At dusk in early January, 2009 I stood in a blizzard at the base of a monument. As the snow swirled and fell in the wind, I looked up at a large statue raised to members of the Donner Party, who starved on this site in the early 1800’s. Their goal was to start a new life West of the Sierra Nevada mountains, homesteading in Oregon but their wagon train got off-track, trapped in the High Sierra under more than 10 feet of snow. After hundreds of thousands of pioneers had traveled west successfully, how could this have happened to the Donner families?
First, they got a start later in the year than most. Hoping to make up time, they took the advice of a questionable scout they met early on the road. He advised them to leave the many-grooved ruts of the proven Oregon Trail for a new route through the mountains. Their leader, Donner, accepted the advice unquestioningly, took the many families in the group this new way, then died on the road, leaving them with untested leadership. They struggled and pushed their Conestoga Wagons through the rough new trail, persevering when it was clear that the new route was inferior. Then winter hit them in the worst place, the summit of the Sierra, where they could not go forward, nor back to safety. Most died in the cold of hunger.
Standing in the same spot, in another blizzard but with a warm 4-wheel truck just 100 yards away, I could muse on the dangers of getting off track and how people bet their lives when they take a stranger’s advice on a “better way” than the well-worn paths that have served so many of our ancestors. I recalled a recent TV show, where a famous and extremely wealthy host discussed her spirituality. She asked members of the audience if they believed there was “only one way to God”. When individuals spoke up in favor of their religious tradition, she interrupted them and told them they were narrow minded to believe there was only one way to salvation. One by one, she knocked down these straw men, since apparently after giving them all a new washing machine she was entitled to. Her pride and success closed her ears to what they were trying to tell her, that their religious tradition had a proven record far beyond her personal opinions.
“Is there only one way to God?”, I mused, as I thought about the few ways to travel to Oregon in 1840. This question is a distraction, since there clearly are many ways for pioneers to get to Oregon. One way is to hand-carve a Concorde out of a block of aluminum with a pen-knife and fly it to Oregon. Or, you could get there by building a boat, sailing it around the southern tip of South America and up the coast. But these aren’t practical, are they? The more pertinent question is, “What is the best way to get to God?”. The Donner Party was on a trail that might have worked but it didn’t. They might have made it to Oregon but they died instead. So the question of whether their trail might work should not have mattered as much as whether the scout’s trail was better than the proven Oregon Trail. The trapper’s trail was manifestly worse than the Oregon Trail and they paid with their lives for it.
In our lives, we meet many self-proclaimed experts, who steer us to many inferior and even false trails. Some of them have TV shows and a billion dollars. Others run perfumed shops and sell crystals with magical powers. Although these scouts are completely self-assured, none of them are at the destination they tell us how to get to. When questioned closely, they respond with “There are many ways to the destination” and our reply should be “But what is the BEST way: well-trodden, well-worn trails walked by thousands of years of our ancestors or the new trail you offer?”   We bet our souls on the choice we make, just like the Donner Party bet their lives. And just like the Donner Party, the choice is often made casually without awareness of the impact of the decision, when around a warm campfire in Missouri after a hearty meal.
Do you want to get to Oregon? If so, then pick a trail as if your life depended on it. Follow the trail carefully. Find other travellers in a wagon train and join with them. Help each other along the route; you’re guaranteed to find adversity and danger as you travel. Share your food at the campfire each night and sing when the other guy pulls out his guitar to play. Travel cheerfully and encourage your companions. Rise at dawn each day, sore from the previous day’s exertions but grateful that you are one day closer to Oregon. And never, ever listen to anyone who’s not in Oregon tell you how to get to Oregon.