When I look back, my spiritual path began when I was a young teenager and just beginning to doubt the religious dogma of the church I was raised in. Although I liked and admired the preacher—and I remember thinking I’d like to be a minister when I grew up—I couldn’t go along when he told me that God was a Creator-Father-on-High who was judging my every thought, word, and action and who had total control of my life’s destiny. But at the same time, my doubts scared me. What if I was wrong? Would I spend eternity in Hell? Would I be set adrift in a treacherous sea of uncertainty without a compass to find my way back to the safe world of my parents? I eventually concluded that if I were ever to find the truth about God and real meaning and purpose for my life, I’d have to either find or come up with a spiritual path that made sense to me. Then I could do it wholeheartedly—and maybe even become a minister.So in my early 20s, I set myself adrift on a sometimes lonely and psychologically perilous journey to find life’s meaning and purpose. I was inspired by the idea of the Hero’s Journey, as Joseph Campbell te …