The womb of self-content…

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness,

and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts…”

Samuel L. Clemens, The innocents Abroad

His name is Sam and that is about as good a place to start as any.

There were a lot of them over the years - youngsters, who seemed to have unlimited promise, and others who appeared to be quite content to be…well, just to be.

Most of the kids were compliant making the work fairly easy and there were a few from time to time who seemed to always find mischief hiding around a corner or two, causing our work to be a little more challenging.

“LP” was my partner – the ‘L’ standing for ‘Lloyann’ and the ‘P’ her last name – and for more than two decades, we were a team, managing a church youth group. During those years, we spent a fair number of nights camping out – complete with adolescent nocturnal sounds…days riding roller coasters or canoe floating on rivers…evenings enjoying outdoor Broadway musical theatre and a ton of time just trying to keep track of everyone.  'Elp' (my nick name for my partner) was short and I tall, so I would generally take the lead in a crowd so the kids could see me, and she followed like a mother hen squiring any ‘chicks’ that slipped away from the group.

Sam was one of those kids.

He was a bright-eyed four-year old when we met. A quiet kid with an alert set of eyes that always seemed to be looking for something different…something more.  I was drawn to him, because optimism seemed to drift off him like gentle smoke from the embers of a campfire just right for hot dogs or chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker s’mores.  I never heard him complain, be argumentative or disruptive… he was just different with a twinkle in his eye suggesting he knew something you didn’t.

The boy didn’t draw attention to himself, but there was an undercurrent of energy that compelled a certain amount of notice, and when he was focused, there was little doubt he was completely absorbed…whether it was Pokémon with his friend Matt or earning Boy Scout merit badges that led to him becoming an Eagle Scout…you could count on his attention and intent to succeed.

The thing about this young man is that you had little doubt the trajectory of his life was going to be big – big in this case, meaning for him…by his standards.  After high school, he went on to college to learn interactive digital media, worked for some time designing video games, traveled around the Western U.S., got some inspiration and headed for Korea where he taught school, traveled through Asia and honed what had become fairly formidable skills in Team Frisbee. Yeah, team frisbee...a young man in flight! A great metaphor for life...his life!

Over the years, I have traveled and written a travelogue that I send home every few days. It began by sending emails to a woman in a rural Missouri community where I attended church, and over the years has grown to about 150 people…Sam is on that list.

When Sam was younger, I told him it would be great to travel together sometime when he got a little older. My real interest was to expose him to the broader world in which we live…to encourage him to widen his peripheral vision as much as possible…to let him appreciate that life is much more and much different than he might expect.

Actually, I did this with a number of the youth in my church group over the years, but whether it was my influence or not, Sam has reached out and embraced the world…he has taken a position on the ‘bow of the ship’ in his life and felt the wind in his face…emerging from the womb of self-content…opening doors, behind which he does not know what to expect and in many ways said, “Bring it on life!”

Sam and I have written some since those early days, and when I get a personal email from him, it has always been great. The method by which I now keep up with him, however…his travelogue of sorts…is his Facebook page…the anonymous ‘keeper upper.’

They say success is passing on the passion you feel for the things that drive you and bring you satisfaction. There is little doubt many of us find great fulfillment in our work, but for me, it has been the ‘things around the edges’ that have brought the greatest gratification to my life…the small things…the touches from other people along the way. Traveling and meeting the ‘yet unknown’ brings richness to the streets and byways of the world in which I live. 

Keeping tabs on Sam’s life has been like watching the changing nuances of sunlight against the face of a mountain as the day progresses; there is always something new…something before unseen…that adds a new sense of appreciation in the passing of the day.  While sunset is not a terribly far distance for me, Sam is in the late morning of his life…the sky is clear, the sun bright with much more to see and explore.

I have little doubt he will.

- ted