Tod Bolsinger

Basking and Connecting at Laity Lodge

My wife, Beth, says that I need to continually work on my ability to "bask".  Beth thinks that basking is a spiritual discipline and an art form (and admittedly, no one I know basks with as much grace and ease as my sweet love.)

I am not a basker. The motto on my running ID says "Pack a lot of life into living." But because of Beth I am learning to find times and place to slow down, to linger, to do nothing but take in the sunshine of God and warmth of the people of around me.

I just returned from one of my favorite basking spots, Laity Lodge.  I have written about Laity Lodge before, but every time I visit I am reminded of why I love the place.   There is no hype, just substance. It is a solid, peaceful, enduring place that exudes both welcome and possibility.  When I go there I know that I am going to meet interesting people who are like-souled though vastly different than me on the surface.  Mostly, they are Texans, but this Californian (whom I am told was the first person to ever speak at Laity Lodge in flip-flops) is always welcomed with a hug and a joke and usually a prayer of gratitude to God for my very presence (can you even imagine?)

I always meet people from around the country who live such different lives than I do, but are as committed to seeking the Kingdom in their little worlds as I am to mine.  I met Evelyn from Compton, CA.  (She was along with my family the only other Californian.)  She rode the bus across the southwest to come to Laity Lodge the first time and has returned eight times. At communion, she reminded us all that the heavenly banquet would look more like a Laity Lodge communion service than most of our 11 AM Sunday Services.

I spent considerable amount of time with my co-speaker Lauren Winner, a southern-east-coaster whose intellect and cool quotient can only make me more popular with the emergent crowd just because I now know her.

I also met LL Barkat, a writer from New York who over a delightful lunch graciously gave me a copy of her new book (which Beth has taken from me to enjoy in her moments of basking) and recommended several others on Jewish theology of the wilderness (which I am taking to Alaska with me next week for some vacation and more hands-on musing on community, friendship and creation.)

And I spent a lot of time just hanging out and talking late into the night with friends old and new.  Two afternoons, Mark Roberts and I hiked the hill country of Texas through the shade of the cedar trees, and two evenings Mark and Linda and Beth and I sat under starry skies catching up on our lives.  I spent lunch with Howard and Barbara Dan Butt, and an evening with David and Deborah Rogers and a lot of time swimming in the Rio Frio (which wasn't, really, by the way.)  My kids hung out with the Roberts and Rogers kids and explored the place like they were a gang of Tom Sawyers with nothing to do but let their imaginations lead them.  And we ate a lot of homemade bread.

On my first visit to Laity Lodge a couple of years back, I took a morning run up to Circle Bluff to take in the view when I was joined by Grammy winner Ashley Cleveland on a morning walk. She said, "The veil is very thin here, isn't it?"  I nodded in agreement, and we walked a bit together, a new friendship born.

Maybe the key to basking is finding a place where the presence of God shines through the beauty of nature and the warmth of people so clearly that you continually want to linger...and return.

(LL encouraged Jim Martin and Marcus Goodyear and I to write about Laity Lodge in each other's blogs so that others will discover what we have. A fitting, generous, suggestion, I'd say.  After all that I have received there, sharing it seems most appropriate. And as I noted above, I am heading off to Alaska with my family and some friends for a couple of weeks of vacation.  I am praying for one glimpse of Denali, a safe encounter with a grizzly bear and some big fish on the end of my fly line while I do some serious basking...)

(Added: This is a nice photographic, basking-like introduction to Laity Lodge. Thanks Mark D. Roberts)

Half Dome Highlights 2005

I just returned from my annual Summer Trek up Half Dome with our High School Seniors.  It is a great time of bonding and working together as they prepare to become the student leaders of our youth department.  I'll share some pictures and stories as I did in our worship services today.

While it was a beautiful night out when we arose at 4:45 AM some of the details for the trip were still left undone and that got us off to a later start than usual.  Our High Schoool Director, Mike and two volunteer leaders, Brandon and Alice and I were joined by a guide from Yosemite Sierra Summer Camp, nicknamed Fox.

As we marched along the trail together, we were split into two groups with everyone having the best attitudes and genuine excitement, we saw a lot of wildlife this year, the most ever, with our camp guide and I counting eight deer and even two bears.  One that simply walked down the trail in front of us.   

The scenery was breath taking, and the trail was quite demanding.  But we pushed on and made great time. Now, Half Dome is particularly challenging because after you have already climbed 8 miles, you then face Heartbreak Hill, The Thousand Steps and then the famous cables that take you up to the top. 

This year, however, the climb was particularly crowded because the trail was only open on weekends and the weather started looking quite cloudy in the distance. We didn’t know it at the time, but we found out later that two weeks ago, two people were killed on Half Dome after being struck by lightening.   

I was hiking with a front group that had made really good time getting to the cables.  And while we planned on going up the cables together, with the clouds in the distance looking potentially threatening and unable to reach Mike’s group or Brandon’s group on the walkie-talkies I made the decision to get my group to the top and back down again as soon and safely as we could. 

So, up they went.  And sure enough, another great group of high school seniors stood atop Half Dome together.   

But then the clouds came in too close, and the wind began.  Mike and two students were on the Thousand Steps and within a half mile of the cables but Mike knew that the climbing from there and the crowds on the cables would likely take them too long to safely make it to the top.  Seeing the weather coming Mike wisely stopped them and took them down where they would be safe. 

Brandon and the guide from the camp, had their group half way up the cables and they had to make the really hard decision to turn back from the top.  And we on top rushed back down the cables both exhilarated and disappointed, feeling both the ups and downs.  Glad that we had made but really bummed for our friends. 

If there was ever a group whose attitudes and effort earned them all the right to stand atop together, it was this one, and it wasn’t going to happen.

Then when just as I got back to the bottom the weirdest thing happened.  The weather cleared.  It was like God just held back the clouds and let the sun pour through.  And since so many had left in fear of the clouds, the cables were now empty.  What had taken us 40 minutes to climb now could be done in ten.  The guide from the camp and I conferred and quickly decided to give Brandon’s group a chance to go quickly to the top. 

When Alice called me on the walkie talkie from the top, she was so excited that she couldn’t keep her finger on the talk button.  But they had made it too.   All of us except Mike, and the two students had been able to get to the top, but those three had walked 18 miles and missed out on the top because of a late start, some early morning illness and uncertain weather and we never got to be there all together.

When we gathered back together in Curry Village for the now traditional after hike Pizza dinner, we decided to take some pictures of all of us together.  Because while we hadn’t all made it to the top together, we did all make it to Half Dome and safely back down more unified as a group and more deeply humbled by the beauty and power of the God who made Half Dome and the fearsome weather that can change all of our plans in an instant. 

I am really proud of these kids, especially their positive attitudes in every circumstance and Mike’s maturity and good judgment, to make a tough call for the safety of the young people under his care. 

For me one of the most memorable moments of the trip occurred back a camp during the debrief.  Kelly spoke of how hard it was to have to turn back and not stand atop Half Dome with her friends.  Kelly is an accomplished athlete.  If she hadn’t been sick in the morning, or if she had left to join the lead group a bit earlier, she absolutely would have made it.  And to miss out was really disappointing to her.  But as Mike told us later, neither her nor the other yound man who had to turn back had a single negative thing to say when he made the call to stop.  They demonstrated incredible maturity. 

Kelly said that while walking back down and praying about the disappointment of the day, it hit her that while she had come to Half Dome to make it to the top with her friends, that God had brought her here to bring her closer to him.  And for her that was really what mattered.  Far more important then one day or one accomplishment is living each day closer and closer to God. 

I had hoped that maybe Kelly would learn that lesson in the next six months, not the first six hours, but this remarkable young women and her friends showed some real faith and made me feel like a most blessed pastor indeed.

I love my job. 

I Get Paid For Doing This

I leave this morning for a quick trip to Yosemite National Park where for the third year in a row I will lead a group of incoming High School Seniors to the top of Half Dome.  It is a great, great experience every year of being with the future leaders of the church.  I love being their pastor and I love being with them.

Please pray for our safety.  I'll tell the stories and show some pictures at church on Sunday and then here on Monday.

Last year's group that made it to the top!

Something Beautiful for God

On Sunday Morning I preached and led communion in the “Living Room” at Laity Lodge in the Texas hill country outside of San Antonio.  The newly formed friendship of 50 folk who gathered for worship were treated to the word and the table in front of huge windows that allowed the green of the Texas hill side to be our stained glass window. 

After being welcomed to the morning by delicious fresh baked scones and the warmth of Texas hospitality so freely flowing from one person to another, we gathered for worship together.  Grammy winners Ashley Cleveland and Kenny Greenberg led us in singing old hymns with a fresh passion and conviction.  Different folks took turns sharing what God was doing in their lives.  Birds soared loops against the backdrop of the hills across the canyon of the Rio Frio River. Tears flowed easily as we sang, but for no apparent reason.  We laughed loud and long but I don’t remember any jokes being told. 

It was simple, humble and beautiful.  Earlier in the weekend I had remarked that Laity Lodge reminded me of how Malcolm Muggeridge described Mother Theresa as “something beautiful for God.”  And perhaps that is the best way to think about genuinely spiritual experiences.  They connect us to the beauty of God. 

There is something beautiful about the generosity of a family that has provided a place like Laity Lodge (If you want to be truly touched and inspired, read this about the Howard E. Butt Family).

There is something beautiful when people use their gifts (whether it is baking bread, hospitality, or music) as an offering to God without pretense. 

There is something beautiful when the body of Christ gathers for no reason than to worship God and be the body of Christ. 

There is something beautiful that makes us want to breathe in, to bask under, to linger.  There is something beautiful that makes us long for the beauty of God. 

Maybe that is a more helpful description of what our lives, our gatherings, our churches are to be.  Something beautiful for God.

Calvin on Vacation?

There is no doubt that the Lord would have us uninterruptedly occupied in holy meditation; that while we contemplate in all creatures, as in mirrors, his wisdom, justice, goodness, and power, we should not merely run over them cursorily and, so to speak, with a fleeting glance; but we should ponder them at length, turn them over in our minds seriously and faithfully, and recollect them repeatedly.  For there are as many miracles of divine power...as there are things in the universe.  (John Calvin, Institutes, 1.14.21, cited in Hoezee, p. 29).

"Among the many holy tasks of Christians is to foster, nurture and develop children's God-given sense of curiosity in such a way that it will still be there when they are adults.  For this whole world belongs to God--and we should want to know more about it."  Scott Hoezee, Remember Creation, 29

What Should "Stay in Vegas."

On our way back from our first RV trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, we decided that we’d look for an extra comfy hotel with a swimming pool for our last night.  So we pulled into Las Vegas and found a good summer deal on the strip. 

As soon as we were unpacked I regretted the decision.  We had just gone from some of the most serene, beautiful, natural places into a setting that could not be more opposite.  Yes, the pool was fun and no we didn’t gamble.  But more than anything else, what struck me was how much I missed the quiet, the calm, and the real.  After casting a line into a slow moving stream while watching a bull moose go by, it’s pretty hard for me to weather the neon lights and clamor of any city, especially the Las Vegas strip.

As someone who has spent a good deal of my time in cities (I worked in Hollywood a block off of Hollywood Blvd for ten years), I actually find cities somewhat invigorating.  I love the mix of cultures, the energy, the bustle.  But Las Vegas always depresses me.  Sure some of it is the gambling (though I am not as ethically opposed to gambling as some).  But mostly, it’s because it is all an illusion.  It all looks and feels like it was created 10 minutes ago.

In many cities, one gets a sense of the generations of layers of culture, the history and the identity of the place, the sense of the people who have eked out a living and a life amidst the changing days.  You can’t walk the San Francisco’s Chinatown, LA’s Olvera Street, or virtually neighborhood in New York or Boston without sensing that there is and has been life in all its raw reality.

In an odd way, that is also what I like about nature.  I like the way that trees show both the charred rings of forest fires years past and new leaves.  I like the way that the eco-system is both fragile and resilient at the same time.  I like that if you go to a wilderness area there are no guarantees that you’ll see wild life or wild flowers because they are…well…wild.  But you might.  I love that nature is uncontrollable and bigger than ourselves.

This is exactly the opposite of theme parks and resorts.  And as fun, amusing and even restful as those places can be (why some people think of going to Las Vegas as restful is beyond me…but some do…) what is missing is the ability to enjoy what is real.  And enjoying what is real is becoming more and more of a rarity.

In Tennessee, The Great Smoky Mountain National Park is practically ignored today by the ten million people who visit “Dollywood” (Dolly Parton’s theme park) in nearby Pigeon Forge.

As the New York Times reported, “With shopping, attractions, and 9 live music theaters…many visitors here do not visit the national park a all or zip in and out for what locals call ‘a windshield experience.’  One visitor who never got to the national park said, “There was so much to do (in Dollywood) that I just ran out of time.”

Marveling at the Mouse…

So there we were sitting in a Land Rover in the middle of South Luangwe National Park on a safari in Zambia.  There were impala by the hundreds, hippos in the rivers, giraffes and zebra, crocodiles and lions.  One of my friends turns to me and says, “You know what is really amazing?  How much this reminds me of Disneyland.” 

He was right.  Here we were in a place that none of us had visited before and we were experiencing déjà vu.  Thousands of miles away from Anaheim and our first thoughts were of Adventureland and the Indiana Jones Ride.  I am almost ashamed to admit that I have had that thought over and over again lately.  When walking through the rainforest in Belize, my mind wandered back to the Rainforest Café at Downtown Disney, when floating down a river, I thought of the “Jungle Cruise.” 

As someone who has grown up in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom, it is downright impressive to me how realistic the Disney designers have been at re-creating the real world.  And I believe for some of us, this is now a “real” problem.

Disney  has “re-created” creation so well that we now live in a world with a preference for the artificial.  You see, Disney’s jungle is not wild, the hippos are computerized.  Disney’s rainforest doesn’t have mosquitoes or snakes. Disney's "re-creation" can actually keep us from "real" creation. Las Vegas hotels offer artificial beaches with wave machines, more and more people are rock-climbing in indoor gyms rather than on actual rocks.

In his book Remember Creation, Scott Hoezee considers what it means that so many now prefer “artificial” nature to real nature.  Hoezee muses, “God has placed us in a world of wonders.  It is our job to as self-conscious image bearers (of God) to transcend ourselves in order to notice these wonders.  Isn’t it also our job to raise our children in such a way that they learn to see the world with God’s eyes, to appreciate the wonders God made?  As the authors of the book Redeeming Creation put it, “[I]t is hypocrisy for a Christian to willfully live separated from God’s creation and the joy of it.”  (Hoezee, p. 28)

Go outside and play, for God’s sake…

A major part of the Christian vocation should the nurturing of delight in this universe of wonders…a delight similar to God’s own playful joy in creation which we see traced for us in the Scriptures.  (Hoezee, Remember Creation, p. 8)

A few years ago, I was in a small group that was by and large made up of men with full-grown kids.  It was a delight to meet once a week with men who had already lived a lot of life and were eager to share their hard-won wisdom with a young pastor and family man. 

One of the guys in the group named Scott enjoys a particularly close relationship with his two grown daughters and their husbands.  I commented to him, that it was a rarity to see such connection across the generations.  I asked him what his secret was and he said, “Camping.  When we camped together, we got away from the world and just enjoyed each other.  Years later, I think it was those trips that bonded our family together like nothing else.”

I grimaced.  Camping.  As much as I love the outdoors, I still love beds.  And showers.  And really good food.  And my wife wouldn’t even broach the subject with two really little kids.  But, seeing my face he encouraged me to rent an RV and go that route.  And so we did.  Three of our most memorable trips have been RV camping through the national parks. 

Looking back, I realize that while I loved the RV experience of being in campsites and still sleeping in a good bed, it was the RV that helped us get our young family into nature and adventures (white water rafting, hiking, biking, etc) and away from TV and other media. 

And that became the key to most of our vacations.  Go outside and play together.  Maximize nature and adventure.  Minimize media.  Get ourselves more connected to the Earth and more disconnected from “the world.” 

As a person who believes that part of my Christian vocation is to be “a light to the world”, I have found that vacations are the perfect time to “unplug”, “recharge” by disconnecting from “the world” and "refocusing" on my family, my God and this good world that God has made for us.

In her book, The Shelter of Each Other, Mary Pipher tells of her psychotherapeutic technique of working with families in crisis.  She insists that before she sees them the first time that the whole family do two things for six weeks:

1. Eliminate all media in the house.
2. Do something OUTSIDE together as a family once a week. 

According to Pipher, a curious number of the presenting problems in the family are "healed" before they ever set foot in her office.  Maybe there truly is something "re-creative" about "recreation" done well.

Recreation, Vacation and Vocation

I had just finished a sermon where I took advantage of our PowerPoint system to show a few slides of the beautiful places that my family and I had visited on our most recent vacation.  As pictures of mountains and wildlife and flowers and streams filled the screen, I spoke on a few of the themes that I have written about in these blog posts. But the first post-sermon comment was interesting if off topic.  A single mom walked up to me and said, “I can’t believe that I wasted ten days of vacation sitting by a pool at a hotel when I could have taken my sons to see a bison.”

Now, I am not nearly as critical of this mom as she was of herself.  I imagine that for a single parent having a few days to lie around a pool sounds pretty great.  Making a reservation at a nice resort is way easier to plan than renting an RV or navigating mountain roads to get to a remote lodge. 

But I also heard the disappointment in her voice at the wasted opportunity to do something for herself and her kids that would truly renew her soul, expand her awareness of the world and create the kinds of lasting memories that would bond her fragile family together.  It dawned on me that many of us who are Christians don’t think much about how to “recreate” in a manner that is “Christian.” 

In a world where so many people are confirmed (even proudly so) workaholics, where so many people don’t know how to spend a day off let alone two weeks, is there a more “faithful” way to play?

Certainly we can speak of going to Christian family camps or family mission trips.  Indeed, in another post I have spoken of “tithing our vacations” and using them to participate in God’s Kingdom ministry in the world. 

But I also want to ask us to consider: What kind of vacation really is truly “recreation”?

Over the years that I have been the Head of Staff at our church, I have come to realize how many earnest Christian workers have a difficult time planning and taking a vacation.  More often than not I have to “make” them take their vacation days, and very often those “days off” become nothing more than “bus men holidays” where they simply work from home. 

At the same time, many of us feel like travel is just to too costly, that vacations are too self-indulgent.  Others of us just don’t know how to go about figuring out what we really want and need to do with our vacations and we end falling into old routines that leave us feeling broke, fat, tired and all too glad to get back to work. 

Over the next few posts, I’ll head off on this trail for a bit.  And ask you to chime in if you like: What kind of time “off” makes us better able to serve Christ and glorify God. 

What kind of vacation is best for our vocation?

Which is where I will pick up tomorrow.

Tod's Travelogue Lessons #2

In my last post I confessed that it is much easier for me to spend time in nature than in Bible Study.  But I also acknowledged that I need more than the inspiration of beauty to guide my life.  So putting both of those realities together led me to this first lesson: Let the wonder of creation lead us to Word of revelation.   

Today I want to say more about that.

First, this is not a gimmick.  It’s a deeply biblical way of cultivating a deeper spiritual life.  In his book, Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas reminds us that the Bible is meant to be read outside (p. 37). 

The people of the scriptures were inspired by rushing rivers and green meadows as they described life with God.  When the psalmists look to the mountains for their help, they were probably looking at actual mountains.  When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, he was not standing on a carpeted chancel.  When he spoke of lilies of the field and fig trees and the birds of the air, its safe to presume that he actually pointed at those things and didn’t use a picture on a PowerPoint screen. 

(And for the record, the Bible tells us that Jesus, who was raised in Nazareth, moved as an adult to Capernaum, which is a beach town.  I often tell my congregation, that Jesus himself lived in a town at least somewhat like San Clemente.) 

There is no need to set nature and creation against the word and revelation.  Quite the opposite.  Instead let us who find it so much easier to spend time in nature than in the word of God let the wonder of creation lead us to the Word of revelation. 

Okay, you say.  But how?  How do we do it?  It’s not enough to say we should let the world’s beauty lead us to read and study the Word.  We need help in doing so.  How do we do it?  Through worship.

Never forget that Psalm 119, Psalm 19 and all the Psalms were songs of worship.  They are hymns that were sung, poems that were read, prayers that were offered.  People who had seen the beauty of the earth, the glory of the skies didn’t just climb a mountain peak and stay there.  They didn’t just swim in the seas or meander through a meadow.  When they were moved by the beauty of creation, they brought those experiences with them back to the community gathered in worship.  The inspiration of creation led them to give praise and thanks to the Creator in the community.

Do you know how close to God you feel when walking on the beach or sitting by a mountain stream, when gazing at a canyon view or even strolling down the 17th green?  It feels so inspiring that some of think that we don’t need to come to church.  We feel so close to God that we say that we don’t need sermons and choirs and offering plates.  We feel more inspired in creation than in worship, don’t we?  I know, I feel the same way believe me.  But let’s be careful not to make a common mistake.  Let me reiterate what I have already written: Inspiration is not worship. 

Inspiration is God’s gift to us, God’s reaching out to us.  Inspiration is God moving in our hearts and touching our souls.  Worship is our response to God’s inspiration.  When we are touched by the beauty of nature, the appropriate response is to bring ourselves, our offerings, our inclined and open hearts to God in worship.

• Worship joins awe and instruction. 
• Worship teaches us to respond to inspiration with dedication. 
• Worship connects our personal experience to a faithful community.

In worship we come into God’s presence, as part of Gods' people, we give him praise as the Creator and then we learn how to live as God’s creatures, God’s people, together.  In worship we find both the inspiration and the wisdom that we need to live faithfully and well.

If you are a person who finds it so easy to connect to God in nature, then take this one small step: respond to that inspiration by being faithful in Sunday worship. Let the inspiration "out there" lead you to be more regular in church. When creation inspires us, let’s respond with giving worship to the Creator and opening our souls to His instruction. 

For the past two summers, I led a group of high school senior on a hike to the top of Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park.  Half Dome holds a special place in my heart for the sheer majesty and awesomeness of it.  Just seeing it stirs my heart and I find that as I stand on the lookouts or hike the trail, something within me naturally begins to sing of the greatness of God. 

Maybe it’s because when I first took a group of Junior Highers we gathered at the view point right through the valley floor tunnel and sang the doxology, or maybe it’s because so much of my faith has been cultivated in beautiful places, but I just find that the very best response to this feast for my eyes is the word of God in my ears.

So now, every year as we prepare to embark on the hike, we gathered the group at Glacier Point, looked at the mountain and heard these words from yet another Psalm,

He owns the depths of the earth,
and even the mightiest mountains are his.
The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.
Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the sheep under his care.
Oh, that you would listen to his voice today! (Psalm 95:4-7 NLT)