My Spotless Mind

She was stunning, had a beautiful aura and the moment she stepped onto the bar I knew that I had to have a lap dance from her. Her skin was softer than a baby. As she proceeded to straddle me I couldn't help but begin to talk to her. She told me her name was Angelina and that she was a local resident in Amsterdam. I made a comment about how her skin was so soft and made a light note of it by asking her what her secret was? She laughed and asked how old I was. I told her that I was 30 to which she then asked me what my secret was to looking so young?

We continued to speak during the course of the lap dance and to be honest, I'd almost forgotten that she was supposed to be giving me a dance because I really enjoyed the conversation that we were having. Later that evening my friends and I were talking and I noticed that Angelina was sitting at the bar by herself having a drink. I decided to go over and talk to her. We ended up talking for the better part of half an hour. She told me that she was a mother of two even though she was only 23 years old. When she told me that I was totally stunned as not only did she look very young too, but she was doing lap dancing as her primary source of income!

As the conversation went on we learned a great deal about one another. I did ask Angelina if she enjoyed being a lap dancer to which she replied that she did, however, she had plans to go study and train to be a make up artist. She was very confident about herself, what she wanted to do and the dreams she wanted to fulfil. We continued talking about various things and life in general. At the end of the conversation, we gave each other a big hug and I said to her: "you're beautiful on the inside as well as the outside!" After that I wished her the best in fulfilling her dreams to be a make up artist and wished her luck for her marriage too!

Two days later my friends and I ended up being at the same bar again. After a while Angelina came onto the bar. Shortly after she noticed me, waved at me and gave me a big smile. She beckoned me over to have another lap dance from her. I reluctantly said yes but as she sat onto my lap it just didn't feel right any more! It felt like I had asked a friend to strip naked and dance for me! I felt very uncomfortable but to express that when you're in a bar surrounded by men jeering you on is not an easy thing to convey. When she finished her dance I gave her a huge hug and whispered in her ear: "I'm truly sorry, but I feel as if you're a friend now and that just didn't seem right to me!" She whispered back; "I know and I could tell, it's because you're different to every other guy I've met, it's ok!"

I paid her the money after which I waited and hoped to see her walk by after she'd finished so that I could speak to her further. Unfortunately I had to leave as my other friends wanted to go which meant that it is unlikely that I will ever see her again!

Just after we left the bar one of my friends was very tired and just wanted to sleep. We didn't have anywhere to stay that night so we decided that he and I would go to the airport and find a quiet corner where he could sleep. My other friends wanted to continue their night out and so we went our separate ways. After we got to the airport we found a good spot where my friend fell asleep. We had 6 hours to kill before our flight and even though I was tired I didn't feel like sleeping. So I sat down and decided to meditate. The whole experience with Angelina came back to me and I spent the better part of four hours and just thinking about what had happened. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes but I was determined not to cry! It had a huge impact on me what had happened.

I realised that if getting to know someone can make me have a conscience about dancing with this girl then there should be no reason why I find it ok just because I do not personally know the woman, or should I say, the beautiful spirit in front of me. Just like every other man on the planet, I love the site of a naked woman, but that isn't an excuse for me to satisfy my needs by paying a woman to dance for me. I spent much of that time crucifying myself for what had happened. For good reason too, however, I know that beating myself up inside was not going to change what had happened. Nothing could! It was then that I realised that it was part of the my journey of self discovery that things transpired the way that they did. It was no coincidence that I ended up being at the bar both the nights that Angelina was there, considering that she only danced 3 nights a week. It was what I chose to experience. If I didn't have that experience with Angelina there would've been a chance that I would've done the same thing again in the future and continued doing it.

I have no idea if what had happened also had an effect on Angelina. I would love to be able to see her again and tell her the impact she had on me. She probably will never know, but she, in that moment, was my Angel, Angelina.

The question now is where do I go from here? I am always going to be invited to strip clubs by my friends, unless I decide to change my friends! So will I ever go again? Yes I will for sure because as far as I'm I'm concerned it's one place where I still have the opportunity to do some good. Will I ever pay for a lap dance again? No, that is something I will never do again but I have no regrets about what transpired, in fact, I'm grateful! I made my choices, some of which were not the best but I've forgiven myself because out of them, I choose the path to grow.

Even whilst writing this I feel like crying, I know it will come out of me at some stage. But I also feel like a new chapter has opened for me and many new doors will open from this experience.

Thank you my Angel-lina! :)

On a clear November day my wife and I set out to explore real estate in the mountains east of Jackson, Wyoming. We dropped our youngest daughter, then fourteen, with our oldest daughter who was in college a few hours away. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving and we planned on returning Wednesday night to spend the holiday with our daughters.

In our rented SUV and a suitcase of clothes that reflected our Texas lifestyle, we headed out of Jackson and down to Pinedale. I had recently left my corporate job to strike out on my own. Since I traveled with my consulting, we thought we'd find a place to live that we liked, it would be the first home location we had chosen since getting married thirty years before.

At the time our spiritual lives were in some upheaval and we yearned for a new start. Our daughter had been raped, then attempted suicide and we were just finishing some lengthy counseling over the ordeal and were trying to get the train of our lives back on track.

Our first stop in Pinedale revealed a cute little town of a couple thousand nice, friendly people, with moose grazing on the outskirts of town. We looked at one house and when the folks told my wife they went shopping once a month in Salt Lake, some four hours away, that was the end of that. We had a quick lunch in Pinedale and didn't bother to tell our kids we had changed plans. Instead of heading further east and around the mountain back to Jackson we were heading south and west to Star Valley and the town of Afton.

As we headed south towards Rock Springs I could see from the map this was going to be a five hour drive down and around. I happened to see a road on the map about an hour south that headed west and over the mountain and dropped right down into Afton. It went right through the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It was a gorgeous fall day, so I ignored the two dotted map lines that was the outline of the road I'd picked, and we headed up the mountain. My wife immediately said, "I have a bad feeling about this."

Ignoring her feeling I plowed ahead. Three more times she would say, "Ed, I have a bad feeling about this." Four hours later, high in the mountains and deep in the forest we stopped at a 'T' in the road. Before us was two wooden Forest Service signs, with arrows pointing in opposite directions that read – Afton 50 miles – Pinedale 50 miles. While I didn't admit it at the time I knew we were in deep trouble, it was 4 p.m. and about to get dark.

Instead of doing what my wife strongly suggested I plowed ahead towards Afton and one hour later, on a steep incline, we were stuck in three feet of snow. We knew we weren't getting out anytime soon, much less that night. We had no cell phone, a few extra T-shirts, a Hershey bar, two diet sodas and a half tank of gas in our now buried SUV.

Dark surrounded us as my wife quietly wept next to me. We debated our next course of action as she humbled me in prayer. A former atheist turned Christian, I was still struggling with the spiritual side of my life since my daughters problems. I resorted to the macho, Marine Corp side. I was a Marine sniper for two-years in Vietnam and just looked on this as an adventure at first, an adrenaline rush, surely we'd get out of this.

The car was aimed up a small path heading to the top of the mountain. As I sat there in the black of night looking at the star filled sky, a plane went over. It was then it hit me, with my wife finally sleeping in the seat next to me, that we were in deep water and that I alone was not getting us out of this one. I had certainly been stupid enough to ignore my wife's admonitions and get us stuck though.

We would later learn that we were fifty-seven miles from Pinedale and nearly ten-thousand feet up in the forest. We endured the night, cold and lonely and decided to walk to safety at first light. We were in our early fifties and not in great shape. Our clothes were light leather jackets and sneakers for shows. We were not equipped for the walk we were about to endure.

During the night my wife led us in prayer often. It was sometime in the early morning hours when I humbled myself and cried out to my Lord and Savior. I cried out to Him as never before and after some time could feel the warmth of His Spirit wash over me. I knew that somehow we would be rescued.

At first light we were off, heading down the mountain, committing to each other we would somehow walk for twenty-four hours if necessary to see our children. We left the SUV at seven a.m. and it began to snow. We walked patiently, feeling amazingly good, and reached the wooden signs we'd seen the day before. The signs were seven miles from our vehicle. We'd made the trek in about two and a half hours – we knew we had help because we could not walk that fast on flat ground, let alone the snow that was increasing steadily.

We walked and prayed and walked and prayed and my wife grew weaker. I walked and prayed as I walked and the snow was getting deeper and coming down heavy. We stopped on one occasion to pray and it was two p.m. We'd been walking for seven long hours in the snow, the wind was picking up. As we started out again I noticed the light in my wife's eyes wasn't as bright and committed as it had been … I knew we could not make the night.

As I walked trudging in the heavy snow across a high plateau at around seven thousand feet, I prayed as I had never prayed before. I prayed Lord, we have done all that we can. My wife is struggling – we don't want to die. Lord please provide us a miracle and provide it now. By three p.m. the snow was blinding. As I walked, looking ahead I thought I saw a small speck in the snow. What could it be? I was sure it was a mirage. I didn't say anything.

We kept walking and soon a truck appeared. We waved excitedly as if they wouldn't se us, the only two people in miles. The two men inside looked like they were right off a Marlboro commercial. They were plumbers heading to close down a new log house they'd been working on all summer. The man on the passenger side rolled down his window and said, "I hope you two know you have someone walking with you out here today!" Indeed we did. He went on to explain they were supposed to be in and out by ten in the morning but were held up in town by an architect working on the house and the were running late.

We found out that the snow we were enduring was as they said up there the snow that shuts the mountain down. The elk had come down that night and now one would get up there until spring. We had walked seventeen miles when our Plumber Angels rescued us. The Lord had provided us with the miracle we asked for and saved us to see our children. He had rescued me from my own stubbornness and stupidity. He had taught me humility and that indeed He answers our prayers.

As soon as Valentine's Day is over, most pharmacies, grocery stores and departments stores change their merchandise to focus upon the next holiday sales event – Easter. It's hard to miss the pastel-colored displays full of stuffed Easter Bunnies, candy and pretty spring outfits. However, Easter has little or nothing to do with these items. In fact, the problem with the celebration of Easter, just like of Christmas, lies in the fact that for many people it has become a commercial holiday rather than a meaningful or spiritual one.

It is possible to make the celebration of Easter a meaningful and spiritual again, however. In fact, it's easy to transform empty Easter celebrations focused on Easter Bunnies, jelly eggs, pretty dresses and hats, and Eater egg hunts into meaning-full and spirit-full ones that focus instead on the original reasons the holiday is celebrated at all.

First, remember why Easter originally was observed. Easter is a holiday that commemorates Jesus'resurrection, which his followers believe occurred on the third day after his crucifixion some time in the period AD 27 to 33. It actually has nothing to do with Easter bunnies, chicks and eggs. Focus on this fact.

Second, spend your time studying Jesus' life on your own or with your family rather than shopping for Easter gifts, which in no way really help remember the awe-inspiring history of this day. Jew and Christian alike will benefit from studying the teachings of this enlightened master.

Third, rather than engaging in Easter egg hunts and sitting around painting Easter eggs, do something spiritual and meaningful to remember this holiday. Go to church, join a study group, have a family meal where you discuss Jesus' teachings and the meaning of his resurrection, create a sacred space or altar in your home and put items on it that make you think about Jesus or the principles he taught or the characteristics he possessed. Rather than engaging in Easter egg hunts and shopping, do anything that offers you or your family a chance to create a meaningful and spiritual holiday observance.

Sometimes it takes only a change of focus and intent to make a holiday that has become too commercial spiritual and meaningful again. In other words, pay attention to the spiritual and religious aspects of the holiday and discover those symbols, rituals, prayers, or observances that have personal meaning for you. Also, use the power of intention to help you stay conscious of these things. Simply intend to transform this Easter from an empty observance into a meaning-full and spirit-full one, and your intentionality will fuel the creation of what you want.