“Love cannot be found …

as we cannot find what we already possess.

Love cannot be created …

as we cannot create that from which all is born.”

~ anonymous

Sleep deprivation will have you doing funny things – like weaving while you walk or talking to yourself.  Suffering from hunger and sleep deprivation at the same time, on the other hand, will have you making unusual decisions – choices spawned subconsciously in a subtle yet pervasive miasma of desperation – choices that do not at all reflect your noblest intentions.

This is what began happening to me on my second day on the road.

I had only slept 6 hours in the past two full days, and most of that sleep had been fitful, to say the least.  Suffice it to say that, while I never envisioned sleeping a sound eight hours a night on this Pilgrimage, I had assumed that I would be able to do more than cat-nap for an hour at a time on benches and picnic tables.  Add to this the fact that I had only eaten one pack of Ritz crackers and a small bag of Skittles since setting out the morning before, and you had a recipe for some less than selfless behavior.

And the way this manifested itself was insidious indeed.  I didn’t do anything “malicious” or “illegal”, and I didn’t behave in a way that was overtly mean or rude.

It was far worse than that …

… I started to cut corners on the Pilgrimage itself.

I didn’t realize it at first.  There was only a gnawing feeling in my gut that something was very wrong whenever I spoke to folks about my Walk.  At least the Pilgrimage had me in a heightened state of awareness, so I was conscious of this “wrongness” and I invested a fair amount of thought trying to pinpoint its source – something I was finally able to do that morning near Tunnel Hill, Georgia.

I had noticed the day before how I was almost subconsciously “veering off” towards businesses and restaurants that seemed to provide me with a better chance of fulfilling my personal desires.  For example, I would cross the street to enter “mom & pop” diners instead of patronizing fast food chains that were close by, simply because I thought that the former provided a better chance of being offered a meal.

And yet “getting fed” was not what this Pilgrimage was about.  It wasn’t even about surviving in order to “get there on time”.  It was about exhibiting The Way of selfless service – and one of the most powerful ways I was to relay this Way was by giving others the opportunity to freely choose to help me on my quest.  This was why I had adopted the first three “rules”* for the Pilgrimage:

1)    I would walk all the way – with the only exceptions being if I could no longer physically walk &/or if I was going to be late to a pre-arranged presentation.

2)    I would use no money during the entire Journey.

3)    I would ask for neither food nor shelter, fasting until offered the former and remaining “under the stars” until offered the latter.

*Note that, like the rest of the “rules” in my life, these were not rules per se.  I still had the complete freedom to alter them at any time, or even “violate” them if I wished to do so.  Choices are only powerful when they are completely free – when we follow them because we want to, not because we feel obligated to do so.

Of course, I could not fulfill the underlying purpose of these original guidelines if I was cleverly patronizing certain establishments for my own benefit.  So I decided to expand the guidelines of the Walk to include the following additional fourth “rule”:

4)    No crossing the street for personal convenience.

This meant that I could enter only those establishments that were on my side of the street – that I could not head elsewhere in order to “better my chances” at receiving an act of Kindness from others.

Naturally, no sooner do I choose to adopt this “rule” than I see a “new Age” vegetarian sandwich shop directly across the street from me – a place where a Peace Pilgrim would be almost guaranteed a meal.

There was that Divine sense of humor again – sheesh!

Later in the morning, I was blessed with another encounter that helped me to refine my Mission – this time in the form of my Pilgrimage’s first “café con leche”.

I was walking down the road and, despite my fatigue & hunger, was feeling relatively fine & dandy about life (a prerequisite, by the way, for noticing life’s more subtle blessings).  I glanced to my right and noticed a house with a veritable jungle on its front porch.  Now, I am a sucker for gardens of any kind – anywhere to sit amongst greenery, really.  So I decided then & there that I was going to stop there and ask for some water.  Frankly, I don’t know what inspired my subsequent epiphany – maybe it was that I was so grateful for that Peace-full place that I forgot to hope for an offer of food, or maybe I was simply happy – a state of being where self-centered desires find it difficult to take root.

Either way, Rita answered the door, and instead of regaling her with the specific details of my Trek (including the intentional mention of my pennilessness), I simply asked her if I could sit on her beautiful porch and rest.  She was taken back a bit at first, of course, and she agreed to let me do so.

After sitting there awhile and truly enjoying the smooth ambiance, Rita came back out and offered me a coffee.  I gratefully accepted, whereupon she brought me a very tasty café con leche and told me that, even though she was leaving to run some errands, I could stay there for as long as I wished!

Fantastic!

And that was when my epiphany came – the sudden comprehension that I had been stopping along the way for the past day & a half not solely to share my message of Love, but primarily to inspire others to feed me!  Indeed, it was possibly no accident that I had received very little sustenance up to that point as a result.

I might have been able to fool myself, but I was obviously not fooling anyone else!

So from that moment onward, I resolved to exude a very different mentality.  I was not going to tell anyone that I was penniless unless they asked me.  I was not going to even hint that I was hungry.  I was going to do exactly as I had set out to do – purposefully (and joyfully) fast until offered food, and I was going to do so for the rest of the trip whether I was offered any food or not.  I decided right then and there that either folks were going to offer me sustenance of their own inclination, or I was going to starve – and that was that.

It was an honor to have been offered this choice of Path.  It was privilege to be allowed to serve in this manner …

… and it was time for me to start walking accordingly.

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #01: Adventures of a Numinous Nomad (2011) by Scaughdt