He had been on two previous vision quests, ones in remote places that entailed a four-day fast and three-day solo. Now he came to the Endless Mountains to embark on a shorter quest, one that was held in a nature preserve near a small village, and where his solo would last just 24 hours.  

He came because he wanted to confirm his readiness to step back from the medical practice he'd had for decades and begin to create wilderness programs for other doctors, programs that would focus on how a different perspective could help them heal themselves as they healed others. He wondered if he was ready. He wondered what kinds of leadership qualities he would need and if he had them.

For his solo spot he found a secluded place by the creek, in the middle of a grove of hemlock trees. On the other side of the creek a meadow spread out in the sun. He spent the day quietly. He carved a piece of wood, reflecting as he sliced off each long strip of bark on what aspects of his life might now be pared away. He spent some time in a plantation of scotch pines, planted decades earlier by a farmer who had intended to sell them as Christmas trees but never thinned them. Now the lower branches were dead, while the crowns reached for the sky. The man wondered which beliefs about himself were dead but still clinging.

He sat by the stream, enjoying its burble over the rocks. He admired the insects and birds that flitted in and out of it. Then he felt moved to enter the stream himself. He began to walk downstream. There had been little rain in recent weeks, and he found he could walk through the middle of the water, stepping from stone to stone. He noticed how he was going with the flow. He noticed that the water accompanied him. A pair of dragonflies showed up, their wings glistening in the sun, and ushered him along for a while.  

During his day alone by and in the stream, he realized many things about his path and his gifts as a leader: that he delighted in exploring unknown territory; that he preferred the fluid way, rather than the forceful, dramatic way; that if he moved with the flow, he would be guided; that there were still some old beliefs he held about himself that were ready to fall off, but that he was strong and vital and decisively reaching for the light. He knew himself ready for the next phase of his life.    

Wandering on a medicine walk the day after the solo, to integrate the wisdom of Nature he'd received on his day alone, he met a black bear.  He had never seen a bear in the wild. The encounter reinforced the power of bear energy in his quest to guide heath care practitioners into nurturing self-compassion through discovering authenticity in Nature. On the last day of the quest, he came upon two otters cavorting in the same stream he himself had moved through. They reminded him never to forget to play.  

In the New York Times recently, Maureen Dowd wrote an op ed piece that opened with a criticism of Michael McQueary, the Penn State assistant coach who encountered Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the shower and failed to stop it. Dowd quotes James Davison Hunter, a professor of religion at the University of Virginia, who said, "We used to experience morality as imperatives. The consequences of not doing the right thing were not only social, but deeply emotional and psychological. We couldn't bear to live with ourselves. Now we experience morality more as a choice that we can always change as circumstances call for it."

A response in the Daily Kos points out that the government itself has been setting a very bad ethical example, with all its lying, torturing, and deceiving of the public. Think Abu Ghraib, the fake reasons for attacking Iraq, the Supreme Court's politicizing of the 2000 presidential election, the shenanigans of the home mortgage industry.

Philosophers since Socrates have been debating whether a sense of ethics is innate in a person. Whether it is or not, people are still responsible for making the right choices, despite what their government does. In fact, millions of ethical people have been outraged at the government's actions. And most of us know very well when we're not living up to our own ethical principles.

We like to think we will act nobly in stressful situations, but when we're tested, as coach McQueary was, how will we respond?

I often recall an event in my life when I failed to act. It was October 1994. I was leaving the White Mountains in New Hampshire after taking an intensive two-week Wilderness First Responder class. I hadn't been on the road for twenty minutes when I passed an accident. A car had rolled down an embankment and overturned. It had obviously happened just moments before, and a couple of people were milling about as if dazed. What would a newly certified wilderness first responder do? What would any decent person do? Stop, of course.

I didn't. I drove on. I was too frightened to stop. The moral imperative flared up. I knew very well what I had to do--and I didn't do it. I've regretted it for 18 years.

Each month this newsletter focuses on the world's invitations and how saying YES to them can change our lives. Many invitations are delightful. Not all. Both, if we accept them, can change our lives. As a result of that failure to act, I have made it a point to offer help to strangers whenever I perceive that they are struggling in some way. Still, I live with the ache of my failure to do the right thing when it was demanded of me.