Washing Beets with God

A little over a decade ago, I had a bona-fide, Grade A, no-shit “mystical” experience—or at least something that felt a hell of a lot like a mystical experience. I have never written about it before, don't talk about it much, but I’ve been thinking about it lately and thought I’d give it a shot here, ineffability and scare quotes and all. The deal went down, absurdly enough, during a month-long retreat at a Zen center in northern California; even...