People are good Of the six walking friarsâRichard Goodin, Mark Soehner, Clifford Hennings, Ed Shea, Joshua van Cleef, and myself, Roger Lopezâfour were aged 30 and younger. We began our trip on June 21, 2009 in Salem, Virginia, a few days after three of us had taken our first vows as Franciscans. When Jesus sent the apostles out on mission, he told them âto take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their beltsâ (Mark 6:8). We did much the same. We carried no money. We used no vehicle. We had a map, but no directions. We took only a simple shoulder bag packed with a water bottle, a book of the hours (daily prayers), and a blanket. That meant every day presented the question of what to eat and where to sleep. Walking along the shoulder of a multilane highway with cars flying by at approximately 70 miles per hour, hard enough to blow the straw hat off your head, is but one distraction in a day of pilgrimage. What are we to eat today? Will we sleep in a bed tonight or outside on picnic tables, like other nights? Are we lost? Do these ticks have Lyme disease? Despite the uncertainty, we never went a day without food, without some nutrientsâthough that might take the form of only a couple of energy bars. Toward the end of the second day, we were âhot, tired, hungry, had no place to stay,â to quote Father Ed. Around 7 p.m. we started knocking on doors, giving our standard introduction: âHello! We are Christian pilgrims.â A yard sign at one house looked promising: âHappy Birthday, Jesus,â it read, and the man who lived there said to us: âMy faith
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