Thoreau said that the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation, he was a douche….

…but he wasn’t wrong.  

One of the saddest parts of getting older is finding out that most men don’t love their job, don’t love themselves, and love their wives rarely or barely. 

As kids we wanted to be knights, astronauts or athletes—how stupid we must have been.

Upon learning the reality of bills and statistics, we realize that true and actual greatness is unlikely for us at best.  Most of us accept this fact in highschool—the college internships become careers and the college hookups become girlfriends then wives. We realize that our parents weren’t so grown up after all and we pass through our mostly good, though accidental, lives like many before us—fine, thanks to good buddies and great weekends.  

But there are some who live differently…they “rebel against society” they “take their own path” they “choose adventure unlike all the sheep of society”. We live abroad, work on a fishing boats, become ski bums, and we hike the PCT. We know that “that life will still be waiting for us” if we ever want to go back.  We think ourselves the free thinkers, the unchained spirits.  

Explore the world, see everything, taste everything.  Maybe slow down when you’re older because thats what old people do.  This is what we tell ourselves as we look down upon “society”.

I mean for my case, trying to make life decisions based on my Christian faith—how can I make the argument that thru hiking is less Christian than Real Estate in Atlanta??

I wake up and praise God for creation while reading my Bible, then I walk with my cross and pray in silence for an hour, I memorize Christian poems and prayers.  Throughout the day I praise God. When I see people, I am nicer than I have ever acted in society.  I am not tempted by lust or greed or any of my other usual vices.  I am in the best shape of my life and I am the most sober (literally and mentally) I have been in years. 

If the Christian life is simply to love God and stop sinning then for the sake of my soul I should never stop hiking!

And for that matter, I was also more thoughtful and pious on my trip to Spain than in college. So I would be better off traveling. Furthermore, I am best off at our farm. 

“Society is the source of my problems and the solution is for me to stay away from it.”

Convinced yet???

Well, in my heart I know this cannot be so. The stories of Abraham, Moses, and Jonah hold timeless.

-Abraham was called into the wilderness for the purpose that he might become the man who founds society itself. 

-Moses is called up onto the mountain to hear the Lord and return to society and then save it.  

-Jonah rebels and flees to the wilderness to avoid the wickedness of society, and yet the Lord calls him back for his purpose in and for society.

I might be the least evil Henry in the woods but I will not be the most good. It might be good for me to stay out here, but my life is not for me. My life is not my own. 

The call of society to the Christian man should not be the promise of safety but of danger, not of ease but of struggle, of sacrifice and not of benifit.  

Fighting evil, saving the world, spreading the faith—these cannot be accomplished by any man in isolation regardless of the sunset from his campsite. 

I will never not love the thrill of a dangerous rock scramble. But starting a family too young, giving too much to my community, creating too ambitious a company—these are the dangerous adventures I know I must seek. 

And to most truly dwell in the presence of God is not something which is done standing alone on a mountaintop but kneeling in a church (although that’s another essay!)

((Hang with me for this closing))

Samwise Gamgee (the true hero of The Lord of The Rings) kills the spider spawn of primordial darkness itself, withstands ultimate demonic temptation, walks across an entire continent, and ultimately saves the world. And yet, his most important battle is a small skirmish in his hometown, and his greatest accomplishment is the replanting of trees, the grown height of which he will never see. This is no accident by Tolkien. Neither is it an accident that the book ends with his reward for all this. Sam returns home to his family and “he was expected”. Sam, to whom the entire world owes infinite debt wants no travel, luxury or wealth for to him there is no greater gift than to enjoy the peace and love of the community and family he created.

And so as I and many others “adventure” we must remember that these adventures out into the world are only preparation for the real adventure. The fighting and working done in and for the shire are the continuation of the struggle on mount doom, they may even have been the purpose of it. 

I must live in such a way that this journey is short and these mountains small by comparison.