Ragpicker Road

"Still we Ragpickers are very short-handed. There is also a population explosion on humanities junk piles, and not enough of us to do the job properly."
-Og Mandino (The Greatest Miracle in the World)

Ragpicker Road is a narrow, less traveled road… at least for now. It is an infant road, still living and developing as it stretches and widens to accommodate extra travelers. As you walk Ragpicker Road, "Dead End," "Wrong Way" or "Do Not Enter" will never call your attention on the sideline because these signs don’t exist on this path. The signs you will read are ones like "Scenic Views" or "Overlook" or "Welcome." This is a road which hopes you along with many, many others will sign its visitors roster and maybe even choose to stay, because this living road knows that the best way to widen any narrow path, is to get more people to walk on it.

Robert Frost took the road less traveled and said that it made "all the difference." What a discovery! What a find! I can see him turning a corner on this road and happening upon some scene of nature that no photograph, artist or camera crew could ever fully capture or justly portray. As he stands there, alone, receiving the scene, isn't it part of his nature for his next thought to be beyond himself? Shouldn't he long to have someone next to him, a friend, a spouse or a member of the family to share the moment with him? Sharing, is not to see twice the beauty, it is to see magnitudes much greater. Shame on Mr. Frost, if he doesn’t return from this scene and proclaim its beauty on street corners and from the rooftops and invite all humanity to take his hand and walk with him, so they too, can know the road, walk the road, and see exactly what he meant when he said, "it made all the difference." Share the road! Mark the path! To keep it to yourself is like finding the cure for cancer, but telling no one you’ve found it.
- Exerpt from “A Wider Road” by David R. Barlow