Sisyphus to Sand Mandala

Following our sojourn in the woods, we were exhausted. Our next two days were to be our only days off for the next two weeks. We spent them turning a kindergarten into a man cave replete with hatchets, racks of antlers, and a full caribou bust that we affectionately named Miranda after a girl we’d briefly met on our way up to the Powderhorns. A few of us got a chance to check out Old Colorado City during Territory Days, a huge festival celebrating Colorado’s pioneer past. We naively lamented our lack of work.

My first experience with day labor was almost exactly two years earlier. The summer before I began graduate school was the first break in my employment history since high school. I had decided to move into Fort Chestnut for the summer, but had no way of supporting myself. I felt like I had hit rock bottom when I went in to Labor Ready at 5am and spent four hours answering questions like “How often do you come to work under the influence of drugs/alcohol?” with the lowest answer being “Sometimes/Never”, but circumstances allowed that I never had to return after that day. I found that when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you’re often thrown a shovel and told to continue digging.

Corey and Brandon had each spent years working construction and so were assigned jobs guiding bike tours down nearby Pike’s Peak. The rest of us were remanded to Labor Finders until our permanent summer jobs began. The woman behind the desk called my name and offered me what she called a “boring job”. I told her that I was willing to do anything. I would soon find out what that meant.

I was assigned to the Fountain Dump. My job was to pick up bits of garbage that had blown off of the top of the trash heap, bag them up, and return the bags to the heap. I was eager to work, but at the same time I was severely humbled. I was performing the type of task you see state prisoners performing on the side of the road with two men whom I would later find to be ex-felons. The younger man, Jimmy, is 28 years old, on parole, and still had a poor attitude about the work we were doing. It seemed to me that his life had stagnated in a place of survival and not much else. Facing this dark possibility is facing some of my greatest fears: failure, desperation, and being alone.

Johnny is a middle-aged Mexican man from Los Angeles. A former truck driver and former state prisoner, Johnny has a wife and daughter that he is willing to do anything to support. He maintained a positive attitude, a strong work ethic, and a good relationship with his employers throughout the entire process. What surprised me was that he almost immediately took me under his wing. I quickly found that picking up trash has many more nuances than I had at first realized. When I became bogged down picking up the thousands of minute shards of garbage, Johnny assured me that most of the trash was insignificant and that I should focus on the more readily noticeable pieces that would cause the dump to fail an inspection.

The most frustrating part of the job was that, on a windy day, the job was basically futile. My second day on the job, a wind storm with 70 mph gusts and 50 mph sustained winds hit the dump. A series of fences were set up to catch the blowing trash and we would often work our way up the hill filling up bag after bag with this arrested debris. One of the few pleasures of the job was to finish a section of fence and look back at the fruit of my labor, a clean section of fence-line. In addition to the massive amounts of dust kicked up by the storm, these small victories were stolen from me. Often, during that day, the wind would not only replace the garbage as soon as I picked it up, but would actually replace it more quickly than I could work and so would more than negate my efforts. At this point, I began to despair that my task was akin to Sisyphus, condemned to an eternity of rolling a boulder up a hill only to have it fall back every time and be forced to begin again. I felt helpless to accomplish anything of value.

Over the next two weeks I would work as a road flagger, trailer gutter, and other menial positions. I valued the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the other guys in the program and also to meet some of the other people who were in a position of working day labor. I met ex-felons, drug addicts, and homeless people and found that each person had a fascinating, unique story. Although most people wouldn’t reciprocate, I would often probe my co-workers with questions about their current lives and how they arrived at this place.

The last week before beginning our permanent jobs, I had the opportunity to work for one of our guides, Jeff Stelzner, in his general contracting business. I was assigned to help a young guy named Toast work on a house flip. I would soon realize that Toast, although similar to me in age, had accumulated much more wisdom than I. He bought me lunch and quickly began opening up to me about his personal story along with his hopes and ambitions for the future. What impressed me most was his genuine interest in my life and his outlook on work. Toast explained to me that, in his life, work is worship. He glorifies God with his positive attitude and his attention to quality and detail.

There is a practice among Buddhist monks called sand mandala. Groups of monks will carefully form swirls of sand of every hue and tint into intricate works of art. These sand paintings will sometimes grow as large as a room and consume hundreds of man-hours. Invariably, upon completion, the monks will pour the sand back to the earth, wiping their slate clean. The fact that their work will ultimately be destroyed does not deter the monks from creating beauty and joy. Perhaps all work is the same way.

Wide Open Spaces

When I’m preparing for a trip, people often ask me if I’m excited. I usually tell them, “No,” because excitement is too close to nervousness. I try to keep the trip in abstract terms and put off the emotions until I’m on the airplane with no turning back. I staved off nervousness for my trip west until the night before leaving. Sleep largely eluded me, which would become a pattern.

I was picked up by Brett Causey at the airport and whisked to Cory Smith’s house for a pre-program video interview. I tried to avoid expectations as much as possible before embarking upon this adventure. I wanted to let the experience change me in whatever way it would.

In the backyard, I found an old garage converted into a man cave and the seven other guys with whom I would be living and working. I was first introduced to James Herr. A tall, lanky guy, his glasses and business casual attire gave him the appearance of someone older. His unique situation of having lived in Colorado Springs for the preceding year and having a full-time job as well as a new girlfriend made integration into the group more difficult, but within a few weeks his exuberant personality overcame these obstacles. Corey Woosley seemed to me to be the consummate surfer dude with the bleach blonde hair and the chill attitude. What I would find out over the next few weeks was how much reckless abandon this chill dude had for finding God and finding his purpose. Brandon Campbell, along with Corey, had spent most of his life boating, surfing, and fishing along the Sarasota coastline. As the oldest two group members, Brandon and Corey came in with a sense of urgency which translated into a refreshing willingness to question everything. Matt Guthrie, our youngest member, came to us via the University of Tennesee with an unending well of entertaining stories of childhood pranks and youthful escapades. He would use his humor to both entertain and share about himself. “Big Wave” Dave Lantz is the most conservative of us all. His unique position as a teetotaling Bible Studies major has given him a great opportunity to challenge himself and others. Grant Williams tends to keep his emotions and sharing on a low, even keel, but he has some great stories if you can pull them out. Chris Fedyschyn is a new Christian with the wisdom of one of our guides. He has been able to connect the most with each member of our motley crew and often organizes our disparate jumble of personalities and ideas. Chris and I decided to take our sleeping bags up on top of the roof of Cory’s garage, but the cold kept me awake most of the night.

At 6 AM we awoke to load up for the drive out to the Powderhorn. After a two hour drive we made it to the Flying W ranch. The staff helped us repack our packs and gave us lunch before driving us another 5 miles into the mountains. Miranda, one of the young staff members, gave us a bag of granola to celebrate our summit on the second day. Her idea of granola as some sort of orgasmic reward has earned her a place in our communal lore. Her eponymous caribou bust hangs over us as we learn about God. The remainder of the afternoon was spent hiking the road up to the trail head. Although the altitude and gradient were challenging, the most time consuming portions of the hike were the frequent wardrobe changes in and out of our snowshoes. We made camp at the trail head after an exhausting two and a half mile tramp. The wind whipped up and began buffeting our tents and our camp fire. The question of the night revolved around Jesus’ invitation to a band of poor fishermen to drop everything and come with him. What did they leave behind them to follow him and what did we want to leave behind as we embarked on a similar journey?

Our second day in the wilderness began much in the same way as the first. A 6 AM wakeup call followed a night largely devoid of sleep. We broke camp and quickly got on the trail before just as quickly losing said trail in six to eight foot snow drifts. I quickly fell to the back to quietly struggle with the altitude and exertion for most of the day. The silent beauty and breathtaking vistas faded in and out of my consciousness in between tumbles down snow banks and upended forest floors that demanded my undivided attention. My mind wandered through the graveyard of reasons for coming out here. Past relationships, past mistakes, and a past life invaded my thoughts. “Mama always said, ‘You’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.’ I think maybe that’s what my running was all about.” As progress ground to a halt with no sign of our destination, we made camp for the night on a snow pack.

Another sun rose over another sleepless night. The problem with camping on top of the snow, as I found out, is that when you have to relieve yourself a 2 AM you will most likely fall through. My solace from a frozen right leg was the beauty of the stars. In our first two days, we had managed only two and a half miles per day. The third day was our long march. We skimmed above the still-frozen snow and fell into a steady rhythm as soon as we stumbled upon the trail. The way down the mountain took us through shivering aspen groves and stands of ancient pines. On the far side of seven and a half miles, I was struggling with the exhaustion of three nights without sleep and the pain of humping a fifty pound pack over twelve miles. Cory pushed us to finish the fourth day’s itinerary as well and, as we slumped down waiting to be extracted, he asked us the question, “What do you want to get out of this experience?”

In Green Street Hooligans, Elijah Woods’ character muses, “Once you’ve taken a few punches and realized that you’re not made of glass, you’re not comfortable unless you’re pushing your limits.” I’m here to take some punches and push my limits. When we arrived at our new home on West Cucharras, I dumped my gear and collapsed into bed. I usually spend my time before bed decompressing after the day, but my brain was overwhelmed by how comfortable I was as I melted into a deep sleep.