America was aflame with foreign tumult on March 17 when I boarded my plane for New Zealand. The second my frame found its seat, my zeal collided with reality, and I was left with the prattling raucous that played out between my ears. There was certainly no undoing my decision, and every unguided hour left capacities vacant where anxiety was exposed. Plans began in their unfolding as sure as the sun does rise, and it seemed all heaven bowed to escort me into the unknown. Surely, each day we are one step before the shadow, as darkness removes its veil, but never before, nor since, have I walked so blindly as then.

I learned abruptly that my American life had been largely systematic, and one based entirely on "plans, purpose," and "principle." Any "faith" I may have claimed before, suddenly became taunting banter which raged and ravaged my soul. Each step I took revealed my pitiable existence in an entirely immense reality. It was as if the mountains that had held and lulled, transformed as giants to expose, crush, and consume me. Their enormity seemed to accuse me in the pride of my heart. Perhaps the hills of my youth had beguiled me into thinking I was something much grander than reality protested. Regardless of what brought about the change, the affect was undeniable. The sun set on my soul, and an opaque and damp fog enveloped me into a cloistered existence that seemed to span eternity as the companion of myself.

I'd nearly lost my mind some years back, and weeks before I left for New Zealand, an old family and childhood friend took his life. It seemed altogether probable that if I was unable to uncover and correct my soul's own defaults, I'd be forced again to consider the same fate as his. This in the back of my mind, my travels thus lead me down dusty sheep-stained roads, up steep, slick, rain-smeared ravines, into ranchers homes, ferriers cars, loud bars, sand-fly beaches, solar hostels, wet tents, high mountains, lower valleys and on many a roadside; bewildered, alone, and lost. My trip teaches me this day, and I am out reaching for the same truths that guided and sheltered my weary soul those years ago.

The details of my sojourning would bore the masses, and they will be spared for now; other points are seeking to poke through. I purchased a most exquisite watercolor there, and have been considering it now for some days. The painting is of an unfurling fern frond set in a deep green matte. I have loved it since my eyes laid it claim, and have only now discovered our affinity. I have felt so akin to this little thing these past days as I retrace my roots, walk back through my loves, and tug at the hems of my heart. It seems I've walked this nomad's road leaving parcels of my heart in places improbably retracable. I carry my roots around tucked up and tender, and wonder when the place will be reached when they might unwind and grow into the soil of the city whose builder and architect is God (Hebrews 11). Each field seems to undergo a screening as my olfactory system plays its tunes through every nerve of my sensory being. I am so fully alive in this blasted existence and curiosity keeps striking the hammers in this little soul-box, reverberating the wonder that propels the chords to meet in the frequency of their design. It is so, and as that little fella unfolds, will you pray that I might as graciously and tenderly allow the works rolled up in His scroll to unravel, drop down, and take root in any, and all of the capacities therein planned.