The Petersons (Rocky Mountain Adventure, Part II)

In the summer of 1936 my grandfather got a raise.  He’d been making $2.50 a night working 12-hour shifts at a chicken hatchery in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  He was the last man standing after several grueling weeks and he asked his boss to bump his nightly wage up to $3.00.  He got the raise, which he deemed sufficient to allow him to marry my grandmother, which he did almost exactly 73 years ago today.  The next summer they had their first of six children, the third of whom was my father.  By my count, my grandparents now have 62 direct lineal descendants.  When you throw in spouses and babies on the way we have - well, a whole bunch of us.   Though my grandparents are no longer with us, their legacy runs strong as evidenced by the large gathering of  Petersons at the YMCA of the Rockies in June.

My father and his siblings grew up on a farm in Minnesota, but in the typical diaspora of the 20th century American family, they all left the farm and spread out around the country.  About a third of the family moved back to Minnesota eventually, and the rest of us live in places as varied as Southern California, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.  We try to get together every few years, and some of my greatest memories are from those reunions.

In simpler times our reunions were full of games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation.  Though things have changed a lot with our wired generation, we still spend our time with games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation.  For whatever reason, my family is particularly fond of Yahtzee.  I’ve got to admit that it’s still a thrill to roll five 6’s.

This year’s twist is that we were enjoying each other’s company in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.  The YMCA gave us use of the “Texas Room”, which was an old cabin with a nice front porch that served as family headquarters.   Hundreds of games were won and lost, old stories re-told, and new memories created.   One of my favorite memories was standing with my cousins and uncles in front of the Texas Room watching a massive thunderstorm roll in.  After the sun set, the lightning continued on the other side of a ridge of mountains surrounding the camp.  It looked like a horrifically wonderful artillery barrage between warring armies, and it went on for hours.  I’d never seen anything like it.

 

Things do change.  My parents, aunts and uncles have moved into the patriarchal and matriarchal roles of their own clans. My cousins and I constantly watched, corrected and entertained our kids just as our parents had done for us 30 years ago.  We have a family web site now and stay in touch daily, so there was little news to share.  But what remained unchanged was the tremendous sense of love we have for each other.  It’s not a small thing to drive or fly a big family across the country, and it meant a lot to all of us that so many were willing to make the sacrifice.

I love my family.  There is no Prescott Bush, Joe Kennedy or Pierre DuPont in our lineage, but there is a nobility that transcends wealth.   My grandfather and grandmother were imperfect people, but unquestionably people of faith and prayer.  I see the fruit of their faithfulness in my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my cousins children, and in my own kids.  I aspire to leave that kind of legacy, and pray that one day my children’s children and their children will choose to lay aside worldly concerns, sacrifice a bit of their earthly treasure, and gather with a similar spirit of affection for one another.

In 1981 my grandfather wrote a brief history of his early life for my sister and me.  He concluded with these words:

The years have been hard at times but they have also been rewarding.   Grandma and I have enjoyed each other for forty five
years now.   We are happy to have six children, all Christians and married to Christians and to have eighteen grandchildren whom we love so dearly and are happy for everyone of them, and now our first grandchild is married so we have another granddaughter to love.   We pray for each of you every day and ask the Lord to bless and keep you in His tender care, always.

As related in the written history he left with us, my grandfather worked hard all of this life for modest monetary gain.  He was driving teams of horses in the field with his brother when he was only 9 years old.  He never finished high school, and probably never made more than a few thousand dollars a year.  He died at the age of 89.   My grandmother’s life was also hard.  She started a family during the Great Depression, lost her only sibling (a bona fide war hero) to a kamikaze pilot in WWII,  and she lived her last years afflicted with Alzheimer’s.  But despite those obstacles, they left a unified, functioning, loving and healthy family that I am persuaded will be a blessing for generations to come.

My grandparents left us virtually nothing monetarily.  But as I consider the things of my life that will remain, my grandparents’ legacy of faith stands out as something precious, enduring and imperishable.

 

God’s Mailbox (Rocky Mountain Adventure, Part I)

One of the key challenges in any Peterson family adventure is escaping the city.  Counterfeit urgencies, illness  and a hundred other obstacles seem to threaten our every attempt to escape the bustle of Atlanta.  Unwanted obligations cling to our legs and cry like spoiled children as we make our way out the door.  I’ve named this collection of distractions “The Noise.”  Our recent trip to Colorado was no exception.  But we pressed on, and made our escape last Thursday.

The Noise continued as we navigated the expressways, parking lots, security lines and general hubbub of the busiest airport in the world.  It waned a bit as our plane ascended and headed west.  The Noise threatened a bit as we went through the inexplicably lengthy process of renting a van.  But once we arrived at our destination in Estes Park, Colorado, The Noise had diminished completely.

Nothing captures my imagination so much as the mountains, and there are no mountains quite like the Rockies.  The YMCA of the Rockies was established in 1910, some five years before Rocky Mountain National Park was created. It boasts rustic lodges, sits at 8,010 feet, provides visitors a 360 degree panorama of extraordinarily majestic mountains, and lies adjacent to the famous national park.  We are members of the local YMCA, which is essentially nothing more than an L.A. Fitness for families, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this YMCA seems more dedicated than most Y facilities to its Christian mission.

On our first morning at the camp, we were presented with a wealth of opportunities.  The Y offers all sorts of classes, athletic venues, a museum, a crafts facility, an indoor pool, horseback riding and a dozen other options.  So, after a hearty breakfast, we split up.  Toria walked the two younger kids around the Y, and I took the older ones for an archery class.

Never missing an opportunity to impress my kids or anyone else watching me, I took up a bow and drilled the target a few times.  I hadn’t shot a bow in years, but I spent many 8th grade afternoons in my backyard firing a bow into a bales of straw in our backyard.  I was pleased that my skills hadn’t left me altogether.  My kids were impressed, but at some point will realize that their Dad had nothing better to do during junior high than shoot a bow and arrow in the backyard by himself.

After our classes, we joined my parents for lunch and decided to take a hike.  After a couple of wrong turns, we ended up making the climb to Bible Point.  Among other things, Bible Point is the burial place of Edwin Brandt.  Brandt died tragically at 18 years of age in 1918, and had so loved the spot that his father requested that he be buried there.  His parents installed a mailbox next to his grave where they placed a Bible and a register for hikers.  And so the place earned its name.

The hike was a relatively short, but steep ascent up to 8,650 feet, and my Mom and youngest daughter stopped mid-way up the climb.  The rest of us were rewarded with stunning views on a beautiful day.

King David wrote, “If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”  (Psalm 139:8, 9)  So I know that God hears prayers uttered from from my car or my office as easily as those issued on the mountain, and yet The Noise seems to subside when I’m above the racket of the world, and I feel more capable of hearing Him.

I thought of the prayers that Edwin Brandt likely lifted up from those very rocks nearly 100 years ago, and the cries of a father burying his son at the same spot.  Edwin died in a car accident on his way to his brother’s wedding.  I can only imagine the confusion, grief and anger of the surviving father of this spiritually precocious son.  And yet, his father thought to put a mailbox and Bible at his son’s grave.  His confusion, anger and grief didn’t morph into disbelief.  I don’t know the whole story, only that in God’s economy the whole episode had a purpose that escapes our understanding.

I think much disillusionment with God stems from the fact that prayer is an ineffective tool for manipulating God.  People pray for what they want, don’t get it, and assume that God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t care.  Much to our surprise, prayer just isn’t a way to get what we want.  It is, however, an exceptional tool for experiencing God. 

As I breathed the rare air at the site and watched my father and my sons, my wife and my daughter, I became acutely aware that I have been richly and wonderfully blessed, and that it is God who has blessed me, not just with opportunities like going to the mountains, and not just with a beautiful family, but with a knowledge of Him.  So many of us think of eternal life (if we think of it at all) as something that happens after what happens here.  Christ describes it differently, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God , and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”  (John 17:3).  Eternal life is now.  And all that is true seems truer to me from a place like Bible Point.

 

 

Being a Dad

I love being a dad.  I’ve got four kids – 10, 9, 6 and 3.  Of all the riches of this life, nothing compares to having a house full of offspring.  Our house is not a neat and polished place.  It is filled with dings and scuffs and evidences of activity.  Each day brings unexpected blessings and challenges with these four sentient, sinful and marvelous creatures under our roof, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

My second child, Mary Kate, was born on Father’s Day.  She was the greatest Father’s Day gift ever.   As evidence that I’m a normal guy as well as a dad, one of the many things I remember about the day of her birth is watching Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open – while my wife was in labor.  I also remember saying to my wife immediately after the delivery, “well, that one was pretty easy.”  Yes, I can be oblivious.

We just wrapped up Mary Kate’s 9th birthday party, and I continue to marvel at the differences between boys and girls.  During our son’s 10th, his friends were playing indoor tackle football at 4:00 a.m.  Mary Kate and her friends made crafts and conversed quietly through the night, allowing us to sleep.  But as I watched my remarkably creative daughter interact with her friends, I mostly felt gratitude.  A few years ago she was in the hospital with an affliction that had the doctors baffled.  I remember thinking that I’d give everything I had just to see her well again.  She’s well now, and it’s easy to forget that her health was ever in doubt. 

I remember scary complications during our oldest’s delivery when the emergency medical staff was summoned. I remember our youngest arriving without the benefit of a doctor and the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. I remember the children we lost before they arrived.  But I look at the four now living in our chaotic house and marvel at their beauty. 

Whatever else this life has to offer, I have to consider myself blessed.

Sure, there are days when I wish I could have more uninterrupted conversation with my wife, more time to sleep, more opportunities to get together with the guys, and more time to indulge in my many interests, but in the end my kids enrich me in ways I’d never experience otherwise.  They make me a better man.

When I was in my 20’s, before I’d met my wife and had convinced myself I never would, I felt pangs of grief when I saw parents with young children because I suspected I’d never have my own.  That emotion seemed very unmanly at the time, but now I know what I was longing for.  I was made for this. 

The books of Psalms includes the phrase “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.”  I have a quiver full. So, as this Father’s Day approaches, I’m not looking for gifts or “me time.”  I’m just glad that I fall into the category of Dad.

 

A Walk at Lunchtime

I’ve been taking walks at lunch lately.  As the wheels of commerce have slowed, I have more time for such things.   Fortunately, the area around my office is a great place to walk. 

My office is at the intersection of 14th  and Peachtree Streets in an area of Atlanta known as Midtown.  That intersection marks the center of Atlanta’s business and art districts.  Most of the city’s large law and accounting firms, as well as the High Museum of Art, Woodruff Arts Center, the Savannah College of Art and Design and 14th Street Playhouse are all within a few blocks.  The intersection is also just a west of Piedmont Park, the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Ansley Park.  In busier times, it’s easy to forget that I work in such a culturally rich place.

 The High Museum is one of my favorite new haunts.  The High is hosting some pieces on loan from the Louvre, and they are extraordinary.  Some of the works are bleak, some uplifting, and they are all brilliant.  My favorites are the pieces from antiquity.  I find it remarkable that while  man was still struggling to claw an existence from the soil, he started creating things for no purpose other than beauty.  God put that there.  There’s no Darwinian explanation for man’s appetite for art, his need to express himself in words, color, texture and music. 

The museum was closed today, so I turned right on Peachtree Circle and walked into Ansley Park.  Ansley Park was Atlanta’s first suburb.  It seems odd to describe it as a suburb now because it’s as “in town” as any single family community in the city.  But when it was begun in 1904, it was north of the city center.  It was conceived as Atlanta’s first motorcar-oriented suburb, and it attracted Atlanta’s elite families.  Some of the well-travelled Atlantans of the day asked their architects to duplicate Italian villas or English country homes they’d seen on their travels.  Consequently, Ansley Park’s home have a rich architectural diversity, and many are now over 100 years old.

Whenever I venture in the direction of Ansley Park, I’m struck with the sudden transition from dense urbanism to elegant single family homes with meticulously manicured yards.  Some of the larger homes have been converted into condos, apartments or offices, and there are a few spots of blight, but for the most part the neighborhood has maintained its original character.

It was a gorgeous day, and there were a lot of other folks strolling through the neighborhood.  An artist was standing in the front yard of one of the houses, probably her own, and she gave me a quizzical stare from behind her easel.

“Why is everyone walking around today?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  Maybe it’s because none of us have anything else to do.”

“Oh,”  she answered.  She looked a bit crestfallen.  I suspect that she, like the rest of us, keeps watching for the promised tender  green shoots of spring that will signal a recovering economy.  Watching normally busy professionals wander around her neighborhood during the work day probably isn’t a good sign.

“Or maybe it’s just a beautiful day?” I offered.

“Yes, it is,” she smiled.

I continued my walk, listening to the mid-day bells tolling at First Presbyterian Church where I was married 12 1/2 years ago.  I thought about how we, as a nation, came to be where we are.  I’ve read a great deal about it, that’s part of my job.  But I think it boils down to too many people borrowing too much money creating an economy that was premised on people continuing do the same.  Nowhere is more emblematic of that than the exurban subdivisions of new money mansions that lie 40 or so miles from where I was walking.  We seem willing to consume as much land, expend as much money, and commute as far as necessary in order to possess bigger, more impressive homes and the trappings that come with them, but the end of the rainbow is littered with foreclosure notices.   

It’s popular to beat up on suburbia these days, especially in my circles in commercial real estate.  “New Urbanism” is all the rage, and everyone from the White House to the Mayor wants us all to move back into densely populated, “sustainable” communities.  Of course, those folks often forget why people left in the first place.  There are reasons why people moved so far out in recent years, and reasons why, over 100 years ago, Edwin P. Ansley conceived of an automobile-based community away from the city.  Crime, corruption, poor schools, and punitive taxes.  Today, the homes in the neighborhood that he conceived are out of reach for all but the wealthiest, and even in Ansley Park most education-minded parents find the schools unacceptable. 

On the other hand, though we suburbanites found our lower taxes, bigger houses and better schools in the suburbs, many of us lost our sense of community along the way.  As we’ve encased ourselves in cul-de-sacs, we’ve lost the art of living together.  The conversation I had with the artist was longer than any conversation I’ve had with my next door neighbor in years.   But I’d be naive to believe that the folks in Ansley Park are any different.

There’s got to be a both/and scenario where we can develop desirable, sustainable places to live that are not “communities” in name only, but places where people connect, cooperate and thrive.  The solution lies, at least in part, in recognizing that our deepest longings have more to do with relationships than possessions.  God put that there as well.

I was back at my desk within 50 minutes of leaving the office, richer for what I’d observed.  Even when things pick up, I think I’d be well served to take a walk every once in awhile.

 

Why is the President so Popular?

I’m asking a sincere question.  Really, I’m not trying to be snarky.  But this question baffles me – Why does Obama continue to be so popular?  It seems to me that he’s backed off on most of the promises he made to the left, and of course he continues to tick off the right.  So, why the continuing adulation?

For example, as reflected in this WSJ article, he’s gradually endorsing virtually all of Bush’s anti-terror policies.  Plus, he’s continued to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact indicates that he’s prepared to expand the war in Afghanistan.  Those two things seemed to have been the primary rallying cries that ushered him into office, and yet his reversals merit a collective yawn from his supporters.  The ethic seems to be “if Bush did it, it was wrong, if Obama does it, it’s gotta be right.” 

Granted, he inherited a rough economic situation, but he’s making it worse.  For all of his protests that he inherited a huge deficit from Bush (which he did), take a look at this chart that shows the degree to which he plans to increase our deficit.  The projected 2009 deficit is four times 2008’s record deficit.  We’re going to have to pay that back one day, or else go bankrupt.  Obama said yesterday that our current debt load was “unsustainable”, and he’s right.  But he’s making it worse with virtually every decision.

Meanwhile, despite occasional bear market rallies and small glimpses of optimism, the economy is in woeful shape.  Any positive movement we’ve seen in the past month or so will soon be wiped out by the coming commercial real estate collapse.  His answer appears to be nationalization of key industries, a strategy that’s failed wherever it’s been attempted (see post-war Britain).  Left to its own devices, capitalism is a self-correcting mechanism.  Yes, those corrections can involve acute pain, but the corrections invariably lead to greater prosperity.  For all its flaws, capitalism is the best system we’ve got, and he’s quickly dismantling it.   He’s creating a system where investors (real investors, not 401(k) savers like me) have absolutely no idea whether they can rely on long established laws regarding property, thus inhibiting further investment and lending and further preventing a genuine recovery.  He’s never worked in the private sector, and so seems to have a profound prejudice against capitalists (other than those who’ve defected from the private sector to work in his administration) and an unfettered belief that government employees are better suited than business people to make turn the wheels of commerce.

On the cultural front, there’s the whole hullabaloo about Miss California.  While the President hasn’t spoken about Miss California as far as I know, he has repeatedly expressed that he also wants to limit the definition of marriage to being between a man and a woman, as has his V.P.  Yet the left is vilifying Miss California and says nothing about the President’s exact same position.  I can only conclude that his supporters on the left are confident, and comfortable with the fact, that he lied on that point and that he fully intends to switch his position. 

My point is this – it doesn’t seem to me that he’s doing anything that should be making anyone happy, and yet he still seems popular.  Is it because he’s good looking?  Because he reads well off a teleprompter?  Does it stroke our ego that people in Europe like him?  Is it that a complicit media has refused to take off the kid gloves and ask tough questions or report on his pratfalls and inconsistencies?  Or is it simply because lots of people voted for him, and those same people need him to succeed in order to validate their choice?

Anyway, I don’t get it.  I’ll grant you that the guy seems charming at times, but is that sufficient criteria for a leader?  If that’s the case, maybe I should announce my candidacy for 2012.  In addition to my notable charisma, and unlike our current President, I’ve actually held a job in the private sector.

 

Into the Woods, Part II

If you scroll down a couple of posts, you’ll see that I was planning a backpacking trip a few weeks ago.  Due to a dismal weather forecast, my co-adventurers and I elected to postpone, and it was a good decision.  On the night we would have been in the woods, the north Georgia mountains suffered low temperatures, rain and extreme winds.  But unlike most of my postponed trips, we successfully rescheduled this one for a much more pleasant weekend.

My friend Mark, his colleague Matt and I drove up to the Cohutta Wilderness early last Saturday morning.  Conditions were perfect for our hike.  It was sunny and warm (but not too warm) and we were nearly alone in the forest.  The adventures started early.  During the 20+ mile gravel road drive to the trail head, we spotted a bobcat.  I’d never seen a bobcat in the wild, though I knew that they reside in that part of Georgia.  He looked a bit like a very large house cat with larger paws and a shorter tail.  I couldn’t know at the time that the sighting was a signal of things to come.

After the long, winding drive, we finally arrived at the trail head.  After a brief review of the posted signs, we pulled on our packs, tightened our hip belts, and started our ascent from the parking area to the top of Hickory Ridge.  Though I’d been to the Cohutta Wilderness many times before, my last visit was over 20 years ago and I’d forgotten the beauty of the place.  Many visitors to north Georgia, expecting either flat peach orchards or a sprawling metropolis, are surprised by its rugged and mountainous beauty.   The entire area was heavily logged in the early 20thcentury, but has recovered nicely.  Having lived in or near those mountains for most of my life, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but the mountains can still take my breath away.

Once we crested the initial climb, we began a long, sometimes steep descent along the ridgeline into the valley carved by the Jack’s River.  The first wildflowers of spring dotted the trail.  I elected not to bring my camera, and I regretted it.  Most of the photos for this post were taken with the rather inferior camera built into my Blackberry.  The photos of obviously better quality come courtesty of Matt.

We encountered one group of a half dozen guys on their way up the ridge, but other than that group we didn’t encounter anyone until we finished hiking for the day.  One of the most notable things about the trail was the tremendous number of freshly blown-down trees.  I suspect that many of them were victims of the storm that had passed through on the night we’d originally planned to be in the wilderness.  I was again grateful that we’d postponed. 

One of two river crossings.  The current was stronger and the water colder than it looked.  Mark is in the foreground, and that’s my balding head taking up the rear.

 

Some 7.5 miles and three and a half hours after leaving the car, and after crawling over, under or around a lot of downed trees, we arrived at Jack’s River.  We found an ideal spot where we pitched our tents a few feet above the river while remaining close enough to enjoy the sight and sound of the water.  

As we were setting up, two serious looking men walked into our campsite.  One of them had some sort of antennae apparatus hooked to his shoulder, along with some other equipment and a detailed map.  They’d come from the direction of the Jack’s River Falls, so I asked them how far we had to walk to get there.  “About 800 meters”, he said.  I sensed that if I’d asked him for a more precise measurement, he’d have been able to provide one.

We set off for the falls and began to encounter a few day hikers who had come in on other trails.  The falls were well worth the walk, but my camera was not worthy  of them.

 

The falls continue to drop steeply just to the right of this picture.  Waterfalls have a distinctly hypnotic quality, and I stared for a long time at the water cascading over the ancient rocks into deep, green pools a hundred feet beneath me.

One of the great delights of backpacking is that there are moments when there is nothing to do but sit and listen.  We were well out of cell range, so no one was making calls or receiving emails.  After returning to camp after our visit to the falls, we sat near our tents doing generally nothing when I heard a rustle of leaves to my left and noted that the source was a frog behaving oddly.  On further observation, I saw that he was behaving oddly because a snake was attempting to swallow him.  The snake was rather ambitious because the frog must have been three times larger around than the snake, but I’ve seen stranger things, at least on the Discovery Channel.

The frog would struggle a bit, and the snake would retreat into a hole, only to return again minutes later.  I don’t know why the frog didn’t flee during its windows of opportunity because it didn’t appear to be outwardly injured, and I don’t think that the snake was venomous.  Finally, the snake seemed to retreat for good.  The frog, inexplicably, hopped back into the hole where the snake had taken up residence, and we didn’t see him again.  I’ve seen plenty of humans in toxic relationships behave like that, but it seemed strange for an animal. 

As evening approached, we each pulled out our stoves.  It would make a lot more sense for us to have brought one stove, but we guys rarely miss an opportunity to show off our gadgets.  None of us was terribly weight conscious given the short length of the trip, so we could afford to bring extra stuff.  As I said to Mark and Matt, I’d have packed a lot less if we were going further, which is an irony of backpacking.  My stove (an MSR Pocket Rocket) was undoubtedly the loudest and quickest of the three.  Mark’s integrated stove, pot and starter was certainly the coolest. Matt brought a relic from his long ago Appalachian Trail adventure – a worn, veteran white gas model that had the most character of the three.  In the end, we all ended up with hot meals and full stomachs.

As the sun set, we started a fire and listened with awe as thousands of frogs began their mating calls.  It was fascinating to watch them fill the membrane under their mouths with air and let lose a lengthy call with a volume far out of proportion to their size.  A fortunate few found each other, and by the time we decided to retire (into our three separate tents which, like our stoves, each had a unique character of its own), we were surrounded by pairs of mating frogs hopping to and from the river.  I was awake enough through the night to attest that they didn’t stop until sunrise.  The sound of running water normally serves as soothing white noise, but the uneven symphony of procreating frogs overwhelmed the gentle sounds of the river and robbed me of a deep sleep. 

The rain started as we went to bed, and it continued through the night and most of the following day.  It was never a hard rain, but enough to speed our departure.  We made our way back on Rough Ridge, which lies generally parallel to and east of Hickory Ridge, eventually intersecting with Hickory Ridge near the parking area.  Our gradual descent of the day before was replaced with an arduous and abrupt climb out of the river valley.  We encountered no one on the trail all that day, but we weren’t alone.

After hiking for an hour or so, Mark and I stopped as we both saw a bear cross the trail ahead of us.  Had it been a larger bear, I’d have been interested and unconcerned. But this was a cub, and I knew that momma bear must be close by.  We waited a couple of minutes, and sure enough we soon saw her head emerge from the trees some 75 yards ahead.  She ambled across the trail, and we waited awhile for them to get clear of the trail before we moved on.  I’ve seen bears in the wild before, but it’s always a treat.  I could hardly believe our luck in seeing two bears, a bobcat and frog-devouring snake in 24 hours.  But the day wasn’t done.

After hiking perhaps  another 150 yards, we saw both the mother bear and her cub down a ravine to our left.  We spotted them just before they saw us, and the mother bear quickly nosed the cub into some thick brush, then rushed up the other side of the ravine with surprising speed.  As interesting as it was, we weren’t inclined to wait around and see how the mother bear would react to our being alone with her cub, so we moved on.  In a few minutes we heard a sound that I initially mistook for someone screaming, then realized that it was the cub calling out for its mother to return.  We stood for awhile and listened until the sound subsided, signaling (I hope) that the mother bear had returned. 

Perhaps another hour later, as I hiked a few minutes ahead of Matt and Mark, another bobcat emerged from the woods just ahead of me on the trail.  It didn’t see me at first, and ambled away from me for a few yards before turning around and presenting a great profile view.  I rued the fact that I didn’t have a camera at the ready for these many sightings.  The cat finally turned and disappeared into the forest. 

The hiking was fairly strenuous, and it was windy, wet and cool, but I loved almost every minute of it.  There’s little that frees the mind as much as a brisk walk in the woods.  My thoughts meandered among the things I love the most - my God, my wife, and my children.  The important things in life come into clearer focus when I’m above 3,000 feet.

Of course, the “reality” of life was there to greet us at the trail’s end.

Fortunately, I had a good spare and we had no trouble in changing the tire. 

I got home in time to shower and see most of Will’s soccer game.  He played well, and Toria and the rest of the kids gave me a grand welcome home.  It’s Tuesday now, and plenty of things have threatened to rob me of the hard-earned perspective I gained over the weekend, but it’s not gone yet.

 

Pajamas TV – PJTV Daily – Klavan on the Culture: Shut Up – Video

Pajamas TV – PJTV Daily – Klavan on the Culture: Shut Up – Video.

 

Into the Woods, Part I

My soul yearns for the woods. A vital part of me becomes malnourished when I stay outside of the tree line for too long.  When I was a child, my family lived at the edge of hundreds of acres of undeveloped, wooded land, and I spent many boyhood afternoons venturing into its quiet, unexplored places.  Even after living there for several years, I retained a delightful sense of wonder at the large, seemingly unowned tract of forest that bordered my backyard.  We moved away from those woods when I was 13, and I’ve never again had access to such a wonderfully convenient wilderness.   Now, if I want to venture into the wild, I have to drive there.

In the same year that we moved, I took my first backpacking trip.  I went with a school group to the Cohutta Wilderness on the border of Tennessee and Georgia.  It was, and is, a remote place, accessible only by driving many miles of dirt roads  maintained by the Forest Service.  I don’t remember exactly where we hiked, because there are many miles of trails within that wilderness, but I remember the empowering sense of carrying all that I needed for a two day journey on my back.  I also remember a persistent, drenching rain that did nothing to quench my enthusiasm for getting back into the woods.

I had many opportunities to explore the mountainous forests of Tennessee and Georgia during my teenage years.  My greatest outdoor experience was traveling to the Philmont Scout Reservation in New Mexico where I spent two weeks hiking through some of this country’s grandest and most pristine wilderness.  I owe a debt of gratitude to my Boy Scout leader, Dr. Barry Ligon, who was active and engaged in passing on his passion for the outdoors.  Due to these many experiences and influences,  I was infected in my youth with a longing for primitive, isolated places.

One of my most memorable backpacking experiences took place during spring break of my senior year of high school.  While others in my class were taking trips to the beach or Spain, my good friend Bivins and I loaded my van with gear for an excursion to the Cohutta Wilderness.  By then I had hiked the Cohutta Wilderness at least four other times, and had a wealth of backpacking experience under my belt for a 17 year old.  But as much as I loved the woods, I lacked respect for its dangers.

It had been a warm spring.  Bivins and I were both soccer players, and had already sweat through weeks of practices in warm weather.  Winter seemed long past, and it never crossed my mind to check weather forecasts.  I had a Camp Trails exterior frame pack that had served me well over hundreds of miles of trails, a high-tech (for 1987) cold weather sleeping bag, and a compact and reliable Coleman backpacking stove.   I wore shorts and a t-shirt, and packed a cotton hooded sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans for the cooler evenings.   Even 22 years ago I knew that cotton was a poor fabric for outdoor excursions, but I was convinced that cold weather was behind us.

We drove to the trailhead over the seemingly endless Forest Service road, which includes a shallow ford over a creek.  I’ve experienced much greater isolation in the American west, but the Cohutta Wilderness is about  as remote as a man can get east of the Mississippi.  The isolation was at once exhilarating and sobering.   It was the first time I’d ventured that far into the woods without a grown up.  But I would be graduating soon, and I was beginning to feel like more of a man than I really was.

As Bivins and I began our walk into the wilderness, it started to rain.  The body produces a lot of heat while climbing mountains and carrying 35 pounds, but in the midst of my exertion I sensed the temperature dropping significantly.  We stopped to put on more clothes, and the rain showed no signs of letting up.  The temperature kept dropping.

At some point along the way, we decided to stop before conditions worsened.  It’s a miserable thing to set up camp in a hard rain because nothing escapes the moisture or the mud.  We managed to erect the tent and left our filthy boots and soaked gear outside.  I don’t remember what we did for dinner, but I do remember shivering in my bag while the noisy patter of raindrops gave way to the gentle sound of accumulating snow. 

When I woke, the forest was strangely quiet.  A blanket of snow muffled the normally cacophonous waking sounds of the woods.  I peeked outside the tent and found the crystallized forest both beautiful and alarming.  It was brutally cold. 

We lay in our sleeping bags and weighed our options.  We could either stay there until help came or the temperature rose, or we could try and hike out.  The problem with waiting was that we were cold and getting colder, and had no way of knowing how long we would have to wait.  I’d learned that hypothermia can set in at temperatures much warmer than we were experiencing.  But the inherent problem with hiking out was that it involved our emerging from our dry sleeping bags and venturing outside with nothing but thin, damp cotton to guard against the cold and increasing wind, and we were miles from the van.   As a first step, we decided to try and start a fire.

One challenge was that our boots, which we’d left outside the night before, were frozen solid.  We couldn’t pull them on our feet.  Consequently, we had to walk through the snow in our stocking feet while we gathered wood for the fire. 

Boy Scouts are trained to start a fire with no more than two matches, but that can be challenging under ordinary circumstances.  When all of the wood is covered in snow and the tinder is encased in ice, it’s nearly impossible.  After just a few minutes of stumbling around in the snow in our stocking feet and aborted attempts at starting a fire, we were both shivering uncontrollably, and my fingers had essentially stopped functioning.  Bivins had a pair of gloves, but they quickly got wet and lost their effectiveness.  At one point, we poured a fair amount of my stove fuel onto some wood, but burning fuel did little more than melt the ice encasing the wood.  We finally surrendered and went back to the tent and our sleeping bags.  Once ensconced in the tent, which was no longer warm because our bodies hadn’t been heating it, I realized that I had dropped the matches in the snow because of my numb fingers. 

My sleeping bag was better than Bivins’ bag, which was better suited to basement sleepovers than spring trips to the mountains, and Bivins was suffering more than I was.  Bivins suggested that we share my bag, and that’s exactly what I had been trained to do in such situations, but my squeamishness and selfishness overruled my training.  So we lay there, glum and shivering.  In a short while, panic started to set in as I reflected on how remote we were, how unlikely it was that we’d be discovered, and how ill-prepared we were for the conditions.  I was content to lie there waiting for an uncertain rescue, because it was just too cold to risk going outside again.

Bivins proved to be the better man that day.  Unwilling to accept a passive death, he left the tent to search for the matches, risking frostbite as he dug through the snow.  He eventually found them and crawled back into the tent.  We brought my backpacking stove into the tent and started it (kids, don’t try that at home, it’s dangerous), both to warm our bodies and to thaw out our boots so that we could pull them on and walk through the snow.  We kept the flaps open slightly to guard against carbon monoxide poisoning, but the cold wind kept us from keeping them as wide open as we should have.  After warming our hands over the stove, and thawing our boots to the point where they were soft enough to pull them onto our feet, we plotted our exit on the trail map.

As we packed and began the trek out, the wind sliced through my light clothing and chilled me to the core.  We stopped occasionally to start the stove, warm our hands and check the map.  Even starting the stove proved to be a challenge because my fingers were so cold that I couldn’t easily open the zippers on my pack, pump the stove, or strike matches.   When we didn’t use the stove, I had to unfold the map with the heels of my hands and my mouth because my fingers were useless.   I swore I’d never complain about being hot again.

After hours of walking, we caught sight of my blue van through the trees.  I fumbled through the side pocket on my pack, hoping that I hadn’t lost my keys and praying that my semi-reliable van would start in such cold temperatures.   I found my keys, and the van started on the first try.  We were home within three hours, and once we were fed and warm it was hard to believe we’d ever been in danger. 

A couple of days after our return, my parents (who were living out west at the time) called to tell me that a family friend of ours had taken his spring break that same week at the beach in Oregon.  He and some friends had rented rafts and gone too far out into the chilly Pacific.  A Coast Guard helicopter ultimately plucked them from the waves, but not before our friend died of hypothermia.  He was about my age, a freshman in college.  I’m sure that he felt no less immortal than I did as he set out on his adventure that day.   Upon hearing that story, I began to appreciate how fortunate we’d been to escape our blunders without harm.

An amusing side note to the story is that while Bivins and I were walking through the woods and unsure as to whether we’d make it safely to the van, I was struck with profound regret that I’d never expressed my true feelings to my high school crush.  The same day we returned, and well before I’d had time to think clearly, I penned a lengthy and eloquent letter in which I expressed my undying love for this unsuspecting girl.  I stamped it and dropped it in the mail box at the post office, resolved to render my decision irreversible before I could have second thoughts.  By the time school began on the following Monday, I’d had plenty of time to re-think my letter, but no ability to pull it back.  She sat next to me in home room Monday morning and said nothing.  She said nothing Tuesday, and nothing the day after that.  I finally called to solicit some sort of response, and she kindly told me that my letter was well written, but she said nothing more, which told me all I needed to know.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons on that trip.  First, never enter the woods unprepared.  Second, a calm and steady mind can make the difference between surviving or not ( I don’t know what would have happened if Bivins hadn’t mustered the clear-thinking resolve to dig through the snow for those matches and pull out the stove).   Third, never express your love for someone on impulse.  I have to admit that I had to suffer a few more romantic pratfalls before that last lesson really stuck.

I plan to go to the Cohutta Wilderness again this weekend, about the same time of year that my story took place.  It will be my first time back since my adventure with Bivins 22 years ago.  This time I’ll be equipped with multiple layers of synthetic clothing, a waterproof shell, a warm hat, gloves, and at least two sets of hurricane matches.   But just as important as the stuff, I like to think that I’ll be equipped with a steadier mind and more substantial character.  I was embarrassed by the tremendous immaturity that I displayed on that trip so long ago, and I emerged from it determined to become a better man.  I think that my yearning for the woods stems, in part, from a desire to test whether I’ve succeeded in that quest.

 

Be Thankful

Gratitude is in short supply of late.  Even those of us who have jobs and whose retirement timeline stretches well into the future  wonder how long we’ll remain employed.  Meanwhile, we have to marinate in the current bitter, stress-infused business climate.   Am I saving enough? How long will this last? How bad will this get?  It’s easy to be consumed with such questions.  I can’t know, but I can guess, that among those of us who pray, our requests to God have significantly outweighed our prayers of thanksgiving.

This morning I read Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  Like several of Paul’s letters, he wrote it while he was in prison.  It’s a short book, but packed with a great synopsis of the gospel, an exhortation to set our minds on things above in the midst of trying circumstances, and repeated instructions to be thankful.

I don’t know that thanksgiving would be on my mind if I were in prison, but it was certainly on Paul’s.  Variations of the word “thanks” appear several times in the book.   Over the course of the 3 verses between Colossians 3:15-17, Paul instructs his readers three times to be thankful.  

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body ; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

 

Why be thankful in the midst of difficult circumstances?  Is it possible?  Would we just be faking it?  Not necessarily.  I don’t think Paul was.  I think the secret to his capacity for gratitude is revealed in Colossians 3:2 where he says “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”  His hope wasn’t based on the here and now.  He instructed his readers to look toward the hope stored up for them in heaven (1:5), and to focus on the inheritance that awaits the sons of God (1:12, 3:24). 

 

When we lose our comforts, when the illusion of security evaporates, when it becomes increasingly apparent that the machinations of man cannot offer us a lasting peace, it’s easy to become ungrateful and self-consumed.  Our instinct is to either plead with God for deliverance from our difficult circumstances, or to reject him as a false God for failing to meet our expectations.  But Paul exemplifies a third path of gratitude made possible by a proper perspective.

 

I am grateful because, as Paul says, God has rescued me from the domain of darkness and transferred me to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  (1:13, 14).   As long as I keep my mind fixed on things above, it’s possible to remain thankful even when the circumstances on this earth seem so dire.  The challenge is filtering out the noisy and persistent lie that our hope rests in the here and now.

 

Conflicting Images

It’s been tough to stay upbeat these days.  Every time I read a news site, talk to a friend, or receive an update on my firm’s revenues, I receive more fodder for despair.  Today the government is supposed to announce more astounding job loss statistics, each number among those hundreds of thousands representing another crisis for some family somewhere. 

A lot of folks were hoping that the economy would start to turn with the new administration, if for no reason other than a renewed sense of optimism.  But whether due to intellectual honesty or an opportunistic desire to create a climate of panic conducive to introducing radical change, the new administration hasn’t offered much in the way of hope.  Instead, we hear words like “catastrophic,” and the market reacts.  The first of my two conflicting images is a chart showing the Dow-Jones Industrial Average performance since the passage of President Obama’s stimulus bill.  The direction of that line may as well indicate the trajectory of  my emotional outlook on our economic future.

 

 

But even as earthly fortunes diminish, I continue to experience the deeper joys of relationship.  That brings me to my second image.

This is a picture of my cousin, Major Chris Luther, USMC, upon his return home from Iraq.  This picture captures one of those perfect moments, a father reuniting with his sons, the younger of whom probably recognizes him only from pictures and conversations on Skype.  The signs they were holding lie on the airport floor, discarded after their owners went to hug their Dad.  Chris’s arms completely engulf the small boys, his hand balled into a fist as he clings them tight and buries his face into their shoulders.  Months of anxiety, angst and absence dissolved in an embrace.   Chris’s lovely wife holds the camera, I’m sure fighting tears as she experienced the release of  months of pent up emotion.  I’m don’t know, but I can guess that the day wasn’t perfect.  I imagine that the boys got tired and fussy.  I’d guess that Chris took a little time to find his footing back at home after being gone for so long.  But at this instant, we see the perfection of human connection.

Both images are accurate, but only one is true.  Some things are for a season, and some things last forever.  The Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the companies that it represents, and the country in which they exist will all pass away.  But love endures forever. 

People have been more tense lately, more prone to lash out in frustration and blame, more likely to withdraw and fume.   I don’t know anything about investment strategy (I used to think that I did), but I do know a little about relationships.  And I know that now, more than ever, we need to create more moments like the one above, because that’s what matters, and that’s what lasts.