So what did I actually learn from my eighty-day journey across the Midwest and Appalachia?
I learned how much I flourish spiritually, being outdoors in the natural world all day, day after day. My spirit became as open as the sky, neither bounded nor divided from horizon to horizon. And as my spirit opened, so did the eyes of my spirit. I cherish the memory of standing outdoors in the Ohio rain, getting soaked to the skin, yet as comfortable in spirit as if I were in a snug house sheltered from the storm!
I learned, however, how inhospitable we humans have made the land we live on with our boundaries and divisions and with our “development” of it. I had no idea that it had become so hostile to the traveler without money, until I gave it a try. I think I now understand yet another reason why Christ taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come on Earth as in Heaven” — we need the same undividedness and undevelopedness in both places!
I learned that many, many Friends still remember the old practices of traveling ministry — how we care for those that visit, how we hold them in the discipline that keeps them orderly and obedient to Gospel, and how we gather to learn from them and teach them. You don’t see nearly as much of this when you simply see the occasional visiting Friend coming to your town, as you do when you yourself are the traveler. This was a deeply moving experience for me, and I now think it may well be the principal avenue through which the ancient spiritual vitality of our Society can be restored — if anyone is led, and willing, to give it a try.
I learned, to my deep grief and sorrow, how difficult it is for Friends — even Friends! — to understand the issues in the environmental arena. I wrote in my blog, and spoke at Baltimore Yearly Meeting, a good deal about this. For instance, I wrote and spoke of the fact that no one in our entire Society ever spoke to me, in the whole course of my journey, about how critical and urgent it is, for the sake of the future of our planet, that we act immediately to preserve endangered species and what remains of our world’s intact wild ecosystems. And again, I wrote and spoke about how many of us spoke in our called meetings for discernment as if obsessed with recycling — though recycling is actually a very minor issue in comparison. Yet even after my return home, many of the Friends I’ve talked with about such matters, continue to speak to me in the same manner: tightly focused on recycling, showing no interest in species and ecosystems. This was really the most painful part of the whole venture for me.
I learned that even the barest hint of a good example can have power, if it appears where people are receptive. Due to my age and my deteriorating body, I was unable to set more than the barest hint of a good example in conserving fossil fuel on the way to Baltimore Yearly Meeting. But many people were quite moved by that aspect of what I did, or tried to do. I also set only a barely acceptable example of the traditional sainted Friend traveling in the ministry. But so many people were affected by the fact that I tried!
I learned afresh how wonderful it is when God yanks me out of my safe familiar ruts and gives me an assignment. God laid His hand on my mouth, so that I could not speak in answer to Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s invitation; He then pointed His hand across the country, and said, If you walk this journey, I will give you what you need: words far better than your own. And He kept His promise. It was amazing, purely amazing, to go through that experience.
I learned that obedience to the inward Guide is all. There were so many matters in regard to which I proved unable to follow through on my original expectations for the journey. When my plans fell through, I had the choice between giving up, trying to do the suicidal, or waiting humbly on the Spirit of Christ and doing whatever it directed, no matter how much it cost me in the eyes of observers. I chose the latter course; indeed, I learned to pray to be kept in obedience, and I never had cause to regret this.
I learned my own age, and the nature of age. I understand now, with a vividness that had never come home to me previously, that at fifty-seven my body really is falling apart at an accelerating pace, with losses I can now observe from one year to the next. In the course of my walk, I had to begin taking medication for high blood pressure for the first time; I’ve now been home for two months and yet my ankles, damaged on the walk, still trouble me at times. My relationship to everything has been altered by my new perspective: I understand that it must slip away from me, that there is nothing that I can do about that but take William Blake’s advice and “kiss the joy as it flies”.
I learned what home is, or at least what home is for me. When I left the house in which I live, I thought that house was home. In the course of the walk, I found that wherever God has work for me to do, that is home for me; I need no other. I am grateful to be back in Omaha with my wife and cats, but my gratitude is for their wonderful company, and not for returning to the small place that I keep my belongings in.
I learned that recording lessons like this, lessons acquired from real-life experience, is of tremendous benefit to my own growth in wisdom and spiritual life. I had misunderstood journaling as an attempt to keep the past at hand; I have now learned that it is actually a way of working through the lessons of the present while they are still present. I am a convert to journaling as a result of this experience!
QUOTE:
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingéd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.— William Blake, “Eternity”, Verses and Fragments from the Rossetti and Pickering Manuscripts, First Series (1793 - 1799)
A loving farewell, then, to all that I have seen and been through! Lord, what have You planned for me next?
