About

The Rev. Stephen Melkanos, A.A.S., Z.L., E.V., L.I.V.R.

In case you missed my introduction, I am The Zen Lunatic. I am an artist, an author, a musician, a biker, a holy man, a cat fancier, a pagan idolator, and a foul-mouthed, beer-swilling pervert.

I have been whipped and beaten, I have whipped and beaten.

I have been to the top of mountains, and the bottom of strippers. I have stared into the heart of the atom and the soul of thought. I have had breakfast in Hell and happy hour in Heaven, on the same day. I have tried so many things that I’ve lost count of their number. The path I have trod, or rode, over a variety of lifetimes is unique. All the people and things (and things that could possibly be people if you squint at them sideways) that lined the sides of that path have taught me a very great deal.

Enough to know that I don’t know everything. At least, not consciously, but that’s a topic for another place and another time.

The things that I have learned, I want to share, in one form or another.

Not because of any New-Agey sense of “duty” or anything like that. That would just cheapen the offering. As I always say to people on their birthdays, “If I had to do it, it wouldn’t be a gift.”

No, I am motivated by desire. A desire to share the things that have enabled me to become greater than the sum of my parts; a desire to be part of a greater community; a desire to hold myself up to the world and say, “If I can do it, you can do it.”

Because, though perhaps I flatter myself, if I can encourage just one person to cross the line that separates “what am I doing?” from “I can do this”; encourage just one person to unlock their seventh chakra and drink in the literally limitless possibilities that is the Multiverse of Life and Time and Space; if I can bring just one smile to just one face…

…Then I’m going to die cold, alone and forgotten in a soggy refrigerator box behind a Stuckey’s. Is that what you want? Is that truly what you want for me, who has never done you any harm, and only tried to help? What kind of a monster are you? Spread the word, make me famous, and leave a buck or three in the collection plate on your way out.

It’s the least you can do.