Peter Jenkins Explores
A father's blessing, holy keep;
A father's blessing! three gens deep!
A motive power to pedal far,
to hitch your wagon to a star.
When aching grabs in foreign land,
'twill be an outstretched healing hand;
what pow'r, what joy in father's bless,
undoing worry, famine, stress. ...
For all his exploring, Peter now learns,
what he never found in journey's turns;
his father's holy trepidation,
in offering blessing for his son.
Written to Peter and Jedidiah Jenkins after reading Peter’s Instagram post to Jed to give him a blessing for his upcoming bike trip to Patagonia, South America, April 9, 2013.
“This recently twenty-something American is getting ready to find out, in a way, what it would be like to homestead 160 acres of sage brush in Idaho. He is going to bicycle with a friend from Oregon to the tip of South America. Back to the basics, learn what is essential and what is not. I’d like to tell him its too dangerous out there, but my folks encouraged me to strike out. I never knew how they must have felt until now. Go get it, Jedidiah Jenkins.”