by Susan Fox
“Stand
firm, and you will win life.” (Luke 21:19)
By
everyone’s evaluation, Bill Irwin was a failure.
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| Bill Irwin, the first and only blind man to hike the Appalachian Trail with only his Seeing Eye dog Orient |
A
womanizing alcoholic with four failed marriages, who had lost his sight, Irwin
was severely depressed.
Then
his son called him, confessed his cocaine habit and asked for his help. Bill spent
a week in rehabilitation with the young man, constantly planning his escape
back to a mindless alcoholic haze and his five-pack-a-day smoking habit.
Suddenly on the last day of his son’s rehab at the graduation ceremony, Bill
Irwin introduced himself, “I’m Bill Irwin, and I’m an alcoholic.” The crowd at
the rehab center was stunned as he’d spent the entire previous week denying
just that.
He
didn’t know how those words came out of his mouth -- except by the grace of
God. After that he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and experienced a profound
conversion to Christ at the age of 49.
‘When
I told people I was born again, it was more than a cliché to me. A part of me
that had been dead as a tent peg had come to life. It had changed my entire
purpose for living,” Bill wrote in his 1992 memoir, “Blind Courage.” Irwin died
of prostate cancer on March 1, 2014, at the age of 73.
After
his conversion and after he stopped smoking and drinking, Bill prayed: “Lord,
I’m so grateful for all You’ve given me and all You’ve done for me. If there’s
ever anything I can do as a way of saying thanks to You, I want you to know
I’ll do it, whatever it is.”
Be
careful what you ask for because God apparently decided that Bill would be a
fantastic model of “walking by faith and not by sight.” In fact, Bill was about
to discover that God cannot be perceived with
the senses, but He can be seen clearly without
them.
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| White Blaze markings show you are still on the Appalachian Trail |
God
was calling Bill to an impossible task: walk the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail,
the longest continuously marked hiking trail in the world. The only problem is
that Bill could not see the White Blaze markings on the 14-state trail from
Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine, nor could he “see” the
majestic views along the trail.
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| Bill Irwin and Orient, part of the team they called the "Orient Express" |
Nevertheless,
accompanied only by his Seeing Eye dog, Orient, he completed the journey in nine
months in 1990 and along the way became a symbol of hope for millions of other
physically challenged Americans and a witness of patient endurance for all
Christians blindly struggling in the Wilderness.
Now filmmakers Paula O'Neal (Producer) and Clint Ross (Director), are recreating his journey as a narrative film called Blind Courage. The story deserves to be told! Bill’s witness
to the value of human life is vitally important in these times when the best medical
professionals have begun to define handicapped lives like Bill’s as “futile.”
Increasingly
in the U.S., Canada and Europe, handicapped people -- who once fought for
special access to buildings and rest rooms – now have to fight to get medical
care because their lives are deemed not worth saving. If you want this movie to
be made, go here to donate before Nov. 22, 2014: BLIND COURAGE THE MOVIE The trailer made me weep.
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| Brittany Maynard chose to end her life Nov. 1, 2014 |
Sadly,
some people agree with the medical establishment that their lives are not worth
living. Twenty-nine year old Brittany Maynard recently became a poster child
for the Right-to-Die Movement. With incurable brain cancer, she moved
to the suicide state of Oregon so that she could avoid a long and
debilitating hospice. She chose to end her life Nov. 1, 2014. In one interview, before her death, she said, “Having this choice (to die) has given me a sense of peace during a
tumultuous time that otherwise would be dominated by fear, uncertainty and
pain.”
Bill
Irwin, were he still alive, could relate to that because when he was 28 years
old, he too was diagnosed with a fatal eye cancer that was expected to spread
to his brain, causing his death in three months time. As a result, he was on
board with the death wish, drinking himself to oblivion. They removed one of
his eyes. Luckily, they studied it and determined he didn’t have cancer, just
an incurable condition that would slowly lead to complete blindness in his
other eye. Bill returned to his workaholic life as a corporate executive and
all the little vices he used to numb the pain from a very difficult childhood
and his broken relationships.
But
God got Bill in the end. After his conversion, he kept getting inundated by
family and friends planning trips in the Appalachian Trail. He began to think
that God wanted him to make the journey too, but he couldn’t understand how God
would ask such a thing.
Bill
admitted to God that he was overweight, clumsy, didn’t like camping, and he
would make a very bad Christian witness because he didn’t like to talk about
his conversion. Plus Bill was blind. Only 10 percent of what they call the
Appalachian through-hikers actually completes the 2,168-mile journey. And all
of them could see.
Most
are injured, run out of money, or become discouraged. These are your experienced
hikers, who love the outdoors. But Bill was not like that at all. The conversation Bill had with God about going
on that hike was very similar to the ones Moses had with God when He called him
to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt.
"’I am the LORD; speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt all
that I speak to you.’ But Moses said before the LORD, ‘Behold, I am unskilled
in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me?’" (Exodus 6:28-30)
In
fact, Moses was so insistent that he was a clumsy speaker that God assigned his
brother Aaron to speak for him. So Moses would speak for God, and Aaron would
speak for Moses.
To
march in and tell the leader of Egypt to “let my people go” must have taken quite
a lot of trust in God because Moses clearly was not qualified, and besides he
might be killed.
So
it was with Bill Irwin. He was not qualified for the task that God gave him. And
he was almost killed several times. He met bears, got trounced on by an upset
moose, fell down every
day numerous times, broke his rib on a sharp rock (and there were many of those),
was stranded without water, couldn’t find his way back to his pack when the
temperatures dropped, and he almost drowned crossing a freezing river. Every
single time God picked him up and saved him.
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| Scene from Blind Courage The Movie |
God
calls weak men like Bill Irwin and Moses to impossible tasks so the world can
never believe that mere men did incredible things. No, in the Exodus and on the
Appalachian Trail, we watch God working through the weakest of men.
Starting
out on the trail completely unknown in Springer Mountain, Georgia, he was very
quickly overtaken with discouragement. In that sense, he was like the
Israelites after Moses led them out of Egypt. They faced the Red Sea with
Pharaoh’s army breathing down their backs. Moses asked, “What shall we do?” God
said, “Go straight ahead.” He told them effectively to walk into the Sea, but
before they got there, God had parted the waters and they passed safely.
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| Screen Shot from Blind Courage The Movie Actor Bill Oberst Jr. will play the blind hiker |
In the Blind Courage Movie
Trailer, someone asks Bill, “Ever think about quitting?”
Bill answers: “Every day.”
“How do you know which way to
go?” the guy asked.
“I don’t. I just follow him (the dog). God leads the dog, and the dog leads me.” In
fact, the color blind Seeing Eye dog eventually learned to recognize the white
blazes on the trees marking the trail.
Bill
writes that God sent little witnesses on the trail to befriend and encourage
him. Because of these encounters, the man who didn’t want to engage in
Christian witness became an effective evangelist, forming deep friendships
along the way.
His
first encounter was with a lady named Patty. He was hanging his wet clothes to
dry. “After only four days on the trail, I was already a few miles behind
schedule. I was feeling guilty and a bit discouraged when a woman’s voice said,
‘Hi, how’s it going?’”
A
day hiker, she told him that he was doing the right thing getting his stuff
dried out, and it wasn’t a sign of weakness, nor a waste of time. The best part
was she told him he looked like a guy who would make it all the way to Maine. That
was just what he needed to hear.
Like
all through-hikers, Bill had packed too much stuff. He met up with a Forest
Ranger and his wife, who modified Orient’s pack using an industrial sewing
machine so the dog could carry his necessary load. The ranger helped Bill pick
what he would take, and what he would mail back home. He also told him to dump
his “dead man’s clothes:” Cotton created the perfect conditions for
hypothermia.
Bill
no longer regarded the strangers’ kindnesses as a coincidence. He called it
“God performing a miracle while maintaining his anonymity.” He was beginning to
understand the mercy of God. “That was a big departure from the kind of
thinking that had governed most of my life.”
Bill
spent 49 years of his life just giving up emotionally. He spent the next 24
years doing the opposite. Many times in his memoir, he said he asked himself
why he didn’t give up a task that was difficult even for a sighted man. Then he
would come to the conclusion through prayer that God asked him to do this for a
reason, and he would just keep putting one foot in front of another. Bill was developing the Christian virtue of
enduring perseverance.
Consider
the Parable of the Sower: "Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they
hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for
a while, and in time of temptation fall away. The seed, which fell among the
thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are
choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit
to maturity. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard
the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.” (Luke 8:13-15) In Bill’s life, God planted a seed in a good
heart that bore fruit in perseverance.
Once
word got out that a blind man was hiking the Appalachian Trail, reporters from
every major media outlet mobbed Bill. He didn’t hesitate answering the
questions about why he was doing his impossible hike: he expressed his gratitude
to God.
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| Blind Courage The Movie |
“Why are you doing this
Bill?” he was asked in the Blind Courage Movie Trailer.
“To say thank you to God.”
“For what?”
“For savin’ my life.”
Bill
Irwin was not a Catholic man, but on the trail he walked he learned discernment
of spirits. Catholics divide the movements of the spirit into that of the
flesh, the evil spirit and the good spirit. “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the
spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone
out into the world.” (1John 4:1) Bill might have been weakened many times by the
spirit of the flesh, when he faced pain and discouragement. But he ultimately
welcomed the directions of the Good Spirit. For Bill was led to patience in
trial.
Bill
speaks of the times God spoke to his heart in silence. It frustrated the people
who assisted Bill when they would give him advice on how and when to take
certain paths along the trail because Bill would never readily agree to their
advice. He always said he would pray about it. The desire for prayer is a sign of
the movement of the Good Spirit, leading you in the virtue of hope. Near the end of his journey he evidenced
indifference to human success, willing to give up the journey before the end or
continue it as God willed. This is another sign of the action of the Good
Spirit in Bill’s life. The evil spirit is opposed to humility and obedience.
On the trail, Bill
plunged into silence to perceive God without his senses. Blindness is actually
a tremendous advantage in a difficult spiritual journey. One will never see God
in His Transcendence inside creation, and creation is perceived with the senses.
Think of the Apostle St. Thomas, who refused to believe that Jesus had appeared
to the other apostles after His death: "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails,
and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I
will not believe." (John 20:25)
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| St Thomas puts his hand in Christ's side |
Christ
responded to his apostle’s need for sensual reassurance. Appearing again to the
apostles, He said to Thomas: "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and
reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but
believing." (John 20:27) Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20: 28)
But
Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed
are they who did not see, and yet believed." (John 20:29)
Jesus
was speaking about people like Bill Irwin. God called Bill to that kind of
faith in which man enters the dark night – the prelude to union with God. Literally,
one has to become blind to see. “Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more
lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover
transformed in the Beloved!” sang St. John of the Cross in his poem “Dark Night
of the Soul.” The night is allegory for leaving the world of the senses to seek
God in blindness. It’s not a well marked path, and you might not see the
White Blazes.
St.
John concluded his poem reclining his head upon the breast of Jesus: “I
remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All
ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the
lilies.”
Ah,
may we all leave our cares forgotten among the lilies.
May
we all take that difficult journey, blindly following the instructions of the
Beloved, and listening for the Voice of God, directing us on the trail until we arrive safely nestled in the Heart of Christ at our eternal home.
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| The real Bill Irwin doing what he does best |
To
see a short video clip of the real Bill Irwin near the end of his 2,168-mile hike in
Maine: Bill Irwin Hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine in 1990
The
Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross
On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings--oh, happy
chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at
rest.
In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder,
disguised--oh, happy chance!--
In darkness and in concealment,
My house
being now at rest.
In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I
beheld aught,
Without light or guide, save that which burned in
my
heart.
This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To
the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me--
A place where none
appeared.
Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the
dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the
Beloved!
Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself
alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of
the cedars made a breeze.
The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his
locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses
to be suspended.
I
remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased
and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
