The Sun Still Rises

I’m suffering whiplash from the collision of current data and eternal truth.  Each day as I talk with clients, read trade periodicals and check on the news I am inundated with tales of loss, business failure, and pessimism.  At the same time I read that Christ promised an abundant life, joy and a peace that passes understanding.  The cognitive dissonance is dizzying.

Just a sampling from some of the things on my desk today:

“Office market nowhere near bottoming out.” Atlanta Business Chronicle

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” John 15:11

“Problems at the Federal Housing Administration… are becoming so acute that some experts warn the agency might need a federal bailout.” New York Times

“Do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothing…And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?”  Matthew 7:25, 27

“Doomsday blast kills 49 near Pakistan Bazaar.”  MSNBC

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.”  John 16:33

“Initial [unemployment] claims remain well above the 325,000 that economists say is consistent with a healthy economy.”  AP

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:19

Outside my window picketing laborers and protestors march all day, their angry chants wafting their way up to my window.  There’s a malevolence in the air.  Strangers on the street seem edgy and agitated.  In the midst of it, I am called to put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Some days that’s hard to do.

For years I’ve been blessed with a robust practice as clients have bought, sold, developed and refinanced real estate projects.  Since late last year that’s nearly come to a stop.  So I spend much of my time counseling distressed clients, waiting for the stagnant economic haze to clear and the sun of commerce to shine again.  Some days it’s hard not to view the world through a lense tinted with gloom.  And yet I know that’s not what God intends for me.

Last weekend my wife and I joined two other couples for our third trip to the Len Foote Hike Inn at Amicalola Falls State Park near Dawsonville, Georgia.  After we’d all dropped off our kids at various places, we piled into a Yukon and left the city behind us.  We had beautiful weather, and I spent most of the 5-mile hike lost in thought about the current state of things.  For me, there’s nothing better than a trip to the mountains to re-shape my perspective.  The quiet and beauty of the forest, the grand scale of views from the top of a mountain, and the fellowship of good friends all serve to remind me of what is eternal and significant versus what is temporary and ephemeral.

Once we reached the inn, we found some rocking chairs on the porch and sat.  There are no electronics, no TV’s, no recorded music, and very little noise at the Len Foote Inn.  I find a great deal of joy in sitting.  We played the guitar a bit and laughed a lot.  One of our friends took this picture of Toria and me on that porch.  I’ve studied this picture quite a bit this week.  I’m not sure whether I look wise or weary, but I certainly look all of my 40 years.  My bride, however, looks as youthful as the day we married.  Her optimism sustains me, and preserves her.

I’m not sure how long we sat on that porch, but it was hours.  We eventually joined the other guests for a great dinner, and then shared bottles of wine  as we continued to tell stories and make plans.  I slept better than I had in weeks.

In the morning the innkeeper walked around the perimeter of the lodge softly beating a drum, which was his way of communicating that the sun was about to rise if we wanted to watch it.  I pulled myself out of bed, poured a cup of coffee and made my way to the overlook.  Once there I made my shortest journal entry of the year:

Sunrise.  Crisp.  Beautiful.  Coffee.  All is well.

 

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  Lamentations 3:22-23

I don’t know what next year, next month or tomorrow will bring, but I know that God has always provided for me, always sustained me, and never left me wanting for any good thing.  It is worry, the very thing I am commanded not to do, that inhibits my joy.  And it is my divided loyalty between God and money that prevents my peace.  I repent of those things.

As with all trips to the mountains, the time eventually came to descend.  I was refreshed and renewed.  But the renewing of my mind must continue.  Someone told me today that I think too much.  Maybe.  I definitely need to think better thoughts.  After a week in the lowlands, I am more convinced than ever that the better thoughts are the eternal ones.  And when it comes down to choosing between trust in the vagaries of the real estate market or trust in the power that set the sun in the sky, I’ll go with the certainty of the sun. 

 

On Turning 40

I turned 40 on Sunday.  To be honest,  I was kind of mad about it.  My anger was irrational, because the alternative to reaching my 40th birthday wasn’t a particularly good one.  And I’m pretty pleased with my life – married to a beautiful woman, father to four healthy and wonderful kids and experiencing an arguably successful career.  Still, I’ve never been able to reason away my emotions, so the anger stuck.   

Knowing that I planned to take Friday off, my co-workers arrived early Thursday to decorate my office with black balloons, a gravestone, streamers and all the typical decorations for a benchmark birthday.  My associate gave me a package of Depends and some Centrium vitamins.   It’s nice to be thought of on my birthday, even in a mocking sort of way.

The next day my wife and I left for Tennessee where we’d rented a cabin for the weekend, just the two of us.  We off-loaded the kids to my in-laws.  I love long drives with my wife.  There’s lots of time for uninterrupted conversation, music and the sort of connection we often miss during regular life.  Other than the abysmal traffic in Pigeon Forge, it was a great drive. 

As we sat on the deck of the cabin enjoying the spectacular view, my wife handed me a gift.  The box wasn’t heavy, but I soon learned that it carried great weight. 

Inside the box Toria had carefully packaged 21 letters from friends and family written for me to read on the occasion of my 40th birthday.  The letters represented relationships from childhood, high school, college, single days, and married life.  Some were filled with memorable stories, others with words of encouragement, and all with a great deal of affection.  The words sang off the pages like the Who’s of Whoville while my  once angry heart grew three sizes too large.   The fact that my wife had been so thoughtful in the midst of her insanely busy life was tremendously touching in itself. 

The balance of the weekend was full of other good and enjoyable things.  On Friday night we ate a wonderful dinner at the Dancing Bear Lodge in Townsend, Tennessee (on “the quiet side of the Smokies”), and the following morning rode our bikes through Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  We rode in the early hours while the road was shrouded in fog.  Tens of deer grazed in the meadows, and we passed within a few feet of a mother bear and her cub.  It was a spectacular ride (but I didn’t take my camera with me beyond the car).

Following that adventure we went back to the cabin, showered, and drove into Knoxville for the Tennessee/UCLA game.  I’ve been a Tennessee fan for years, and my uncle is a UCLA booster, so he was in town with my aunt, my parents and some friends.  The game day vibe was great as Tennessee had won big in its first game and shown some signs of emerging from its recent slump. 

Despite the enthusiasm, Tennessee hasn’t fixed its issues on offense and suffered an inauspicious loss after some unfortunate quarterback play.  But it was a great experience to watch a game in one of the largest venues in the country.   Most importantly, it was great to spend some time with family.

The next day, on the day of my actual birthday, Toria and I made our way home where we were greeted by the rest of my family.  The kids had all made posters, and my in-laws cooked a marvelous birthday meal.  Sparing no expense, my mother-in-law prepared a cake with 40 candles.

They topped it off by giving me “Guitar Hero” for the Wii, which was completely and delightfully unexpected. It was a rare moment of excitement for me.

It was a great birthday weekend, and I couldn’t have asked for better.

Great wife, great kids, great friends, great life.  So why was I angry going into the day?  I was mad because it’s all going by so quickly and there’s nothing I can do to slow it down. 

My children are still young, but won’t be for long.  I’m still fit and healthy, but it won’t last forever.  Muscle tone is harder to maintain now.  My joints ache more often.  I take longer to heal.  None of that is going to improve in the next 40 years.

Sure, the grocery store magazines insist that “Life Starts at 40!”, but I know it’s not true.  My life on this earth started 40 years ago, and it’s likely to end about 40 years from now.  It’s halftime, and each coming year will seem to pass more quickly than the one before it. 

The morbid theme of my office decorations, though humorous, are a reminder of an inescapable truth.  I’m going to die.   Talk all you want about living life to the fullest, but if death were the ultimate and final end, then a birthday would truly be something to mourn.  But death is not the end.

This is the promise which He Himself made to us:  eternal life.  I John 2:25

What awaits me is not mere consciousness. I look forward to an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for me.  (I Peter 1:4).    As for the days on earth that I have left, I intend to spend them storing up the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that I may take hold of that which is life indeed.  (2 Tim. 6:19).   How does such a life look?  It is characterized with humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance and love.  (Ephesians 4:3).  Something I note about that list – humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance and love – is that I cannot experience any of those things outside of the context of relationships.  In reading the letters that I received for my birthday, I was reminded that the richness of my life is in my relationships.  We both experience and serve our creator in the context of community.   

The quality of my life is defined by the quality of my relationships, and the primary relationship in my life is (or should be) with my creator.  So, for the second half of my life I resolve simply this – to love Him by loving others so that my joy will be complete.  (John 15:10-12).

Bless the Lord, O my soul

and all that is within me bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul

And forget none of His benefits;

Who pardons all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases;

Who redeems your life from the pit,

Who crowns you with lovingkindess and compassion;

Who satisfies your years with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

Psalm 103:1-5 (NASB)

 

A Little Bit of Snow (Rocky Mountain Adventure Part III)

When my wife and I planned our family vacation to Estes Park, Colorado, one of our top priorities was to schedule a hike up one of the peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park (“RMNP”).  The day after we arrived at the YMCA of the Rockies, we talked with a knowledgeable young girl on staff who recommended a few different routes.  From among her suggestions, we decided to hike to Flattop Mountain, the first of three peaks comprising “FHO” (the other peaks being Hallet and Otis).  We scheduled our hike for our last full day in Colorado.

In between our initial planning session and the actual hike, we had a series of other memorable experiences, some of which I’ve described in earlier posts.  One afternoon, my wife and I drove the Trail Ridge Road where we enjoyed spectacular scenery.  At one point we got out of the car, hiked up a nearby hill and scaled some of the rock formations at the top. 

 

On a more mundane afternoon, we walked the charming streets of Estes Park and looked in a few shops.  I’m not normally big on souvenirs, but one item caught my eye at Brownfield’s (a really excellent gift shop if you go for that sort of thing).  It was a coffee mug with the RMNP logo.   It was massive, green and emblematic of much that I love about the Rockies.  I didn’t buy it initially, but kept thinking about it all week and purchased it before we left town.

Though I enjoyed all our other activities, the climactic big hike at the end of our trip was always in the back of my mind.  I love my native Appalachian hills, but their appeal is more bucolic than grandiose. I was eager to ascend one of the great Rocky Mountain peaks that juts up like a jagged saw tooth against the big western sky.

On the morning of our hike we put all four kids in day camp at the YMCA.  One wonderful and potentially dangerous thing about our kids is that they are  absolutely fearless when it comes to being left with strangers.  Consequently, there were no protests when we dropped them off with their camp counselors. 

Before leaving the camp, we stopped by the recreation center again to get some final input from the charming girl who had helped us select the route.  She indicated that she and some other staffers had hiked to Flattop early one morning in the prior week so that they could watch the sunrise.  They’d made the ascent in complete darkness.  She warned us that there was “a little bit of snow” that obscured the trail, but assured us that we could follow boot tracks to avoid getting lost.  With that bit of parting advice, we hopped in the van and drove to Bear Lake, the site of the trailhead.

As a Boy Scout, I was taught to “Be Prepared.”  It’s one thing to memorize the motto, but the scouts had also put me in a few situations that instilled the motto in more substantive ways.  I had learned, for example, that early summer weather at high elevations can be unpredictable, and that people get lost even when hiking on relatively short and established trails.  Consequently, on the day of our little trip I carried a day pack with plenty of water, a little food, some fire starter, a map and compass, and a couple layers of extra clothes. 

The trailhead at Bear Lake is deceptively developed.  It’s a popular spot with a huge parking area.  A short, paved trail surrounds the small lake allowing small children, the elderly and handicapped to  enjoy the scenic path. 

The trail to FHO begins to ascend steeply shortly after it leaves the Bear Lake trail.  Before long, we started to encounter patches of snow.  We thought it would be fun to take pictures of ourselves in the snow at an angle that would make the snow look more abundant than it really was.   Within a couple of miles our staged photos of scattered snow patches seemed ridiculously unnecessary.

The views grew more stunning the higher we climbed. 

The mountains were also pretty spectacular.

The trailhead is at 9,475 feet and Flattop Mountain’s summit is at 12,324, making for a net gain of 2,849 feet in 4.4 miles.  As we climbed higher, the snow became more and more prevalent.  We had to crawl over some of the taller snow banks on all fours. The  ice numbed my fingers and cut my shins.  Every now and then our boots would  punch through the ice and we’d find ourselves hip-deep in snow.  Eventually, amidst the trees and snow, we lost the trail.  The girl at the Y was right, there were boot tracks to follow, but apparently a lot of other people ahead of us had gotten lost as well.  Taking the path most traveled is no sure way to avoid getting lost.  Very occasionally we saw stacks of rocks that folks had placed along the trail to assist hikers through the snow.  We looked for those stones, made some educated guesses and kept pushing ahead, but the the stacks of stones stopped appearing after awhile and both of us had the growing sense that we were  truly lost.  Before long, we weren’t even sure that we could find our way back to the established trail.  The “little bit of snow” was a lot more snow than this Georgia boy expected to encounter in June.  I was amazed that the young YMCA staffers had managed this trail in the dark.

We stopped to try and get our bearings with the  map and compass.  Though I’d taken the time to procure a map, I hadn’t bothered to confirm that I’d been given the right one.  The map we had was useless.  Though neither of us said so, we were both thinking about the thousands of acres of rugged mountains that surrounded us, and the fact that we’d not seen a soul since shortly after leaving Bear Lake.  I took some comfort from the supplies that I’d brought in my pack, but I really didn’t want to test my wilderness survival skills during what was supposed to be a 4-hour hike.  To top it all off, the sky had darkened and we could see thunderheads in the distance.  Then, just as I was about to surrender and start walking straight downhill in hopes of hitting the trail, we heard a voice crying in the wilderness.

Well, the voice wasn’t actually crying .  We heard two voices engaged in conversation, and they seemed to be descending from the summit.  We followed the voices through the trees, and eventually caught up with a couple who looked quite at home in the mountains.  The man looked like I picture John the Baptist, except for the earring and GPS watch.  He had a wild beard, long hair  and looked lean and solid as a rock. 

“Is this the trail?” I asked.

“Yes, if you’re going to Flattop,” he answered with a smile.

“It’s really good to see someone.  We were starting to think that we were lost.  Is the trail hard to follow from here?”

“If you keep going, you’re going to have to climb over some 8 foot snowbanks and the trail is easy to lose among the trees, but you’re just about to get above the tree line and the trail is pretty easy to follow after that.”

“Will we need crampons and and ice axe?” I asked with irony in my voice.

“Um, I don’t think so”, he answered without a trace of irony in his.  “But you should keep going, it’s worth it.”

Bolstered with their advice and encouragement,  we pressed on.  John the Baptist was right, we did lose the trail again, but we had a better sense of our general direction and so were able to reconnect more quickly.  After about a half mile, we emerged from the trees into sunnier areas of the mountain where the snow had melted.  Though the rest of the trail was a test of our aerobic fitness, we were confident that we were headed in the right direction. 

Once freed from the anxiety of being lost, we were able to enjoy the tremendous beauty of the place.  The tiny wildflowers, hearty high-altitude animals and majestic vistas were well worth the walk.

 Then, near the summit, we faced the most impressive bit of snow yet.  I don’t care where you’re from, this isn’t just a little bit of snow.

We finally reached the summit, and as our bodies cooled and the wind picked up, we donned the additional clothes in my pack.

Looking down from the top, the course of our ascent seemed much clearer.  At the summit it was all beauty and perspective and peace.  I was keenly aware that the creator of all that I surveyed is also the author of my salvation, the provider of all my needs according to his riches in glory.  I wondered why I’d limited the joy of the day by allowing myself to worry at all.  As we ate our Cliff Bars, we talked about our life and our worries…well, my worries.  Toria’s not a worrier.  I lamented the fact that I have forfeited so much of the joy of my very rich life by choosing to worry about things that almost never come to be.  It was wonderful, but the time came to start our descent.

Once we descended back into the trees we got lost again, though just briefly.  The shrouded section of the trail seemed less frightening on the second pass.  We encountered another couple that was lost and looked unprepared. The girl seemed worried.  I called out to them once Toria and I reached a clear section of trail, but they didn’t answer.  I trust that they made it down okay.  Not everyone responds to voices crying in the wilderness.

The trip had taken longer than we expected (about 5 hours), so we were in a bit of a rush to pick up the kids at the end of their day of camp.  We made it just in time.  We finished the day with a horse-drawn hay ride and campfire with the kids.

And then, the sun finally set on our Rocky Mountain adventure.

We’ve been back home for a month and a half now.  The beauty, perspective and peace I experienced on the summit at Flattop Mountain has worn off a bit, much like the logo on my prized souvenir mug.

For all the trouble that it caused us, I’ve realized that the snow on Flattop Mountain made the trip beautiful, memorable and exciting.  I suppose that the same can be said for many of the stresses of life, whether that be maintaining a law practice in a struggling economy, raising four children in this crazy world, or beating back distractions so that I can write.  It’s all just a little bit of snow. 

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  I Peter 1:6, 7

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

Things of Which I Want More, Things of Which I Want Less

I usually make New Year Resolutions.   While I admittedly have a mixed record of success in years past, making goals seems better than not making them.  Plus, I think the process of reflecting on the shape I’d like my life to take is time well spent.  In lieu of a more conventional list of resolutions, I’m creating two lists.  In one list I itemize things of which I want more, and in the other things of which I want less.  Try as I might – there are 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year (actually one less than last year), so if some things increase, other things have to diminish.   In no particular order, here they are:

Things of Which I Want Less
Television
Noise
Anger
Discouragement
Arguments
Unbelief
Worry
The World
Time Inside
Unintentional obligations

Things of Which I Want More
Books
Music
Peace
Hope
Conversation
Faith
Sleep
The Word
Time Outside
Intentional time with family and friends

I pray that my life will continue to take that shape as God continues the good work that he has begun in me.

 

On the Video Below

Work is busy, so blogging will probably be light this month.  Hopefully, this video recap of our year can tide you over for the time being.  I was disappointed in the video quality, because the original photos and footage are pretty stellar for the most part.  I was especially disappointed that the text is so difficult to read.  But, hopefully you can get the gist and join me in celebrating a great year.  With all the gloom and doom inundating us from all sides, it’s good to appreciate the simpler and significant things.

 

TIP: FOR A SUPERIOR VIEWING EXPERIENCE, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE RATHER THAN THE PLAYER BELOW, THEN SELECT “WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY” JUST BELOW THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE VIEWER.  IT’S MUCH SHARPER.

 

Navigating the Shoals

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary last weekend.  We were married on November 9, 1996, just over 12 years ago.  In the past we’ve recognized the day in  traditional ways – weekend trips away, nice dinners, or an exchange of gifts.  This year, we elected to enjoy our shared passion for the outdoors and spent a few hours canoeing on the Chattahoochee River.   I say that “we” elected to do that, but I’ll confess to having the leading voice in that discussion.

We left the kids with a sitter, and drove both of our cars to a drop off point on the river called Paces Mill.  After dropping off the Pathfinder, we drove the van, with the canoe on top, to our starting place at Morgan Falls Dam. 

Morgan Falls Dam

A significant portion of our trip down the river took us through the Chattahoochee River National Park, and the park service has prepared a detailed map of the river that I link here.  

Rivers don’t take the shortest route from A to B, and therein lies much of their beauty.  The river meanders, headed vaguely south, and the varied but certain direction of the river, combined with the slow but steady pace of the current is inherently relaxing.    

 

The autumn colors were striking, just four or so days past their peak.  The stunning and vibrant colors would be captivating in any setting, but to view them from the quiet of a lone canoe on the broad river was sublime.

As soon as we boarded the canoe, I noted a large bird on the opposite bank.  I know next to nothing about birds.  I can identify cardinals, blue jays, robins and bald eagles, but beyond that I’m guessing.  This bird was very large with a long neck, beak and legs, and a wingspan of over six feet.  As we floated along the river, he stayed 100 yards or so ahead of us, flying away each time we got close enough to try and take a picture.  I don’t know if he was hoping for some food, or merely curious as to why we were on the river on such a cool day, but he stayed with us for the entire trip.

 

Our Bird Companion

As we paddled, we talked.  We talked about the kids (we’re almost always talking about the kids), about the state of the country, the economy, and our walks with God.  Toria’s prior canoe experience was limited to recreational afternoons on flat water, so I tried to teach her what little I know about paddling a river.  Every now and then I’d lay down my paddle and take some pictures of the gorgeous fall foliage.

As we approached our destination, we began to encounter shoals.  I knew they were coming.  They are well marked on the map – Cochran Shoals, Devils Race Course Shoals, Thornton Shoals and Long Island Shoals.   Shoals are basically shallow places in the water.  The current is typically more rapid and rocks jut above the water in every direction, but the greatest danger is the rocks that are just beneath the surface.  I learned some time ago to spot the rocks by identifying “downstream v’s”, which essentially point like directional markers between the submerged rocks.  I told Toria that she’d need to spot the rocks because she had the better view, but that I would have to steer from the stern. 

While the shoals are challenging, they also make the trip a lot more interesting.  Successfully navigating rapids is exhilarating.  The Chattahoochee doesn’t offer white water rapids like you might see in the movies, but as we navigated between the rocks, there were a couple of spots where we picked up some nice speed and felt the thrust of the current taking us in directions beyond our control.  If you don’t pick the right spots to hit the rapids, bad things await.

Approaching Shoals

Toria and I had never done this together, so it took a bit to develop our technique.  We got hung up a couple of times in the shallow water, but we were able to push off with our paddles without disembarking.  Toria grew increasingly confident in her ability to spot to downstream v’s, and I grew increasingly confident in her choices.  At times we’d see the shoals from a distance and had a couple of minutes to discuss which part of the river offered the best route.  Sometimes we initially disagreed, but once the issue was decided, we both worked hard toward the same end. 

That’s me, looking a little goofy for some reason

I risk diminishing the beauty of the marriage metaphor if I state it overtly, but I feel that I must.  Managing the life decisions that come with marriage requires both eyes to see and arms to steer, and sometimes, most times, the eyes and arms aren’t on the same body.  It requires grace, patience and trust.  When partners in a canoe row in different directions, neither of them ends up in a place they want to be. 

But the metaphor didn’t play out as neatly as I’d hoped.  You might also be wondering why I haven’t posted any pictures. (Since the original post, I have retrieved and posted pictures).

Toward the end of the trip, as we rounded a bend in the river, we approached another set of shoals.  We had encountered a few trout fisherman along the way, but as we neared Paces Mill there were easily a dozen spread out along the breadth of the river.  It’s challenging to navigate shoals, and more so when some of your options are blocked.   We saw the take out point a little late, and found ourselves in the middle of the river when we needed to be on the western bank.  One of the rules of canoeing is that you avoid paddling perpendicular to the current.  Doing so makes your boat unstable and puts you at risk of hitting a rock with the broad site of your canoe and capsizing.  But, we found ourselves having to do just that to avoid missing our take out. 

During the process of getting to shore, just 30 or so yards away from it, we suddenly capsized.  I’ve played it over in my mind and can’t completely reconstruct what happened.  As best as I can recall, we started to move sideways over a rock just under the surface, there was a sudden shift of weight, and we were in the 55 degree water before we had a second to correct.   Before Saturday, I’d never accidentally capsized a canoe.

Toria went down river to retrieve a water bottle and a seatback.  Everything else was strapped in the canoe in anticipation of just such an event.  Even the camera was strapped in, but unlike everything else we had with us, it wasn’t in a waterproof bag.  Consequently, we have no pictures of the trip and are without a digital camera for the time being.

It was cold, and I was embarrassed.  There were lots of people watching.  Toria laughed.  It added to the adventure for her.  But the beauty of the thing was that we didn’t blame or yell or allow it to ruin  the day.  Whenever something bad happens these days, it seems that we have to blame someone.  Bad things can’t just happen, it has to be someone’s fault – whether it be a market crash, a hurricane or a capsized canoe.  But sometimes the contributing factors are so varied and complex that there is no one person to blame.  What we call accountability is actually scapegoating.  The truth is, sometimes bad stuff just happens.

With some eventual help from the fishermen, we got the boat out of the water.  After loading the canoe on the Pathfinder, we went to Target so Toria could get some warm clothes.  Man that I am, I stayed in my wet clothes while we had lunch at the Flying Biscuit.  I’ll confess that it was nice to take a hot shower and change after we got home.

It’s been a wonderful 12 years.  I see shoals coming, both of us do.  2009 is shaping up to be a difficult year.  The question is whether we’ll spend our time as a couple, and as a nation, guiding the canoe that we all share between the rocks, or waste our time affixing blame as our boat flounders on the shoals.  When the boat capsizes, and it probably will, do we work together to retrieve it, or do we concern ourselves more with who was responsible for putting us in the water?  I pray that we will paddle together in synchronicity - straight, strong and stable, and experience the gratification of successfully navigating the shoals together.

 

The End of Things

It is raining this morning.  As indicated in my last post, that’s a rare blessing for which I am grateful.  The gray clouds hanging over the city are no more palpable than the pall cast by the crashing markets that shape virtually all of my conversations these days.  Whatever this is, it is the end of something.

Now that I’ve been blogging for awhile, I see almost all of my experiences as potential subjects for blog posts.  While that perspective has the beneficial effect of prodding me toward a more interesting and intentional life, I often find myself trying to artificially link my various experiences together with a profound theme concluded with a clever closing phrase.  Sometimes life doesn’t quite lay out that way.  The past few days have been over-full with events ranging from the amusing to the tragic, and I don’t know if there’s a bow to tie them together.

On Thursday morning I left the office to participate in a “sporting clay” tournament.  I was grateful for the invitation, but given my complete lack of experience with the sport, I initially planned to decline.  But when I learned that some of my clients were attending the two day event, along with a lot of potential clients, I changed my mind.   Given current market conditions for real estate lawyers, it seemed like a good idea for me to go. 

I met two of my clients here in the city so that we could share a ride out to the Burge Plantation.  The Burge lies about an hour east of Atlanta in the town of Social Circle.  As we were driving away from Atlanta on I-20, one of my clients asked where I grew up.

“Here.”  I said.  “Right here, just off the Panola Road exit.”

“Where is here?” he asked.  It’s a fair question, because there’s not a lot of “there” there. 

“Lithonia”  I explained, which explained little.  But driving past the familiar freeway exits always prompts a flood of childhood memories for me, and I was lost in thought for a few miles.

One of my clients recommended that we eat lunch at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle.  I wasn’t familiar with the Inn, but I’ve come to learn that it has a significant national reputation for country dining.  The reputation is well deserved.  The restaurant is located in an old, stately home and features an “all you can eat” buffet.  None of that is terribly unusual, but the food itself was a cut above any other country dining establishment I’ve enjoyed during my many years in the south.  

 

The Blue Willow Inn

Back in the early 90’s the Blue Willow Inn’s renown was solidified when the late Lewis Grizzard wrote a nationally syndicated article in which he said of the Blue Willow that he’d finally found the country dining for which he’d been searching all his life.  Our waitress, upon learning that we were new to the restaurant, instructed us, “It’s real simple – eat all you can.”  We did, and it was phenomenally good, as my waistline proves.

My First Helping.  That’s a fried green tomato at 11:00.

After our ample lunch at the Blue Willow, we drove over to The Burge.  I wasn’t able to learn a great deal about the history of the place, other than that the main house was one of the few survivors of Sherman’s March to the Sea in the Civil War.  It’s a sprawling place with lots of cabins and random outbuildings.  At some point in the 1970’s the owners decided to convert the farm to a hunting and sporting clay club, and so it remains.

We were the first to arrive at the rustic “pro shop” where we admired expensive shotguns on display along with catalogues of ridiculously more expensive firearms.  Until last Thursday, I was unaware that a person could spend in excess of $300,000 on a shotgun.  I can’t imagine that many of those are selling these days.

When our host arrived, he said, “Gentlemen, this event is probably the only positive thing happening in any of our professional lives these days, so let’s enjoy it.”  We would have laughed if his comment weren’t so terribly true.

For those of you who, like me, know nothing about sporting clays, I’ll give a brief primer.  The clays themselves are small, Frisbee-like disks that fly through the air while people try to blast them out of the sky with a shotgun.  It’s much like what I remember as “trap” or “skeet” shooting.  Unlike skeet or trap shooting, sporting clays involves traveling from station to station where the mechanized “throwers” are tucked away in various locations and at different angles so that the clays fly from various angles, distances and speeds.  In our case, we drove golf carts, played in foursomes, and called the stations holes.  It’s basically golf with guns.  We played a 75 clay course with 17 stations.   The object is to hit as many clays as possible out of the 75. 

done

You can’t see it, but I hit both of the clays in this picture.

Thursday was a practice day, and a professional working for The Burge gave me some pointers.  After some time on the 5-stand range, we went out on the course.   The sport is surprisingly intoxicating and difficult.  All of my companions had shot before, and some were quite serious about it.  When dealing with guns, I find it best to be paired with serious people.  In my first go at the 75 clay course, I hit 38.  As it turns out, that’s apparently pretty good for a newbie.

That night we gathered near the main house for a phenomenal meal of quail wings and beef tenderloin.  

The House.  You know you’re someone in the south if you refer to your ancestral home as “The House.”

After dinner we adjourned to another building where we watched the V.P. debate.  Not surprisingly, commercial real estate professionals who like to shoot skew Republican.  After the debate was over, we ventured into the cool evening air near the bonfire and told stories about prior hunts and the current market.  I got into an interesting conversation with a Jewish lawyer about Jesus.

After a restless sleep made more restless by the bourbon-fueled conversations taking place outside my door, I awoke to a gorgeous morning.

I took this shot just outside of “Dolly’s Cabin” shortly after I woke on Friday morning.

After an ample breakfast, we gathered for the actual tournament.  We were organized into pairs designed to balance our disparate skill.  I moved from a 20 guage to a 12 and found more success than I had during the previous day’s practice round.  At one point during the round a somewhat less serious shooter’s gun failed to fire, then he started to turn toward the group.  As he was turning, his gun went off and flew out of his hands.  No one was hurt, but the potential consequences reminded me that the sport is very different from golf in some material respects.

I finished with 48 hits, and my partner hit 58.  Our combined score won the day, and after a brief awards ceremony my traveling partners and I loaded up and drove to the Blue Willow for our second massive lunch in as many days.  I gained 6 pounds over the weekend.

I went straight home after being dropped off at my car, and Toria and I gathered the kids from the school bus and headed out to our friends’ house for dinner.  Mark and Sherry have been our friends for many years, and our kids love each other, but we live on opposite sides of town and don’t see each other as often as we would like.  The conversation again turned to the bailout, the declining market and the potential implications for our families.  In times such as these it’s tempting to become insular, to think of shielding yourself and your family.  But in spending time with our friends I was reminded that Christ calls us to a very different pattern of living, of sharing, of generosity and breaking bread together even in the midst of adversity.  The evening again ended by the fire as the children made s’mores and played tag in the firelight. 

Early the next morning, Toria and I dropped off the kids at her parents house and we met two other couples for a trip up to the Len Foote Inn at Amicalola Falls State Park.  The Inn is unique in that it is accessible by the public only via a 5-mile trail.  It’s a beautiful, quiet spot that takes all of the hassle out of backpacking.  Shelter, beds, linens and food are provided, along with a phenomenal view of the surrounding mountains. 

It was great to be truly unplugged for 24 hours.  Because the guys were able to carry the essential gear, one of the wives carried a guitar on her back and we spent a few hours passing the guitar around as we sang and played.  We stayed up late playing Trivial Pursuit and talking about life in the sunrise room.

Click here for a video of the trip, courtesy of my friend Heather Rendle who put it together.  She’s the cute blonde in the pictures.  Well, she’s one of them anyway.

I woke in the morning to watch the sky gradually light up with varying shades of red and orange until the sun suddenly popped up from behind a distant ridge and began its daily journey across the sky.  

I’m awake for the sunrise almost every day, but I rarely see the sun crest the horizon, and certainly never as dramatically as this.

My trips into the woods serve to remind me that the best things aren’t things at all.  They are relationships, experiences, and moments in time that have very little to do with the financial worries so consuming our thoughts in recent months.

After enjoying the sun’s ascent, we packed up, ate a hearty breakfast and made a quick descent to the parking area where we headed home.  My mind was already on the somber journey that l’d be taking alone once we got back.

Early Friday morning, just before the sporting clay tournament, I had received an email from my friend Mark informing me that his father had died.  Mark’s dad had been sick with cancer for some time, but we all thought he had some time left, so the email was a bit of a surprise.  Mark emailed that the visitation and funeral were both in Covington, in the same general direction as The Burge Plantation.  So, once I got home from the Len Foote Inn trip, I showered, put on my suit, boarded the Pathfinder, and headed out I-20 east.

I passed the Panola Road exit again, and again experienced a flood of involuntary memories.  I hadn’t known Mark’s father terribly well, but he and his wife were my landlords during my first year of law school, and he had shown me the kindness that a student so appreciates in a friend’s parent, often involving picking up the check at a restaurant.  He was a kind and dignified man.

Mark’s wife, Amy, embraced me warmly when I walked into the funeral home and I was pleased to bring a smile to Mark’s face upon my entry.  I signed the register, looked at the pictures, expressed my condolences to Mark’s stepmother and tried to figure out where to stand.  I was one of the very few in a suit, so people kept mistaking me for a funeral home employee.  Plus, I wasn’t family, and I didn’t know what else to say or do.  Then there’s the fact that standing near a casket is a powerful reminder of my own mortality.  I now know why people make food when someone dies.  It gives them something to do.  After exhausting every protocol I knew to follow, I left, and I felt bad for leaving.  I love my friends very much, and I very much wanted to be with them, but I am never more inept than at a funeral.

I hadn’t planned to attend the funeral services on Monday, mostly because I anticipated a busy day following my time away from the office for the sporting clay tournament.  But the economy and real estate market being what they are, there was nothing on my desk that couldn’t wait a day.  After lunch I drove again out I-20 east, passing near my childhood home.  I can go years without driving out that way, but found myself doing it for the third time in four days. 

As I walked in the door of the funeral home, Mark asked if I could serve as a pallbearer.  I eagerly agreed, pleased to have a role and a place, and someone to tell me where to stand.  Mark delivered an eloquent eulogy, demonstrating a dignity and composure that he no doubt learned from his father.  This was my third stint as a pallbearer.  I have been a groomsman eight times.  I am aware that those numbers are likely to draw even in the coming years, and it’s a sobering thought. 

It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day.  As I drove in the funeral procession, I noted that cars passing in the other direction respectfully stopped, pulled to the side of the road and turned on their lights – a tradition almost completely forgotten inside metropolitan Atlanta.  At the graveside the pastor said a few more words, and the pallbearers extended condolences to the family members on the front row. 

I had resolved to stay this time, awkward or not.  I congratulated Mark on the wonderfully delivered eulogy, and asked Amy if they needed help with any out of town guests.  They didn’t.  Before long, the family piled into the funeral home limo and it was time for me to go.

As I drove back toward Lithonia, I decided to pull off of the interstate and drive down familiar roads to my old house.  While some things have changed in Lithonia, a great deal is the same.  Some of the once ramshackle houses are 30 years more decrepit, but still occupied.  In contrast, a couple of subdivisions of massive, expensive homes have replaced the woods that I used to roam after school.  A few minutes after leaving the interstate, I pulled up to our old house.

I remember being proud of that house.  I once thought that it was big, but I can’t imagine raising my family in it now.  I remember my parents and our neighbors working hard to manicure their yards, building a playground and making a beautiful, kid friendly neighborhood.  You can’t really tell from his camera phone picture, but the house crumbles now, embarrassingly neglected and a shadow of the home of my memory. 

 Citizens of the western world are gripped with the fear that they’re on the cusp of losing it all.  I worry too, but I have to remind myself that I’m worried about losing things that I can never truly possess in the first place.  I enjoy nice things – whether they be shotguns, trips, meals, or cars, but all of these things will pass away.  Among the many things said of Mark’s father, no one mentioned the amount of stuff he left behind.  He has experienced the end of things, as in earthly, tangible things.  That end awaits us all, and the fact that the enduring things of life do not consist of earthly things should inform the way we live, and the way we treat each other.  In all of the moments that I have described in this email, I cherish most those shared with friends engaged in conversation, acts of kindness, and simple activities. 

It is evening now, and it’s still raining.  I’m comforted that the same God who provides this desperately needed rain has also promised to meet all of our earthly needs if we’ll only seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.  I am gratified to know that the fruit of my seeking his kingdom will endure forever.

Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.  (I Corinthians 13:12, 13)