A Psalm of Life

Here's a poem I encountered on a barefoot run to a thrift store yesterday morning.

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I want to write about a couple of good days and and the blowing winds of change.

On the 27th day of February I woke from a string of awful dreams. They were all about me feeling small, weak, and inadequate next to just about everyone in the world: pretty girls, family, friends, young men, old men. I went to church and cried through most of the service while Rachel Epp-Miller offered a beautiful sermon on the church's duty to welcome and invite people of all sexual orientations. I could feel so much poison in me, I could see it so clearly in many of my family members, and I could feel some small portion of it leaving me with my tears. Another step toward wholeness.

During the service I also felt convicted about returning to Indiana to fight a great war. It will be a war for my soul, and I know that I will lose many of the battles, but I am also confident that I'm not going to give up. That may be the most important lesson I've learned in my last two months of traveling: that I may make compromises and I will continue to make lots of mistakes, but I will keep struggling to be a better person and to be more loving and honest. I'm going to co-create a garden in Elkhart.

Another concern I had leading up to this Sunday service was the potluck that always follows church on the last Sunday of the month. Lately I've been deaf to the needs and signals of my body. At potlucks I eat piles of rich, sugary, fatty foods until I feel emotionally and physically awful, and I was sure that this one would be no different. I considered leaving church before the potluck began or even fasting all day on Sunday, but I didn't have to. After having a good long cry during the service, all I wanted was lots and lots of salad. I ate such healthy foods and enjoyed wonderful conversation with friends at the church. I felt stable.

That afternoon, during a rousing game of Settlers with friends from church, I happened to look out the window to see Hannah Eash in the backyard, sitting on a sunny picnic table, playing her guitar, and singing while her dog Milo stood attentively at her feet. I was stirred with attraction and appreciation for her beauty and music and the whole joyful day. When I got home that evening I had to do something with all the energy that was bubbling up inside me, so I went out for a barefoot run. Somehow I got completely turned around and ended up on a much longer run than I had intended. It felt great to get lost and explore a new part of the neighborhood and it led me to some interesting places. I got home to see that my best friend, Marilyn Reish, had called and we ended up talking for nearly 100 minutes about her awful day and my great one. It was a perfect end to a great day.

The next day was pretty boring so I won't write about it. But the day after was noteworthy. So here's the note: It began with the usual green smoothie, after which I biked the six miles down to work odd jobs with my eccentric boss. He had very little for me to do until an hour later when we drove all the way back to my neighborhood to begin a bathroom remodeling project. After a fairly easy day he took me out for the most delicious Bubble Tea I've ever had. When work was done, I decided to bike up to the Witte Museum, which has free admission on Tuesdays. At the door to the museum I realized I had forgotten my lock at the workshop on the other side of the city. The museum superintendent said he had nowhere safe for me to put my bike, so I turned in resignation to bike home. A woman who had overheard the conversation stopped me and said that I could keep it in her car while we walked around the museum. And that's how I met Karen Marsh.

She and I walked around the museum together, playing with the interactive exhibits, looking at stuffed animals, and talking about life. Afterward she treated me to a delicious meal of Vietnamese food and then drove me home. My fortune cookie said, "You desire to discover new frontiers. It's time to travel." Word!

Yesterday I got an email from David Young in New Orleans. He invited me to help him work on his garden there before driving back to Indiana together in mid-March. It feels like a good option. I also found a craigslist ride leaving San Antonio in two days to head to Mardis Gras. I think that's where I'm headed, but I'll have to wait to confirm the ride.

I'm going to enjoy my last couple days in Texas and I'm looking forward to heading back to springtime in Indiana. In other news, I got a call from Gould Farm inviting me out to spend a year as a volunteer there. After looking at my resume, they said that I'm at the top of their volunteer list. I like that.

Meme Dreams

While riding a bicycle to my current San Antonio residence last week, I saw my name etched in the sidewalk. "Nick," it said. I smiled. Then, ten feet later, I saw it again, but with the addition of the last initial "L." Always looking for signs and meaning in the world around me, I stopped, looked left and saw a building with a large sign that said, "Eckankar: Religion of the Light and Sound of God." I went to investigate, took a free pamphlet from outside the door, and decided to visit the next day. I didn't find the religious philosophy very compelling, but I did like it's emphasis on dreams. I resolved to pay extra special attention to my dreams that evening with the hope of discovering something new about myself or receiving some communications from beyond this earthly realm.

My nights have been full of dreams lately and the pages of my journal reflect crocodiles, sunken ships, adventures, and mysteries that I unconsciously encounter each night. I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down something that I didn't understand at all. "How many femes are needed for manhood?" I thought that was the question posed to me by an unknown entity in the dream, but I wasn't sure about that word "femes. The first letter could have been an 'm' a 't' or something else. When I went to the Eck center the next day, I was greeted by Henry, an old devotee of the religion who gave me a cup of tea, lots of space, and free reign over the library. Before I left I asked him if the word memes was part of his religion. He said he'd never heard of it, but that often he will find that the meaning of mysterious dreams will become clear within a few days. He sent me off with more literature on Eckankar and never put any pressure on me to join his religion.

I forgot about the femes in the midst of my wanderings around San Antonio. Thomas Merton's book "Seven Story Mountain," has had me questioning the worth of protestantism as he argues so convincingly that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. I've also been regularly attending Sunday School and Worship at the San Antonio Mennonite Church. There I've been contemplating questions of intimacy, sexuality, and relationships with friends and members of the congregation. I've been wondering about the place of individuals within community, what kind of community I want to be part of, and whether any community will encourage my growth in love and truth like the Divine Love community in Australia. So, I've got four distinct faith paths vying for my attention at this point: Catholicism, Anabaptist Protestantism, Eckankar, and the Divine Love Path. Then I met Oscar Alvarado.

I was meandering around on my bicycle last Saturday, enjoying the beautiful weather, when I saw a striking mosaic sculpture in a front yard where a man and woman were talking. I stopped to say hello and inquire about the art piece, and within a couple minutes the artist, Oscar, asked if I wanted a job. He is starting an online business selling 3-speed vintage bicycles and needs someone to help clean up and repair the bikes. "Cool, let's go." So, I had a job for the afternoon. I worked a couple hours and made a little money while Oscar told me about his life as an artist, a building contractor, and an atheist. He argue convincingly for atheism and it didn't take long before I felt his words working their way into my mind and thoughts.

That evening a friend placed a TED video in front of my and I watched a woman talk about the importance of thanking others in the ways they need to be thanked. It wasn't very convincing, but then the mystery came full circle. I watched this video of Susan Blackmore explaining "memes" and her idea of "temes." http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html

Here's what Wikipedia says about memes: "memes identify ideas or beliefs that are transmitted from one person or group of people to another. The concept comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit ideas and belief information.A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures."

In her book The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes." (Wikipedia).

All the religions and ideas that have found their ways into my mind can be thought of as things that want to be replicated. Regardless of whether or not the individuals within the religion want to spread it, the very existence of the religion as a concept is what seeks replication. It's unclear why some memes take such a prominent place in our society-suits and ties for instance- and why others die out-- like Beanie Babies. I'm also left wondering about how much choice I have in deciding which memes will be replicated in my life. Will I spread the teachings of one of these various religions or choose to believe in a purely scientific view of the world? For today, the only meme I'm spreading is the meme itself.

And just to offer some balance to this meme machine, here's Wikipedia's note on the uncertainty surrounding the concept: In his chapter titled "Truth" published in the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, Dieter Lohmar questions the memeticists' reduction of the highly complex body of ideas (such as religion, politics, war, justice, and science itself) to a putatively one-dimensional series of memes. He sees memes as an abstraction and such a reduction as failing to produce greater understanding of those ideas. The highly interconnected, multi-layering of ideas resists memetic simplification to an atomic or molecular form; as does the fact that each of our lives remains fully enmeshed and involved in such "memes". Lohmar argues that one cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can detect genes. The leveling-off of all such interesting "memes" down to some neutralized molecular "substance" such as "meme-substance" introduces a bias toward scientism and abandons the very essence of what makes ideas interesting, richly available, and worth studying.^[24]
In other news, I'm planning to stick around San Antonio for about another month. I should be making my way to Indiana by early April, just in time for some warm weather and garden planting.

Community & Fitting In

I've been in San Antonio, TX now for nearly three weeks and my plan is to stick around for another week or so. My hosts and friends here have shown me a degree of hospitality that gives new meaning to the word. My experiences here have been closely connected with Christians in both the Mennonite and Catholic faiths and I've attended services with both congregations. While I feel much more at home with the Mennonites, I'm so glad to have experienced the ACTS Catholic Mens' Retreat last weekend.

I had a hard time connecting to some of the Catholic ritual and tradition. The reciting of the Our Father and Hail Mary prayers, for example, stirred no deep, spiritual feelings in me. The experience of Confession, one of the seven Holy Sacraments, was very powerful for me. I was able to share some heavy burdens with a wonderful priest who helped me achieve a greater degree of forgiveness and self-acceptance than I imagined was possible. The men I met opened up to one another and became vulnerable in a very real and beautiful way. I was honored to witness and experience small pieces of their lives as they shared their stories and struggles. I also found them to be extremely supportive of my spiritual journey.

After returning to the home of Paul and Katherine Hess, my generous hosts who invited me to participate in the ACTS retreat, I received an invitation from Hannah Eash and her community in SE San Antonio to spend some time living with them. I took them up on the offer and the experience has been outstanding. The Mennonite Church they attend just finished a three week series of sermons, discussions, and intentional prayer time based on Henri Nouwen's book, "Reaching Out." I flew through the book in order to take part in some of the discussions and learn what Nouwen had to say about the three movements of the spiritual life: from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, and from illusion to prayer. These are all ideas that I've spent much time contemplating and Nouwen's reflections offered me much more focused and refined food for thought. I want to look at the latter two movements.

First, moving from hostility to hospitality is something that I am currently experiencing in the "Vine House" community that has been hosting me for the last week. Nouwen's call is for community to be a place that invites in a stranger, not to be changed by or to conform to the way of the community, but to have space to find a more authentic way of being. That is exactly what I've found here. This colorful, comfortable house has been opened up to me as the three residents, Phillip, Hannah, and Michelle all go to work during the day. I am free to come and go as I please, to take part in meals or not, to be engaged or not. However, I also feel very welcomed and wanted here and there is a profound level of mutual respect and care for and between everyone in the community.

Now I'm comparing this new sense of community with some of the teachings I learned in Australia on the Divine Love Path. I just read a new blog by Mary, one of the teachers of Divine Love, all about our need to fit in and how this aching feeling pushes and pulls us all over as we seek to find "our place" and "our people." These are terms I've used often in the last few weeks as I try to explain to people what it is that I'm looking for. I want to find my place. And what does that mean? I want to fit in. And what does that mean? I don't want to feel the painful emotion of not belonging. I feel queasy as I write this because I really don't know what to do with these emotions. In the last few days I've been feeling more confident about eventually returning to Indiana, working on a community garden project, and then going out to Gould Farm to do some work. But when I spend some time reading and listening to Divine Love teachings, I realize just how deeply my motivations come from fear. The fear of not being accepted by friends and family. The fear of not belonging to a place. The fear of not having enough food or money or safety or support. The fear of feeling my emotions.

Nouwen points to God and the movement from illusion to prayer. I hold on to some hope that I can be part of normal society, maybe be part of the Mennonite Church and carve out a little life for myself somewhere like San Antonio. But God is not really at the center of these plans and desires. I say that I want to know my God and experience her love, and yet my actions prove otherwise. I have been using cookies and other foods to numb out the painful feelings and I have such minimal desires to really examine myself, my motivations, and my true emotions. I am doing better today and I want to move forward with stronger, purer intentions to rely on my Divine Mother's Love instead for comfort and healing. Nouwen suggests that prayer is something that cannot be separated from community life; that in order to move from illusion to prayer we must engage in this Divine Communion privately and always within the context of a supportive, prayerful community. I love this idea and it makes some sense to me. It doesn't necessarily contradict the Divine Love teachings either.

My future plans are to move to the home of Lisa and Clinton on Wednesday and to stay there for at least another week. I don't have any definite plans for the future, but I would still like to see the Grand Canyon and possibly visit some other friends and folks in Colorado. I have some fear about going west and out into the cold desert. Is my sleeping bag warm enough? Will I have enough food and water? These will be good tests of my faith and I pray that I continue to walk with God. I'll end with this Hesychast Prayer that Nouwen suggests, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me." Although the language is not something I'm accustomed to, I have found it powerful and humbling.

Divine Signs? Changing Plans.

With a heart that is both light and surrendered, I have decided not to go to Mexico. This decision has been difficult and painful to make, but I feel confident that it was the right choice. I have been in San Antonio now for nearly one week and it's been full of gifts and lessons that I'm determined to accept.

On the night I wrote my last post, I was invited to the home of some young Mennonite folks who were playing a board game. There I met a handful of wonderful, energetic, and authentic people who welcomed me in, fed me delicious popcorn made with an air-popper, and taught me to play a fun strategy board game. I also met Hannah Eash, a woman with who I share much in common. She grew up just down the street from my grandmother and about 3 miles from my own childhood home. She and I rode the same bus together to elementary school and her family once purchased a horse from mine. She and I both graduated from college in 2007 with degrees in Peace Studies and Spanish (she went to Goshen) and she studied for a semester in Quito, Ecuador where I did my study abroad. The final great coincidence appeared as I was talking to her at the San Antonio Mennonite Church potluck and noticed something peculiar about her jewelry. "You're not going to believe this," I said, "but my mom made your earrings."

That morning I also attended Sunday School and enjoyed a great conversation about the difference between and transition from "Loneliness to Solitude" from Henri Nouwen's book "'Reaching Out." I had a lot to say and afterward I enjoyed talking with Lisa and Clinton Graham, a young couple who recently moved to Texas from Kentucky. Lisa said that they had an empty, efficiency apartment behind their house that I would be welcome to stay in if I ever wanted to. I had just been listening to a Divine Love teaching on being open to the gifts God is offering us, and I couldn't very well ignore this one. I took them up on it.

Between the transition from Jim's to the Grahams' home on a Tuesday afternoon, I spent some time at the Catholic Worker House where Jim, my host, met Marilyn, my college roommate, 8 years ago and where Dorothy Day's granddaughter, Martha, gave a talk on MLK day. I was inspired by Day's commitment to the poor, to living a life of service and simplicity, and her belief in Holy Anarchism. Although one of her first political acts was to fight for womens' suffrage in Washington DC, an action for which she was arrested, humiliated, and abused, she never once voted in an election. I was challenged by some of the guests at the CWH and felt simultaneous desires to run away from and ignore their suffering and to move toward them, to live with them and try to understand their suffering in order to know greater depths of love. Between the volunteers and the guests I noticed a division that is probably inevitable: there are the givers and the takers, those in need and those who feel abundant. I still don't can't be sure on which side of that line I fall. As a dumpster diver, an eater in soup kitchens, one who prefers to stay out of hotels and restaurants, I gather my sense of abundance from what is given freely. Are these gifts from God I'm collecting? The pecans I gathered from beneath a tree yesterday surely felt like Divine Providence. I suppose I am both. I am broken and in need of healing, but I also have some ability and desire to offer strength, refuge, and help to others. I'm not good at it. But I want to know this generous side of love. During Martha's talk at the CWH I met Katherine Hess. She respected that I had studied peace and that I was on a spiritual journey, and she also invited me to stay in her home, about 15 miles north of San Antonio.

I decided to stay with the Grahams for a day while I tried to make a decision about Mexico. I wandered around the Alamo and, in addition to taking in some history, I met two men who were to be my next sign. The first was a professional photographer who approached me because I was carrying my big pack and taking a photo of the Alamo. He was kind, respectable, and curious about my travels. His advice was to stay away from Mexico and to go to the most beautiful place in the USA: Havasu Falls, AZ. I thanked him for his advice, although I wasn't convinced. I hopped on the bus and there I met a man who was a professional chef, also very friendly and interested in my travels. Without knowing anything about my conversation 15 minutes earlier, he said, "Stay out of Mexico. You ought to go to this place near the Grand Canyon called Havasu Falls. It changed my life." OK. I'm listening.

Because Lisa and Clinton had already promised the apartment to Clinton's parents for this week, I was only able to stay with them for a day. Fortunately, Katherine Hess from the CWH said that I could stay with her and her family for a few days. I spent yesterday wandering around San Antonio's beautiful, winding River Walk and listened to a guided tour of the Alamo's history. I have more respect for Texas now and I'm glad to be a bit more informed about the state's rich and colorful history. I'd also like to learn more about David Crockett, a national hero and volunteer at the unfortunate battle of the Alamo. I remember watching a black and white tv series about him as a child, and that I had a coon-skin cap I loved to wear.

As I walked to meet Paul Hess at a bus stop near downtown, I saw a long-distance Mexican bus company with destinations all over Mexico and the US. My heart jumped. I realized that I could make the decision right then and there to hop on a $95 bus to Guadalajara and still make the gathering in Mexico. I asked the clerk about prices and times and then sat there in the terminal for a long time, thinking, writing, and seeking clarity. Finally, I knew that it would be better to stay in Texas. I want to get to know Hannah and folks from the Mennonite Church and the CWH and I have a feeling that San Antonio has much to teach me. Also, cilantro is really cheap here and the ground is littered with pecans in some places. I'm enjoying the sunshine too.

I looked forward to the gathering in Mexico as a time for intense spiritual reflection and development and missing that was one of my regrets in choosing not to go. However, I've been reading Thomas Merton's Autobiography, "Seven Story Mountain" and gaining a whole new respect for the Catholic Church and Christianity. The Hess's are a liberal Catholic family and I've enjoyed getting to know them through their stories of family and faith. Last night they invited me to a three day Catholic mens' retreat that begins this evening and ends with a Mass on Sunday. I'm excited to learn more about Catholic Faith as I spend these days focusing on God and exploring my spirituality. In addition to inviting me to the retreat, they offered me a scholarship to waive the $150 registration fee. I feel blessed.

Wandering South Again

On the 26th anniversary of my birth I set out for Paoli, Indiana as a passenger in my younger brother

Andrew's car, along with his girlfriend, Jackie and his dog Greta. He took me to the home of my Aunt Becky, Uncle Bill, and cousins Kyle, Lily, and Erin, and family pets Peaches the dog and Chumly the cat in southern Indiana. I stayed there for a couple days before continuing my journey down toward New Orleans. I feel such a strong connection to their family and I want to return to Paoli's hills and simple, quiet lifestyle, but not quite yet.When David Young drove down from North Manchester to pick me up, he let me know that our route didn't have to

be direct to New Orleans and that I could make suggestions for any place I'd like to stop along the way. I knew right away that I wanted to go to Gethsemani, the monasetery in Trappist, Kentucky where Thomas Merton spent much of his life. Merton, a Catholic Trappist monk, is one of my favorite writers and although we arrived just after dark, I was humbled and awed by the massive, simple sanctuary, the robed monks, and the deep silence of a place created solely for humans to connect more intimately with the Divine. As David and I sat in the back of of the long sanctuary with towering, vaulted ceilings, a single hooded monk walked slowly into view near the alter, knelt in reverence, and began walking slowly toward us. I began to cry and my quiet sobs echoed and mingled with the organ music he practiced a song, apparently just for us. As we walked back out into the chilly night, I noticed that all visitors had to walk through a small graveyard that serves not only as the entrance to the monastery, but as a stark reminder of our true nature and fate. Death is the destiny of these fleshy vessels. May I remember that and maintain my focus on what is eternal.

I took over driving and after a couple hundred miles I had to work hard to ignore a very distressing sound. When I could no longer ignore the sound and I saw smoke rolling out from behind the explorer, I decided to pull over. The left tire of the utility trailer we were pulling had long ago disappeared and I had ground the rim down almost all the way to the hub. Fortunately, we were very close to an exit, so we drove to the nearest gas station at around 10:30 at night. Even more fortunate for us, there was a mechanic open right there and he fixed us up with a spare tire in under 30 minutes. About 15 miles down the road, our good fortune gave way along with the new tire and David had to drive on the rim to the next gas station where we would stay for the night. The next morning we got back on the road and the rest of the trip to New Orleans was pleasantly uneventful.

I had considered the Big Easy as a place where I might spend a few months or more working, volunteering, or soul searching. I did some of those things while I was there, but I didn't feel a strong connection to the place. It's a fascinating, colorful city full of history and life. There is still a lot of wreckage from the hurricane and neighborhoods that were once bustling centers of activity are now full of vacant lots that are grown up to jungle height and density with weeds and trees. New Orleans is a watery, wet place with lots of rain and rivers and canals running everywhere. In the two weeks I spent there I did see some nice weather, but winter is clearly not the best time to visit. I spent some time volunteering to hang drywall and do some mudding at a housing project in St. Bernard Parish, just outside the city of New Orleans. I enjoyed parts of the work and wouldn't mind doing more of it, but I knew that I was being called to something else.

In moments of clarity, humility, and connection to God, I felt that Mexico was calling me. I felt a desire to go and teach both English and Spanish mixed with some of the Divine Truth I have learned in the last year. I want to be a force for good in the world and I know that I love to teach language. I'm sure that I can combine these things and I think that Sayulita might be a good place to try it out. I decided that I would try to make it to the 7777 Ajna gathering near Tepic, Nayarit on the 23rd of January, and I began to look for rides to Texas.

I caught a Craigslist ride to Austin with Jessie, a woman from Maine who is an activist, cheesemaker, farmer, and who slaughters of own animals for meat and is learning to use horses for logging. We also picked up Bo Champagne, a man from Baton Rouge who is a renowned racquetball player and coach. Bo was going to Austin to see one of his ex-students and there I was invited to stay in the very comfortable home of a man who is a lobbyist for the tobacco companies. He used to be a gun lobbyist for the NRA, but tobacco companies pay better. It was interesting to hear his perspective on the work he does and his belief is that he is defending freedom. He admits that he's defending the peoples' freedom to make a very stupid decision, but it is freedom nonetheless. I really can't disagree, although I would find the work pretty distasteful.

Yesterday I walked around Austin with my backpack and without much of a plan, except that I might either go watch a racquetball tournament where Bo would be a referee or that I might start hitching down to San Antonio. I was walking along singing "Streets of Laredo" when I ran into a guy walking around and playing his guitar and singing. Together we sang that old favorite country standard as he read the chords off his i-phone, and a homeless man sat down next to us as we finished the song. The guitar player and I listened to his sad story as I took in the image of this man with awful red sores on his face, snot perpetually running down his long mustache and over to his dirty beard. I stayed and listened long after the guitar player walked away, and I began to cry as I asked Andy if I could pray with him. He said yes, and after I finished the prayer my tears poured out on the sidewalk. Why is the world so cruel? Why can't Andy stop drinking and get his life together? Why do I have so much privilege? Why am I so afraid of suffering? I sat and cried alone on 6th street for awhile after Andy walked away.

Eventually I made my way to the Interstate 35 overpass with a handmade sign for San Antonio and stuck out my thumb. I only had to wait about 20 minutes before an F350 stopped long enough for me to run up, throw my pack in the bed, and climb in. I had a great 2 hour conversation with three Mexican guys, all illegal immigrants, and all happy that I spoke Spanish. Our talk ranged from family to the injustice and unfairness of world history and my white American privilege to a fun and engaging lesson in English language that reminded me how much I love to teach. After a quick fix of a leaky roof in a San Antonio suburb, they dropped me off at the home of Jim Grossnickle-Batterton, from where I'm currently blogging.

Jim is a friend of my best friend Marilyn and he and I are both quiet spiritual seekers. He's 10 years older than me and has a composed, calm, self-assured nature that I hope to achieve in my life. I'll probably stay here until Monday or Tuesday and then I'm headed down to cross the border at Laredo.

Some of my persistent, nagging thoughts of late are about the right and wrong of leaving Elkhart when I did. I felt so overwhelmed there and I wonder if I'm just running away from my problems, or if I really needed to get out of there to continue soul searching and getting to know myself. I do feel a lot lighter now that I'm back on the road. My diet has improved and moved closer to being all raw and I'm excited to get into a climate with a greater abundance of tropical fruits. Papaya! I also wonder about the Divine Love Path and the experiences I had in Australia. To what and to whom is my allegiance? I'd like to say that it is to God, but I'm not writing this for God. I'm writing it for me and for you. I think about whether to return to Indiana and finish the garden project I started, or to move toward something that feels better for me. I'm not too worried at the moment. I've got a warm place to stay, food to eat, and a destination in mind.

Recently my grandfather, Jim Simons, rode his Harley Davidson to Laredo, Texas simply because he loves this song. As a lover of the song, I'm excited and honored that I'll be walking those streets and singing it very soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSzfWLlvlAE

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.
As I walked out on Laredo one day,
I spied a poor cowboy wrapped in white linen,
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay.

"I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy."
These words he did say as I boldly walked by.
"Come an' sit down beside me an' hear my sad story.
"I'm shot in the breast an' I know I must die."

"It was once in the saddle, I used to go dashing.
"Once in the saddle, I used to go gay.
"First to the card-house and then down to Rose's.
"But I'm shot in the breast and I'm dying today."

"Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin.
"Six dance-hall maidens to bear up my pall.
"Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin.
"Roses to deaden the clods as they fall."

"Then beat the drum slowly, play the Fife lowly.
"Play the dead march as you carry me along.
"Take me to the green valley, lay the sod o'er me,
"I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

"Then go write a letter to my grey-haired mother,
"An' tell her the cowboy that she loved has gone.
"But please not one word of the man who had killed me.
"Don't mention his name and his name will pass on."

When thus he had spoken, the hot sun was setting.
The streets of Laredo grew cold as the clay.
We took the young cowboy down to the green valley,
And there stands his marker, we made, to this day.

We beat the drum slowly and played the Fife lowly,
Played the dead march as we carried him along.
Down in the green valley, laid the sod o'er him.
He was a young cowboy and he said he'd done wrong.