(Sorry for the lengthy post but the following speech from my going-away party provides a good introduction to my upcoming travels and seems an appropriate way to begin this blog)
Preface: At the risk of being too romantic, too prideful, too detailed, too ambiguous, and too many other things, I have prepared a speech. The poet, Wendell Berry, explains that contrariness or his path towards holiness by doing the unexpected, "is not the only or the easiest way to come to truth. It is one way." Likewise, the following words are not the only way to explain and describe my trip and its purpose, but they are one way.
A Manifesto for a New Season: Towards Exploration and Intentional Community
In a recent homily, Pope Francis reminded his audience to not be afraid, to not fear, for as he noted, “Fear is not a Christian attitude.” Yes, in one sense fear is good: it warns us of potential dangers and therefore secures our wellbeing. But at the same time, fear is often insidious: it alters our conception of reality, making us think that evil has the last word--a mindset that is deeply un-Christian. As Christians, we know that love has the last word because God, who is good, is the author of history. Like Paul notes, “God makes everything work for the good of those who love him.” Perhaps the worst form of fear is the one that seems not to exist at all, the “quiet despair” which Thoreau says plagues most of humanity; it is the fear that keeps us from doing what we ought to because doing so make us uncomfortable; it is the gradual descent into hell we do not know we are taking until too late. Our fallen disposition bends us towards fear, towards misunderstanding God’s reality, accepting our own, and especially this quiet despair. I don’t want to be afraid.
I want to live a life in God’s reality. I want to live a life characterized by trust, hope, faith, love, courage, peace, joy: all things that God invites us into. I want to dream, to search myself, to know myself, to know who God created me to be and to discover the unique passions and desires he has instilled in me. I want to say “yes” to life, to live it to the fullest; this seems God’s desire too.
Jesus approached his early disciples and instructed them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The disciples did as Jesus said, dropping their things to follow him, and he extends the same invitation to us today: “Come, follow me.” Like the disciples, we must drop everything to follow Christ; this is costly, a call to complete surrender. Perhaps the call to follow Christ means picking up the things we have dropped, like the fisherman picking up his net again to cast into the sea, or perhaps this means following the Lord elsewhere, to a foreign land, to a place where he will show us. I want to embrace this costly discipleship.
As a result, I feel compelled to travel, to learn, to meet others who are moving in the same direction, and to be open to whatever place I may end up. I am drawn to living in solidarity with the poor, to practicing the works of mercy, these really tangible ways of providing for the least of these, to living in community, to writing, to political activism, and towards further spiritual cultivation. The form these desires seem to be taking me (though discipleship certainly requires an openness towards the unexpected) is towards living for an undetermined amount of time, at least a year, with the Catholic Worker community in Los Angeles, in addition to a road trip that will take me out west.
The Catholic Worker community in LA (the LACW) is a multi-ministry operation, inspired by the example of its namesake, the Catholic Worker. The community runs a house of hospitality, a house which is characterized by community living or many people living in the same building, and hospitality ministry, providing room and board for people in need. In addition, the community runs a soup kitchen in downtown LA, a city with a large impoverished and homeless population, serves food elsewhere throughout the week, is politically active, supporting a long running peace campaign featuring routine public demonstrations, produces a bimonthly newspaper that attempts to rouse the conscious of its subscribers towards Christ’s call for social justice in today’s context, and various other ministries the community members personally pursue. The community’s organization and work is inspired by the Catholic Worker movement, a cohesive mode of thought articulated in the early twentieth century by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin which attempts to synthesize Christian teaching and social justice in a modern context.
I feel compelled to join this ministry because it seems to embody the lifestyle and work I feel called to and seems a door God has opened and is inviting me to walk through. The community’s focus on homeless ministry, intentional community, political activism, the works of mercy, and publication all are areas of deep interest for me. Additionally, through reading the writings of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, I have come to love and deeply appreciate the vision and ideas driving the Catholic Worker movement. Further, God seems to have opened the door for my participation with the community. I randomly stumbled into the LACW a few summers back with a friend on a road trip and was impressed by what I saw. Since then, further exposure to the movement and involvement with the community has allowed me to see more precisely the work they do. Lastly, a need exists for young blood to take responsibility for the community’s future. I do not know where I will be in a year or what exactly God is calling me to, but I want to be a person of commitment and responsibility and want to do this for the LACW in the way I can and ought. I do not know what this means or how it will look, but the door to further responsibility seems open, a door that seems directly in line with the direction my life is headed, and I am compelled to walk through.
The analogy of God opening doors and inviting us to walk through seems similar to Dorothy Day’s understanding of how the Catholic Worker movement came about. She writes in the post-script to her autobiography as she summarizes her experience: “It all happened while we were sitting there, it was as natural as that, it just happened.” The naturalness of following our vocation, if we can call the idea Dorothy and I are articulating that, seems present in my situation with the LACW and so I head in this direction.
Perhaps, in a similar way, my more immediate plan to go on a road trip has come about. For a while now, at least since graduating high school, I have been deeply inspired by the stories of people who decide to drop everything and search for truth. The genre seems a mash of costly discipleship and the coming of age tale. Like the authors or the subjects of these stories, I find myself searching for the essentials of life and desire to give up everything to do this. As I have read these stories, common themes seem to exist: movement in some form, though not necessarily in location, is always demanded by the search for truth, a battle with one’s fears is required, and a heart tender towards the providence of God and the goodness of others illuminates the path. In recent decades, the road has provided the orienting terrain for these explorers.
The reason the road provides the scene for truth seeking is somewhat a mystery to me. Perhaps the endlessness of the highways and the infinite interconnections and paths that could be traveled provide an analogous experience to the unending questions that define humanity’s existence on earth, allowing one’s body to roam like one’s thoughts. Perhaps the detachment demanded, the required light-footedness for speed and flexibility removes the accumulated dirt from the glasses of life and permits us to see anew the wonderful world God has created. Perhaps the newness of everything just shocks us back to life. Whatever the reason, my recent role models who have dropped everything to find truth, who have also demonstrated how the disciple must give up everything to follow Christ, have taken to the road, and like the early monastics who followed St. Antony into the desert, I desire to follow these seekers into the asphalt wilderness of America.
I desire to find truth, and more comprehensively Christ himself, and many other factors too draw me to the road. I want to live simply, to meet the grassroots Americans that actually create America, to trust God, to trust others, to let myself love and be loved, to see my country, to learn from other practitioners the ways of Christian intentional community, to discover the desires of my heart, and to not let fear get the best of me. All of these desires seem to support my draw to the road.
Additionally, the opportunity to pursue a road trip seems like another door opened. I do not really have obligations to attend to elsewhere, financial concerns are met, my desires to explore persist, and the need to travel west as a result of my commitment to the LACW exists. Thus, the time seems ripe to embark on my travels.
Through much thought and prayer, I have designed the trip based on desires and practical details. I plan on spending about four or five months crossing the nation, visiting a number of intentional communities, friends, and saints along the way, and doing it all by hitchhiking. Spending time with intentional communities will help provide practical necessities, like companionship, food, shelter, and hygiene wants, but also will give me the opportunity to meet some really cool people, learn from other practitioners the ways of intentional community living, and participate in meaningful work. Catching up with friends and spending time with people I consider living saints, or at least honorable mentors, will also be very nice and hopefully enlightening.
Hitchhiking is the characteristic of the trip that is most provocative, perhaps most unnerving, but to me the most essential. As the likes of Chris McCandless, Jack Kerouac, and others have illustrated, hitchhiking is a way of accomplishing most of my desires for travel: it allows one to meet the everyday Americans, to see the country, to trust others, to trust God, to love and be loved. Other modes of transportation too may allow these desires to be met, or at least some further tweaking of plans could allow these things to happen, yet hitchhiking seems the most effective way to do these things and so I desire to travel in this way.
The obvious concern is risk. Hitchhiking seems a risky mode of transportation, namely concerning safety, and so doing so appears unwise. Denying the risk of hitchhiking seems ignorant. Obviously, there is some risk involved, as there is any activity. Therefore, the question that ought to be considered is whether the risk involved is worth taking. In answering this question, some analysis of the actual risk involved needs to occur. Citing my findings from research here seems out of place, but in short, I believe the risk is worth taking. I will be sure to take precautions to ensure my safety throughout the trip and therefore minimize the potential risk, though surely it will always be present. Again, through research, I feel the risk involved with hitchhiking is worth taking and so will pursue this mode of transportation as a means of crossing the country.
Another characteristic of the trip I am considering, and seemingly likely to pursue, is taking minimal to no money of my own. Living simply, living on faith, and trusting the providence of God and others are again important factors in my decision making process. Having no money would require me to work for my subsistence along the way or rely on the charity of others to provide for my needs. Working for my needs is vitally important, as Paul explicitly notes, but accepting charity is also a virtue, one that is often resisted in our culture today. I have often given charity, providing many poor folks in the city of Philadelphia with food, but rarely have I been on the receiving end of this kind of charity. Begging, the asking for and the reception of gifts, was a spiritual discipline of many great saints. Many stories are told, for example, of Saint Francis of Assisi and his companions who traveled around Italy and begged for their subsistence. Begging remains a spiritual discipline for many religious groups and I desire to learn firsthand the benefits and challenges of this practice.
I have been preparing for the start of my trip and am nearly ready to embark. Plans are arranged, routes are in order, friends and others have been contacted: in short, I will soon be leaving and feel as prepared as I can be for the journey ahead.
Though I am leaving Lancaster for a time, a place that will always be home in a way, know that I am not running away, not fleeing from problems or difficult relationships here; rather, know that I am trying to hear God’s voice and obey. I believe that putting down roots and cultivating the soil of community for a long-term basis is critically important towards building the kingdom of God and I desire to do this, yet I also feel compelled to head west. Perhaps traveling is just characteristic of this season of life I am in and perhaps soon I’ll settle down somewhere, or perhaps not. Whatever the case, I want do whatever will allow me to follow the Lord best. Just know that I value all of my relationships in Lancaster deeply and want to continue tending to them in the best way possible.
What lies before me is great adventure and great mystery. Much goodness and challenge is surely in store. I plan on keeping a blog throughout my road trip so this is one way in which you can track my travels. Pray for me and for the road ahead. Pray for wisdom, safety, softheartedness, peace, joy, love, an open mind, open hands, and whatever else seems needed. Thanks for listening and for your love. May we all meet again soon. Till then, may we each journey down the road God has arranged for us, walking through the doors he has opened, hearing his voice and obeying, dropping everything in order to follow, for doing this will surely be what makes all the difference.
