Ed Gulley has has a life many might call hard. He has suffered a hard childhood,  struggle, loss, tragedy. He has worked hard every day of his life, suffered many hardships, never pitied himself.

He does not speak poorly of his life, he is blessed with a spirit of hope and optimism. He believes he can and will do what he set out to go. He understands that the only way one can become a human being it through relationships with other human beings, and other living things – animals and the earth.

Joseph Campbell wrote that if you can see the path ahead of you, it isn’t yours.

Wendell Berry put it differently: “It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Ed wants to bring forth sparks, to engage the world in a dialogue about his life and values. He is an artist, and the artist inside of him is demanding to come out. Ed is listening, he has not closed off that part of himself. He believes his life is important, the travails of life as not shaken that belief in him.

Ed concedes that he has no idea where his life is about to take him, he is preparing to sing, he is the impeded stream.

Both of these gifted prophets – Campbell and Berry – are saying the same thing. The mind that is not puzzled is not alive, is not engaged. If you no longer know which way to go, or where you are going, then the journey begins. If you are not afraid of the dark and mysterious abyss that lies in front of all of us, then your soul has already died.

If you do not know fear, you are blind. If you surrender to fear, you have died for the first time.

They are afraid of us, I think, because they depend on us to be too frightened to see the path and set out on it, their world depends on our trembling in fear and doing what is expected of us.They want us to stay off the path. Sacred are those who bring forth sparks.

Ed Gulley is a dairy farmer, as was father. He is in his 60’s, many farmers his age are planning to sell their cows and get to Florida, or they are just wearing out, maybe going under, thinking of selling out to a big and hungry corporate farm, or sub-dividing their property for realtors. In a sense, Ed is a dinosaur, one of those tough old birds they talk about at the feed store. But he is writing a new story for himself now, he is  defying the expectations others may have of him.

Like most farmers, Ed lived a life centered around brutal and endless work and around family. He is a strong and powerful man, he pulls calves out of cows, chops his own wood, takes tractors apart and puts them back together, knows every part of a machine or a milking cow. The government and the economists have decreed that Ed and the other small farmers of America are no longer efficient or  relevant in the new economy, they are expected to accept reality and go away. Ed is just getting started.

His body is aching, his hands are numb, his legs getting sore. He is ready for the journey to begin. Like most farmers, he knows little about technology and would rather run naked in a snowstorm that go on Facebook. But he has put the tools together to begin his own blog, show off his art, tell his story. He has enrolled in a writing class, his battered fingers can no longer type but his soul is on fire, and Carol, his wife, will see to it that his words will live.

He doesn’t have to be told that his stories are important, he already knows. His new blog is up. And I can tell you that just a few months ago, Ed Gulley had no idea what a blog was.

Ed’s got three posts up already, the kid can write. His newest entry is about Sadie, his goat in heat, she is hanging around with the steers to see if she can get some action, so far no takers. You won’t read this stuff anywhere else. Ed Intuitively grasps the idea of the blog: post often, tell stories, be honest.

He is a biblical figure, I think. He is a figure out of the Kabbalah. There, God tells us that stories are sparks of holiness, they intermingle with everything in the world, even inanimate objects. They are food for the soul. Those of us who dare to be creative are commanded to bring forth holy sparks.

We do not live by bread alone, or by money alone, life is not just the physical but the spiritual – the holy sparks, springing from our souls and minds.

Blessed are the story-tellers, the ancients believed they spring from the mouth of God.