“Saints and children we have gathered here to hear the sacred story
And I’m glad to bring it to you with my best rhyming and rhythm
‘Cause I know the thirsty listen and down to the waters come
and the Holy King of Israel loves me here in America.”

–“Here in America” Rich Mullins

It seems like yesterday, I was climbing up Terry Mountain in Upstate New York. The Adirondacks are beautiful in the fall. Posthumously, the multi-colored leaves fall from the innumerable trees over the side of the mountain in a six-million acre park dedicated to the preservation of all things glorious, wild and free. Life travels at a million miles an hour. I went from freedom on America’s border feeling, the Northern winds blow from Quebec, and the seeing deer bed in the wood to the street lamps and abandoned homes of this concrete jungle, called Baltimore. It’s beyond human comprehension the vastness of the depth of time and space. I feel lost in this whole ordeal. All of the changes that have gradually brought me to this place have not all, in and of themselves been a negative thing. I have now been married over two years to my wonderful wife. Jobs have come and gone. Friends have come, and friends have parted ways. Some left of their own accord and some have left to the netherworld unaware.

I can remember when I was seventeen, and driving down the East coast without a destination in the world and the only thing to my name was a couple hundred bucks, a sleeping bag, some clothes and the open road. It felt fanciful, so Kerouacian, like pages from “Dharma Bums” or wild tales of Hunter S. Thompson. Growing up, moving from Springfield, MO, Albany, NY to trips to Milwaukee, WI and rides of wild abandon with my buddy Jay through PA.

Now I feel stationary, I haven’t moved in a few months and have remained in Maryland for the better part of two years, moving progressively to more rural standings (as much as possible, at least). Loosing my Gypsy ways has been difficult however but, I am in motion not, on the open road so much but active in life. I feel my walk has moved to the waste side I guess you could say in a desert place as the Israelites. I haven’t been here for forty years and I have no intention of keeping the offbeat pace of ill-gotten darkness.

Lack of sleep has made daydreams of yesteryear bleak. I am sighing with the open-eyed wonderment and happenstance visions that return in a reunion of past and present to come back to the path that will lead to my way back home. Hope you find yours, I’ll be praying for you.

“…who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.⁷ But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, ⁸ how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. ¹⁰ For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. ¹¹ For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. ¹² Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— ¹³ unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. ¹⁶ Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”-2 Corinthians 3:6-18 NKJV