On The Road – Jack Kerouac

On the road, looking for Jack Kerouac, is a title that caught my eye this morning. Two priests prepare to follow dissolute author’s American journey.  How could one fail to be intrigued to read the article. 

On the Road entered the American literary canon as a classic despite the character of its author, Jack Kerouac.  It now sells over 100,000 copies a year, not that it did Kerouac any good. He died in 1969 from alcoholism. He was 47. He had $91 in his bank account.

Rev. Stuart presides at St. Francis-in-the-Wood, a pretty little Anglican church near Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

On Jan. 19, exactly 60 years to the day after Kerouac did it, Stuart will finally be on the road himself following the same road Kerouac and his friend, Cassady took. Stuart and his buddy, Rev. Sean Robertshaw, will retrace the exact route Kerouac and Cassady travelled in part two of On The Road.

Stuart was originally attracted to On The Road not because it was, on the surface, a book about excess and spontaneity, but because of its spirituality. It was about a search for meaning. Kerouac was out there looking for himself.

“The immorality of the book? That was just the backdrop … On another level, and this has become more apparent to me as I’ve reread it, it’s a parable of life.”

To Stuart, the parable can be many things — that one must strive to “suck out all the marrow of life,” as Stuart said, quoting Thoreau; that the path of excess, he said, quoting William Blake, leads to wisdom; that life is a gift not to be squandered; that you may find your home by leaving it. Whatever it is, what is important is the going.

You can follow the journey on Rev. Stuart’s blog, On The Road 2009.  What a wonderful undertaking.

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