2

First Intimation

IN DECEMBER 1963, I was one of three passengers on a cargo ship to South America. I’d packed a lot into my 26 years - particularly since leaving school. I served in the army as a cavalry officer, and had an eventful year sailing round the world to Australia, where I realised my dream to be a cowboy. Then I entered university to study agriculture, but left in rebellion against science and economics. During my travels, I’d become interested in soil erosion, and many other spoiling aspects of civilisation upon both man and nature. I loved horses, handwork and the traditions of good farming, and tried to resist the tide of modernisation, which swept them all away. I started my own farm but injured my back, and had to have a few years’ taste of business. Full of poetry, philosophy and romantic ideals, I longed to have something to work at that I could believe in. Life pressured me to settle, start a family, and be“responsible”, but I felt at odds with the world. I’d tasted the sweet fruits of freedom, and could find no place, no way…

I was tempted by virgin land for settlement in Bolivia, and someone offered me work shepherding in Patagonia. I abandoned a promising career. I remember a meeting when someone said,“We’re in business to make money.”“Oh, no,” I thought,“I’m not.” I wanted to be free to make the deserts bloom…to heal the wounded earth. But what was I searching for? To myself I answered,“God,” but it didn’t sound very convincing to others.“Why can’t you find God at home?” they replied. I thought rather vaguely of“doing good”, but felt more sure of what I didn’twant, and that seemed to be almost everything that other people did. Father tried to dissuade me. The only encouragement I had was from a motherly Frenchwoman:“You must follow your heart,” she said,“and be true to yourself,” but I didn’t know what that meant. I thought it was selfish, and didn’t understand. There wasn’t much heart about that winter evening, nor direction to follow. My departure for Australia six years before had been exciting and carefree. Now I carried a world on my shoulders. After the long emotional struggle to get away, I felt as empty as the cold, grey sea.

It was a stormy passage across the Atlantic. We stopped for two days at Santo Domingo, where it didn’t take me long to fall in love:

In an indefinable way I knew that what I sought (and I could not say what that was) existed, as she’d shown me so simply and sweetly by her being. As the mountains of Hispaniola merged into the evening, for the first time in many months I was happy, and knew I was happy.

I had some fairly miserable times too - of loneliness, uncertainty and, as someone said,“Searching for a hook to hang my hat.” God was more theoretical than real, and my occasional prayers - a desperate plea. I thought more of outward giving than the inner soul, but it was all interspersed by glimpses of the pure, the good and beautiful. Having arrived in Peru, I found a job in the Andes, where I worked with sheep and read my way through the Bible. But this was the“socialist” period of my life, when I really wanted to restore eroded soils, and feed the poor and hungry. I applied and became an agricultural volunteer. I lived high up in a remote and impoverished village, in a barren valley, long since deforested. I longed to make it green and productive again, as old Inca ruins indicated it had been. Once, wanting a break to see Amazonia, I left the thin, cold mountain air and took a long winding road down through clouds to the steamy heat below. With a companion and an Indian guide:

We went by boat some way up the river, disembarked at a muddy bank and, suddenly - were there. The bustling settlement was gone - eternal jungle was. For four unforgettable days we moved in another world - a profusion paradise of life and greenery, with creepers, palms and mighty buttressed tree trunks soaring up to lose themselves above. The floor of the forest is nearly all shady and covered with dead leaves. There’s no grass. You have to look to see the light, far up beyond the broken canopy.

The Indian slipped ahead on his bare feet, but we found it difficult to move quietly. Vision is very limited in all that growth. We heard tapirs crashing about, but only saw their tracks. Flying foxes - large squirrel-like creatures with huge bushy tails, were not at all afraid. And then we found some monkeys. First yo