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As part of my time in the Army I was trained as a Pathfinder…..it was one of the

best Army schools I ever went to….very professional….and also somewhat

rare….and to be honest it has one of the coolest badges anyone could ever hope to

wear: A gold torch with a red flame and one wing swept back to the right as the

torch moves forward…..look it up….Pathfinders are trained to be first in, last

out…..they go where no one else is on the ground to blaze the trail for the rest of

the force coming in after them…..they set up drop zones for Airborne invasions of

paratroopers, helicopter landing zones for air assault operations, they sling load

equipment and prepare air bundles for supply drops…..basically, the role of a

Pathfinder is to make sure that there is a clear way of entry and exit for the larger

force……in my opinion, our culture needs pathfinders right now…..people who

will point the way, clear the way, supply the way….people who will point out

when right has been called wrong and wrong has been called right…..cultural

pathfinders who will help blaze a trail, or for that matter even clear debris from the

trails…..and do so in a way that brings clarity to the gray areas that the progressive

left constantly tries to throw on us……

There is a book on my shelf that I confess I haven’t finished yet, but it’s a good

one…..it’s called “The Coddling of the American Mind” by two sociologists

named Lukianoff and Haidt……in one section they discuss what happens when a

culture allows demands and so-called microaggressions to become so fearsome

that they shut down anyone who dares dissent…..in that section the authors say, “a

culture that allows the concept of safety to creep so far that it equates emotional

discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to

systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily

life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.”……that’s where we

are….that’s where we are right now…..we have allowed the concepts of the left to

become so screechingly loud that they drown out reason….and by doing so many

have lost their way because the way is no longer clear, the trail has become

obscured, and sometimes even blocked……

Have you ever had one of those moments when you had absolutely no idea how to

move forward?.....I mean that in both the literal and figurative sense….it can be

really disconcerting to suddenly realize you don’t see a path…..I used to spend a

lot of time in the outdoors whether it be military or civilian….I was always really

comfortable with a map and a compass and a sense of direction…..but it doesn’t

matter how good you think you are with directions, or map reading, at some point

you’re going to have that moment when you realize something ain’t right…..I’ve

spent time in the Rockies, the high plains deserts of Utah, the Appalachians and the

Smokies……in Colorado we hiked for a week along the Continental Divide well

above the treeline….it was epic….there were times when you would come over a

ridgeline and see the snowcaps, the crystal clear blue sky and stumble up on a high

mountain lake and swear you were the first person blessed to ever see that

spot….no trails, no roads, just a map a compass and a backpack…..but I’ve also

hiked through more narrow and wooded vistas, just as beautiful in their own

right…..and most of those on actual designated trails……I remember once taking a

group of kids backpacking on the lower stretches of the Appalachian Trail in the

Smokies….it was beautiful…my favorite time for packing was in the cold months

so this would have likely been in late November or December…..and there had

been a major winter storm that had come through the area just days prior…..but it

was all clear by the time we hit the trailhead….but a half-day into our 4-day pack

and the trail just disappeared…..if you’ve ever hiked some of those trails, or along

the Appalachian Trail for instance, you may have seen how the trails are often

marked with a paint blotch on a tree, or a small sign that indicates you are still on

the path…..but there is also the fact that when you hike well established trails that

are used often that you will just as easily be able to follow the footsteps of others

who have actually worn a path into the ground over time……well, as I mentioned

a minute ago there had been a major winter storm just before our packing trip

started…..and as we moved further into the Smoky Mountains it became very

obvious that the storm had been intense….trees were down, the landscape

muddled, debris everywhere…..and then all of a sudden the trail just

disappeared…..I mean it was gone….we were in one of the thickest parts of the

foliage on an uphill climb when the trail just fazed out…..it was buried, blocked,

and obscured by debris and downed trees….we couldn’t even see where the

markers were because so many trees were down….I had a map and knew our

rough position…..but wow…..we literally had to drop all of our packs and fan

out…..it took twenty minutes or so until somebody yelled, “here’s a

marker!”…..so we gathered up packs moved to that marker and then had to repeat

the process until we found another marker and then again…..it definitely slowed

our progress…..but we regained the path and made our way forward….it wound up

being a great trip…..

I’m sure you’ve had it happen on the road…..you miss a turn, or come up on

construction….and what do you do? I remember once Charlene and I were driving

home late late one night….maybe 1 in the morning….we had just moved our

daughter to college down in Auburn and were coming up the road near

Talledega….the same road we had just driven on early that same morning…..only

suddenly the road was gone….it was completely washed out from a mud slide and

had barriers across the highway…..talk about confused….tired as a dog and so

confused as to how the road that I had just been on was now gone….what?....so I

got out of the car with a flashlight and walked up to the barriers and looked at the

hole and just stood there as another car pulled up….I asked that driver, “what do

we do now?”….he just stared at me and said “I have no idea”…..we doubled back,

found a side road and worked our way through farm lanes and fencerows just

basically following the direction of the moon until suddenly we broke out on a

main road and made our way home…..

My point here is that there is usually a way…..there is usually an avenue of

approach, an ingress and egress if you will…..but you may have to search for it

and it may take a few detours to get back on track…..It can be anything in

life….you get off that course and you’re not sure what to do next….don’t stop

moving forward….you hear constant bombardments from the left that everything

we thought was right is now wrong….or that we are all racists….or that it’s

heartless to try to defund drag queen operas in Sudan…..or that if you object to a

vaccination you’re a heretic…..culture has a way of creating storms and its easy for

folks to lost…..cultural pathfinders are those folks who are willing to get in the

mix and clear the path, blaze the trails, restore the sanity……

That’s why the discussion we had on the show with Maine State Representative

Laurel Libby was so important…..she was unwilling to accept that the norms, or

the paths if you will, were no longer visible…..she was willing to take hit after

hit….and she’s still taking them……because she is a cultural pathfinder…..in their

efforts to mollycoddle the transgender few the Maine liberals have chosen to attack

the vast majority……Libby is a cultural pathfinder showing the world that there is

a trail that has been obscured and she is lighting the way and people are responding

like crazy to the message……but don’t think for a minute that you have to be the

person with a big social media following, or be an elected official….pathfinders

work in big operations and small…..I’ve been trained to set up drop zones for mass

tactical drops of thousands of paratroopers….and in Afghanistan I set up tactical

air drops for supplies for just 20 of us on a small special operations

detachment…..you are not confined to doing nothing by virtue of how big your

sphere of influence is…..you just see the problem, and you blaze the trail…..people

will follow……

…..you can’t see the path anymore….people keep filling your head with their

version of what you’ve got to do or what someone said about you……and you just

can’t see the way forward because you’re exhausted……well, suck it up because

the path is still there and you may have to jog some sideroads and look for markers

on downed trees but the path is still there….having been in that situation I just

want to encourage you and your volunteers…..we can wander in the wilderness

and say we can’t see the trail…..or we can be pathfinders……there is always a

way forward and sometimes you just have to look…and pray….and think on it a

minute….and I really do believe that in an audience this size that there are cultural

pathfinders who can show others the way….you can with humility, and confidence

and poise stand in the middle of the confusion and point someone to a higher better

road of faith, and living and values…..

Because that’s what cultural pathfinders do……

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!