It is all here in ADVENTURES IN THE WONDERLANDS OF HUMANITY, which tells of adventures into dozens of Wonderlands of Humanity, and author James Willard Agee's meetings with interesting and exciting fellow travelers and wonderland dwellers. It started with a gift of life from his parents, Charles Willard and Amanda Catherine Agee, five days before Christmas, 1923. This was his first adventure in his storybook of a lifetime. That little fellow must have been startled at waking up all at once in a mysterious, strange, and awesome, wonderland of human beings. Now, after 'four score and more' years as an adventurer in many of the Wonderlands of Humanity, his mind is flooded with curiosity, surprise, and admiration: he remembers two sides to the mystery of life and living. It took less than two-hundred pages to tell the world the astonishing lesson from a long adventure into many exotic and wonderful places. Times were hard for his Mom and Dad, and Preachers were there with songs and prayers, but they knew nothing of a barefoot four-year-old boy's life and death crisis within. So firm was the foundation of their religion, that they could not comprehend a small child's spiritual experience of seeing that religion is a dangerous one-way adventure, on a long two-way street. We all are given two ways of adventure for this trip of a lifetime -- we may live with RELIGIOUS belief that there is a great divine presence out there in the universe, or we may live with SPIRITUAL belief that there is a great divine presence within humanity. Longtime healthy living is a continuing juggling act of tossing and catching these two beliefs, as we make critical choices. As a teen-ager, at the beginning of World War II, this same James Willard Agee, rejected for military service, faced the challenge of what now? he chose to go to school. He earned a college degree and a graduate seminary degree. He then became a certified Clinical Supervisor of Chaplains, and taught clergy in schools and hospitals for the mentally retarded, acute general hospitals for the physically ill, and hospitals for the care and treatment of mentally ill, for a combined total of thirty-five years as a professional Chaplain Supervisor. He was frequently a guest speaker in local churches and community groups and organized pastoral counseling services. At age eighty-eight, he is still dodging traffic on the two-way street of 'belief in abundant life here and now' and 'abundant life in the future.'
