The Trackless Path

My heart longs for open spaces,

No man’s lands - you cannot hear.

And they are coming in the winter

They fall silent on your ear.

The peace of a land forsaken

Because nobody can hold it.

Do you hear the land a coming,

In the empty, longing, open.

It is coming, It's a coming,

Though it pass through all you fear.

It's the open sacred spaces

That nobody can hear.

But I hear the open places

Falling softly on my ear.

I find the open places

In everything you fear.

Lessons from Raymond, the homeless man

Who I met in Missouri, and who helped me 

When I was preparing to make my journey by foot.

Lesson 1: Don’t do it.

This actually wasn’t the first thing he told me,

But I am putting it first so that well-meaning friends won’t worry.

It’s a hard life, he said. And when you fall to the road,

It can be hard to get back up again.

And even then, 

You can take the man off the street,

But it is harder to take the street out of the man.

I wasn’t necessarily set on hitchhiking.

It was simply the only option I saw.

But Raymond convinced me to make a trade

That made it possible. And so, a little car was the result,

And I see, I saw, that it is the fulfillment of a prophecy of sorts.

Nonetheless, much of what he said about the road, still applies

Since the car is not my home. My home’s along the road,

This place and that. And the car is just a way to get there.

This is the beginning of a series called

What I learned from Raymond,

A homeless man I met

In Missouri.

When I met Raymond, I had decided 

That I would continue my journey on foot

And was pondering how I would survive out in the open.

Raymond was lying under the awning of the thrift shop

And I almost went over to talk to him

But decided against it. 

But then to my surprise, he sat up and saw me 

And began waving his arms to flag me down.

What ensued was a bit spectacular,

One of those rare encounters

That leaves you wondering 

If you’ve spoken with an angel.

If so, then Raymond was a salty angel,

And the wisdom he imparted was wisdom for those

Who believe that one day they may be called 

To step out of all they know and rely on God alone.

If that sounds interesting, stay tuned.

This weariness takes me back to other days

When I pressed into the load

Deeper, longer, than was necessary

And deprived myself of rest, of peace,

Because I believed that it was righteous.

And now I pay the price of such ignorance.

I have decided that I will no longer do that.

I will choose to rest myself into a heaven on earth,

And trust that an unseen heart cares 

For this frail body and beats 

In time with this faint heart

And waits with unseen hands

To deliver me from the buzzards 

That circle over my head 

And hope for my demise.

My life is forfeit.

My future lies

In rest, in Him.

And if this life, this rest,

Is of use to anyone, I will let it be 

The work with which I seal my life,

And the stone which He will place upon my grave.

The world moves fast.

The world tries to do much.

And so the world must do most things for itself.

Heaven, and the heirs thereof, move slower.

They do not try to do too much. They wait upon God.

And so, most things are done for them, before they even ask.

Often, when I have said,

“I don’t know where to go from here,”

I was lying to myself. I knew where to go.

I knew what to do. But I was hesitating,

Halting between two opinions.

And so, I renounce hesitation.

I will act. I will move unhaltingly

Into the thing I know

Trusting that the thing that’s right

Will lead to the knowing 

Of the next right thing.

You find my books here 

Written upon the whisper 

Of an electrical thread, Nay less,

A whisper on a wave 

That passes through your head

On its way to your device.

But I tell you that what I write 

Is written in heavy volumes

Upon indestructible paper

Bound with adorned leather

And illustrated with vibrant colors,

And that those books are guarded 

In the unseen library above

Where they will not perish.

I write, not for the day,

But for the age.

I write not to the few,

But for each and every soul

Throughout the width and breadth of eternity

Who might be benefited thereby,

And I trust the unseen hand 

To dispense my work

Through unseen carriers of light

To each and every soul who longs for what I am,

Or rather, what he has made of me

And may just as easily destroy.

But know this, each word,

If it is His, if it reflects

The library on high,

Has always been

And will remain

When the libraries of men

Decay and crumble away to dust.

And I think, why write, if not unto this end?

I kicked a quarter on my way into the Walmart.

I stopped and picked it up and said,

“Thank you, God, for this 

Unsought sign of your abundance.

Thank you for providing for me in just this way.”

Simplicity is coming for us all.

But most will see it as ruin

Until they realize 

That it has freed them

From the twin tyrants 

Of complexity and control.

He puts around on his little bike,

Little wheels, a tiny trike 

For a great big man.

And he sports some shorts and baseball cap.

From his shoulder hangs a fanny pack.

And from his mouth a cigarette

Hangs down from the straight line

Of a mouth set in the sternest of faces.

Round and round the parking lot, he rides.

And I laugh, but he doesn’t see me.