HITCH-HIKING TO SOMEWHERE

By Jarod Osborne

            Last weekend I decided to hitchhike to Nashville. Actually, I didn’t know where I was going when I left. I walked out of my house in northern Indiana Friday morning carrying no money, no bags, no food, no I.D., no credit cards… only the clothes I was wearing.  My thumb was my bus ticket and my smile was my visa into the foreign land of vagabond travel. By 5:00 pm that evening I found myself wandering the streets of downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

            Being that I am human, obvious needs were inevitably going to arise during this trip. I was aware of them (i.e. food, water, shelter, safety), but made no provisions for them. God provided what I needed. Friday evening I slept on the futon couch of a college student named Aaron. He saw my courage to take on a trip like this, so he matched it with courage to invite me, a stranger, into his home. The next evening I slept in a memorial park downtown, “on the street” if you will, with some homeless friends.

And food… I ate enough. Aaron offered me something while I was with him, and I joined a homeless line for dinner the next day. (I also had a dandelion or two when I thought I wasn’t going to find anything else. These grew in the cracks of the streets and along the sidewalks. They are edible, but I suspect that none of the homeless took regular advantage of them for sustenance. Grasshoppers were also fairly abundant in certain areas. But I never got hungry enough to eat them.)

            I made friends too! Aaron was the first. He and I watched a couple movies and then he took me to a Tennessee State University basketball scrimmage. Before the game, there was a dance contest. I entered it without hesitation. That night Aaron got to witness his new white-boy friend break-dancing on the gym floor in front of about 700 of his black classmates! I won a basketball jersey as a prize for dancing!

            Chris and I connected really well. He was homeless and I was a feigning wanderer. He walked me around the city (which I had, by now, already walked around several times) and gave me a first-hand education about street life. We talked about his past, literature, music theory, urban development, God, bars, laziness and injustice. Eventually, he wanted to go to the clubs and pubs, but I didn’t have any I.D. on me, so we split up.

            Sunday morning I got up before the sun and walked toward an interstate on-ramp. Less than nine hours later, a man named Danny dropped me off at my house and bid me farewell. I walked in my home just as I had walked out of it two days earlier. Except I was much more rich in experience.

            Why go on such a trip? you may ask. I don’t suppose that I can really define the answer in words. Ones that come to mind are adventure, learning, testing my abilities, personal challenge, getting out of comforts and routines, wanderlust, a desire to understand people and the world, a want to entrust my well-being to the charity of others. But I think the reason why I did this is not really reasonable. It’s better understood through dancing. Why does one dance? This question need not be answered. Simply be enraptured by the music…just dance!, and you will need no further explanation.

I always strive to stay on the right side of the balance between risky and foolish. I never advocate an abandonment of better judgment for the sake of a thrill. However, I am a strong proponent of living a daring life in the face of risk and consequence! Such is life.

 Before I left, I heard a plethora of discouraging voices saying, “You’ll get killed.” “What if you don’t make it back in time?” “Where will you stay?” Why are we so scared? I look into the eyes of many people, and I can sense their heart saying “Please don’t take away what I have.” Why are people so afraid of losing what they have? We never really own anything in the first place. We are afraid of losing our financial security, our family, our homes, our jobs, our toys……… our lives. Yet we will inevitably lose them all anyway.

Freedom comes when we release our grip on all these things. Our hearts were only designed to hold onto the eternal things. Our faith, our hope, our love, our God- these are the holds which will not give way in time. All else is temporal.

Perhaps this weekend was an experiential lesson in possessing nothing. I entrusted my soul to God and took a risk. If I would have gotten shot by a psycho, my faith would not have been shaken, nor would I have been disappointed with God. I counted the cost and did not expect God to shelter me from the possible consequences. Life is dangerous. Some men spend their whole lives trying to deny the danger or cocoon themselves from it. Instead, we must realize that living means dying, loving means hurting, joy visits sorrow, adventure risks peril. The True Heart is a daring one. This does not mean hitchhiking or high-risk excursions. It is an inner attitude that holds everything perishable as perishable and everything eternal as highest priority.

Through my travels and my trials, I have discovered that God is daring. He is by no means comfortable. God himself launches into tremendous risk, for the sake of love. We must do the same.

When I was a boy, I developed a saying that has grown to become the battle cry of my life:
WE BOLDLY CHARGE FORTH INTO EACH NEW DAY, NOT KNOWING IF IT WILL BE OUR LAST, OR MERELY OUR GREATEST!

 QUOTES from the Weekend

“I never pick up hitchhikers.”

            (Danny, just after he let me into his car)

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. What’s your name?..... Jarod…..Jarod what?......Jarod Osborne. Okay, I’ll look for your name in the obituary section Monday morning.”

            (Jen, college student, responding when she heard of my hitchhiking plans)

“My kids are going to jump all over me when I tell them I picked up another hitchhiker.”

            (talkative middle-aged woman)

“I’m Rocky, and this is Nigger. We’re on our way to the Harley store….”

            (Rocky, ride number seven)

“Okay…. I’ll just go ahead and tell you…….. I’m gay.”

            (Jim, ride number eleven)

“I’m smoking weed this morning. I don’t normally do this so early.”
            (Ride number two, after we’re already driving down the road)

“Like I said, my wife and I got married young, and we had the perfect life. Nothing extra-ordinary ever happened.”

            (Danny, ride number thirteen)

“I have two pet peeves. The first one is when people use words wrong.”
            (Chris, homeless)

“Cuz I know what it’s like to walk.”

            (Tony, when I asked why he picked me up)

“Hop in, I’m going that way. I won’t charge you.”

            (Taxi driver, in his taxi car)

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

            (Tony, as he’s lighting his first cigarette)

“I smoke. Does that bother you?”

            (Rick, as he’s lighting another cigarette)

“You remind me of my son.”

            (Gerald, when I asked why he picked me up)

“God provides.”

            (Chris, homeless)

“(The Mission) gave out a lot of good stuff today, but it’s not enough. It’s just a band-aid. We need jobs.”

            (Homeless man)

“You’re lucky we came along. Nobody would have picked you up…”

            (Ride number five)

“Do you know who Ted Nuget is? Yeah, I was standing this close to him on a fishing boat.”

            (Anthony, ride number nine)

“Will write poetry for food.”

            (a beggar’s sign)

“Yeah, since I’ve been homeless I’ve gained so much weight.”

            (a homeless man)

“Invest in Coca-Cola.”

            (Jimmy, whenI  asked him  to pass on life wisdom he has gained)

“Do you have a light? Oh, I hope you don’t mind- I’m smokin’ weed.”

            (guy on the street)

“Do you always eat this kind of cuisine?”
            (random woman responding when I told her of my plans to eat grasshoppers and dandelions)

“You get what you expect from people.”

            (Danny, when asked to pass on life wisdom)

“You better get out of here before somebody cooks you.”

            (a homeless man talking to a raccoon in the city park)

“Do you know where I can find ‘Hooters’?”

            (Guy with British accent)

“I’m okay as long as your gun isn’t as big as the one I got here in my truck!”

            (Ride number eight)