Lauren Merritt

The Heart of an Engineer: Making a Recovery Lauren Merritt

The poetic travel notes of an aerospace engineer as his spiritual journey unfolds are really inspiring to all whom are on a simular quest. The largest section of his book is his 30 years of poetry that start out quite childlike yet, before being replaced by his dreams as mile stones for his travels, become remarkedly sophisticated. One of them caresses me, one bubbles up my ears. A third runs her fingers so I drop my scuba gear."Breathe deeply now," she says. "The only fear is fear."Yes, an aerospace engineer, with 13 patents from some of the largest high technology companies in the country and with equipment above the earth on the Spcce Sation and way beyond Pluto, undertook a spiritual jurney. He's still on it: I'll take leave to sail what sees, with a fair wind right behind. Who knows where I will go as I travel in my mind. To not set sail /leaves me in jail . . . And he is enjoying both the ride (except the bumps) and the results: I'm flying in an ocean of love, soaring like a white trutle dove. I've gone far out to see all the beauty around me. It's the last quarter of his book, where he puts things together, that's really interesting. It contains considerable personal history as he comes to terms with his childhood wounds, from near total isolation (lost in space!) to slowly reconecting wth the social world that left him so long ago. Turns out he was both aided and hindered by the onset of Parkinson's Disease and the Deep Brain Surgery (DBS) done to ease its ravages. At the end, you find yourself cheering him onward. Like a deap space probe, his journey will never end. But what a journey!