James Dillet Freeman, Unity Magazine, and my first Christmas poem

In the spring of 1988, I spent a week at Unity Village, Missouri, on a spiritual retreat. On the last night of the retreat, the organizers put on a formal dinner for our small group in their dining hall. I had the pleasure of sitting across the dinner table from Unity Village's poet-in-residence, James Dillet Freeman, and his wife Vallie May (who unfortunately was deep in the throes of Alzheimer's).

Freeman is perhaps best known for his book, The Case for Reincarnation, which I had read, and for two poems that went to the moon, "Prayer for Protection" and "I Am There." The former was carried to the moon and back by lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 (NASA's first moon mission); the latter was left on the moon by James B. Irwin of Apollo 15—the same mission on which my dad, Roy Cooper, had served as an ABC TV technical engineer for the splashdown. So, needless to say, I was eager to discuss these and other topics with this fascinating person.

Sadly for me, but to Mr. Freeman's great credit, he was so focused on his ailing wife's comfort and needs that we didn't get to talk as much as I would have liked. Still, I came away from the experience even more impressed by the man behind the writing I had so admired.

One new thing that brief encounter revealed: Freeman adored Christmas, and he wrote about it frequently, in both poetry and prose, for Unity Magazine, a 64-page publication with a reported circulation (at the time) of about 500,000.

Perhaps in an effort to impress Freeman, perhaps just because I also liked Christmas a lot, I decided to try my hand at writing a poem about it. After my poem was completed, I sent it to—where else?—Unity Magazine. And then I waited...certain that my clumsy first attempt at a Christmas poem would be summarily rejected by a publication that was accustomed to publishing works of actual literary merit by the likes of James Freeman.

About a month later, Unity Magazine informed me that they had, in fact, accepted my poem, and that it would appear in their December 1988 issue...the same issue that yet another Christmas-themed article by Freeman would appear ("Caligula II: Marius Andronicus to Flavius Constantius Gracchi").

I doubt anyone can quite imagine my pride at having my writing appear in such good company.