I left Silifke in Türkiye on a ferry to Kyrenia (the Turks call the city Girne) at midnight on the 13th of October of 2025, and after six hours on the Mediterranean I arrived on the Island of Cyprus in the early morning of the 14th of October 2025. This itself is an occurrence of note. On the 13th of September 2019 in Scottsdale, Arizona, after living in Netanya in Israel for seven months, I decided I never wanted to go back to that place on account of the fight I had with Harold van Ouwerkerk, a Dutch Christian in Israel, who has since become an Israeli citizen, about trying to talk to his college-aged daughter Noah. The emotional turmoil of that incident resulted in the tumultuous events that I describe in my book, “The Electrochemical Girl”. I lapsed into a bizarre drug episode that resulted in my dying on the waiting room floor of the Aurora Behavioral Health Clinic in Tempe, Arizona on 15 November 2019.
I said goodbye to Israel on 13 September 2019, and I died on 15 November 2019. I arrived in Cyprus on 14 October 2025. The midpoint between 13 September and 15 November is 14 October. That is, I arrived in Cyprus exactly six years after the midpoint of the significant events of my leaving Israel and of my life on earth. In the Torah, a week has six days and is followed by a day of rest to wrap up the week. Also in the Torah and in the Kabbalistic tradition, this pattern of six plus one applies not only to days, but to years. Every seventh year is a sabbath year where debts are forgiven and slaves are freed. Further, the Jewish tradition describes the history of the world as a history of six thousand years of our fallen world plus a final thousand years where the Messiah will rule the world in peace, beauty, and power. This description was echoed by the first generation of disciples of the Apostles, such as Papias, the disciple of the Apostle John. When two traditions opposed to each other are working with the same ideas, this says something to me, as if some power from beyond is coordinating them. To this day, Chabad rabbis and certain Baptist dispensationalist preachers give credence to the idea that after six thousand years of human history, the Messiah will come. Chabad Rabbis and Baptist preachers are not friends. They do not interact. This gives me a certain respect for the idea. Again, it looks like some power beyond the universe was coordinating some kind of synchronicity between the two groups.
This six-plus-one pattern turns up in the strangest places. The urban legend is that the seminal father of the blues, John Roberts, made his deal with the Devil on Highway 61 in Mississippi. That legend has been propagated by individuals better known to popular culture.
That Dylan album is the home to the singular anthem of all music:
“Like a Rolling Stone” quite a title for a song. According to Joan Baez, Bob wrote that song in a fit of frustration directed at a hotel employee who couldn’t find his reservation. However, Bob himself will tell you that his 1962-1966 songs were written by some kind of a force from beyond himself.
Bob wrote “Like a Rolling Stone” about a hotel employee, but maybe the force inspiring him had something else in mind.
May the words of my mouth
Psalm 19:15
and the prayer of my heart
be acceptable to You,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Try listening to “Like a Rolling Stone” as if the rolling stone described is not a hotel employee, but God, or God’s chief representative, the Messiah.
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was the Messiah.
1 Corinthians 10:1-4
The word seven is explained by what is written concerning the King Messiah: Who hath despised the day of small things? … even these seven (Zech. 4:10). That is why it is said: Who art thou, O great mountain. Scripture states elsewhere concerning him: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor (Isa. 11:4), and he shall bring forth the top stone with shoutings of “Grace, grace, unto it” (Zech. 4:7). After that it is written: And then was the iron, the clay, the brass … broken in pieces together … and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (Dan. 2:35).
Midrash Tanchumi, Toldot 14
This may give you a different perspective on the song and what the force inspiring him was trying to say. Imagine it as a taunt, sung by the Devil to a humbled king on his day of death. A lot of it will fit, except for the conspicuous detail that the song was sung to a woman. I might be able to offer some explanation for that, however.
I’ve piped in many places that the relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, is a picture of the relationship between God and humanity. However, if we broaden that picture to include a child, what do husband, wife, and child represent? God is the husband. The father. Humanity is the child. The Messiah is the wife. Mom.
So there is this king having his darkest day.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Mark 15:34
And off in the distance, invisible, is the Devil, saying this to him:
“You’ll never go home, Mom. Nobody will ever even know you were here. Bye bye, rock and redeemer. Now you’re just a stone rolling away to nowhere.”
There is one more interesting component of the song to consider: “Now you know how I feel. You kicked me out of our home long ago. Now you know what it’s like.” You see, this is the Devil talking. The word “devil,” “diablo” in Spanish, comes from the Greek word διάβολος. It means “slanderer.” Demosthenes used it to describe a court prosecutor. The guy who accuses you. However, the root of the word fundamentally means “the one who was thrown down.” See, the Devil was cast out by that king, and he will do whatever he has to in order to get rid of that king and get back to where he came from.
Should we have sympathy for the Devil? Are these just two dudes having an argument about who gets to be boss? There are other rolling stones out there who describe things differently than what we read in the old book. These rolling stones are very rich and famous, and they are still running around on stages in their eighties.
I don’t know where you sit, but from my seat at the table, I’ve picked my side on the basis of character. I don’t have much sympathy for the Devil at this point. See, in the song above, the Devil gloats about the massacre of a little Russian girl named Anastasia Romanov. She was obliterated so totally, they only ever found a tooth. The Galilean guy, though, doesn’t treat little girls like that. He doesn’t like it when little girls die.
They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.
Mark 5:38-42
These guys, the Devil and the Messiah, are two very different people, and they’re having quite a fight. According to Mick Jagger, the Man of Wealth and Taste was there when the Galilean Carpenter’s Son had his moment of doubt and pain, a fact I don’t deny, yet this boast might just bite him in the butt.
If you come at the king, you’d better not miss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m putting so many references to music in this chapter; I have no idea how I’m going to turn it into a printed book. Luckily, this last bit I want to show you about the Rolling Stone of Israel, and the state of things today, comes from a printed page.
The stone that the builders rejected
Psalm 118:22
has become the chief cornerstone.
Now if I say more about Bob Dylan’s biggest song being an anthem of evil, an ode from the Devil telling the Messiah that he is done, a rolling stone that no one will ever know ever existed, I’ll probably make my dad cry. Bob is actually one of my top five icons on earth, but for my dad, he is in the top two. My father used to play Dylan songs with hat and harmonica at Houlahan’s in Houston in the seventies. Here he is with the famous signature Bob Dylan neck rig.
I know I’m writing about my arrival in Cyprus today, this little tidbit about sevens ballooning into more than I originally thought it would amount to. But on account of my dad, I just have to finish this story about Bob. In 1966 he had a motorcycle accident and nearly died. Now if you’ve made a deal with the Devil, fame and fortune on earth for the damnation of your soul, a life-threatening motorcycle accident is going to be a heck of a wakeup call. For years after that, Bob continued to record albums but refused to tour on account of a case of agoraphobia he developed, I presume because he was worried that too much time outside could send him to hell. Eventually he ran into a Messianic Jewish Rabbi and became a Jew for Jesus, adding three Gospel albums to his catalogue. The Devil’s claw marks run deep, however, and if you sign your signature with Satan and then rip it up and walk away, you’ll carry some scars.
Still later, though, Bob became a committed member of the Jewish Hasidic organization Chabad.
I too have dealt with the Devil and later walked away, and I too carry that history. I don’t know what else I can say about this. I guess I can say my dad has it easy. His top rock icon is Bob Dylan. Mine is John Lennon. “The Beatles are bigger than God.” “Imagine there’s no heaven. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. No religion too.” The biggest song of John’s solo career isn’t exactly the biggest song a human being has ever written, but it’s a biggie.
These words aren’t the kind of thing that comfort bicycle prophets who have devoted their lives to service to God. I can say that most people don’t know that after saying those things, John became a Baptist fundamentalist for a few months during his “lost weekend” with May Pang. Most people don’t think it stuck. It’s a sticky subject. Whatever the case may be, the Baptists have a doctrine called “eternal security,” which they like to condense into the mantra: “once saved, always saved.” It means once you’re in with God, he’s never going to let you go. No matter what.
If you really want to know what John himself meant with the song Imagine, his thoughts on God, and how this relates to the song, you have to see his 1980 interview with David Sheff just before he died. It won’t be at all what you think. However, it would seem that some mysterious force that would like John to be remembered as a Chief Atheist has removed it from the internet, so I’ll just leave you with a little clip of a taxi ride.
As I’ve taken this bicycle tour twice across Europe and America for nearly the entirely of the year 2025, I’ve been alone. That British Beatle got that hungover American folk singer to to his hotel. John only got the chance to produce a few solo albums before he was taken from us on that December day in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1980. It was a diverse and experimental catalogue, and most of those albums were not really very good, frankly. His solo songs make for a really good double disk or maxi CD compilation, if you ask me, and that’s about it. John will always be remembered as a Beatle. He was a team player. One of his best songs was one that he wrote for Ringo, actually.
I don’t know. John ended the Vietnam War. And apparently, he likes to take care of his friends. I personally will be looking for him up top with The Big Guy when I get there. Life is an amazing trek, and these guys have amazing lives.
I’ll end this slice about rock and roll and rolling rocks and Devil deals by saying that a Jewishness is a race, a nation, a culture, and a religion. A Jew gets a little play what he believes. Jews gave us the Words of the One God, and one little sect of Jewish fishermen from the north of Israel took that all around the world. There is a Jewish phrase: “where there are two Jews, there are three opinions.” Telling a Jew what he has to think and believe just doesn’t sit right with me.
Just remember, the whole huge saga of Bob, John, the Devil and the Messiah, and hell’s highway 61, well, I admit I was trying to say a lot with it, but the part that contributes to this chapter of the story is to drive home this idea about the number seven, the idea about six plus one, the week of days, the week of years, and the week of millennia that come from the original Jewish monotheistic tradition from the Bible, the early Christian writings, and the Rabbinic tradition of the Talmud and Kabbalah.
My arrival in Cyprus occurred six years after my flipping the bird to all things, the nation of Israel, and life on earth itself. I was, and still am, curious as to what I should expect from my seventh year on this journey. I was exhausted from all of the wandering I had been doing for the last six years from Netanya, Israel to Scottsdale, Arizona to Guadalajara, Mexico, to Madrid, Spain, to Belgrade, Serbia, to Amman, Jordan, to Los Angeles, California, and finally to this last six-thousand-mile bicycle trip across the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America, Europe, Texas, and again across Europe to finally arrive in Cyprus. My immigration packet to Israel had been delayed and delayed. It should have been approved earlier in the summer but was languishing with the Israeli Ministry of the Interior far longer than normal. In my experience, that’s never a good thing. More on that later.
After my weeks in Türkiye, I really wasn’t up for more bicycle touring. I didn’t want to take the time to tour the Turkish north of the Island. I did not get a hotel or hostel there. I arrived in Kyrenia in the early morning and rode south to Limassol on the Greek southern coast.
This is was the first time I rode rode across an entire country from one coast to its opposite in one day. No, it wasn’t riding three thousand miles across the USA or some other such enormous country like Australia or something like that. But yes, Cyprus is a small island country, and you can indeed go from one end to the other on a bicycle without doing a century ride. Although I would ride less than a hundred miles on this first day in Cyprus, you’ll notice from that Strava picture that I did not get started out of Kyrenia until 9 AM. I did need a while to have some food and get situated after the boat. This ride would be long and late. The first thing I would learn, rather abruptly, is that Cypriots drive on the left, and they don’t have much use for road shoulders.
Cyprus was a British colony until 1960, a fact that governs huge swaths of Cypriot life to this day. For instance, in my brief amount of time in the Turkish north, I actually ran into some Turks who spoke English. I found that to be somewhat miraculous. In the Greek south, the ubiquitousness of English is vastly more pronounced. A Greek Cypriot trying to order coffee in most cafes on the coast is very likely going to have to order his coffee in English because all likelihood the barista will hail from some corner of the British Commonwealth. Or from Russia. I’ll have to detail many of the aspects of the phenomenal international character of Cyprus later on. This chapter has been about a whole lot of Bob Dylan and the Devil, so I am just going to talk about the bicycle ride from Kyrenia to my final destination, Limassol, from here on.
On the way to the capital city of Nicosia in the center of the Island, I saw one of the most splendid mosques I have ever laid eyes on.
Just as I was leaving the Turkish north, a Muslim area, I spotted a sign that would presage my entering the very first Christian nation on earth.
I do have a story about my crossing from the Turkish area to the Greek.
In the middle of Nicosia there was a Turkish checkpoint where they took my passport and entered information into the computer. Getting off the boat in Kyrenia, I was told that I had thirty days in the country. I then rode my trusty carbon steed a few yards to a checkpoint of Greeks. I handed them my passport, and they did also entered my information into their computers. I asked them how long I could be in Cyprus for, telling them the Turks told me I only had thirty days. I was used to being allowed in a country without a visa for ninety days as an American. The officer got very upset. He told me the Turks had absolutely no authority to tell me anything or look at my passport, and that what they were doing was illegal.
There was a war in 1974 between Cyprus and Türkiye that resulted in the separation of the Turkish north from the Greek south. The Greek south, the Republic of Cyprus, never recognized the north as a separate country. The international community also has not. Only Türkiye recognized the north as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. He stressed to me that anything I could possibly need, including the American Embassy, would be in Greek Cyprus. He then handed my passport back to me after registering my information. I asked again how long I would be able to be in the country. He told me I could stay ninety days, which was what I had been accustomed to. I continued my ride. I thought I had interfaced with a border authority and had entered the country on 14 October. However, I would later find out that I was now in the Republic of Cyprus illegally. I had not engaged with a border point. It was some sort of checkpoint monitoring station for people moving between Greek and Turkish Nicosia. My passport had not been stamped. Kyrenia was an illegal port. I had technically not entered the country. I was therefore an illegal traveler.
Happy to see some Greek letters, I took a shot of the first Greek sign I saw.
I know how to read the Greek letters from my studies of ancient Greek. The name of that store was “Pandora.” The method of my entering the country would in fact become a Pandora’s Box of significant proportions in the future. I won’t tell that story here, however.
I guess the echoes of Mexico that I was feeling in Greece were also present here. Mexico isn’t everywhere in this place, but there have been some unusual occurrences of the Spanish language. One of the first Greek friends I have made here speaks fluent Greek, Spanish, and English, for example. There have been a few unusual occurrences of Spanish in this country, though I don’t know if any of them will be significant enough to write about. I was, however, hit in the face with a rather unusual detail on this ride that I would continue to be confronted with to this day.
Yes, they have Pizza Huts in Cyprus, as they do all over Europe. And yes, not only is the Pizza Hut logo in English, but also the various promotional signs on the store are as well. Inside, the menu on the wall behind the register would also be English. This sort of thing really has tripped me out a few times since I have been in the country. But that isn’t what I am going to talk about here. Check that telephone number. Nothing but sevens. There are a lot of phone numbers listed in a lot of places in Cyprus with a lot of sevens in them.
Above are just a few phone numbers I would take pictures of in this country. There were times when I thought I would lose my mind from the number of coincidental occurrences of the number seven I would bump into. You know that in this overarching story I am trying to demonstrate that via violations of the law of probability,
we can see that the universe has a design to it. This is an established theological concept called “the teleological argument for the existence of God.” Look this concept up when you have a chance.
I can tell you that these are not the only instances of these phone numbers that I saw in this country. Just a few that I snapped shots of at various times. Phone numbers with the number seven of them really are all over the place.
When someone shows you this, you are going to have to understand things in one of four ways. First, you can think that I am lying to you. You may be tempted to assume that I ran around looking for phone numbers with the number seven in them and took a picture each time in order to try to make some kind of a case for phone numbers built around the number seven. Second, you can attribute this to selective perception. That is, for some reason my brain looks for phone numbers with the number seven in them and notices them wherever they are, this strikes me for some reason, and I am drawn to take a picture of them. Voila, here we have a guy with a bunch of pictures of phone numbers based on the number of seven. The third thing that could be the case is that there really are phone numbers all over Cyprus with the number seven in them for no identifiable reason other than that God Almighty wrote the space-time continuum so that so that there are phone numbers with the number seven in them everywhere, thus proving his existence. The fourth reason is that there really are phone numbers with the number seven in them all over the place, but there is some identifiable, naturalistic reason for these numbers. What do you think the reason for these phone numbers is?
I’ll wager that your explanation for this is in fact based on your personality. The rational naturalist is going to tell me the reason will be one of the first two. He will say that either OG, a guy who loves God, sees his handprint on the universe and wants others to as well, and just doesn’t pay attention to most of the phone numbers he sees in his life, but whenever he sees one with a bunch of sevens in it, it strikes him, and he takes a picture of it so that he can show you. Or, OG is a liar. He wants to make a lot of money, and he wants to scare you by saying that God will send you to hell if you don’t give him a million dollars, so he hired a bunch of people to make signs of phone numbers with the number seven in them, took pictures of them, and says, “see this miracle? There are phone numbers all over with a bunch of sevens in them. Only God could do this. He is real, and I see it, so believe me, you will go to hell if you don’t give me a million dollars.” 99% of people will offer one of these responses to these pictures of phone numbers with the number seven in them. Before you read further, ask yourself what you think the case is.
The fourth reason is that there is some identifiable reason for these numbers, but OG doesn’t know what it is. He sees them everywhere, photographs them, and jumps to the conclusion: GOD IS REAL! Well, this fourth reason is in fact the case. When I got my Cyprus mobile phone number, there were no sevens in it. I thought it was time to learn how Cyprus phone numbers work. As it turns out, landlines in Cyprus always start with the number two. Mobile numbers always start with 92 or 97. That being the case, I had to ask myself, if numbers either start with 2 or 9, why do I see all these phone numbers with sevens everywhere? Do I have schizophrenia? Am I hallucinating them? Do I need a prescription for risperidone? Before I checked myself into a mental ward, I decided to investigate the strange phenomenon of the phone numbers with the number seven in them.
So we have an answer. Except that Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken and portapotties are not taxi services, leasing offices, or car rental services. I have no explanation for that. However, there is in fact this agency in Cyprus called “the 7777 group of companies” that provides phone numbers to their member corporations.
However, in my case, I started this “Journey of Israel” six years before I landed in Cyprus. I am aware of the Jewish theological concept of the seven days, the seven years, and the seven millennia. To me, God is in fact saying something to me with these sevens all over the place. He ordained that Cyprus would have this 7777 group of companies, and that I would see these sevens everywhere and notice them and try to figure out what he was wanting to tell me with it. My interpretation? Cyprus is the land of the seventh year. That’s all I have so far. Whatever the case may be, I propose that God is talking to me via a synchronistic event.
Not only did the English give us the rocker who got a hung-over Bob Dylan home to his hotel and ended the Vietnam War, but they gave us some really cool phrases. One of my favorites is that when they want to say somebody is crazy, they say, “that guy is all sixes and sevens!” What do you think about all this? Am I crazy? Or did God ordain a universe that violates the law of probability in order to show us that he is here and to teach us things?
Back to the bike ride. The next picture I took on that ride spoke to me quite sweetly. I had just seen a phone number with nothing but eight sevens in it. What are the odds of that happening? You know that I carry a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an anxiety disorder. I was asking myself, “am I dreaming? Am I back in Neo’s Matrix? What’s going on here?” I then pulled into a cafe for some lunch.
I would look up and see a sign on the wall.
After lunch it was time to head back out into the land of the left lanes.
As you move to the centre of the country, things turn quite mountainous. There was a lot of climbing on this ride. Climbing is not my specialty. Exhaustion would be an issue on this one.
I was enchanted to see the ancient towns of the interior of the country.
The winding roads would continue. No road shoulder. Sometimes there would only be one lane.
Away went the mosques. Cyprus became the world’s first Christian country when the Apostle Paul converted the Roman Proconsul Sergius Paulus, who governed the Island, to faith in The Way, a Jewish sect that would later be primarily gentile and become called Christianity.
The light of the sun would make its way to the other side of the world, far, far away.
Eventually my headlight died. I can’t show you what it was like to ride on those roads on that starless night with no headlight to illuminate my way because my GoPro ran out of battery as well. I was glad to see the occasional car, however, as their headlights would show me what was going on around me for a few seconds at a time. Finally, though, I would reach the towns of the southern coast, and the streetlights would provide me with light.
Finally, I would make it late at night to my hostel in Limassol. The name of the hostel was in fact Lima Sol. The six thousand, three-hundred-mile bicycle trip from New Orleans to Cyprus, from Superbowl Sunday on 11 February 2025 to 14 October 2025 would come to an end. I’m still in Limassol. Why am I not in Jerusalem? Wasn’t that the goal? I’ll tell you why later. I’m exhausted. For now, I’ll just leave you with one thing.
The refrain from the most penetrating song in popular music is itself so moving because of it’s fundamental, childlike simplicity: “How does it feel?”
Like Bob, I know what it’s like to deal with the Devil and walk away. I know what it’s like to be afraid to go outside. I know what it’s like to love a Galilean carpenter’s son. I know what it’s like to be fearful of the consequences of the past. And I know what it’s like to hang out with Chabad.
I also know what it’s like to say, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Finally, I too know what it’s like to be a rolling stone, wandering the earth year after year, lost, looking, and alone, a complete unknown, with no direction home.
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