HOLY GROUND

“To me, the remote and wild places are the most beautiful. They are the places that haunt us and call to us. The mission trail was a road untraveled and unblemished.”

“Knowing the trail was untraveled and overgrown with cactus made it more exciting, not less. Wilderness is invigorating. A Jesuit missionary observed, ‘Difficulty itself inflames the desire of an undertaking.’”

“I was undeterred. Whatever might come, I would not turn back. The old mission trail was my Mecca, my Jerusalem, and my Canterbury.”

“I did not know who my next vaquero would be, or where we would meet up. I did not know where my next mule would come from. Living with late-stage cancer is living a life of unknowns, and I had become quite comfortable with not knowing. It kept me aware and paying attention. I didn’t take anything for granted. Out here I lived the same way.”

“This was wilderness. This was the West of myth and legend, of mystery and poetry. It may be disappearing in California, but not here.”

“A stumble or slip on a rock, or a branch hitting my face or neck, could mean death.”

“We all live closer to death than we think.”

“Death can come suddenly in the Sierras. A mule slips. A man falls. One never knows the hour when God calls. At such a time, it might be tempting to ask, Why am I doing this? I never asked. I knew why: I would rather kill myself on a mule than let cancer kill me.”

“I was in God’s hands. He had gotten me through cancer. I trusted He would get me through this.”

“I knew that having a purpose was as necessary to life as breathing, and that nothing is more exhilarating than pursuing an improbable goal without regard to consequences.”

“Life can be bittersweet, even brutal; nonetheless, it is a beautiful gift, and the long mission walk was allowing me to unwrap it slowly, one soul-felt step at a time.”

“The only time I feel truly alive is when I’m outside walking with God along the old mission trail.”

“I would rather die on a mule in Mexico, than in a bed at home.”

EXCERPTS: (click to view)

Fools and Children – Page 126