Once upon a time, I was in San Antonio, Texas, in the late 1970s. The band I was working for, AC/DC, was playing at a music festival, so we stayed there for a couple days, which was not our usual modus operandi at the time. We had been crisscrossing America—well, the world, really—as the band made its mark on the world of rock ’n’ roll.
I began working for the band in its early days. They had just moved to London from Australia and were looking to pick up a British crew to tour America with them. At the time, my friend Ian and I were touring the UK with the Stylistics, but the lure of an American tour was enough to get us to pack up and join them. I’d never heard their music and did not meet them until we were all on a ferry to France. Ian and I were their only crew in the beginning. We loaded the equipment in and out of gigs, controlled the sound, and managed everything else necessary to pull off a live show. We traversed the US in a truck and a rental car, the two of us and the band, truck-stopping and cheap-hoteling our way around the country. We drove hundreds of miles day and night to open for Kiss, Aerosmith, and many other bands further up the rock ’n’ roll food chain at the time.
By the time we got to San Antonio, things had changed. The band had hit America at the right time, and small shows were quickly turning into big ones. The crew was expanding, and there was more equipment, more trucks, more notoriety, and a growing sense that this band was unstoppable. Every show built on the previous one. Each time we returned to a city, the venue was larger, the energy was stronger, and we had been spending more and more time on the road. AC/DC was becoming one of the biggest bands in rock.
I do not remember how I came to be by myself that night. It was late, and I think the rest of the crew had gone down to the San Antonio River Walk to unwind after the show. Touring life lacks privacy; when you live with a small group 24/7, everything you do is in full view of everyone else. Living on a tour bus, constantly surrounded by the rest of the crew, was difficult. Every once in a while, I just needed some space.
On my way back into the hotel, I bumped into a girl whom I had met there a couple times during our stay. She had caught my eye, but this was the first time I had encountered her alone. We chatted in the hallway for a bit, then she asked if I wanted to go home with her. I said yes. That’s how it was then—or how it seemed to be when you were young, reckless, and on the road with a band. Sex—with strangers and people you barely knew—was part and parcel of the experience.
When we got to her place, we went directly to the bedroom. She said she didn’t want to wake the “others,” so we had to be quiet. She told me to get in bed and that she would be right back. I waited there, and soon she returned naked and joined me in bed. I could tell you about her beauty, the exotic thrill, or the anticipation of the encounter, but that’s all a little vague. What I remember is that she got on top of me and said, “Do you mind if we pray?”
She proceeded to say a lengthy and heartfelt prayer to Jesus, one I later came to realize was a very evangelical, born-again-Christian prayer—personal, imploring, intercessory. She prayed for me, my life, my heart, and the sex we were about to have. I was taken aback, but also curious. I’d never experienced anything like that before. I just laid there as she straddled me, eyes closed, arms uplifted. “Amen,” she said. Then we fucked.
In the morning, I was gently awoken by another girl, who asked if I wanted to join everybody for breakfast. I made my way down the hall to the dining room, where I was greeted by almost a dozen people I can only describe as hippies. They had guitars and smiles, and on the table in front of them were a bunch of open Bibles. I was not sure what I had walked into, but they were all friendly and asked me about my life. Over breakfast, they told me they all loved Jesus and that they lived together as one big family. They sang several happy songs, and soon the Jesus talk got a little intense. I remember feeling relieved that I had to get back to the hotel because we were leaving that morning for our next gig.
I wouldn’t discover until much later that the girl I had sex with was part of a cult called the Children of God. It was one of the many fringe groups that emerged in the late 1970s as spirituality made its return into the landscape of youth culture. Out of the counterculture all kinds of communes and communities—religious and otherwise—emerged, and her group was just one of them. Groups of varying religious perspectives materialized around the globe as the post-hippie generation began reframing its views on life and the beyond. Jesus was in the mix—radically redefined, but present nonetheless. The women in the Children of God practiced a unique form of evangelism by offering sex in attempt to gain new members. The woman I had slept with was named Comfort—I don’t know if that was her real name or if her cult gave people new names, but given her warmth toward me, it was perfect for her. I never saw her again.
Nothing particularly profound happened to me that night. I had sex with a girl I barely knew. I did not have a transcendent experience, find God, or become reborn. I wasn’t looking for any of that, but I had been thinking deeply about where my life was headed, and I had hunger for a deeper, richer, more meaningful life. See, that night in San Antonio was the first encounter I’d had with religion as an adult. It was the first time a peer had invoked a religious figure in a meaningful way, and it was the first time Jesus floated into my world when I was a young man. It was a strange encounter, sure, but we should never underestimate how things might float into our lives.
So, what do you do after an encounter like that? You do what I did: when you get to your next stop in Nashville, you buy a Bible.
A while ago, I was interviewed by Rob Bell on his podcast, The RobCast. For the first time publicly, I talked about that encounter. A couple weeks after the episode aired, I received a message from someone who claimed to be the daughter of a woman who once lived in San Antonio and was a member of the Children of God. Apparently, some former members had listened to the episode and passed it around to their friends. The daughter’s message was sweet and kind; she had enjoyed the things I spoke about. She told me that her mother, who now lived in Mexico, had heard the episode too and wanted me to know that she still loved Jesus. She said her mother’s name was Comfort, the only person named Comfort from San Antonio any of the former members could remember.
I have carried this story inside me for decades, and I have not had the language necessary to tell it before now. It is an important story to me because it was a catalyst in my journey toward something I never imagined for myself: a theological life. My journey in, through, and out of a particular Christianity had no room in its vocabulary for telling the tale the way it needed to be told. Now I have the words, as well as awareness that strange and profane moments like this, which don’t necessarily fit into the formula of how things are supposed to work, have been vital in the paths my life has taken. These events shattered my notions of coherence and consistency in my world and alerted me to the random magic and mystery of life. They made space for chance, experimentation, and possibilities I never knew were there.