Andrew Forsthoefel has walked over 4,000 miles across America but decided to make a stop at Lipscomb on Tuesday night in Collins Alumni Auditorium.
A recent college graduate himself and author of Walking to Listen: 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story At a Time, Forsthoefel spoke to Lipscomb students about how he was once in the same place a lot of students find themselves in — just what exactly should I do after graduation?
Forsthoefel said his journey began when a simple thought crossed his mind.
“What if I just walked outside my mom’s back door and didn’t stop?”
With a backpack equipped with an American flag on one side, and an Earth flag on the other, Forsthoefel started an 11 month trek across the country. Carrying his essentials on his back, along with a mandolin, he presented himself to the world with a sign reading “Walking to listen.”
Forsthoefel noted that his beginning thoughts were full of assumptions and anxiety as he became aware that throughout his life he hadn’t been truly alone, so he did not know how he would deal with the solitude and what he would do if he came across danger.
Forsthoefel said he had to overcome the fear of approaching strangers and abandon prejudices and stereotypes by asking himself a question.
“How can I expect people to trust me with their stories and their truth if I’m not willing to trust them?”
Forsthoefel’s journey took him from Philadelphia to New Orleans and then to Half Moon Bay, CA. On the way, he said he met all sorts of people.
A question he left the audience with that he found helpful when encountering new people was the simple question: “Why? What are you listening for?”
Forsthoefel added that some people did surprise him, like the prison inmates who told him to “Be careful, not everyone is as nice as us.”
He noted that some people showed him support until the end like the Navajo grandparents who threw a party for him on the side of the highway and then another at the end of his journey.
Forsthoefel said he found that strangers would shower him in generosity when all he had to offer was a sincere desire to listen.
“There isn’t one person who can listen to all of us,” Forsthoefel said. “All of us have to be listening to one another. Ask yourself: “Am I listening to the beauty and sacredness in each person surrounding me?”