Tag: Rocky Mountains

Mid-winter’s Day

On By Charis PsalloIn Fields, Mountains, Photography, Winter4 Comments

IMG_0574_STEEPLES MOUNTAINS WINTER SNOW_edited-1

 

Do you remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper? It’s a fable by Aesop about an ant who worked hard storing up provision for the winter and a grasshopper who danced the summer away.  It is a tale meant to teach a moral, and it does.  Don’t waste the good times because hard times are a-coming. I wonder if we can say the same about not wasting hard times?

My husband pointed out that today is mid-winter, halfway point between winter solstice and the vernal equinox. (I’ve never heard of a play titled “A Mid-winter Night’s Dream” have you?) Obviously the hay is not growing much in these fields near our home and the snow is a bit deep for dancing. Since I am not fond of winter sports and in my lifetime have broken three bones slipping on the ice, I have to work on my attitude toward winter.

The blue-tinged snow and mountains are pretty, I’ll grant you that. In an effort to be always thankful I have also noticed that winter also tends to be the most productive time in my life as far as getting caught up with paperwork, writing, studying, sewing, mending, and inside house repairs are concerned. It’s a time for planning gardens and perusing seed catalogues. It’s a time of waiting and preparing for prosperity. Apparently the Hebrew word for waiting has at its root a picture of braiding a rope. Farmers, fishermen, artisans, and folk festival musicians all need time to get their acts together. Sitting by the fire braiding rope is a good picture of this.

We have been taught to think that we must use good times to prepare for hard times, but I wonder if hard times are not there to help us prepare for good times. Prosperity can be even more difficult to manage well than want. Some, like the ant, live in fear and cannot allow themselves to dance when the evenings are warm. Others, like the grasshopper, accomplish nothing more with their abundance than spending it on their own pleasure. Very few who find themselves with abundance in the form of power know how to handle it wisely — thus the expression, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I believe the Lord prepares his most trustworthy servants with long seasons of harsh winter to get them to the place where they don’t need sunshine and flowers to live in a place of contented joy. They will not be dependent on ideal circumstances to allay their fears or give them freedom to dance.

For those trained by adversity to trust in God, every day is a beautiful day.

Something Beautiful

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Trees and forests, Uncategorized5 Comments

IMG_7290 Steeples morning fog autumn ch_edited-1

I love this view of the Steeples Range. I often stop here. I took this about a month ago when the grass was still rich and green.

But there’s a reason it’s so green -and why there is a place to pull off the highway. There’s a pump house near this spot. It pumps effluent from the nearby town onto the field as a way of dealing with sewage.

In others words it makes something beautiful out of something, well, considerably less than beautiful.

My parents used to love the Gaither show on TV. At least I think that’s what it’s called. The Gaithers created a bit of a revolution in the style of music we were used to in church back in the 70’s. There was a level of honesty and joy in the reality of grace and the goodness of God we hadn’t seen for a while. The music gave Mom and Dad a lot of comfort. Dad still plays it. I remember the words of one song:

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life

If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life’s best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of life
And laid it at the cross.

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life.

 

Many of us have been stopped in our tracks by disappointment in ourselves. The stuff that comes out of me sometimes is truly embarrassing.

Lord if you can use my mistakes somehow, you can have them. You said to give you everything, because you paid for it, and I don’t want to even admit some of this to myself, let alone have it flung out where everybody can see it, but here you go. I’ve done and said some pretty unpleasant things in my life, and I feel ugly sometimes, OK a lot of the time. But you can use anything, even my shame. So here. I lay it all down. The accomplishments, the failures. They’re yours. I know you can make something beautiful out of them.

On Guard

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Trees and forests, Water8 Comments

IMG_7810 kootenay river autumn ch

 

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.

Come Up Higher

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, PhotographyLeave a comment

IMG_4628 crowsnest pass mountain hill clouds 2

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

For the Greater Comfort’s Sake

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Mountains, Photography, Sky, WaterLeave a comment

IMG_9932 kootenay river tree shadow bw
Look how fears have presented themselves, so have supports and encouragements; yea, when I have started, even as it were at nothing else but my shadow, yet God, as being very tender of me, hath not suffered me to be molested, but would with one Scripture or another, strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, “Were it lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort’s sake.”

-John Bunyan (1628 – 1688)

Unfading Now

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Winter8 Comments

Wycliffe farm 1 IMG_6439

How good it is when from the distant land,

From lonely wanderings, and from weary ways,

The soul hath reached at last the golden strand,

        The Gates of Praise!

There, where the tide of endless love flows free,

        There, in the sweet and glad eternity,

        The still unfading Now.

Ere yet the days and nights of earth are o’er,

Begun the day that is forevermore–

        Such rest art Thou!

-from “Hidden in God’s Heart” by Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697 -1769

Trans-Canada Dawn

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Sky, Water8 Comments

When morning gilds the skies

my heart,

awakening,

cries,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Transcanada Dawn
Trans-Canada Dawn

Sunrise over the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park from the Trans-Canada Highway this morning.

Fort Steele: Alive, but Dead

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography, Uncategorized8 Comments
Fort Steele
Fort Steele Cottage

The town has only one problem. It’s dead.

Every day its streets bustle with activity, but as the sun sets the tinker lays down his tools, the blacksmith’s forge goes cold, Miss Bailey balances her bell and pointer and dunce cap on the stool in the corner. The Northwest Mounted Police recruit drops his British accent and hangs his red serge on the costume rack. The inhabitants of Fort Steele leave via the employees exit to the parking lot and carpool home to the next town, because no one actually inhabits in this one.

It’s dead.

 

Tinsmith Shop Window, fort Steele
Tinsmith Shop Window, Fort Steele

Open
Open

When pioneers built the livery and school and churches and hotel and shops Fort Steele glistened with the promise of wealth. Since gold had been discovered in the nearby Wildhorse Creek all sorts of adventurous trail-blazing men streamed in, and after a tense situation with the first dwellers in the area was settled without violence, the abundant beauty and riches of the valley convinced them to invite their wives and children to join them.

The town of Fort Steele, named in honour of Superintendent Sam Steele of the Northwest Mounted Police who settled the uprising, basked in potential. Second sons and peasant entrepreneurs who left Europe behind prospered. But prosperity has a way of being usurped and the man who represented the town’s interests in parliament, retired British army officer Colonel Baker, had a way of also representing his own interests. The promised railway changed course. The station was built on Colonel Baker’s property instead, too far away to serve a town in horse and buggy days. Eventually people started moving to be closer to the railroad life-line. Eventually shopkeepers and trades people followed.

The result was an abandoned ghost town turned living history museum fifty years later.

Fort Steele after the tourists go home
Fort Steele after the tourists go home

When we first moved to this area, when our children were young, we often visited the town. We warned the kids not to barge into the house in the photo at the top because someone still lived there. Now no one lives there.

This week I was reading in the book of Revelation about the church of Sardis.

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. “

This reminded me of Fort Steele and the fun events we attend there, going to marvelous concerts in the old theatre, sharing potlucks around a pot-bellied stove in the NWMP barracks in the deep cold of winter, attending weddings seated around the huge gazebo in the hot summer sun, celebrating Thanksgiving in the garden produce-bedecked Presbyterian Church followed by a groaning table feast in the hotel. The place is full of activity –but no one lives there. It’s all an act.

No one is born there, or moves there, or grows up there, or grows old there.

This is the rest of the message to the church at Sardis: Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Fort Steele Presbyterian Church
Fort Steele Presbyterian Church

I wonder if it isn’t easier, when we are in churches that have become monuments to past moves of God, churches whose congregations are dwindling, to either practise willful blindness toward creeping death or abandon them to follow the newest thing. The church in Sardis was not given either option. They were not told to pick up and move to Philadelphia where the church was living love. They were told to wake up, strengthen what remained, hold fast, turn from deadly thinking and change. A remnant –an uncompromised scrap of the fabric that once made up this church remained to help them.

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.  The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.

When folks in the big C church at large choose to pronounce death before the Lord does (and He does do this when a group is so far gone it becomes toxic) they could be cutting off those few who still walk in victory, who faithfully live worthy of their callings right where they are, without denying the seriousness of conditions of those around them. They are beacons of hope, worthy of our prayers and support. Revival is about breathing life into that which once was thriving, but is now dying.

God is still able to revive and restore. Our part is to let go of our reputations and change our ways to match His.  Jesus knows all about resurrection.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Revelation 3:6)