The Road Trip that Changed the World

What if the problem is us? Sixty years ago a goatee beard would have gotten
you beat up in a lot of places. Chin fuzz was the symbol of the Beats or Beatniks,
a mid-century, marginal group who pioneered a new kind of lifestyle. Their approach
to life was hedonistic, experiential, fluid, and individualistic. Their contradictory
approach to spirituality combined a search for God with a search for 'kicks'.
In
1947, these Beatnik heroes set out on a road trip across America re-writing the
"life-script" of all future generations. Theirs was a new kind of lifestyle for
a secular age. Their lives then (like so many of our lives now) were built upon
experience, pleasure, mobility and self-discovery. They would also model a new approach
to faith: desiring Christ, while still pursuing a laundry list of vices. Yet this
dream would turn into a nightmare and the open road would lead back to an ancient
half-forgotten path.

This was a path trodden by millions of feet over thousands
of years. It was a path that began with a single step of faith as a pilgrim named
Abraham stepped away from a cynical culture. A path of devotion that would lead
to a cross on a hill named Golgotha.