was involved in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination and all manner of related conspiracy theories. He volunteered to put together the incorporation papers for an American chapter of the Process Church. He worked on it for weeks, and emerged with a document that made us sound like some huge organization that had been around since the dawn of time, "called into existence by God," with a "consistory of matriarchs and patriarchs" and chapter houses and Lord knows what else. It was his own somewhat crazy fantasy, but it was fine with us!

We stayed in America for six months until our tourist visas expired, moving on from New Orleans to San Francisco to Los Angeles and to New York, gathering a small following as we went, interacting with many of the movements and subcultures of the time, but always finding ourselves on the outside of all of them - largely because our own agreed-upon lifestyle excluded all the free love and drugs that were the hallmark of the time.

And in the summer of 1968, we headed back to Europe.

Europe and the Animals

Since the dogs could not go back to England, we traveled mainly through France and Germany and Italy, living off the small books and magazine we were publishing in London. Our newest book was entitled The Ultimate Sin. It was about the great evil to which we could never become reconciled: cruelty to animals, particularly in the form of vivisection - scientific experimentation on unconsenting animals for the benefit of human beings.

The Brits were turning out to be very supportive of our efforts, which were now focused more and more on helping animals. It was at that time that we first explored the possibility of an animal sanctuary – looking for a suitable place in Ireland and around the north of England. Those of us who had landed in Europe from America decided to go looking for suitable places, too.

This all turned into something of a quest. And in keeping with our attempt to live the lifestyle outlined in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus sends the disciples out in pairs to preach the "good news," taking nothing but the clothes on their back and instructing them to have faith in the Lord and his people for their daily keep, we set out all over Europe, hitch-hiking as we went, frequently with a bunch of dogs, and meeting all sorts of wonderful people as we went from one adventure to another.

It was, at once, tremendously serious and hilariously funny! One night we'd be staying as guests of a monastery, the next at the castle of a European princess, and the next at a train station! At a train station in Sicily, the station manager took up a collection, right there on the platform, to help us on our latest mission: Getting to Rome to plead with the Pope to make a statement against the cruel sport of bullfighting.

Next page: The Libel Suit