RMDell'Orfano

The Yellow Death Trap

On a Mexican cliffside road with no guardrail, a packed bus meets an oncoming truck—metal scraping, gravel shifting, and nowhere to go.

One Small Step, One Giant Leap

A lone traveler crosses into rural Mexico and walks into a silent valley where faith, solitude, and stark beauty converge. In a forgotten village and forest of obsidian, he confronts modern distraction, ancient ritual, and a turning point that reshapes his spiritual path.

UPDATE: The Samson Option

Netanyahu is trying to annihalate the Iranian government. If they are in such danger, then there are no limits.

Compensatory Sainthood

We fund statues, celebrate heroes, and ignore the truth. Why societies create saints—and what it costs when the myth collapses.

Now I Am Become Death— the Destroyer of Worlds

A lone two-lane desert road stretches toward a vanishing horizon beneath a threatening sky, as a swirling dust cloud rises and sparse flora—creosote, yucca, and cactus—line the silent, perilous path.

The ‘Colored Only’ Fountain

In 1969, passing through Atlanta on a Greyhound bus, I drank from a fountain marked “Colored Only”—and waited to see what would happen.

Food Can Kill … or Cure

A sudden illness sends a young pilgrim to Boston’s Rising Sun clinic, where he encounters a radical idea: food itself may be the body’s first medicine.

Sorry, No Catholics Allowed

At age twenty-six in the summer of 1968, I visit the Bruderhof community in northern Connecticut, stepping through its stone wall and wrought-iron gate into a pastoral world that feels suspended in time.

When Providence Moves …

In the summer of 1968, a hitchhiking pilgrim experiences Providence in motion, receives unexpected hospitality in Amherst, and witnesses a startling moment at a Connecticut turkey farm.

The Medicine

A young man leaves the ordered stillness of an abbey and steps onto a dusty road, choosing solitude and faith over security in this memoir excerpt from Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous.