If you could ask God one question

Lake Oswego’s Brian Scibetta , 16, believes he hears the voice of God and helps clients with answers to life’s great questions

By Kristen Forbes

The Lake Oswego Review, Sep 6, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

Vern Uyetake / Lake Oswego Review

Brian Scibetta, 16, believes he hears the voice of God. He uses that ability, he says, to help people find answers to some of their deepest questions.

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A friend of mine is in town and he suggests we meet up after work on Sunday. I’d planned on it, but when my shift ends that evening, I call him and tell him something’s come up. He reschedules and doesn’t press the matter. If he had, I would have told him the truth, which is: Sorry, I have a morning appointment to meet with God.

More specifically, I have a meeting with a young man named Brian Scibetta, who believes he hears the voice of God. When he’s not a 16-year-old student at Portland Waldorf School, he takes appointments from his mother’s house in Lake Oswego, helping direct the lives of a clientele seeking answers to life’s great questions.

Skeptical? So was he.

“Will you please send me articles that you’ve published — or a link to them?” he asks via e-mail, in response to my request for an interview. “I was unable to hit your name on Google.”

Ironic, I think, that I should want to interview someone with a supposed gift, whose legitimacy I can’t help but question … and that he, in turn, questions my legitimacy as a journalist. Somehow, this shared sense of skepticism and caution we hold for each other serves as a commonality, a thread that weaves us together as two questioning beings in an uncertain world.

I send him the link to my blog and his mom, Carley, takes over, sending me an e-mail that asks a stream of questions, mainly relating to motive and intent for the article. She is savvy and shrewd and I suspect she could successfully run just about any business, be it in finance, law or academics.

Instead, when she’s not doing background checks for various companies, she deals in the business of God. And she’s just offered me an opportunity I can’t refuse: Do a free reading with Brian, she suggests (He normally charges up to $150 for similar readings, but does perform readings free of charge in certain situations). Come to the table with your own questions from your own life. I agree, excited and terrified.

“If you could ask God one question and have it answered, what would you ask?” This is the question Brian and Carley would ask the public in a project they are currently working on with The Agency Group — it will start as a blog on Brian’s Web site and eventually be converted into a book. This is also the general idea behind Brian’s readings — ask him things you want God to answer. As his business card and Web site state, “I’ll tell you things that only God knows.”

I’ve been given the opportunity to ask God not just one question, but many.

It seems simple enough, but when I begin the task of writing my questions, I realize what an enormous assignment this is. I entertain foolish and lighthearted thoughts: God, will the Red Sox win the World Series this year? I dig deeper and find myself overwhelmed by the questions that lead to more questions that always lead to the inevitable biggies: Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Is there an afterlife?

I warn the Scibettas I’ll come to the reading with a heavy dose of skeptic armor. That a 16-year-old kid can channel the voice of God is not something I’m willing to give into, just yet. Still, I remind myself to keep an open mind: We’re all asking the same basic questions and the manner of seeking the answers varies person to person. Some may pray and some may do yoga. If some want to seek the guidance of a teenager who talks to God, why not?

I arrive at the Scibetta house bearing a list of personal questions for my reading with Brian and wondering what I’ve just gotten myself into. Dogs bark and scamper for a moment before Brian opens the door, letting me into a home where rows of shoes line up against the rug, just as they are so often at my house. Carley and Brian’s older brother David enter and warm smiles and salutations fill the room. Carley allows their two Jack Russell terriers a chance to calm down after the excitement of the doorbell, and then she and David retreat upstairs, puppies in tow.

We conduct the reading and interview in an airy yet cozy living room. Brian offers me a beverage and drinks from a Starbucks cup as we settle into cushy seats. My eyes wander to a bookcase along the wall, then to a large framed picture of fish swimming in the next room over. I wait for the façade of normalcy to crumble and the craziness to begin.

I look over my list of questions and realize they’re far more personal than I’d realized when I wrote them down. Somehow, though, my nerves have dissipated and I feel at ease when I look toward Brian, whose bespectacled eyes and cleanly trimmed beard give him a studious look, which contrasts with his tougher athletic build. His expression is serene and I’m at a loss to figure out why I’m not more uncomfortable or nervous. I feel positively at home and soon I’m going through my list, confiding in Brian about the things that concern me most.

I tell Brian about this feeling I have that no matter where I go, I’m capable of being happy but I never seem quite settled. I discuss my apprehension about grad school. I tell him that sometimes I feel like I’m searching for something without even realizing what “it” is. I tell him about a boy, because how could I not? I express my fear for the next generation, living in a world plagued by wars and Global Warming. Some questions he answers immediately; for others he pauses thoughtfully before articulating his response, as though he’s watching the answer formulate in his mind. He tells me a lot of my questions are linked and discovering the answer to one will lead to the answer for another, such as figuring out one relationship will help me figure out the best grad school for me, which will help me determine my permanent location and home.

I talk about my friend and a member of my family, both struggling to find their way in their careers. He points to a golden statue on the other side of the room and informs me it’s Ganesh, a Hindu god who can alleviate road blocks and obstacles.

“I’m just going to ask him to clear the obstacles and right away I’m seeing that all these speed bumps are flattening out and it’s a smooth path again,” he tells me.

I tell him how sometimes I get hurt and I know others don’t realize the affects of their actions and words toward me. He tells me that in order to “stop the evil thing where you end up affected,” he’s going to put me in a “bubble of white light.

“This is in the spiritual sense —you’re not actually going to walk around with a bubble,” he teases. He tells me this bubble will make me less sensitive to the things going on around me.

I flip over the page of my notebook and am shocked to realize how fast we whipped through my questions. Brian is a fast worker: methodical, thoughtful, but fast. I feel relieved for having gone though the questions — maybe because it felt good to say them out loud and unload a burden of troublesome thoughts or maybe because his answers gave me a glimmer of peace. I can’t say which it is: All I know is that somehow, for some reason, I feel better. I feel lighter.

“I know this sounds crazy, but …” I’m sure this is a phrase both Brian and Carley are accustomed to saying. This reading was a test I had to pass in order to get to the interview. Somehow, it didn’t feel like a bizarre spiritual ritual I needed to subject myself to in order to get to the real questions. I know this sounds crazy, but … somehow, it felt like the real deal.

Not everyone would agree. This is fine with Brian. He tells me about a segment he watched on the news recently, about a group of extremist Christians who tour the country, touting a “Turn or Burn” conversion message.

“I don’t go around preaching or anything like that,” he tells me. “If someone asks me what I do, of course I’ll talk to them. It’s not like there’s anything to convert them to anyway, but I certainly don’t do that.”

Later, when I ask if he thinks he can make a believer out of a skeptic, he reminds me that we all have free choice and everyone has his “own spiritual path.” He insists he’s not concerned about what other people think of him and doesn’t expect everyone to buy into his message.

I wonder if this carries over into school. He tells me he’s never been taunted or mocked by fellow students and that he even led a meditation for a talent show.

“The entire school knows,” he tells me, adding that the Waldorf community is incredibly open and accepting.

A long path led to his admittance there. Brian’s parents separated when he was four and he, his mother and his brother moved to Lake Erie for a summer before coming to Lake Oswego.

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