Keller-Williams Realty

In the window it says Keller-Williams Realty. On the marquee it says Team Lake County Real Estate Sales. This is in the town of Lakeport in Lake County in California. What is interesting about the place, what separates it from a typical real estate office, is its pitch. Not the sales pitch, but the pitch to convert you from your inauthentic present line of work to real estate agency-- it's a strike right down the heart of the religious plate.

Vacation Church

High on a hill overlooking the town of Lakeport in California's Lake County is a yellow building.
A woman came out and said, "I thought you were giving me a ticket."
"No, I am writing in my journal. I came to see what kind of church this is, and it is not."
"I know the man who owns it. He is now renting it out as a vacation rental. There is a huge space inside."
"I take it his name is not Jesus."

Lady of the Lake

Lady of the Lake Roman Catholic Church is on Highway 175 midway between Middletown and Kelseyville. You want to go when the caretaker is there. He was wonderful. He said, "It was built by the Italian Community up here. There's 75 come now, but in the summer it's 400. It's 10-15 degrees cooler here than Clear Lake. A prominent family needed a chapel for a Catholic wedding. So they built this church, then had the wedding elsewhere. We have the same priest as St. Joseph's in Middletown, but they have a quonset hut and folding chairs. Here there are pews and a steeple. I say that's a church." On the south wall are stations of the cross. In every arch in the north wall is a door. "We used to open all the doors in the summer, because the church couldn't contain all the people. Back then everyone came to church." Down the road from the church is Karisma Hair.

Bellezza

Bellezza in Kelseyville in Lake County, California, will fix you up from toe to soul: Pedicures, Manicures, Tanning, Massage, and Lotus Zen. Anything as long as it is therapeutic.

Divine Consignment

Divine Consignment, in Middletown, California, on Highway 29, will take Heavenly Goods from you, should you have a saintly disposition, and it will sell Heavenly Goods to you, should your soul need redecoration. In either case you will be doing good for goddess, for country, and for county. Be sure and park to the side of the store. Parking in front is revered, for that is where the gods pull in.

Middletown

Middletown got its name because it was half way between Saratoga in Napa County and Lower Lake in Lake County. The name still applies. Before the 2008 presidential election not a single Obama sign was visible from either of the main highways, 29 or 175. McCain posters were many. Yet, Middletown is one of the hotspots in Northern California for the New Age. Take, for example, Awaken and the Baptist Church adjacent to it. Both use water. Both seek access to the soul. But oh how different the technique. The first cleanses your colon. The second dunks you head-to-toe. A town that was in the middle of a map now is in the middle of a choice.

Art Deco Associated Pacific

Near the intersection of Highways 1 and 41 in the town of Morro Bay is the business of Associated Pacific, with Art Deco for a front and a Quonset Hut to hold the guts.

Harmony

Harmony has an art gallery. Harmony is an Art Gallery. Harmony has a chapel. Harmony is a Chapel. Nowhere is the union of art and religion more apparent.

Solid Rock Church

On the side of a hill in Cambria, California, just off of Highway 1, is the Solid Rock Church. It is situated between Nitt Witt Ridge and a Public Park[ing Lot]

Cambria Public Park

Nitt Witt Ridge sits high above the Public Park in Cambria, California. The Solid Rock Church sits not so high above the Park. On Sundays the Park is transmogrified into a parking lot for the Church. Restrooms in the Park are perfectly clean but full of cautionary signs.

Nitt Witt Ridge

Arthur Harold Beal was not a Nitt Witt, nor was he a Nit Wit. But he was a believer. He believed that all things recycle through toilets. Consequently, he placed a toilet at the entrance to his house, one on top of his house, and numerous ones inside his house, on the walls as well as on the floors. He was way ahead of his time. Nitt Witt Ridge is on a hill above the Solid Rock Church in Cambria, California.

Spirit Garden

Spirit Garden is a play on four stages. Spirit Garden is a liturgy at four altars. The four stages are the four altars. The drama enacted at Spirit Garden is the union of Art and Religion. The lead is played by a woman, who enters the Garden Gallery and speaks her most important part into a cell phone, "I got a recommendation to you from Michael, who says you're good. My mother thinks I need a soul retrieval, and she is willing to pay for it. I went to someone else, but I didn't like him." Spirit Garden is in Loma Vista on Highway 1 south of Big Sur.

Giant Artichoke

Giant Artichoke in Castroville is on the corner of Highways 1 and 156. Most of the time you stand in line a while to order them fried, the specialty of the house. The thing to do is take them out to the hood of your car, along with a coke, and eat them as the traffic goes by. In the grocery the presentation is as follows: bananas in a banana, lemons in a lemon, tomatoes in a tomato, and etc. down the aisles.

Haute Enchiladas

Haute Enchiladas is in the town of Moss Landing, south of Santa Cruz and north of Monterey. (You know Moss Landing by its smoke stacks.) Haute Enchiladas is a restaurant (where you can order apple tart with cheese filling topped with whipped cream) anchored to a park, with a coop art gallery in the rear that features the work of Debbie Delatour, whose card wishes you "Luminance Blessings."