It Takes A Church...

Wisdom, Creation, Happiness

While I was on vacation soaking in the majesty of the Alaska wilderness, my congregation was learning together the wisdom of Proverbs.  This week I return to church and will speak next Sunday on Proverbs. In my early morning reflections while on vacation, I found myself reminded once again of the connection in the Scriptures between Wisdom, Creation and the happiness in life that we all want to enjoy and pass on to our families. So, I offer this pictorial representation of one section of the book of Proverbs, wisdom personified reminds us that she offers us a perspective on life that comes from the beginning of time, and offers us words to live by...

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.



Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.



When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,



rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race….



“And now, my children, listen to me:
happy are those who keep my ways.
Hear instruction and be wise,
and do not neglect it.
Happy is the one who listens to me..."

(Proverbs 8:22-34)

A Final Gift

Everyone who comes to Alaska is told numerous times by the locals that most tourists "never" see Mt. McKinley (or Denali as the locals call it), the tallest mountain in North America.  The oft-quoted statistic is that the mountain is only "out" 20% of the time.  When we called up here before our trip we were warned that this had been the "worst summer" weather-wise in history.  So, we came prepared: Rain gear in tow, attitudes in check, ready to enjoy the "wild" of Alaska, if not all the beauty. 

Over and over again, we were delightfully, deliriously surprised.  The weather was way better than predicted.  The rain mostly held off and we made do with cloud filled days that were good for fishing, fine for hiking and as good as we could hope for sight seeing. 

The fishing turned out to be epic. The hiking was great.  And the sight-seeing? Awesome at every turn.  Abundant animals, beautiful scenes of mountains and skies filled with clouds that were interesting if not pristinely clear. We were thrilled, we even got glimpses of the base of Denali while in the park.  All in all, nothing to be disappointed in at all.

And then we got this...

In an earlier post I said that all I wanted was a safe encounter with a grizzly bear and glimpse of Denali.  Oh, the bliss when all expectations are exceeded. It is grace indeed.

Better than X Box...Revisited.

A couple of years back after one of our family adventures, I started a series of posts that I called "Better than X Box and Umbrella Drinks".  It became a small seminar that Beth and I taught at our church about how to use adventure vacationing to teach your kids your values and bond them to you.

We were inspired to do so after I returned to church following one vacation and threw in some pictures from Yellowstone National Park in my sermon to enhance an illustration.  A mom came up to Beth and said, "Your kids saw buffalo!? And to think that I took my kids to a hotel where they played video games and while I had umbrella drinks by the pool. Next year I am doing your kind of vacation."

This young mom had had the same "aha!" experience that I had one day, when in a small group, I asked a man with grown daughters some parenting advice.  I noticed that his two daughters and their husbands loved being with him and his wife.  That this family seemed to have an uncommon bond even as adults.  I asked him what he had done when raising his kids that had led to  these rare and so satisfying relationships with his now grown children.  He answered with one word, "Camping."  Then he explained, "When times were tough, we could take the camper down to the beach and make a fire and block out the world.  When times were good, we could load up the camper and head down the road and keep our focus on what really matters.  I think camping was the best thing we ever did." 

That next summer when Brooks was six and Ali was two we took our first RV vacation to Yellowstone.

Of all the things we have learned as parents, our "adventure vacations" have been the most satisfying lessons.  As another amazing two weeks "off the grid" (so to speak) hiking, fishing, seeing beautiful places and wild animals comes to an end, I can feel my soul being refreshed and the hearts of my wife and our kids being more closely knit together.

Our evening prayers are always filled with gratitude.  The sense of wonder at the immensity of God's creation and the artistry of the Creator have flooded our senses.  Bears, beluga whales, moose, caribou, bald eagles, rainbow trout, salmon, marmots, dall sheep, mountain goats.  Thick forests, calving glaciers, cold rivers, bright sunshine, thrusting mountains, ranging valleys.  Fishing, flying, boating, hiking, skiing, napping, reading, driving, singing, laughing. Eating pie.

As our kids enter the teen years we are more and more grateful for every minute we have with them. And the catalog of memories literally span the globe.  We have been blessed with the resources (and have made a priority) traveling to beautiful semi-wild and somewhat wild places.  But the distance traveled is not the issue, but the decision to unplug, unwind, and get outside into God's world together.  When the kids were younger we RV'd to national parks.  This time we rented a cabin with another family, we have found a few favorite places to which we are drawn to return and exploring may soon give way to a special spot. There is no right way to do these kinds of vacations, but the common themes are family, nature, adventure, laughter...and pie.

Recently, I talked to another older man about the sadness I feel that my kids are growing up so fast.  Frankly, I have more adventures in my mind than summers left on the calendar before Brooks goes off to college.  This man said to me, "Tod, if you do your job as parent well, you'll get twice as many years with your kids as adult friends. And that is when it is really fun."

So, with thanks to Scott McOwen and Jim Ritchie and all the others wise souls who have encouraged this pastor to unplug for his family's sake. And with gratitude to God the Great Creator who gives us this big beautiful world in which to "go outside and play", here are a few more pictures, a couple of book suggestions, and a gentle nudge to consider how some intentional decisions about vacations could be the most powerful investment in your kids lives and your family relationships for years to come. (Facebook friends can see the whole album over at my FB profile page.)

Tasting Grace...once again...

“People need wild places.  Whether or not we think we do, we do.  We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.  We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers.  To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running daily calendar.  Wilderness puts us in our place.  It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.  It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence future generations we ought to choose carefully.  Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.” 

(Barbara Kingsolver, cited in Brady and Neuzil, A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors, 143.)

"My soul basks in wilderness, and I am grateful."

(More pictures of our Alaskan Adventure at my Facebook site.)

Consider this my excuse...

While a bunch of my colleagues are with the good people at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship Conference in Long Beach, I had to turn down the invitation to be part of the conference because I already had plans with my family to go to Alaska.

I am sorry to miss the good conference, but frankly, I wouldn't have missed this moment for anything.

Or the look on my son's face when he hooked into this next fish...

(With thanks to Stacy Corbin of Mystic Waters Fly Fishing Guides in Cooper Landing, Alaska)

A Summer Sunday in San Clemente

With thanks to Mike Fluchere for the picture. And to Kim Campbell for a great reflection on this "weird, perfect" storm that occurred in the middle of one of our worship services last Sunday.

Psalm 8

A huge message from a small seed

After spending considerable time this past week marveling at the great Redwoods that come from a small seed (a Sequoia tree begins as a seed the size of a single flake of oatmeal), I found a selection from another ancient mystic all the more meaningful.

Julian of Norwich, a 14th Century saint, told of seeing an image of the smallest hazelnut in her palm, she asked God why he gave her this vision and the reply came back, “It is all that is made.”  She wondered how something so small could endure in the world that she knew of the Black Plague and Hundred Years War, a world that so bleak, so big and so brutal, and understanding came to her, “It lasts and will last forever because God loves it; and everything exists in the same way, by the love of God.” Julian continues, “In this little thing I saw three properties: the first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God cares for it.” (Cited in Brady and Neuzil, A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors, 46.

God made it, God loves it, God cares for it.  If it is true about the smallest bit of creation, it is truly so about the pinnacle of creation, you and me. 

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
Mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet…
(Psalm 8:3-6, NRSV)

Tasting Grace

“People need wild places.  Whether or not we think we do, we do.  We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.  We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers.  To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running daily calendar.  Wilderness puts us in our place.  It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.  It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence future generations we ought to choose carefully.  Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.” 

(Barbara Kingsolver, cited in Brady and Neuzil, A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors, 143.)

“We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.”

Tasting Grace…
•    My daughter so excited about our RV trip that she made me sleep out in the RV with her, the night before we left home.

•    Seeing my children with their grandmother and great-grandmother all together.  Four generations all in one place telling stories together.

•    Get up early with Charlie to do another half-ironman even though we haven’t trained nearly enough this past year.

•    Riding my bike through 50 miles of vineyards lined with coastal redwoods.

•    Running 13 miles with a new friend who is my age and doing a half-Ironman to celebrate surviving a heart attack.

•    Sipping cocktails in front of our RV with friends both old and new while the kids play track ball on a meadow.

•    Driving up Highway 1 with my family, listening to hymns with tears in my eyes as I take in the beauty of the landscape. 

•    Searching for sea glass and old shells on a windswept beach.

•    Looking for geocaches with my kids, a GPS scavenger that led us to see sea lions, unworn trails and silly treasure that was more fun than gold.

•    Seeing deer in the morning, huge Roosevelt Elk on the side of the road.

•    Swimming in three different rivers.

•    Finding wild blackberries and making a huge dutch-oven cobbler.

•    Finding two huge jump rocks (20-30 feet?) and watching the kids leap off the top scared, thrilled and proud as the splashed into the gin-clear water.

•    Walking through a grove of old-growth redwoods that made a soaring cathedral all around us and a soft path under our feet.

•    Driving beautiful roads and exploring, brand new territory in my home state.

•    Exploring the Oregon Caves, 250 feet under ground.

•    Camping in beautiful places, eating good, hearty meals cooked over an open fire and playing games, singing songs, telling stories and looking at stars until late in the night with our best friends.

•    Dutch-oven cinnamon rolls.

•    Campfire lattes made in the early morning over a campfire.

•    Fishing with Brooks on Manzanita Lake as the sun goes down.

•    Exploring Sequoia Trees and looking for bears with Beth and Ali.

•    Not one email in almost two weeks…

“We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.”