Do You Have What It Takes To Live An Itinerant Lifestyle? I Do.

My itinerant lifestyle has been controversial especially among friends and family since the day I started this adventure back in the Spring of 2014; but, just recently the jabs have gotten worse especially now that I have become engaged to be married. Now, the attacks originate mainly from my fiance's family. Some in that family have let me know in no uncertain terms that they despise me and my lifestyle even going so far as accusing me of being a "con artist" and "brainwashing" Amy!

Why do I air my "dirty laundry" on my blog? It's to show my readers that I do not whitewash what happens to me on my journey. I do not redact the bad and the ugly. What you see is what you get.

So, here it is.

They condemn me for my two divorces; yet, their own family has at least 4 divorces between themselves. They have called me a "loser" because I don't own a house or have a lucrative job. Yet, most of them to my knowledge haven't graduated from college or have prestigious careers. 

In my family, I have a brother who is a Circuit Judge, a sister who is a Registered Nurse, and another sister who is a bank executive. The Schoenbeins are well educated with post graduate work or degrees. Our family has distinguished itself in many ways back home in Illinois.

Please don't misunderstand. A college degree isn't all that important nor is a good paying job. I only mention it because of these groundless accusations. So, if Amy's people need to brag...well, I have every right to do so myself. But, now, my bragging isn't about houses, vehicles or jobs. Now, it's about how God grabbed me from an apathetic life and hired me on as a proclaimer of his Kingdom.

My itinerant lifestyle includes not working full time to support myself, but, rather walking village to village with very little in the way of the comforts usually associated with the normal American lifestyle.

Now, to be sure, I have not been traveling town to town much since I entered the city limits of Denver, Colorado back in August of 2014. But, I have preached and helped in most of the churches here in Clear Creek County where I ended up in January of 2015.

And, I still live a transient lifestyle in that I do not have lucrative employment where I receive a regular paycheck. My physical needs are never met 100%.

And, I have to regularly move to different quarters from time to time. In fact, as of this writing, I must move out of my present living situation right after my wedding on October 29th. To date, we do not have our housing firmed up.

I work as an associate pastor for a local church and in that capacity I am helping to plant a new congregation in my little hamlet of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

I preach, I baptize, I counsel, I help teach adult Sunday School, I encourage the homeless and the marginalized among other things. During my walk across America I have helped those, who like me, have little in the way of means.

During my peregrinations I have helped a young man regain his sensibilities while he was contemplating suicide, I helped an elderly widow with badly needed work around the house for no remuneration, a cattle rancher with work on his farm and in his weekly business of selling beef products at a farmer's market, and a myriad of other services...all with no payment.

Not once did I take advantage of anyone. Not once did I ask for money. The contributions I do receive come from people who support my mission and believe in what I am doing.

I could quit my calling, and yes, this is a calling, and get back into my profession which I might add I was hard at work in for 30+ years way before some of my accusers were even born.

I have spent my entire adult life working. And, since 2014, I have been hard at work for the best employer in the Universe...God.

I have been invited to lecture in front of various organizations like men's groups, ladies groups and the like bringing them hope, inspiration and a sense of Christian adventure.

I have discipled and still disciple men along the way and have made many lasting friendships from Illinois all the way across the Great Plains to Colorado. I, who have no permanent home or sometimes even a place to rest my head, now have a hundred homes to come back to just as Jesus once promised Peter.

For those of you out there in society who haven't a clue...an itinerant life is not an easy one. There is little to zero permanency, physical, economic or even emotional security, or guarantees. I must depend on others for money, housing, water and transportation to name a few.

When hiking between towns I live out of a small tent with nothing to protect me from the harsh elements and wild beasts other than a few millimeters of nylon fabric and a ground pad.

Along the road I am dangerously exposed to robbers, careless drivers, strange people like the redneck who picked me up and instead of taking me to the next down like I asked he took me to his cabin in the woods threatening me.

I had the misfortune to tangle with false brethren and church leaders who were intolerant of my mission and lifestyle.

I suffered heat stroke, heat exhaustion, gnawing cold, hunger, thirst, painful injuries, blisters, pulled muscles, blood infections, ticks, bees, lack of sleep, persecution, derision, morons who threw Coke cans or bottles at me from their fast moving cars and trucks, wild and domestic animals, scary nights stealth camping in dark woods and forests knowing that I did not have anyone or anything to back me up.

You try this lifestyle...if you have the guts and stamina. Don't you judge me as a loser because I no longer own my own home, vehicle or bank account. Chances are I did much better than many of you when I was living your comfortable lifestyle kicking up your feet in the evening wasting your time watching sitcoms on television. If you think I'm bragging, so be it. Why don't you get off your ass and get out of your comfort zone and do something for the Kingdom of God. Then, and only then, do you have the right to judge me!

And, for those of you who don't know me well, let me brag about my background a bit.

I have a college degree in Government, I was an Illinois Governor's Intern, a member of the Golden Key Honor Society, Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, Who's Who in Government, and the youngest elected County Commissoner from Tazewell County Illinois. I have a legal education from a private law school in downtown Chicago and I worked as a legal assistant for the United States Justice Department where I had a full FBI background check and security clearance. I worked as a criminal investigator in Los Angeles, a catastrophe insurance adjuster and so on.

I have owned houses, vehicles and made a very good living. I once had the respect of many, and, still do.

I have purpose, calling and the providential assistance of that Divine Being who governs the Universe.

So, before you denigrate me and my lifestyle ask yourself what you have done for others and for God. Believe me, my conscience is clear on this.

Is yours?

Pics are of just a tiny fraction of the great and wonderful people I have met along the way. I have hundreds of such photos.

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit

September 17, 2016- Saturday

Amy And I Are Under Attack By The Pettit Family

Decided to call of our wedding plans due to the vitriol coming from Amy's family. To be fair, not all of them, but most of them are intolerant of my itinerant lifestyle especially not having a vehicle and a house. They also for some strange reason don't consider my position as the Campus Pastor of our Idaho Springs Campus a real job as they continue saying on social media that I am not employed?!

Not satisfied with attacking me they now started in on poor Amy. It's shameful how the Pettit family has open up an aggressive offensive against their own daughter and me.

So, they have sullied my reputation by calling me a con artist, a bum and various other assorted names. Just so you know that kind of accusation is legally actionable as defamation.

I realize that most of us have in-laws we'd rather not deal with. And, things can get petty between families. But, the Pettits have brought this hate and vitriol to a level I cannot and I will not tolerate.

Amy and I haven't yet decided our course of action. I'm voting for basically eloping and cutting them out of the situation all together. But, on the other hand, I have to think what's best for Amy. She's in a delicate position having to choose between her family of origin and her new soon to be family of her and me.

Walking across the country I never dreamed I would ever encounter a situation such as this. This is what happens when I try to re-acclimate into society. Society is sick and insane. The nuts are running the nuthouse to be sure. And, I want nothing to do with that.

Consequently, I think it best if Amy and I have a simple ceremony with just Pastor Craig and Christy Babcock attending. That way, there will be no cause for fighting or arguing at the wedding.

Then, I think Amy and I will get out of Idaho Springs for good and continue the walk to the Pacific in the spring. Afterwards, we will train to Illinois and spend the next winter there before leaving on foot for the Atlantic.

After that who knows?

Oh by the way, I have deactivated my Facebook account for good. And, I already feel free as a chickadee!

Ciao for now!

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 12, 2016- Monday
 

Morning Hike Through Pioneer Cemetery

On the forenoon today, in a restless mood, I hiked the easy distance south to Pioneer cemetery. 

Upon my arrival, I trudged up the gravelly drive and came to Griswold Drive and with my trooper bag slung over my left shoulder I began inspecting the old whitewashed tombstones jutting out of the craggy ground.

After some time, I found myself sitting beneath the shiny shade of a copse of aspens, with dancing shadows beginning to form and the leaves beginning to turn flaxen and with a breezy autumnal wind blowing in from the south through the narrow canyon.

The easy flow of nearby Chicago Creek, a serpentine tributary of the mighty Clear Creek could be heard faintly as it sloshed over smooth round river rocks.

This final resting place for long-ago miners from Cornwall and Wales and pioneer farmers who crossed the Great Plains from New York, Illinois and Wisconsin is perched precipitously high atop a steep hillside up against the canyon wall just south of the old mining camp of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

The thin soil and rocky ground is blanketed with spindly tall grasses, burdock, black-eyed susans, goldenrod and coneflowers interspersed with assorted weeds sometimes completely submerging shorter tombstones.

Thoughts of my own mortality abounded as I gazed upon the scores of gravestones peppered over this meadow. 

James Payne, a old fiddler and one time friend of George Andrew Jackson who first discovered gold here in Idaho Springs rests beneath these weeds as does R.B. Griswold a young man from New York who came west to make his fortune and accomplished his goal.

Soon, I too, will be resting beneath this meadow or another somewhere else while others in future years will ramble among these graves just as I did this morning and wonder who I was and how I came to be here.

When I am gone, nothing will cease. Life will go on as before. My passing will change nothing. Clear Creek will still be flowing high and fast and snow will still cover Mt. Evans. Nothing will come to naught just because I slipped into immortality.

School children will still walk home to their families after school and suppers will be still be cooking on the stove. Houses will still be built and roads paved. Soon, everyone who ever knew me will also die, and so it will be as if I never lived at all.

As I sat there under the trees I dozed off peacefully just for a bit. 

What is that over yonder? A newly dug grave? A beautifully carved oak coffin was being lowered down with mourners watching and sobbing. 

Who is being buried today? I asked the cemetery attendant. He says nothing, his eye gaze not meeting mine. So, I ambled over and to my startlement I looked into the open casket I saw that's it was me!

I knew this day would come but always resisted the idea when it popped into my head. 

Waking from my short slumber, I came to the stark realization that one day soon I too will be lowered into the bosom of the earth. That day, the day I have always shrunk from, will finally come.

Then, let me walk with you hand in hand in the piney woods up ahead and tell you a story as I rest on this hill, this forgotten meadow high up in the mountains of old Colorado.

Back in "59" a baby boy was born. He once walked from Illinois to Colorado across the Great Plains not to find fortune but rather treasure in Heaven, a home and a good wife. Now, what more can be said?

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 9, 2016- Friday

Meet Dave and Pam Neubauer Who Are Walking Cross Country To Benefit 7 Orphanages In Burma

Sitting in my office and updating my blog at the Frothy Cup Coffee Shop yesterday a couple came over and introduced themselves saying they were going to hike cross country from Millersburg, Ohio to the Brooklyn Bridge next month, a 500 mile adventure using only country back roads through the pastoral fields and the woods of Ohio and through the thick hardwood forests of the Amish countryside of Pennsylvania, and over the Poconos and on to Brooklyn!

They were talking to Glenda and Randy the owners of the Frothy Cup about their trip and Glenda told them they should walk over to my office and talk to me about their walk so I could convey to them some practical advice since they were novices in the hiking world.

So, they came over and we all sat down together and discussed the big risks, the terrain, bear and other animal problems, rude and dangerous car drivers etc.

Dave and Pam Neubauer are in their 50s and sold most of their worldy belongings and now drive around the country in their RV. They came from a very comfortable lifestyle and transformed into "rubber tramps" for God. "Rubber", in the sense they travel around in an RV with tires as opposed to someone like me, a "leather tramp" hoofing it on foot.

Dave is a construction manager and travels around the country training and supervising workers on an ad hoc basis for many different employers doing construction gigs lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Currently, he is working just "down the hill" in Golden, Colorado.

Pam will be doing all of the walking while Dave operates the RV. Pam will hike so many miles out and then back to the RV for the night. So there will be no tent camping.

They are doing this particular 500 mile walk to raise money for a taxi in support of 7 orphanages in Myanmar formerly known as Burma.
Another goal of Pam's is to lose weight. She was up to 300 pounds and has already lost around 50 pounds training for her walk. She suffered from years of binge eating but is now turning all of that around with God's help.

Amazingly, we discovered that we have many things in common like being from Illinois, married in August of 1983, children are roughly the same age, lived in Denver 2 different times and in the same neighborhood too, attended the same Church in Denver and now hiking across the country.

They offered to take me to dinner so we got up and walked across the street to Beau Jo's Pizza where Amy P manages the salad bar. Amy was on duty at the time so Dave and Pam received a 30% discount.

During our conversation Amy came over and introduced herself to the Neubauers. She was wore out due to the Labor Day crush but we all had a great conversation.

I'm trying to arrange it for them to give a short talk to some of our area churches including mine so they might be able to whip some interest here in Clear Creek County and possibly some badly needed contributions as well.

If any of you out there are interested in learning more about their fundraising effort and their walk go to the contact info below:

Website: PamelaKayLive.com
Email: Pam@PamelaKayLive.com
FB: PamelaKayLive
Go Fund Me Acct: gofund.me/26kwjsc- to fund the taxi
gofund.me/27wutcnh- to fund the walk
Cell: 503-737-5008

Check them out at their website and read Pam's blog.  They gave up the "American Dream" to devote the rest of their lives to pulling the Kingdom of God down to Earth!

Pics are of the Neubauers at the Frothy Cup and Beau Jo's

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 6, 2016- Tuesday

Springtime Rhapsody - The Song of Songs

As Solomon of Old once quipped, there is a time for everything under the Sun. A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to love, and a time to hate.

Well, contrary to the calendar, springtime in fact has come to the North Central Colorado mountains. And, as I have said in past articles, pilgrimages and journeys always begin in the springtime.

Winter is now past with the flowers blooming, the trees singing and clapping their hands. Love is in the air and His Majesty the King of Kings, is as they say, on the move.

We at Calvary Evergreen and Calvary Idaho Springs are now in the midst of a metaphorical springtime rhapsody, journeying through the Song of Solomon. So, irregardless of the fact that we have already had three snows here in the mountains above twelve thousand feet and the buzz about town is of an early winter this year the so called "winter of our discontent" has passed.

Pastor Craig Babcock's course of study for the next several months centers around what is perhaps the most enigmatic book of the entire Bible: The Song of Songs composed by King Solomon, ostensibly the wisest man of all time.

Solomon knew a little something about love and sex considering he acquired seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of which we believe the Shulamite maiden portrayed most vividly in this episodic poem was his first and favorite wife and princess.

It is also said that he wrote one thousand five songs and no doubt this song was his best. That's why the title of it is the "Song of Songs." It is the Song of Songs in the unique way that Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Rabbi Akiva of the latter part of the first century said that this song is the Holy of Holies, the Book of Books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Now, Song of Songs is a story. First and foremost it's a story of the love of a man and a woman. A story of the love of a man and a woman in a garden full of henna blossoms, grape vines, apricot trees, green grass, living waters, lilies and images of feasting on raisin cakes, wine and bread. We hear of flocks of sheep being led about and fed by a good shepherd.

The setting is so dreamlike and intense that the Canticle can only be experienced as an ardent rapture of emotion and longing. It is replete with racy dialogue along with the innermost thoughts of two eager protagonists.

The physical intensity is simply delightful as you realize that just by reading this story you are being made privy to a very private love experience between a most powerful man and a most willing and beautiful woman. It's easy to understand why the rabbis still to this day advise against reading this book by anyone less than thirty years of age.

We who study this episodic pageantry are fed overt language and explicit images of sensuality and erotic desire such as Solomon comparing the woman's breasts to fawns and her chaste behavior to a vineyard enclosed by a high wall and protected to keep metaphorical foxes and other vermin out. We are thrice warned by the woman to not stir up love until it's ready.

This collection of love poetry is structured like a play with the two lead actors complete with dialogue and an audience of several young ladies, presumably the woman's closest friends who also function as the chorus.

My own research indicates a disagreement among those who say this book is to be interpreted solely as a love story. Others say it's solely an allegory of God's love for Israel or the Church or both. Yet others say it is both a literal love story of King Solomon and a Shulamite woman from a northern village in the proximity of Galilee with a concurrent story flowing beneath the story line about God's intense love for us.

I read a blog post by a traditional fundamentalist pastor who adamantly stated that those who see any allegorical interpretation are rewriting the Bible! I can't help but be amused by such nonsense.

It is so clearly both a literal love story of a man and a woman in their courtship and ensuing marriage AND an allegory or extended parable of sorts manifesting God's intense love for all humankind, especially for his Church. Like the two lovers who chose each other from among all other love possibilities, God likewise, chose us from before the foundation of the world as an itinerant preacher once proclaimed.

We see here echos of that perfect state of God with Man in the Garden of Eden. Trees figure prominently in the Shulamite's garden as they do in Eden. We likewise see living water flowing, green grass, verdant fields, fruit of all kinds plus a warning similar to what we see in the story of Adam and Eve.

In the Song of Songs the warning is not to stir up love before it's ready. In other words, do not partake of the Tree of the KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil. "Knowledge" is many times used euphemistically in scripture as sexual intimacy...we are warned in the Song of Songs not to partake of sex until it's the right time. And, as we already know from Ecclesiastes, Solomon postulated that there is a time for everything, a time that is right, a time that is ripe like sweet fruit.

To further the view that the Song of Songs, at least in part, echos Paradise we see the future groom and future King of Israel bringing the woman to the "House of Banqueting" or literally rendered in the Hebrew as the "House of Wine." What comes to mind here? Think of Jesus attending a wedding where he turns stone jars containing water for ritual purification into one hundred fifty gallons of wine. Sweet wine. The best wine according to the wedding's master of ceremonies.

In that love story we see Jesus coming to the rescue where the wine ran out but the festivities were still ongoing. In that culture, wedding festivities lasted for seven days which itself is an echo back to creation wherein God created all things within six days then rested and celebrated the marriage of himself with Man(Adam) on the seventh day. The Hebrew word for Man is "Adam."

This creation and wedding motif is ubiquitous in Scripture. Marriage itself was created by God in part to show how the Triunion of the Godhead related to each other and to his crowning achievement: humankind.

The Apostle Paul continues the story line in Ephesians when he compared the marriage between a man and a woman with the way Christ relates to his Bride...the Church Universal. He called it a great mystery. And, so it is. How a husband and wife relates to each other is certainly a mystery. 

Sexual intimacy is itself a great mystery. We know how sex affects us not just physically but spiritually as well in some esoteric and enigmatic way. Paul warned us against joining our bodies, which are members of Christ, by the way, to prostitutes by sexual intercourse because the two shall then become one flesh.

That same idea carries over in our "intercourse" with the World and it's Babylonian system. We are warned not to become unequally yoked to the World with all of its attachments and lusts.

In chapter two the future groom takes the Shulamite maiden out on a date to a banquet, a house of wine and feasting echoing the great Messianic Banquet in Isaiah chapter twenty five and in the Gospels and in Revelation. Also, read Isaiah chapter twenty four where it says that the wine dries up all over the Earth and the vine languishes as a judgement from God but later God restores the wine. Read that. The World runs out of wine. Then, in his mercy, God restores the wine. Time of judgement turns to time of celebration.  Sound familiar?

We also see here an allusion to Jesus feeding the five thousand and the four thousand.

We see Jesus taking his sheep up the mountains near Bethsaida teaching, healing and feasting with them as all reclined on the verdant green grass of springtime just before the Passover echoing the imagery of Solomon and his maiden reclining on the "green couch" under an apricot tree in the springtime.

As a sidebar, Song of Songs was read in the Synagogues at Passover in springtime in remembrance of Israel's liberation from Egypt and Sin thus becoming God's wife and living with him in the Promised Land inside the Holy of Holies within the Temple.

There is simply too much here to say this is all coincidence. I think God inspired Solomon to compose this Rhapsody with the intent to show that this is exactly how God views us. 

He sees us adorned richly, blameless and perfect as his Bride patiently waiting to consummate the relationship when he returns at the end of this Age and once and for all time gathers us together for the grandest of all feasts eating the best food and drinking the choicest wine...then to live with us for all eternity here on the New Earth, the restored Earth. God WITH us...Immanuel, walking with us in the garden in the cool of the day. Imagine that if you will!

That was always his intent from the beginning. Restoration, reconciliation and return from exile to live once again in the Promised Land. Back to the Garden of Eden. Paradise. 

As children of God that is our final destination, not as some who believe we will have a disembodied existence floating aimlessly around the nebulous, gaseous clouds of the Cosmos wearing a halo over our heads while playing harps.

What a wonderful story!

Pastor Craig brings this love story to life each Sunday morning and evening with his practical application to our lives. So, for all my Colorado peeps out there, come over to Calvary Evergreen at the top of Floyd Hill Sunday mornings at 10am and in Idaho Springs at the old Anglican Church at 14th and Colorado Sunday evenings at 6pm for explicit and sometimes graphic teaching about the mystery of love and sex with its proper context within the constraints of marriage.

As a final note, Pastor Craig's illumination of the Song of Songs couldn't have been timed any better with the upcoming nuptials to take place between me and Amy P on October 29th. You're all invited to the ceremony as well. 

I very much look forward to Pastor Craig's continued take on the best collection of love poetry ever, so see you this Sunday as we take a gander at chapter three.

Pics show Pastor Craig preaching on the Song of Songs in Idaho Springs, Worship Pastor Ben strumming his guitar and the final photo of Amy P and me taking a break while hiking to Dumont, CO.

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 5, 2016- Monday