Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not walk in the way of the evil.
Avoid it; do not go on it;
turn away from it and pass on. (Proverbs 4:14-15)
I love the book of Proverbs for so many reasons, one being the prevalence of the "path" metaphor. Of the 87 mentions of "path" in the Bible, 23 are in Proverbs alone. Generally, the idea is to stick to the path of the righteous, and to avoid the path of the wicked or foolish at all costs.
The path metaphor resonates with me on so many levels. One is that I have a great love of hiking. I love setting off on a trail, following the blazes, seeing where they will take me.
The Beaten Path: Purists and Non-Purists
When I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2000, there was much discussion of what constituted a "true" thru-hiker. The "purists" argued that you had to hike past every single white blaze along the 2,172-mile path; you couldn't skip ahead, you couldn't take an alternative path (a "blue-blaze") unless permitted by weather restrictions, and, according to some purists, you had to carry all of your own gear; no "slack-packing" allowed! (Slack-packing, or "slacking," was where you carried only the basics for a few miles and allowed someone else to drive your pack to a road crossing several miles up the trail.)
Those who were not so "pure" said it was OK to blue-blaze and slackpack. Some even said that "yellow-blazing" (taking a ride from one road crossing to another, thereby skipping miles of trail) was OK.
My Experience
I leaned toward the purist side, honestly. I did do some slackpacking, but I wanted to hike past every single white blaze on the trail, and I did. Once I got a ride into town at a road crossing, and the next day I was dropped off at a different road crossing several miles down the trail. I tried to catch a ride to my original road crossing, but it was early morning, and there weren't many cars. So I turned north and hiked the miles I'd missed before turning back south to resume my hike.
On or Off the Beaten Path?
Whether you were a purist or not, most of us agreed on one thing: "bushwhacking" is not a good idea for any thru-hiker. This is when you get off the trail completely and are whacking your way through tall grasses or branches or steep, pathless inclines.
So, whether we were following white blazes, blue blazes, or yellow blazes, we stayed on the beaten path. Of course, in the minds of the millions of people who couldn't imagine hiking a trail for six months straight, we were definitely living off the beaten path.
Back to Proverbs ...
So often when I read about this narrow path of the righteous, I get an image of a well-beaten path leading from A to B. It's not very interesting, and there isn't much to look at. But those paths of the wicked? They're "off the beaten path." They're winding, and they beckon us, inviting us to explore what's around that next bend. So honestly, that way of the wicked seems more interesting than the straight and narrow path we're being told to follow.
"Straight and narrow" is even a phrase we use today to describe someone who isn't any fun.
But then I thought ... there aren't many people on that narrow path of the righteous, but there are a LOT of people following the way of the mockers, the scoffers, those who celebrate partiality and adultery and murder. Maybe THAT path is the beaten path; it certainly seems more populated!
Maybe when we decide to follow Jesus, we're stepping off that hard-packed, beaten path to a narrow, overgrown, little-visited one that promise adventure and joy and purpose. Just maybe.
And Now, a Mushroom.
I'm no longer hiking a dozen or more miles a day, but I do enjoy my daily one-mile walk on my company's walking path. Today, more than usual, I ventured off that beaten path. You see, it's been raining a LOT here in East Central Georgia, and the mushrooms have been popping up everywhere. So I found myself on my belly in the weeds a few times, and yes, wearing my work clothes and looking like a crazy person.
I'll post just one mushroom pic, and I'll save the rest for another blog post on another day.
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