He did not do much physical training in preparation for the trip, but he did acquire gear and supplies. However, he was still devoutly Christian due to his upbringing, and he had decided to remain celibate. They began their journey in August of 2013. He chose Weston because Weston was very adventurous by nature. Jenkins invited along a friend named Weston to be his traveling companion. Jenkins believed that the trip could help him gain a new sense of purpose, fulfillment, and self-knowledge.

He was inspired in part by his parents’ walk across the country. In his late 20s, he made a plan to quit his job and go on a 16-month bicycle trip from Oregon to Chile. He soon began working as a lawyer, but he found that the work was not very fulfilling for him. Jenkins attended college at the University of Southern California and then attended law school. Jenkins mostly has a good relationship with his parents, although his mother still disapproves of his homosexuality. However, they eventually divorced after it was revealed that peter was having extramarital affairs.

Peter and Barbara then married and had children. Jenkins’ parents-Peter and Barbara-gained national attention in the late 1970s by traveling across the width of the United States entirely on foot. He felt shame and fear, as his community believed homosexuality to be unnatural and sinful. When Jenkins was still a child, he realized that he was homosexual. He was raised by two devoutly Christian parents in an Evangelical Christian community. Jenkins was born in the early 1980s in Nashville, Tennessee. To Shake the Sleeping Self is a memoir by Jedidiah Jenkins. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Jenkins, Jedidiah.

To shake a sleeping self