THE TRIQUETRA OF LIFE: Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness

An Excerpt from Chapter 46

Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous

Dad was due to arrive at any moment from the airport. I stood beneath the thin shade of a withered avocado tree, watching the dirt road beyond the dying grove. Heat pressed down through the dry California air. Dust clung to my sneakers. The leaves above me barely stirred.

It was hard to believe three years had passed since I had arrived at Richland House on my yellow ten-speed Puch with little more than a backpack, a beard, and a head full of Scripture and uncertainty. The old Victorian farmhouse sagged in the heat. The barn leaned worse than before, its warped boards groaning whenever the wind pushed against them. Scraggly avocado and orange trees struggled in the hard soil. Only the Calimyrna fig tree seemed untouched by neglect, heavy with fruit.

Soon developers would erase everything. The barn. The grove. The hill where I stood beneath the stars listening to owls in the eucalyptus trees. No trace would remain of the outcasts who had hidden themselves here.

Yet this place had changed me.

For ten years I had wandered, searching for God and the miraculous while drifting farther from ordinary life. Now I was preparing to buy property, sign mortgage papers, and become responsible for other people. Nine commune members had promised to rent rooms from me after the eviction. Their rent money would barely cover the mortgage payments. If they backed out, I could lose everything.

I kept watching the road.

My father was flying across the country to inspect the house and help me make the purchase. It would be the first time we had ever done anything important together as men. That realization tightened my throat.

A black ant moving down the avocado tree trunk caught my attention. It carried a piece of debris larger than its own body, climbing over deep ridges in the bark without losing its grip. I crouched to watch it struggle.

Then I noticed my shoe had partly crushed the entrance to its colony at the base of the tree.

Within minutes, ants streamed from the opening. One after another they carried grains of dirt, rebuilding the damaged tunnel without confusion or hesitation. They needed no blueprints, no meetings, no supervisors, no shouted orders, no cellphones or tools to coordinate their labor. Yet each ant knew exactly what to do, collaborating with flawless efficiency beneath my feet.

I forgot the road for a while.

The tiny workers disappeared into the opening and returned again carrying particles of earth. Their persistence mesmerized me. Sweat rolled down my neck as I knelt there in the dust watching them labor.

A verse from Proverbs surfaced in my memory:

“Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise…”

For years I had searched for signs and wonders dramatic enough to silence my doubt that God exists. Yet here, beneath my feet in the dirt beside a dying avocado tree, life itself revealed an intelligence beyond human design. The realization struck me with quiet force. God’s imprint was everywhere—in bark, roots, insects, sunlight, breath.

I no longer needed spectacular miracles to believe in abiding Providence.

The distant growl of a car engine broke my concentration.

I stood quickly and shaded my eyes. A white Ford sedan hesitated at the entrance to the dirt drive before turning in. Its tires threw up a widening cloud of pale dust that drifted through the grove behind it.

My heart pounded.

My father had arrived.

The car climbed the incline toward the farmhouse. Even from a distance, his presence felt immense. When I was a child, he had seemed indestructible—over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, powerful, always moving with the certainty of a man carrying the burdens of a family through sheer force of will.

The sedan rolled to a stop beside the house.

For a moment neither of us moved.

Then he stepped out into the sunlight.

At fifty-seven, he still looked strong enough to lift engine blocks with his bare hands. He shut the car door and looked around slowly at the farmhouse, the leaning barn, the grove, and the dusty hills beyond.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” he said.

I laughed nervously and walked toward him.

We shook hands.

Then, unexpectedly, he pulled me into a bear hug.

That single gesture stunned me more than anything else that day.

“How are you, son?” he asked, holding my shoulders at arm’s length. “Glad to see you’ve put on weight from last we met.”

“About twenty pounds,” I said. “How was your trip?”

“Could’ve been worse. Flying’s a hassle.” He swept his arm toward the commune grounds.

For years I had carried the weight of disappointing him—leaving my profession, abandoning home, wandering across the country nearly penniless in search of meaning. I had expected criticism, suspicion, another angry comment.

Instead, he had come 3,000 miles to embrace me, his prodigal son.

And standing there beneath that failing avocado tree, with dust still drifting through the air behind his rental car, I felt something inside me loosen at last.

From the memoir-in-progress, nearing publication:
Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous
—a spiritual epic for truth-seekers, contemplative mystics, and all who long for God.

Visit www.RMDellOrfanoAuthor.com and pass it forward.