The Trackless Path

Prophets and sages of every age

Have fled the rule of mammon

Because as long as they believed

That they needed money to survive,

They were not free to say the truth without fear.

In the path of faith

It is through gratitude

That you transcend impossibilities.

The New Life is on the Move

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Is a one-at-a-time story.

It was an interaction

Between two people.

And because of that,

It is a love story.

I suppose that if Christ had something else in mind,

It might have been something other than

A one-at-a-time story.

It might have been a help-them-all story.

The good Samaritan, just as likely,

Might have started a 501c3

With the lofty goal

Of seeing to it that not one traveler

Perish by the wayside.

But then it would have been 

Another kind of story,

And not one story,

Two stories,

The story of the founder

And the story of the recipient.

“I founded a corporation,” the founder says.

“And we helped lots of people.”

“I filled out the papers,” the Samaritan says.

“And they were very prompt

To render me their service.”

Yes, it would be a different thing altogether

If Christ had had something else in mind

Besides a one-at-a-time story.

But I am not so sure 

We could call it 

A love story.

And I think I like Christ’s story better.

I am so grateful, so grateful,

To enter into the Holy Land

With nothing but myself.

I came into the world naked

And I enter into the next world naked.

I am out of the mountains now 

And the land opens up and spreads out

For as far as the eye can see.

And the windmills turn

And flash

Their red lights.

And it is a different world 

From the world that I came from.

There is peace in the silent unbroken plain,

There is not so much going on.

And I breathe a sigh of relief.

And feel the crusty shackles fall 

Around me as I weep

But not with tears.

What are we after with the new life, economically?

We are after a society 

Where you can easily maintain

Every necessity of life

On a small income:

Food, clothing, 

Shelter, tools, 

And somebody to love.

This way of life will mean 

That whether you run the factory

Or work on the factory floor, it is the same.

It will vanquish the fear of loss

And make the top and the bottom bold

To do the right thing, no matter the cost.

And doing the right thing 

Will make the world better.

And what means do we employ 

To bring about such a change?

Not force, Not politics, Not sweeping campaigns,

But quiet and faithful perseverance in the simple way

And belief in the hand of the unseen,

So that every convert to this way of life

Is purchased by the example of another.

And though it may seem foolish or naive,

This way of life will one day be the only way

That people can imagine living.

Write it down. It will be.

And the people of the earth will grow rich

So that, eventually, they will stop counting the cost,

But will rejoice, not in what they might obtain,

But in the thing they give away.

Love is easiest when you believe.

And resentment springs out of unbelief.

Think about it.

If the still small voice whispers that it will be alright,

And you believe that it is so,

Then it’s easy to be kind

And faithful

To spite hardships.

But if you doubt the still small voice

Then it is hard to stay positive

When the chips are down.

And that breeds harsh words

And unfaithfulness.

Even trifles become hard to endure,

And the nihilist is born.

So faith is a principal building block of love.

And the two grow up together

As the hearer of the Word of God believes.

I met “D” on the backside of the mountain.

We were parked along a wide turnout in the road. 

We had stayed there for the night.

And just as the sun was creeping over the mountaintop,

I stepped out of the RV to see him,

Not 50 yards away, his shirt off,

And his great bare belly glistening in the morning sunshine.

But he did not appear fat to me, 

Nor naked on the upper half.

He was exactly clothed with the thing he was, 

And it was beautiful and strange.

It was like noticing a plump groundhog

Who just so happened to poke himself out of his hole

At the exact moment that I glanced out of my front door.

And I knew that we were supposed to meet.

“Hello,” I said.  And he was startled.

He had been riding his bicycle down the mountainside

And had stopped to rest. Between his legs

Was an old ten-speed bike 

With a little trailer following behind.

As I approached him, 

My family came out to say hello as well,

And the children looked up at him in wonder.

There was something innocent about “D”, and childlike.

He fit in with the canyon and the pines

Like a wild thing, but harmless.

And when he spoke, he spoke in broken thoughts.

I translate it here so you can understand.

But it wasn’t that way that day,

Something was fractured inside his mind,

But perfectly so, I thought.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Everywhere,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

“But most recently, Steamboat Springs.” 

“Really,” I said. “Well, what’s it like?” 

“They’ve got the mask,” he said, 

“They’ve got it bad.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s too bad,”

“I won’t wear it,” he said.

“It’s of a reprobate mind,

“And they’re given over to it!”

And he pulled out a much-thumbed bible.

And quoted me chapter and verse,

But not like a preacher,

Like one who believes the thing he says

And isn’t afraid to do without for the sake of it.

“So you are homeless?” I asked.

“I have a home,” he said,

It’s here and there, it’s everywhere.

I’m at home in nature,” he said,

And I believed him.

“I’m traveling across Colorado,” he said,

“And back again, most likely.

I love the mountains.”

“Me too,” I said.

“But what about the wintertime?” 

“Oh, I’ve been cold,” he said.

“I remember one time,

I was coming down the mountain

And I was so cold, I thought I’d die.

I was afraid, and it was the only time I ever did this,

But I went inside a little house.

There was no one there,

And I warmed myself.

I slept the night.

But the whole time, I was afraid

That someone would come,

And I’d be in their house.

But I was so cold,

I couldn’t help it.

And in the morning, 

I left a gift to say thank you,”

I wondered what kind of gift he left

Since “D” did not think like other people.

And I wondered if they noticed 

The trinket lying on the shelf.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“D”, he said.

“Dee, like DEE?” I asked.

“No, just D, like the letter D,” he said.

“Really?! I’ve never heard that name before,” I said.

“I named myself,” he said.

“I had another name my father gave me,

But that was bad and I don’t like to remember it.”

I could tell that he had had a painful childhood,

So painful that he had to separate himself

From the thing it was.

And for a half an hour

“D” shared himself with us.

And every few broken thoughts,

He’d pull out the much-thumbed bible

And read us a verse.

He loved his bible.

It was a part of the thing he was,

Like the canyon, and the pines,

And the sunshine,

And the bike,

And the trailer following behind.

And all of it, I thought, was a thing perfected.

And I was so glad that my children were there to see it.

It’s rare, I thought, to find a thing so pure.

And just then my wife 

Pulled out another sacred book,

Not sacred to most, but cherished by us,

And handed it to “D”. 

“If you love the bible,

I think that you will love this too,” she said.

But I could tell that “D” didn’t have room for another book.

He recoiled at the sight of it.

But he tried to be polite.

“Well, I’ll try,” he said.

And I thought that perhaps it was a mistake

To trifle with something so perfect.

“But’s it’s right,” she said.

And I knew her intuition,

So I didn’t protest.

But I wondered what it would take

To integrate anything else into the perfect wild thing

That traveled up and down and over

The mountains of Colorado.

“Well, goodbye,” he said

When we were finished.

“It was good to meet you ‘D’,” we said,

“It was good to meet you too,” he said,

And we wished each other best

And then watched as he mounted the bicycle 

And took off down the mountainside,

His broad, tanned back glistening 

In the morning sunshine.

And it brought a tear to my eye.

My children waved and shouted “Goodbye D.”

And he raised a hand and waved,

And that made them happy.

We’ve often talked about our travels since,

And the sacred things that we experienced.

But I don’t know if there is anything so sacred

As the day we stepped outside 

Into the morning sunshine

And found the most endangered creature

Of the Colorado countryside, “D”.

She was born to travel,

To move from town to town

And to sit around the campfire

Sharing the unshiny gifts of the road

With forever friends whom she just barely met.

But for now, she’s bound up at home

With the care of little ones.

Domesticity.

What a curse, and what a blessing,

For one whose heart longs to be moving,

Whose soul needs the deep green of the redwoods

And the perfect clear blue of the Caribbean Sea.

What a curse, and what a blessing,

To sacrifice the thing she is

So that her little ones

Might be.