Begin. The rest is easy.

Not long ago one of us got a fortune cookie that said, "Begin, the rest is easy." Whew. How true. It takes more time and energy to do things out of the box.

While we have no idea what adventures will come. So far, waking up to the sunrise, and the joy of being on this pilgrimage, are far easier than getting ready to begin.

Yesterday we checked in one last time with our cat Perry at his new foster home. Thanks to Alicia and Mark for taking him in.

All of our stuff fit into storage. Barely. It is freeing to live without much in the camper.

The gospel reading for this morning ends with Jesus saying, "So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

I'm not sure how Jesus would feel about storage units. Maybe our trip will teach us to live with less and to let more go. I hope so.

One last shot in front of the first house that Kate and I lived in together.

And then a shot of the second house we will live in together.

We drove out of town on veggie oil and even got up to around 60 miles per hour.

It's nice rambling peacefully along at an easy pace. Judith of St. Hildegard's writes that perhaps we are like 21st Century pioneers using veggie oil instead of horses.

It's a word picture that goes well with our pilgrimage. Tony Jones, a guy who is the point person for Emergent Village right now, used a similar image to describe the new incarnations of faith communities and cultural shifts of our day. We heard him speak at the national cathedral in May for a church for the 21st Century conference.

Many have already gone before us to set up posts in the frontier. We'll send dispatches as we discover them.