Time for Spring Training!

 Jesus says that if we are to follow Him we need to deny ourselves.  As someone who desperately wants to follow Jesus, I want to be able to deny myself.  But as my wife, kids, students and close friends know, I am inclined to put myself first.  I am good at thinking about it afterwards, but I tend to fly off the handle or get first in line before I think about it. Later I am able to reflect, “Argh, I did it again, I did not deny myself.  Father, please forgive me.”  That reflection (repentance) is good, but it is too often after the fact.  I want to be predisposed to deny myself.  I want self-denial to be my automatic reaction. I want self-denial to be in my “spiritual muscle memory.”  Right now every fleshly part of me screams out, “Give me what I want!” It is like having a temporary blindness to what is really good.

This struggle, and the fact that it is March, draws my mind to one of my favorite subjects:

A Kansas-sized Storm

I recently heard a story that I want to relay to you and the rest of my friends.  It is a story about a storm, a Kansas storm.  Those storms are big.  

A little girl was playing outside on a Kansas farm*. Mama was inside cooking dinner.  You know what it looks like, a big white two-story house, wrap-around front porch, a giant maple tree that stands in the front like a sentinel, guarding the house (a little too closely!) A swing hangs on its lower branch. Bikes and skates are strewn about and an above ground pool is in the yard.  Sun flowers, gladiolas, and hollyhocks are growing in three neat rows. The land is so flat that you can see the sky for miles in all directions.

The wind.  You can hear that gale beginning to whine through the corn field and around the corners of the house, whispering its warning.

“Mama, I want to come inside. The wind is blowing.”

Wanna go Fishing?

There is this perfect little fishing stream no more than 90 minutes from my home.  It is beautiful.  The fall colors right now are exploding in the yellow aspens and golden oaks.  The cool autumn breeze brushes the trees and they seem to be clapping their hands as you hike through the groves of them to this splendid little fishing hole.  The creek just glistens as the late afternoon sunlight reflects off the surface of the water.  The sound of the brook flowing over the rocks smoothed by centuries of flow is so relaxing and pleasant to hear.  I am giddy to the point where it is hard to tie the hook on my line. The word that comes to my mind is radiant. Seriously, I want to put down this keyboard and drive there right now!  The creek draws me to it with its magnetic beauty.  And to think this secret little spot is not six hours drive away in the Sierras and then another ten miles by hike. No this place is accessible right here in the local mountains just steps from the road.  

The stream is only a little wider than my running, jumping stride.  I have just failed in attempts to leap over it giving my feet a bath in its clear water.  In its deepest parts I bet there are very few pools over two feet in depth.  

But I would like to take you to the best place to catch fish.

Hitting the Wall

When the Journey Seems to have too many Roadblocks

Recently my daughter and a few of my close friends and I went on a backpacking trip to a place called Minaret Lake in the High Sierra.  I delight in the back country.  The sky is bluer, the water is too, and I just so much enjoy purple lupine, bright red Indian Paintbrush and other wild flowers in creek-watered meadows.  I think my favorite part, though, are the mountains. Thousands of years ago the glaciers that covered the Sierra receded leaving behind tremendous, rugged peaks that surround beautiful, crystal-clear lakes full of multi-colored Brook Trout!  As we sat at our campsite next to the lake and looked across the water we could see these towering peaks like sky scrapers standing guard over the lake.  From the topo map we calculated that these peaks were over 1000 feet straight up!  Early in the morning when the water of the lake is still and mirror-like you can see the beautiful reflection of the mountains.  A jumping trout sends out circles of disturbance from the center of the lake just outside the reach of my fishing rod’s cast.  The whole scene causes spontaneous worship and adoration of my Creator. 

 But these minarets don’t look like “normal” mountains with gentle slopes.  These peaks are carved into grotesque shapes that look like the teeth of an angry giant: teeth mostly worn away by grinding and chewing, leaving large gaps in between.  Clyde Minaret is the most stark peak.  It steeply slopes to a point and it is bent somewhat about half way up.  Clyde Minaret has a bright red iron rich deposit that looks like a blood stain from some past meal.  These mountains reminded me of something I would more likely see in a Dr. Seuss book than in a natural setting.

Declaration of Dependence

I know, I know I am not trying to be unpatriotic by sending this out near our great national celebration and I am also not trying to be, as we used to say in the 70s, “counter-cultural.”  It is just that after nearly 50 years of living in this world that I have personally decided to “surrender” to the One I am often fighting against. 

Why would you possibly want to read any further?  What kind of fool would write words or even admit to such aspirations as these?  Give up?  Admit dependence? Now?  Un-American! Cowardly, right?