You are my strength; I wait for you to rescue me,
for you, O God, are my fortress.
In his unfailing love, my God will stand with me.
(from Psalm 59)
Category: Mountains
The Pains and Joys of the Here and Now
The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.
– Henri Nouwen
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All Truth is God’s Truth
Sometimes an old truth gains new life when we see it through a fresh lens.
The brilliant colour of seasonal change on the mountains can distract from the fact that this mountain has stood without change for many many many centuries. The season, the time of day, the weather conditions all change the appearance and either hide or highlight different planes of the mountain’s story. Sometimes shadows can deceive us into seeing something that is not actually there and those willing to take the risk of changing their vantage point will often be surprised when their assumptions vanish in the light of a new day.
Sometimes seeing an old truth from a different perspective allows us to let go of ideas we held fast that turned out to be merely misleading shadows. Sometimes changing our vantage point allows us to see another aspect of truth we never noticed before -but it is still an ancient truth.
The good news of the gospel of Christ is expressed in many ways by many streams. It may appear to be different from different perspectives, but it is the same truth established from the foundation of the earth. God’s character and His plans are evident from Genesis to Revelation and all of it is the gospel truth.
All truth is God’s truth.
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On Guard
I went down to the river one evening this week. It was so peaceful. We can never take peace for granted.
After yesterday’s events in Canada, when a gunman shot a young reserve soldier on ceremonial duty at the War memorial in Ottawa and then entered the very halls of the parliament building with his weapon, I am even more aware of the need to pray.
There is more than one way to stand on guard. We need to pray for all those in positions of leadership, and for those who put their lives on the line to protect us.
Those who are called to pray and bring the needs of this country to the throne of God also do guard duty.
God keep our land glorious and free –and peaceful.
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The Burmis Tree
I’ve driven past the Burmis tree too many times to count but I have never stopped to photograph it before. Apparently it is the most photographed tree in Alberta. There are always vehicles pulled over near it and locals watch in amusement as tourists try to push their doors open and steady their cameras in winds that can almost knock you off your feet sometimes. I’ve never stopped or taken my camera out – just because so many other people do, and I have to be different I guess. But this week the light was perfect, and nobody was watching, so…
Experts (who knows which ones) say it is a 600 to 750-year old limber pine. That means it could have been a sapling during the time of the last Crusades or the Black Death. It could have been bending in that wind when Kublai Khan came to power, when Dante and Chaucer were writing, when William Wallace was painting his face blue, or Marco Polo eating noodles in a Chinese take-out for the first time, or Wycliffe had just lost his teaching position for ticking off the University establishment with the crazy notion that if you are going to tell people to follow the teachings of the Bible they should at least be able to read it for themselves. I suppose the tree is worthy of attention simply for standing from then until now.
Except that it sort of blew over that time in the nineties, after it was pronounced officially dead about twenty years before. The thing is the Burmis tree is just about the only thing that the town of Burmis still has going for it, so some stalwart citizens discretely employed rods and brackets and raised it back up again. When annoying vandals (sans Huns) broke off an iconic branch they glued it back on and supported it with a rod, Jeremy Bentham-style.
Most photographers, including me, edit it back out.
Don’t get me wrong, I love history, I really do. I almost passed out from excitement when I saw the gates of Ninevah and the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles at the British museum. No beach vacation on earth could ever compare to walking the pavement of Jerusalem or hearing the crunch of pottery shards underfoot in Shiloh. But there is something about this sad-looking dead tree, reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss illustration, gathering tourists’ attention on the side of a blustery highway that makes me want to ask, “So, little tree, what have you done lately?” The tree’s claim to fame was that it had lived for such a long time. An amazingly long time actually, but now it is no longer living and I wonder if it is an homage to life or to death and its inevitability, even if one had the strength to stand strong through a thousand winter gales.
I suppose though, that all these historic figures I admire are just as dead as the Burmis tree. Well, deader actually, because they popped off their mortal coils long before the tree gave in. So many women and men of the past have demonstrated greatness and taught us profound truths, but they are gone now too. Perhaps the lesson of the tree is to simply be an example of standing in the gales of adversity, and having done all one can, to stand some more.
I pondered. Then I read this quote by E.M. Bounds (who demonstrated some standing ability himself):
“The past has not exhausted the possibilities nor the demands for doing great things for God. The church that is dependent on its past history for its miracles of power and grace is a fallen church....”
Hmmm… Perhaps that’s why the Lord drew my attention to the Burmis tree this week. The greats were not great when they started. There was a time when they were as weak as saplings. But when we look to the deep thinkers and devoted people of the past and the institutions they started more than we look to the God who longs to be active in our present, we tend to cease to see, or even believe in miracles of power and grace in our own day – or when we do we dismiss them as coincidences or “unexplained” events too good to be true.
Further down the road the fire-ravaged shell of the old Mohawk tipple in Burmis stands as a symbol of the loss of prosperity and hope in a town of people who ran out of resources. There are some vacation homes in the area, but not much else is happening in downtown Burmis these days.
The thought strikes me that it is so easy to forget Who our source is and to try to resurrect dead monuments to the past instead of pursue active encounters with God.
St. Paul, the intellectual who changed his opinion about Jesus Christ so drastically he went from killing his followers to risking his own life to bring the good news of the kingdom of God, had this to say to folks in Corinth: “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”
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Glimpse
The dark clouds hovered over the mountains as we drove home today. I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to catch some of the colour which is quickly being dispersed in the autumn winds. Every once in a while the sun would break through and catch the tip of larch trees, or a stand of aspen, but there was a lot of shadow. I was coming up Steamboat Hill when I looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of the sun’s glory on the Kootenay River.
There is something about the clouds parting on a dark day that reminds us that there is more to life than sorrow and disappointment and fear. It’s like prophets who catch a glimpse of truth in the midst of dark times and tell us that God is not afraid. He has a plan for our lives.
God, who gave our forefathers many different glimpses of the truth in the words of the prophets,
has now, at the end of the present age, given us the truth in the Son.
(Hebrews 1:1)
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A Holy Mess
I want to be a person who is always at peace inside.
I’m getting better, but I’m not there yet. Until then, I would rather be a person who handles stress by cleaning and organizing. At least there would be slightly less chaos at the end of the day. When I am in the throes of useless obsession about a problem, I can step over mounds of rubble and not even notice. When the problem is resolved I am knee-deep in another one of my own making. It’s probably symbolic of the uselessness of worry.
People who clean obsessively are trying to find a measure of control in an atmosphere where things appear to be out of control. People who mull a problem over and over and over in their minds (aka worry) are doing the same thing, of course. We want to understand the eternal repercussions of every decision, every move toward the heights. We want a sense of certainty in the fog of unknowns.
Here’s the thing about change: It’s messy, and disorienting.
I finally got around to cleaning out some closets – but first I had to pull everything out and dump it on the floor and the bed. There was stuff in the back corners I don’t even remember putting there. (And since I haven’t missed it in five years it seemed like a good opportunity to bless the thrift shop.) But for a while the room looked like an episode of a hoarders TV show – piles of essentials and distractions and embarrassment and potential and memories all heaped together.
That’s what my life feels like this week.
Some people who choose to pursue God with all their hearts get the holy cuddles and effervescent joy special. Some of us get thrown into the lake.
What? But, Lord, I thought I would get what she was getting. I wanted kindergarten happy-happy free-play time. I got “let’s get serious.” I can’t touch the bottom! I’m drowning!
No you’re not!
I am!
I won’t let you drown, but you’re going to be miserable if you don’t get out of that stroller and kick the feet I gave you. I want to take you out swimming in the deep end with me, but I can’t if you don’t start using what you already have. Now kick your feet – and use your arms. That’s what they’re there for.
The fruit of the Spirit, like the Holy Spirit is already in you because I am in you. It’s my fruit, my character. But the peace I bring you won’t do any good unless you pick it up and use it.
These circumstances are not just an attack of the devil to show you how much he hates you and wants to hinder you (although he does). They are meant to cause you to dig deeper, to lean harder on Me to discover the resources already placed within you – stuff you have never even taken out for a spin yet.
How does this peace thing work? Ask Me – I’ll show you.
And here’s some chaos to practise on.
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Come Up Higher
I have a confession. I live in the mountains, and I love them, but I am afraid of heights. I’m a valley dweller. I prefer to look up at lofty mountain grandeur. Looking down makes me feel, well, uneasy, to say the least.
Some people who come here from sea-level cities also find themselves a little out of breath, even in the valleys, but for different reasons. It takes a while to adjust to the altitude. On the other hand, when we visited the Dead Sea area in Israel, which is well below sea level, I was amazed at the way I could scramble around on the rocks without becoming tired. My body had been trained simply by living on a higher plane.
Many of our friends are mountain climbers, including several who climbed Crowsnest mountain recently (the one pictured here.) My brother is a well-known climber who lives near Banff. I’m content to admire their drive, look at their photos and listen to their stories.
One story my brother tells is about the time he paired up with another climber to scale one of the highest mountains in the province on one of those rare days when its peak was not in the clouds. His friend had climbed many times before, but not quite that high, and not quite that fast. Neither of them expected that he would get altitude sickness. My brother said his friend began to act as if he were drunk. That’s when he knew he needed to help him back down -very carefully. The descent took longer than expected and they had to bivouac on the side of the mountain overnight. That means they secured their sleeping bags to stakes pounded into the sheer face of the mountain and tried to get some sleep -whilst one of them was exhausted and the other was impaired. Fun times.
Like I said, I prefer valley living. But in our spiritual lives sometimes God calls us to come up higher and see things from his perspective. Jesus took Peter, James and John on a mountain climbing trip when he wanted to let them in on some inside information.
“Come up here,” He told John later in a vision on the isle of Patmos, “I want to show you something.” And he did.
Mountain top experiences can be a little disorienting. Not only are we not accustomed to the perspective, we are not used to the altitude. It takes some time to adjust. We are meant to live at altitude -after all Paul tells us in Ephesians that we who have been adopted into the family of God are seated in high places with Christ. He calls us to come up higher and get his perspective, but sometimes it’s a little disorienting for valley dwellers. Sometimes we feel out of breath, our ears feel the pressure, our brains can’t keep up; some people feel downright panicky or sick for a time. The climb to higher ground can be frankly uncomfortable and even scary, so the Lord provides resting places along the way where we can take time to adjust, but soon he calls us to keep moving to higher ground -because he has something to show us we could not see any other way.
I want to live above the world,
Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground.
from “Higher Ground” by Johnson Oatman
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If We Truly Believe
“And if we truly believe that God the Father is love, then we must therefore believe that He, as a Father, is patient, kind, and gentle. He doesn’t envy, He isn’t proud, He’s not rude, He’s not self-seeking, He’s not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. He doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. He never fails.”
― Darren Wilson, Filming God: A Journey From Skepticism to Faith
Charis: Subject to Change 