We’re on our way home.

-Dave

It’s morning, and this is Will.  6:34am to be exact.  Other than Andrew, the rest of the guys are still sleeping, which means I’m enjoying the few minutes of complete quiet.

I’m writing on a picnic table in San Luis State Park, which is at the westernmost edge of Great Sand Dunes National Park, halfway between Salida, CO and Antonito, CO, where we will stay tonight after what is now an easy day for us of 75 miles.  I woke up thinking I was going to clean my bike or read, but as I walked around the campsite shivering, I began reflecting on the trip, and looking forward to that which will come next.

The sun climbs the back sides of the peaks before me quickly, and the hazy Great Sand Dunes begin to come out of the shadows of this part of the Sangre de Cristos.

Denver, where we’ve been resting for the last four or five days, marked a milestone in the trip for me.  A little over halfway, Denver separates the West from the East and the Great Plains.  With that is another separation, at least for our trip.  We are moving out of the lands where we spoke to people almost nightly, telling the story of Falling Whistles, and our story, to hundreds of people from North Carolina to Kansas.  I honestly think we probably spoke of the whistleblowers, and the world’s largest war in Congo, to well over 500 people in person, and probably thousands more when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, our blog, and the news stories different news stations did about us along the way.

For the last forty days, our lives have been largely reactionary with intent.  The intent was to tell people about the war in Congo, and what Falling Whistles is doing as a campaign for peace.  But even with that basic intent, it has seemed to me as if we were living in constant reaction to what might happen next—where we were going, what we were saying based on who might be there, where we were sleeping (family, twentysomething, older couple, etc), and what the next day might hold.

When you combine forty days of that with living out of a suburban, spending 8-10 hours a day on a bike, and sleeping.eating.cycling.existing with the same four guys, it gets to be exhausting, and I think as we pulled into Denver, all of us had deep questions about why we were here and what we were doing.  For five guys around the age of 20 with debatably small or large doses of immaturity, it’s hard to hold on to the fundamental motivations and ideals we talked about with our back wheels in the Atlantic Ocean 40 days ago in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

It was hard to leave Denver, knowing what was ahead of us—mountains, desert, more mountains, more desert.  And I wasn’t sure what this part of the trip would hold as we have less speaking events, less, people, more miles, and much.more.heat.

But this morning as I walked around our camp in a high-altitude valley in Southern Colorado, I watched the sunrise and thought about how the trip is changing.  The morning is cold, and I’m wearing pants and a jacket for the first time since the last snow in Sewanee in March.  After the cyclists arrived last night, we cooked and cleaned and talked fought mosquitoes and watched the sunset and lay down to sleep–together.  This morning we will shiver and cook and clean and pack and get on our bikes to cycle—together.

We pulled out of Denver a few days ago to cycle to Salida from Colorado Springs (Andrew and I rode the 70 miles to Colorado Springs on one of our rest days), which was a 110 mile day at high-altitude.  We spent the day climbing through a canyon next to the Arkansas River, watching as rafters went downhill the other way, and the falcons and eagles soared overhead.  Yesterday, the guys rode out of Salida up 7 miles of Poncha Pass to 9,000 ft of elevation and got to the top saying that was easy before they rode down into the San Luis Valley.  Andrew and I found a dirt road up into the Sangre de Cristos Wilderness Area and sat on top of a hill feeling the 40 mph wind pass through us as if it were nothing.  We sat for hours next to a brook in an aspen grove, silently reading and writing, letting our souls fill back up in the silence and peaceful wildness of the high mountains.

I think this part of the trip is about us.  And our transformation.  And the rest the earth, in these beautiful and barren places, will give back to us after these past 40 days.  And the silence of 100 mile days of absolutely nothing.  And the sparse cell phone service that will prevent us from staying connected.  And the friendships that will grow and change and transform on these cold desert mornings, as we huddle around a small camp stove with a pot of water boiling for oatmeal.

It’s not that we won’t continue speaking to people about Falling Whistles and the war in Congo—how an illegal minerals trade with minerals that end up in our cell phones and computers is funding a war that is killing 1500 people a day.  But we’re practiced with the story now, and there will be fewer events and more days when we sleep in places where there are no people for hundreds of miles.  So I think the trip is changing for us, in some small way, but I think it is of no less value, to us or to Falling Whistles.  This is the part of the trip where we will begin to prepare for the next stages of our lives, and I know we’re all thinking about how to transition into those places and people when these 15 days are finished.  In these final days, we will make decisions on how we are to continue telling the story of Falling Whistles, the story of the war in Congo, and our stories wherever we are, whatever we are doing.  I think that some of the most intentional transformation is beginning.

I hope that in these next two weeks, we will begin to “stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull [us] forward.”  (Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis)

I hope that for myself, and I hope that for the guys around me.  I hope and pray for their transformation, and for this trip to be a beginning for them.  A beginning of a vision.  A beginning of the continuum of these stories, where we remember our belief that life is sacred, and that 1500 people are dying every day in a war that our purchases help perpetuate.  A beginning of what WE are going to do about THAT.

And I would rather do that in no place but this one, where the mountains surround us on either side, the arid lands stretch out before us, and we cycle every day with the thought of a front tire in the Pacific Ocean—a thought that grows ever closer to its realization.

Last night, Justin crawled back in the tent and nudged me, saying, “Will, the clouds are gone… you gotta come see this.”  I groggily scooted up to the edge of the tent and poked my head out into the air, and looked up.  “Oh.  Oh WOW!”  Tap Andrew.  “Andrew, wake up.  The stars.  You gotta see this.”  Wrapped up in jackets, we stepped out and silently stared.  “Wow, so that’s what the Milky Way looks like.”  “Yeah, it’s really there.”  It had been a long time since I’d seen that, the last time probably being in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  It was good to remember.  In the silence and the subtle light of a frillion stars, everything just seems tied together, like there is something holding it all together.  “Will, it’s cold.”  Shiver.  “Yeah, I know.”  “Ok, cool.”  Back in the tent.  Back to sleep.  Smile on our faces.

It’s getting warm.  That means “GO TIME.”

Love and miss you all,

Will

2. NEVER try to ride a bike through a National Forest, even if it is in New Mexico and should really be called a National Semi-Arid Prairie Region.

3. Riding a bike on the interstate is, surprisingly enough, LEGAL in New Mexico, and much faster than walking over big ruts in the ground filled with sand and baseball-sized rocks.

Pulled into camp to be greeted by mosquito friends and the horribly annoying no-see-ums.

Ate a grand meal of spaghetti noodles, ground beef (bought from a roadside restaurant’s fridge), tomatoes, and green beans (?).

Sat and watched the sun go down over the far edge of the valley.

Stars. So many.

And then today, we rode to Antonito, CO–population=few. There are two landmarks: the oldest church in Colorado and a castle of recycled material made by a Native-American Vietnam veteran.

Today, we passed the 2,500 milestone for our trip. A little less than 1,000 to go.

Tonight, we have an event in Alamosa, CO with a group of art students at a local college.

Tomorrow we ride on to New Mexico.

1500 miles on the odometer.

Andrew here, preparing to leave and head south.

As we hit a rest in our journey, I feel an urge to reflect on what’s happening inside me; the overarching forces that brought me here and the forces playing on me through this trip.  How did I get here?  What convinced me to get a bike and ride it all summer across the country to support a cause that works for people I’ve never met in a country I’ve never seen?  Why did I choose to take on this challenge, of all the things I could have done– a sense of adventure?  Determination to do something different?  Pride?  Guilt?  Faith?
And now that I’m here, riding under new skies everyday and shaking hands with people I will never see again, what’s happening to me?  What is this experience doing to my body and my mind, and what can I do with that change?

I came into the world with a malleable mind, susceptible to any influence near, and I grew up as an outsider, unable to ever find myself inside anything that felt like a community.  Children are passionately concerned with being accepted by their peers, and as a homeschooled kid in Texas I was no different.  But I was different in that while other kids my age seemed to have no trouble clicking into place with each other, I was unable to do that.  Not due to lack of desire or effort on my part, but due to a frustrating, confusing lack of basic knowledge, I just couldn’t make it work.  I say this not as an appeal for sympathy, not at all, but in an effort to understand and explain– a young isolation gave me open eyes and an outsider’s perspective, and along with other factors, it kept me from ever being fully content with life as I found it.
I was comfortable, but never satisfied.  I knew the money my dad made didn’t make us happy, and I knew there must be something more.  Balances started to shift in my mind– I decided that people must be important, they must be the only important thing, and I decided that the American dream was not for me.  I became enchanted by (and still am) the idea of living under income level, as a sly punch to the irony of our luxury, misery, and debt.  I read about global poverty and how 50% of our world lives on less than $2 a day, and I walked around my house feeling shamefully rich with a twenty dollar bill in my pocket.  I hitchhiked across Michigan.  I felt the stirrings of a compassion for the homeless, war-affected, displaced, orphans, and the victims of a crabbed and crooked global economic system, and I felt a fear that this compassion for a nameless faceless shapeless mass was far too fragile, that it could easily die if I did nothing to take action.
And I did nothing to take action.  I never met the people I had read about, and those first stirrings of compassion started decomposing into a desensitized apathy.  I watched it happening, and I was frustrated as I watched; frustrated and falling asleep.  The fences between me and that half of the world were too tall, so I laid down at the bottom of the fence and the fear of being part of something bigger than myself, that fear knocked me into a paralyzed sleep.
That fear of being part of something bigger than me– whether born of pride, or a faulty concept of independence, or a realistic mistrust, or just good ol’ fashioned cynicism– that fear made me cautious of every organized effort to bring a positive change to the world, whether it was a mission trip, a political movement, or some organization like Invisible Children or Falling Whistles.  Reflecting on it now, I think that fear is made up of both good and rotten parts, both realism and despair.  But when the opportunity to commit myself to this crazy trip for Falling Whistles came up a few months ago, my old frustration at my lack of action was strong enough to crush the whole thing when it would say, “it’s not worth it, it won’t change anything”.

Now what’s happening to me?  With a month left in this ride of a lifetime, I can already see the changes in me.  Little ones, like the tan lines my fingerless gloves leave and the developing muscles in my legs, and bigger ones.
I can ride my bike for 11 hours a day with no other activity.  I’m surprised that I can find that kind of sustained focus for something that is so unchanging.
I’m learning new ways to approach what I always saw as a dichotomy between community and privacy.  Living 24/7 with the same four guys lays demands on me that I’ve never had before, and the life we’re living demands that we work together more than I was prepared for.  I’m learning to live healthily without my habitual solitude and time to read and to rest alone.
All of that, but I think the biggest change I’m feeling was epitomized last night at the Unreasonable Mansion.  I am beginning to believe in the possibility, maybe even the inevitability, of positive change.  The Unreasonables (along with so many other people we’ve met along the way) know how to live well, and they know how to work to bring freedom and make peace.  Being a witness to these beautiful ways of life convinces me that anyone can create their own, even me.  We set out on this trip to educate and inspire people, but more and more I find that I am the one being educated and inspired.  I am being granted the incredible privilege of witnessing a growing coalition of people who will ask the hard questions and take on the hard jobs, the people who are engaged not in talking about the world but in changing it.  May I live in such a way as to honor what I’ve seen.

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

– Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

–Yeshua Messiah

Thanks for listening.

-Andrew