DAYS 51 & 52- Shoshoni, WY - 984 miles from home

We are spending two nights in a beautiful setting that is literally a "refuge": Machaseh Retreat Center, in Shoshoni. "Machaseh" (מַחֲסֶה) means refuge in Hebrew: a word especially beloved by the psalmist, who uses it often as another name for the Sacred: "our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (e.g. Psalm 46:1, KJV).

So where is the sacred in this pilgrimage? Liberty Walks is nonsectarian and nonpartisan, a civic-minded endeavor. But it is also an act of faith, as we keep saying: an ongoing, step-by-step trust placed in the "We" of "We the People." I am an interfaith chaplain and a Zen teacher and a spiritual weirdo in so many ways - so words like "trust" and "faith" feel kindly and homely to me... But I recognize that they are also words that can sow deep division and discord, as happened at a restaurant a few days ago when I struck up a conversation at the cash register with the other folks paying their tab: an elderly set of parents and their middle-aged son. I shared my card; the son read the word "faith" on the back and asked with some force who I was, what I 'preached,' and whether I thought the Bible was 'lying' when it said that Jesus died for our sins, that He was the one and only Way, Truth and Life. I told him that as a chaplain I'd seen so much living and dying proof that God brings us all to Him, in the end. I told him that I didn't know more than that. I shook his hand - recognized the hard lines in his face, and felt terrible, and knew that our conversation was at an end.

Faith in each other is the hard part.

Meanwhile, our "machaseh" here in Shoshoni is hosted by Dale and Charlotte Bascue. They caretake the Machaseh Retreat Center, ministering to churches and pastors and pilgrims, here in the sweeping central Wyoming plains - where sagebrush and sand and stone give way to the irrigated green; where wind howls through and the sun beats down. When we arrived we found the Bascues with their "girls": a coop full of plump and happy hens, along with four newly hatched chicks. The Bascues don't have a rooster; the chicks hatched from eggs brought up from Arkansas by their daughter - and the little ones were peeping and scurrying about, defying both Dale and Charlotte for a good ten minutes, until finally they got scooped up into their smaller kennel, along with self-appointed brood hen Trudy. "What a good mama she is!" said Kate (who is herself a very good mama, incidentally, taking care of us trail chicks very nicely.) Much laughter ensued over the chickens: all in all a splendid way for five humans to meet and greet each other. And then Dale and Charlotte gave us a tour of our sanctuary for the next two nights: an entire self-contained floor of the building, complete with the three magic words: laundry, shower, kitchen. A short while later, Charlotte brought us her fresh baked sourdough, a jar of astonishing strawberry freezer jam, and a dozen of the aforementioned hens' eggs.

Ahhhh.

And then, my good people, I did something I haven't done in 52 days. I slept in. I let Bob and Kate do the walking today. When I finally got up after a good 10 hours of sleep, I ate some of those eggs. Then I took a nap. And now I'm going to bed again!

Charlotte and Dale Bascue, caretakers of the Machaseh Retreat Center, Shoshoni, Wyoming.

Different points of view. En route to Shoshoni.

Amber at Walmart: a conversation struck up over the prices of cheese - which moved to the question of community. "Covid is what divided America," she shared.

Bob sharing a moment (and ultimately filming a short video) with Amber and her partner Rob.

Machaseh Retreat Center.

The view from Machaseh.

Breakfast on Day 52.

Pumpkin - Retreat Kitty Extraordinaire.