Mountain Rock

There is this overwhelming prodding that begins any time the topography changes from suburbia sidewalk to well, anything else. I become all thing Bear Grylls and absolutely must climb, hike, float, ride, you get it. Usually it's a white pine or a two track in the woods. But this time the 'anything else' happened to be a mountain canyon. I don't even like commercials of mountain climbers so the prodding was easy to ignore...on my first visit. I returned early two days later when light was was low on the horizon and mountain air was sharp. Three of us tightened our backpacks and set off in different directions. I didn't think or plan or look even. I just started climbing. I loved the pace and the stretch and especially the view. I prayed as I climbed but going up was pretty easy.

 

 

I found my ledge and rested and breathed and prepared for my descent. Then something completely normal happened. Fear. I began thinking through all the different ways to get down from being air lifted to a rappelling ranger rescue. But instead began my descent on my stomach. I held on at times by my finger tips, slid slowly without complete control. When I stopped for too long, I was paralyzed. My body froze. Panic would close in. Then I'd just move, even laterally if necessary. I just moved. But it wasn't my strength or skill and certainly not my mental fortitude that got me off that rock. It was Jesus. Simply Jesus. It was he who made my steps sure. He who calmed me, lead me - every step, lead me. Fear is powerful. I felt it, really felt it, for the first time. So after I stepped off the last rock, I ran. I couldn't help it. The joy and awareness of experiencing something real, something divine rushed through me, and all I could do was run.

Now I'm back to a breathable elevation and concrete as far as the eye can see, but it's funny. On the other side of the continent, I find myself on that same rock. A mountain of fear. The real kind. Not the dark or did I forget to lock the doors kind. Real, paralyzing, freeze-in-my-tracks fear. But I have one who is making my steps sure. Showing me firm places, strong grips. And that fear, it threatens. But Jesus speaks to it, and well, I move. With him, I just move.

 

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Jamie the Very Worst Missionary: Enough

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary: Enough

earnest fixed a flat

Recently, I learned that those black tubes I swam with as a child were not 'enner tubes' but inner tubes. I also learned I was mislead and the twirls i perfected at kindergarten graduation was 'barn dancing', not square dancing. I felt slightly deflated but not nearly as much as my bike tire.

The campsite was set, and it was now time to bike around. Unfortunately, my tire didn't survive the ride on the hitch. I held my breath, hoping a can of Fix-a-Flat would save the day. After I covered the inside and outside of my tire (and my shoes) with toxic sticky white glue, I assumed I'd ride off into the sun set sand dunes of Silver Lake with my family.

I'm not sure when it was exactly that my neighbor from site 149 smelled the toxic fumes or how the trasfer of power came about. But there he was just like an old friend, making small talk and keeping the kids' toy dolphin out of the milky foam.

"This reminds me of the days back in my dad's gas station garage," he said reminiscing as he immersed the tire in a tub of water to find the leak. "I used to fix tires," he continued. Huh, how 'bout that. After locating the hole, it was clear that a patch was needed. I darted back to the gas station outside the campgrounds and there behind the register was a bicycle tube patch kit. I returned to my bike and set my hands to fix the tube.

1. Clean surface

2. Rough the...shuffling feet and slow gait, my neighbor returned with a nail file and baby powder. We had been hunched over the bike for a half hour. A minute longer and it would just be awkward so I asked him his name. "Ernest," he said, and he began to pump the tire. The moment of truth.

Later that evening around the fire, Ernest checked in to see if his work was acceptable. We chatted for a bit, until the fire burned low.

I saw that first afternoon on the camp sight how God provided. It is what he does - for his children wandering in a desert, for his prophet hiding near a stream, for hungry multitudes, and for a girl about to embark on the unknown. He will provide in earnest. This I know is true.

 

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goat farm field trip

There are several ways to kill an animal. I know this not because I do, but because I have witnessed my share. The fields, woods and lake beside my childhood home made the best hunting grounds. My dad strung gutted deer in the garage and cleaned almost dead fish on the counter. My mom beat the eagles to the rodents and snakes creeping to close to the house. And not to be outdone, Muffins my cat would willingly offer her catch with the family, but that's another blog. None of these compared to what I witnessed on that goat farm north of Poughkeepsie.

He picked me up at LaGuardia Airport and we drove the beautiful Taconic State Parkway to the Culinary Institute of America in historic Hyde Park where our summer home (a dorm room) was nestled beside the Hudson River. Only married a few years, we were to spend the next two over 600 miles apart, and I was glad to finally be where he was. I had a front row seat to his training, sat in on classes, ate dinner with his group, and even got to go on a field trip.

I piled into the backseat of a car with the future givers of fine eats. I was quite, taking in the conversation, mostly because they all already knew how to boil water and add milk to cereal. I was relieved when we arrived on the farm. After a brief history lesson in goat farming pedagogy, we made our way into the barn where the young goats and mothers were fed. The farmer continued to talk as if conducting a live documentary. He calmly walked a kid before us and in a motion as smooth as my grandmother casting on to knit an afghan, he strung the hind legs and hoisted it up. In the next moment, a sharp knife severed its trachea and esophagus. I was startled and looked around at the others, making sure my response matched theirs. But it didn't. It couldn't. I wanted to look away, but I knew I needed to see this. I knew I was being taught a different lesson.

This goat was for a Jewish family so it was Kosher slaughtered. The blood had to be drained. The blood is the life (Deut. 12.23). It dripped onto the ground. He skinned it. They shared methods of preparation. He explained the different cuts. They exchanged recipes. The blood slowed. I shrank behind the group and stared at the straw on the ground. I understood what I had seen.

Jesus was bound and hoisted up onto a cross. His blood spilled onto the ground and his life drained. This punishment was meant for me, but He took it upon himself. And this was the plan before the earth was even made (1 Pet. 1:20). His blood to buy my pardon.

Some experiences get etched into a memory and viewed like a reel in a View-Master. A little blurry and just out of grip. But this one, this Upstate New York goat farm has me wrapped up in replay and each time, I am reminded just how precious is the blood. Of Jesus.

 

 

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skiing and other attempts

 

I am hoping my first attempts at blogging are better than my first at downhill skiing. I wanted to ski so badly probably for all the wrong reasons. The chair lift, the cool goggles, the white-wash wall of snow raining down upon unsuspecting cross country low-lifes at the bottom of the hill. So, I tried. I turned in my 15 bucks and permission slip and loaded the bus. With my purple snow pants zipped to my chin and knit zigzag scarf double knotted, I clipped in my toes and hit the bunny hill. I watched how others grabbed the tow rope and bent the knees. Piece of cake. Only it wasn't. After being dragged up the hill like those little phones on wheels (the ones where the eyes orbit creepishly), I was ready to make my descent. Again, I watched others as they weaved back and forth to their snow-plow grand finale and couldn't imagine it to be too difficult. Wrong again. I applied the falling method of stopping as snowplowing with cross-country skis prooved quite ineffective. So desperate to be a 'ski-ER' was I, that I continued this abuse until permanent damage was done to my tailbone. I liken it to the wear the nub on the toe of a roller skate gets during couples skate.

I'd like to say I wised up after that and stuck to the fresh powder trails through the undulating hills of the Northern Michigan woods, but it gets worse. The chair lifts beckoned me and I was rendered powerless to their lure of adventure. Who lets a junior high girl in cross country skis on a lift?! But that's another blog.

I never did fill the zippers of my Columbia jacket look-alike with lift tickets nor have I ever owned Scott goggles. Even so, I managed to compile a very long list of adventures (and adventure attempts). It's how I learn. It's how I never run out of bed-time stories for my boys or life-lessons for my students. It's where I learn the perfect, unconditional, adventureous love of Jesus. On every trail, bunny hill, tow rope, and chair lift adventure, I have learned of His faithfulness and strength, humility and holiness. And the lessons he crafts out of these adventures are making me into the very same.

 

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falling and thoughts on falling

Judging by the title, one may assume I have climacophobia (fear of falling...googled it). But I really don't. Not really. Just quite a history of it brought about by mysterious failures on the part of gravity, of course.

It seemed to be functioning normally when my brother and I road our bikes around the forbidden gravel pit. Silly rule. Those dump trucks and diggers could easily see my bright red and silver super awesome BMX bike, AND I had way too many skills to fall into a rock quarry pit.

We were getting ready to ride down Big Gravel Mountain when up pulled the Blue Van. I guess we thought if our tricks were totally rad, our parents wouldn't notice where we were. "Watch this!" and down Paul went. A 'superman no-footer tabletop' trick later, he was at the bottom. My only thought was, "How am I going to beat that?" Their words were strange monosyllabic shouts discouraging me from any attempt to mount my bike while on the mountain. "Pffff, I got this!" It didn't take long for anyone, including me, to see this would not end well. If my memory serves me correctly, I pulled off a 540 liquid sword cliff-hanger with a rocket air tail-whip but somehow the bike landed on me, I landed on my back, and my wind landed somewhere over Pickerel Lake.

Falling is seldom pleasant whether from a bike or otherwise. Fallen relationships, careers, hopes...they incur pain. But in our fear and skepticism of absolutes, I can safely say, always and every time we fall, Jesus knows and cares. He know when a sparrow falls and how much more valuable than a bird are we! (Matt. 10:31). Jesus gives words like persevere, hang-on, continue. His words give life. His life is why I continue to get on my bike and ride.

I am still falling off my bike. I'm still attempting tricks I probably shouldn't. And words of wisdom are still offered by my parents - and complete strangers - But that's another blog. 

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