"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Henry David Thoreau

One of the first things Don Schrader points out the first time he welcomes me into his apartment is that it measures 12 feet by 14 feet and that when you subtract the wall space his livable area is 151 square feet, or just 1 square foot bigger than Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond.

For the record.

Schrader, a model of simple living, is nothing if not a completist — a stickler for facts and numbers. A purist in every sense of the word.

You might know him. If you read the Letters to the Editor section of newspapers, you'd recognize his name. If you've seen a nearly naked man in the University Area or at a flea market or on Channel 27 or carrying a homemade protest sign in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, you'd remember his face. Or maybe his washboard abs.

Yeah, that guy.

In shorthand, he's a former Mennonite minister from rural Illinois who believes in war-tax refusal, simple living, sun worship, raw nutrition, raw bodies and raw bodies of the same sex in carnal communion.

Schrader, 61, lives his life publicly, trumpeting, in the rawest of language, his big-picture philosophy as well as the minutiae of his daily brand of asceticism — from Gandhian proclamations to a detailed discussion of his urine-drinking regimen. He is a unique mix of local celebrity and conscience of the city. He is a lightning rod whose letters prompt weeks-long debates, and his mere presence on Central Avenue elicits hoots and whistles, threats and epithets. The way he lives seems like a threat to our way of life.

"What I stand for — if many people followed my example — is revolutionary but not in a violent way," he says. "It would undercut the structure of this entire society."

• • •

When he welcomed me into his home last year, it began a 13-month relationship. It was a study of his inner world.

Every interview was conducted either in his apartment on Silver Avenue or on the back of the property, behind the garage, by the alley where he suns himself late in the afternoon or bounces on his trampoline for exercise.

We talked about issues great and small, from global politics and biblical insights into man's dark nature to how much money he spent on bus rides in June ($8) and why he shaved off his beard and mustache (to look younger) and stopped wearing glasses (ditto — "Even though I see better with them, I look better without them").

When I showed up for our most recent session a week ago, he said it was our 15th meeting. I trust his notes better than my own. He documents every detail of his life. He meticulously records, in tiny writing, every person he interacts with, every penny he spends and every milestone — whether it's the the last time he rode in a car (4/7/2001), the date he stopped eating cooked food (12/12/98) or the record cold temperatures during his first winter in Albuquerque (as low as minus-17 on 1/7/71).

"There's a lot to my life that to the average person seems so alien, so weird," Schrader explained. "They think it must be fantasy. So, I provide documentation."

He's an inveterate writer of letters to the editor — The Tribune, Journal, Alibi, Daily Lobo and, for years, the small-town paper back home in Freeport, Ill., much to the distress, he says, of his fundamentalist Christian family.

He has been on the FBI's radar since his days as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and his decades of public protest since, mostly outside the University of New Mexico and Kirtland Air Force Base.

He shows me a copy of an FBI report from his file (2/5/87): "Schrader communicates on a regular basis with many controversial groups around the world and is known to write numerous letters to the local news media advocating controversial causes. . . . Schrader is described by local authorities as 'less than stable.' "

He explains his persistence in repeating his message over the years.

"It's kind of like advertising. Advertising has to repeat, repeat, repeat. . . . It usually takes many encounters with an idea before it takes root and stays rooted in our lives."

He does earn his compliments. He shows me a note a woman gave him at a poetry reading earlier this year. On a scrap of shocking pink paper she wrote: "Your presence and words are so clear and true. . . . You teach just by being here. Thank you." And she drew a picture of a flower in the corner.

He bristles, though, when he thinks of people praising him but then continuing on with their lives — paying taxes for wars, poisoning the world and their minds with computers, ingesting toxic junk food.

"It's much easier for people to compliment me than to take seriously what I stand for — to say, 'This makes sense, and I'm going to do it.' "

And to his critics, he says: "Let them beat me by living more simply than I."

• • •

The first thing I notice when I walk into his house is the odor, a natural funk. It has not been sanitized for modern sensibilities, and most folks probably would flee in the direction of fresh air.

"They can take cigar smoke and the smell in a boozy bar and the toxic chemicals coming off the seat covers of their new car," Schrader says, "but when it comes to the natural, they freak out."

Later, after describing his urine therapy (he bathes in it and says he drinks it while he exercises every morning), he adds: "Of course, I grew up on a farm . . ."

He has no stove, no refrigerator, no TV, no functioning shower, no sink drain. He collects gray water in buckets and uses it to flush the toilet. He doesn't use gas heat.

In one corner, he has stacked three sleeping bags and three blankets, all covered in two bedsheets. That's his bed. In another corner is an end table with an antique phonograph sitting on it.

A large bureau is his kitchen area. On it are pint jars full of grains and seeds. Here he concocts a mixture that serves as his only meal of the day, every day. It's an uncooked "soup" that consists of wheat kernels, sunflower seeds, flaxseed, garlic, red pepper, apricot kernels, ginger root, carrot and wild greens from the neighborhood or his garden, all soaked in purified water for 24 to 48 hours and then blended into a puree.

He drinks 5 to 11 pints of this concoction a day. (He also forages for fruit. Among his favorite haunts: the fig tree by the Center for Peace and Justice, the peach tree at Fairview Cemetery and fig and apple trees on the UNM campus.)

Nearly every inch of his walls and doors is covered in cards, notes, photos, plaques, fabric hangings, poetry, slogans. Most of one wall is devoted to explicit photos clipped from gay porn magazines. On the door next to that wall are yellowed photos of family and friends. On another wall is a card that reads: "Early to bed & early to rise helps us to be healthy & wise. I like to go to bed 9-10 p.m. & to get up 6-7 a.m."

His window faces the sunset and provides a cross-breeze with the door. Below the window is his desk — the top drawer stuffed with letters, four-week itineraries going back decades, and lists. Lots of lists. Among them:

• 17 things he enjoys most in life, led by "deep heart-to-heart conversations."

• 16 qualities he wants in a home.

• Documentation of every penny he spends. He uses cardboard from the post office, either cutting it into 2-by-8-inch pieces or reusing the packaging that holds adhesive stamps.

• 11 habits or qualities he shares with his devoutly Mennonite brother.

• And there are two long lists in which he analyzes his parents, Lillian and Harry, essentially his way of trying to understand the source of their unhappiness and why their marriage apparently was starved of affection.

Schrader says his mom taught him to make lists. He regularly refers to his mother as his "all-time closest friend," and she was the family member who most accepted his lifestyle. He points to a photo in an album of him as an adult naked out in nature, and says it was taken by his mom.

He says he was "spoiled rotten" as a kid — watching Western after Western on TV, eating junk food, buying record albums. He was an A student (except for getting B's in gym class). He helped out in the family business, which involved slaughtering livestock, which he regrets to this day.

In 1976, the couple who raised his father, Lloyd and Anna Schrader of Pecatonica, Ill., were shot to death in their home. In 1982, Dale Gunther was charged in the killing and pleaded guilty, and Schrader struck up a correspondence with the man, forgiving him. (Gunther killed himself in prison seven years later.)

1982 also was the year Schrader's mother died of kidney disease. He returned from Albuquerque to live with his dad the next seven years. He describes Harry Schrader, who died in 1994, as old-fashioned and very concerned about his standing as a businessman in the small community of Dakota, Ill.

He shows me letters from his dad, plays me answering machine messages, and in nearly every case, his dad displays little intimacy, as if corresponding with a client. Notes to his son are signed "H.S." One phone message states: "Must be out on the town. It's raining and snowing here. How is it there? I thank you very much for calling."

"There was intimacy," Schrader insists, "even though maybe he couldn't reciprocate nearly as much in words."

I saw one note from his father posted on the wall. It's signed, "Love, Dad."

• • •

As our visits border on the routine, Schrader prepares for them, and they start to take on themes. One day he is ready with bank statements, paycheck stubs and receipts. Another day is devoted to letters from friends and family.

On this day, we're looking at photos and memorabilia. He shows me a flier from 1964, for a Mennonite youth convention in Kitchener, Ontario. He had just graduated from high school. His hair is finely slicked, and he has dark-rimmed glasses. He wears a suit and tie.

I notice the hunched shoulders and suggest that the young man in the picture seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on them. I hand him the photo.

"I think I look like an old man emotionally. And I was," he says. "I was very boxed-in emotionally — everything from sexuality to deep questions spiritually."

He would go on to be pastor of West Sterling Mennonite Church in Illinois for two years. He resigned in October 1968, dissatisfied. "While I enjoy preaching from the pulpit, the most eloquent, fervent oratory is no substitute for Jesus in the marketplace and the agonizing calvaries."

The next year, he was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and was off to the Mennonite Voluntary Service in Surprise, Ariz. He moved to Albuquerque in June 1970 to complete his service. He felt at home in the Southwest, drawn to its mix of Hispanics and American Indians.

Soon he would be frolicking naked in the Jemez, his long hair and a beard marking him as an entrenched member of the counterculture. He mentored youths in Martineztown. He ran for City Council in 1974 but lost. He embraced his homosexuality.

He says the love of his life was also named Don, whom he met in 1980. At the age of 25, Don died in a car crash. Schrader arranged the funeral service, sang at it and cried openly and publicly for the first time. Don is buried at Fairview Cemetery, which has the bountiful peach tree.

Schrader's old life of high school, college and as a pastor, he says now, "is so alien to me."

"I hadn't learned to question deeply. I hadn't dared to question deeply. . . . For so many people, when it comes to religion, it's like they're in some infantile stage and don't dare to question deeply."

He sees in his own transformation hope for others.

"If I can change so radically, anyone can," he says. "From 1969 to '72 I was beginning to burst forth from the cage to freedom."

His papers from that era are bound in a folder labeled "On the journey to freedom."

• • •

Another visit to Schrader brings an audio history lesson. On his weathered Toshiba radio/cassette deck he plays me a series of tapes.

On one tape we hear his parents singing "Happy Birthday" to his answering machine. It was the last birthday — his 36th — before his mom died at age 74.

He digs out a recording of a family gathering in Illinois at Christmas in 1971. Don plays the pump organ as he and his mom sing, "Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home."

He plays a string of phone messages from the days when he used to list his phone number on his cable-access TV show (and when he had a phone). One after another is a venomous putdown or threat, laced with profanity. A few are complimentary, but most are hateful, using language that can't be printed here.

After the Channel 27 show in which he discussed the murder of his grandparents, there was this from a woman: "Too bad that the people who shot your family didn't shoot you. Faggots like you should be shot."

Schrader concludes the session: "I don't know anybody who bears his soul on as many subjects — 15 years this month (on TV). And you wonder why men are afraid to be open."

He says he understands the venom.

"All of us are capable of ferocious violence," he says, "and we all are capable of marvelous compassion."

Don Schrader included.

"I am no better — not one iota, not one speck, not one molecule better — than anybody sitting on death row anywhere in the world."

And he understands how that manifests itself in hatred or intolerance.

"I was part of it," he says. "I was fundamentalist to the max. So, lest I forget."

• • •

On our last visit, a week ago, he was prepared with a final list of things he wanted to share before this story was written.

He reported the death of a friend, Mary Ann Fiske, from cancer at age 60. He showed me the booklet from her memorial service. He took care to point out a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

"Preach the Gospel, and if you must, use words."

I decided to break from the form of staying exclusively in Schrader's inner sanctum and go to the home of Fiske's husband, Chuck Hosking, for one final interview. Hosking, a familiar face as prolific protester outside Kirtland Air Force Base, and Fiske were devoted to simple living the past 35 years, donating two-thirds of their income to people in poor countries and, like Schrader, living below the tax threshold.

When I arrive, Hosking is sitting at the table in the airy main room of his house. His home is a veritable mansion, I point out, compared with Schrader's one-room monastery.

"Discipline is Don's middle name," Hosking says.

Schrader's extreme lifestyle, he says, makes people like Hosking seem like moderates by comparison.

"He is so far out there that he makes us look reasonable," Hosking says with a smile. ". . . He's broadening the range of what people are willing to consider."

We move outside and Hosking brings up the African concept of ubuntu, essentially the idea that we exist on this planet to interact with each other on a basic human level.

"It seems like something we lose track of in this country," Hosking says. "We're so obsessed with things and status that we lose track of what's really important in life."

Schrader reminds him of that battle, possessing virtually nothing.

"He shines. He stands out," Hosking says. "Because he doesn't want any of this crap, as he'd put it, because he's not burdened by all that junk."

• • •

Don Schrader is quick to reference Mohandas Gandhi, whom he sometimes resembles physically — sitting on a piece of plywood out in the sun, wearing but a loincloth, bathing himself with a rag. Gandhi's fundamental message guides him: "Be the change you want to see in the world."

"Gandhi said he was an ordinary person and 'anyone could do what I do,' " Schrader says. "Jesus said, 'As my father has sent me, so send I you. Love one another as I love you. As I do, so should you — and greater works.' He wasn't asking us to put him up on a pedestal; . . . he was calling us to follow him in our everyday lives as best we can, stumbling as often as we do."

At one of our early meetings, he showed me his will. He wants to be buried naked with no coffin in an old-dirt cemetery in New Mexico. He wants "Buenos Dias Paloma Blanca" played at his funeral.