The History of the World!

I don't have kids. I didn't get married. I didn't build a business or establish some sort of legacy. I haven't done jack, really. True, I'm not dead yet, so who knows what the days ahead may bring, but I doubt I'll be leaving much of a lasting mark in these traditional ways. I don't even know if I'll get my book written, which is one sort of material, tangible product I thought I might leave behind, you know, check that "legacy" box. Alas.

In 2012 I visited Paris. I went to the catacombs and heard the story of how the catacombs were developed, how a previous cemetery was relocated (for development's sake), and now these bones are piled anonymously in the catacombs. I was repulsed by the piles of skulls, then the piles of femurs, piles of random bones, a weird sorting of the dead. I tried to humanize the experience: all these nameless butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers. Their names and lives forgotten and lost to time. I remember feeling deeply sad after I finished the tour, pushing down this sense of meaninglessness and existential angst. What does it all mean, this life, in the context of piles of bones and forgotten lives? Does it matter at all that these people lived?

When I was a pastor, I had a parishioner I dubbed "Cowboy Bob." He lived alone on the small farm his parents homesteaded, a place just a few miles north of the little country church that was part of the multi-point parish I served. He'd slip into the back pew Sunday mornings, a slim, quiet man, always the bolo tie and cowboy hat, always slipping out again after the service with just a nod when shaking my hand, maybe a "Good sermon, pastor," and then he was gone. I visited him at his place, got to know and love him, and so when his one sister died and he wanted to scatter her ashes on the farmstead, the funeral director and I and, of course, Cowboy Bob, stood out there in the prairie wind and released her ashes. Some of her ash fell on me, some got inside me, but I never knew her, not apart from the few stories Cowboy Bob shared. And now Cowboy Bob is dead, too, and just the funeral director and I have this memory, this knowledge, and when we die, so, too, this memory, this knowledge.

I don't mean to be maudlin with my musings, but I watched the presidential debate last night and have been thinking about Donald Trump's grandiloquent claims: no one ever before in the history of the world, no bigger better more amazing than this in the history of the world ... Not only are these claims ludicrous and false factually, but I couldn't help but wonder how one comes by such a grandiose sense of one's own importance. Even if Donald Trump will be part of presidential history of the United States of America, as long as this history is recounted, this is just a small drop in the bucket, in the big ocean that is the history of the world.

It's all just so small, so meaningless (literally), in the planetary scope.

I'm not a nihilist. Paradoxically perhaps, I hold as true two somewhat contradictory notions that each living thing matters and also that they don't. I don't search "outside" in the transcendent for the infusion of meaning but I'm just as likely to insist that you need to derive your own meaning for what it is you do with this life. I don't think anyone should wait for posterity to tell them what their legacy is nor do I think one's legacy survives very long in the scheme of things. Case in point: I'd be hard-pressed to tell you the names of my great grandparents. Shame, I know, but I never met them. Who are they to me but the ones who in the long chain of being resulted in my being here? Gratitude demands more, but apparently I can't muster it.

Okay, what's up with all this, what am I getting at? I know some of you are marshalling arguments, trying to resist this line of thinking. And good on you, go for it.

Here's my own take:

I recently spent a few days volunteering to do logouts and trail work with New Mexico Wild.

This is all part of the effort to see if my dog Buddy is up to the task of being along but not being a distraction. The jury is still out on this.

Our work was on the trail to the Trampas Lakes in the Carson National Forest of the Pecos Wilderness. This trail was new to me and while the Trampas Lakes were beautiful, the gem for me was Hidden Lake.

I think this is my new favorite spot in New Mexico. Discovering this place reminded me why I moved here.

In November 2021, I did a bikepacking route called “The New Mexico Off-Road Runner.” This route winds through the mountains east of Santa Fe, through the Manzano Mountains south of Albuquerque, then over to Magdalena Mountains west of Socorro, and finishes up in the Organ Mountains by Las Cruces. Each range has its distinct features, challenges and pleasures, but taken together they represent why I was smitten by the Land of Enchantment. It’s just one lovely, stunning landscape after the next.

For those unfamiliar, bikepacking is a new(ish) recreational activity. Like backpacking, bikepacking routes try to minimize travel time on asphalt or concrete, choosing instead the forest roads, single-track trails, and dirt paths of the backcountry. To ride such trails necessitates lighter and more streamlined packs than the traditional panniers you may have seen on highway cyclists’ rigs. Bikepacking often means pushing your bike for miles because you can’t ride the steep grade to the mountain crest or lifting your bike over downed trees laying across the trail or admitting that you don’t have the skills to safely descend over all the baby boulders and rubble and so you must push your bike downhill too. Some days the type-2 suffering pushes into type-3 territory, and you fantasize about throwing your bike into the canyon and hitchhiking to the nearest soft bed, shower, cold beer, and extra-large pizza. But then you prevail or are rewarded with an epic vista or you find a Snickers bar hidden at the bottom of your bag and all is right with the world again.

Bikepacking is amazing, truly one of my favorite ways for moving through the landscape. Bikepacking.com is a terrific resource for finding routes, figuring out gear, and learning the ropes, but I also want to mention that I’m a regional steward for a nationwide group called Bikepackingroots, which focuses on connecting the bikepacking community and reaching out to new people who’d like to give bikepacking a try. We design smaller, easier adventures (often just an overnight) for those who are new to the idea of bikepacking as well as encouraging people to explore their own home regions through bikepacking. You don’t have to do a 500-mile trip or find two weeks of vacation to enjoy bikepacking. You can just find a camp spot, bike there, spend the night, and return home the next day. Hit me up if there’s anything I can do to help you with bikepacking.

If you are still reading this post at this point, I'll nominate you for sainthood, but here's what I'm getting at: when I am in nature, even when nature is trying to kill me, I am whole. I don't have the anxiety over meaningless and legacies or the anxiety about whether I'll be remembered or if I made a difference in my time here on the planet. What is clear to me in nature is that everything is cyclical and emphemeral and but a bit player in the whole drama. I squash the mosquito and that's it for Mr. Mosquito. No one laments his passing. I can do what I think I'm supposed to do while I'm here on the planet, and the fact that I'm here matters to me and to the people who love me, but nothing is permanent--not legacies, not even the game-changers and earth-shakers, not the "I'm the most amazing person in the history of the world" claimants. They will all pass away, and maybe we all (that is, human beings) may not be long for our bit part on the stage. We've really messed up the planet.

Meanwhile, what I want to insist on is that we enjoy our time here. Love big and reckon with beauty. I have hiked, biked, climbed, or run through every state west of the Mississippi River and each is jaw-droppingly beautiful in its own way. We are so lucky to be alive and to be in a country with such outstanding natural wonders and wildlife and open spaces. When I am in these places, my life is enlarged, my spirit soars, my mind clears. There’s just no experience comparable, at least for me.

As I type this, the coyotes are starting their nightly lunacy. A big one just loped up the road past my fence and Buddy is racing to and fro, perhaps dealing with his own call of the wild, wanting to join the pack, I don’t know. The cool September evening breeze kisses my face as the Sandia Mountains to the east slip into shadow.  It’s just so beautiful. I can feel the emotion swelling my chest.

I hope wherever you are that you treat yourself to time outside in the week ahead. A walk to listen to the bullfrogs in the marsh, maybe a stroll through Muir Woods if you’re lucky enough to live near them, perhaps get out to enjoy the smells of harvest or take a cold plunge in a river. Whatever is there, take it all in. Let it soothe your anxiety, awaken your senses. Let yourself be in it. Then drop me a line, share what you noticed, what you felt. I want to connect in this way with you, my friends, to drink deeply of this wild, amazing place we call home. I promise to remember what you share for as long as I'm alive. And then when I'm dead, well, what mattered anyway is that you lived it--right now, in that moment--and not who is around to remember it or what difference it made.