The joke my son told me tonight at dinner:
Denver: How many big boys does it take to put in a light bulb?
Me: I don't know. How many?
Denver: Four.
That was it. No explanation. It just takes four.
Kid takes after me.
I had my last summer school class today, so tomorrow I may be coherent enough to put up a real post.
Good night, all.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Thievery Strikes Again!
I didn't share the really exciting news from this week: I was robbed!
And no, I don't mean that in the "sports metaphor, they-won-because-of-a-bad-call" kind of way.
I work in a suite of five offices, outside of which is a balcony running around an open courtyard. Because the Liberal Arts building seems fairly secure and well traveled, those of us with offices often step out without closing the door. Making copies, getting a drink, checking the mail—it's easy to do.
You can already see what's coming, can't you? Clever monkeys.
On Tuesday I stepped out, walked about ten feet outside the suite and another twenty feet to the bathroom. I was gone for about four minutes (I know because I was grading on the fly and I keep a pretty close eye on my time use at such times). I walked back to my office—
No more laptop.
I just stared for a while. It seemed incomprehensible to me that it could be gone in so short a time. I kept looking around, as if somehow I had snagged the computer on my clothes and had pulled it off the desk without realizing it. But it wasn't me—someone had snagged the thing and run off.
It had to be somewhat planned: you can't actually see my office from the courtyard and have to walk into the suite to see within. There was a fellow sitting outside when I went out who was gone when I returned, but I did not observe him closely—I have yet to develop the sufficient level of suspicion to survey everyone I pass on the off chance one of them will commit a crime against me. So I wasn't too helpful to the campus police when they showed up some twenty minutes later.
The good news (of a sort) is that it was the school's computer, not my sweet new machine (on which I type this even now). The bad news is that, of course, that's where all my assignments and grades were stored. It's password protected, so until and unless it finds its way into the hands of a l33t hacker, I should be safe, and I don't keep much personal information on a school computer. I've since changed my internet passwords, and I suppose a desperate but literarily pretentious thief could take the draft of my novel I had on there and publish it before I do, but other than that the danger factor is low. It's just an annoyance, and a wake-up call; a lot more professors will be locking their doors from now on.
One of my coworkers shook his head in disbelief at the story, and said, "Man—I'd be swearing and cursing up and down. You seem so calm." I just shrugged. What would swearing do? After coming down from the shock, I prayed for the guy who took it; what else could I do? He was either desperately messed up, or just desperate: either way, he needs help. I doubt I'll ever see the computer again, but hopefully something good can come of this all.
Back up your files, people. Really.
And no, I don't mean that in the "sports metaphor, they-won-because-of-a-bad-call" kind of way.
I work in a suite of five offices, outside of which is a balcony running around an open courtyard. Because the Liberal Arts building seems fairly secure and well traveled, those of us with offices often step out without closing the door. Making copies, getting a drink, checking the mail—it's easy to do.
You can already see what's coming, can't you? Clever monkeys.
On Tuesday I stepped out, walked about ten feet outside the suite and another twenty feet to the bathroom. I was gone for about four minutes (I know because I was grading on the fly and I keep a pretty close eye on my time use at such times). I walked back to my office—
No more laptop.
I just stared for a while. It seemed incomprehensible to me that it could be gone in so short a time. I kept looking around, as if somehow I had snagged the computer on my clothes and had pulled it off the desk without realizing it. But it wasn't me—someone had snagged the thing and run off.
It had to be somewhat planned: you can't actually see my office from the courtyard and have to walk into the suite to see within. There was a fellow sitting outside when I went out who was gone when I returned, but I did not observe him closely—I have yet to develop the sufficient level of suspicion to survey everyone I pass on the off chance one of them will commit a crime against me. So I wasn't too helpful to the campus police when they showed up some twenty minutes later.
The good news (of a sort) is that it was the school's computer, not my sweet new machine (on which I type this even now). The bad news is that, of course, that's where all my assignments and grades were stored. It's password protected, so until and unless it finds its way into the hands of a l33t hacker, I should be safe, and I don't keep much personal information on a school computer. I've since changed my internet passwords, and I suppose a desperate but literarily pretentious thief could take the draft of my novel I had on there and publish it before I do, but other than that the danger factor is low. It's just an annoyance, and a wake-up call; a lot more professors will be locking their doors from now on.
One of my coworkers shook his head in disbelief at the story, and said, "Man—I'd be swearing and cursing up and down. You seem so calm." I just shrugged. What would swearing do? After coming down from the shock, I prayed for the guy who took it; what else could I do? He was either desperately messed up, or just desperate: either way, he needs help. I doubt I'll ever see the computer again, but hopefully something good can come of this all.
Back up your files, people. Really.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Excuses, Excuses
So I haven't been on for a while, and I don't know how much time I'll have here, as a boy may wake up at any moment and emerge to poke me.
The main reason for my absence was simple logistics. I've been drowning in grading, and in an attempt to catch up I've been getting up at 4 or 4:30am. This means that I've been crashing at 10 or 11pm, which is far earlier than normal--and if you've ever checked out the time posted for my old entries, you'll see they're mostly 1am-ish. That, and the fact that the baby goes to bed at 8pm or so, cutting me off from our computer, has kept me out of here.
This is fascinating stuff, I know. I wanted to post because--well, heck, everyone else is all post-y these days, what with Slater returned and Parker becoming a revivalist preacher and even Beth putting up stories about tomato plants and old ladies. My own spiritual quest has not stopped, but has felt somewhat stilted by all this work. We've only got three days left of summer school (thank goodness), but between endless grading, family illness, and Kathie about to make her giant move to the Idaho, it's just been a whirlwind of responsibility. Still, the changes in me over the last few weeks have made this bearable, even if I haven't learned to rejoice in it yet.
Okay. Time grows short. Good morning, all, and keep watching this space.
The main reason for my absence was simple logistics. I've been drowning in grading, and in an attempt to catch up I've been getting up at 4 or 4:30am. This means that I've been crashing at 10 or 11pm, which is far earlier than normal--and if you've ever checked out the time posted for my old entries, you'll see they're mostly 1am-ish. That, and the fact that the baby goes to bed at 8pm or so, cutting me off from our computer, has kept me out of here.
This is fascinating stuff, I know. I wanted to post because--well, heck, everyone else is all post-y these days, what with Slater returned and Parker becoming a revivalist preacher and even Beth putting up stories about tomato plants and old ladies. My own spiritual quest has not stopped, but has felt somewhat stilted by all this work. We've only got three days left of summer school (thank goodness), but between endless grading, family illness, and Kathie about to make her giant move to the Idaho, it's just been a whirlwind of responsibility. Still, the changes in me over the last few weeks have made this bearable, even if I haven't learned to rejoice in it yet.
Okay. Time grows short. Good morning, all, and keep watching this space.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Madness
I am sunk deep into the mire of grading. I could complain about this at length, but you've read that already if you've read this blog at all.
I don't have time to elaborate at great length here (you know—'cause of the grading), but let us say that my inability to grade in a timely manner is the bane of my work. I'm anal-retentive as it is, and trying to walk away from a paper without thoroughly marking it up is a pain. Yet that takes so darn long that I get behind and suffer great pangs of guilt for being so slow. And I do so resent the time I have to put into it.
But that's my problem, I think. I always see it as such a burden and such a drudgery. It's never going to be a joy, but until I can approach it as a challenge and a duty, I'm always going to resent it—so I'll keep putting it off and keep stalling and keep loathing it.
I don't think I'm meant to teach forever, but I think I need to learn to do it well now. For a lot of reasons.
So that's what I'll be doing for a while here. Maybe next time there will be something interesting to read about. No promises, though.
I don't have time to elaborate at great length here (you know—'cause of the grading), but let us say that my inability to grade in a timely manner is the bane of my work. I'm anal-retentive as it is, and trying to walk away from a paper without thoroughly marking it up is a pain. Yet that takes so darn long that I get behind and suffer great pangs of guilt for being so slow. And I do so resent the time I have to put into it.
But that's my problem, I think. I always see it as such a burden and such a drudgery. It's never going to be a joy, but until I can approach it as a challenge and a duty, I'm always going to resent it—so I'll keep putting it off and keep stalling and keep loathing it.
I don't think I'm meant to teach forever, but I think I need to learn to do it well now. For a lot of reasons.
So that's what I'll be doing for a while here. Maybe next time there will be something interesting to read about. No promises, though.
Friday, July 07, 2006
A Long Story
Strap in, folks. This is a long one. The world cried out for my triumphal return to blogging, and here it is. I am not kidding with that title. You Have Been Warned.
Several people have voiced their disapproval over my disappearance from the blogging scene, and I'm grateful for the encouragement. When my mom asked last night, "Why don't you blog anymore?" I knew I was in trouble and had better get back. I had actually been planning to blog for quite a while, but as we know, the line between "blogging" and "planning to blog" is a mighty and powerful one.
The reasons for my absence are far too long and uninteresting to go into here. So as an alternative I thought I'd post a long and more interesting (at least to me) account of a real "God moment" that smacked me upside the head earlier this week.
Two pieces of information are important as background, though:
(1) In a few weeks, I'll be taking a backpacking trip with the Professor, Skipper, and Gilligan in the Sierras, and the prospect of that has electrified and resurrected my old love of camping and backpacking. I don't know why, but since we decided to do it I've been obsessed with getting back out on the trail. I've collected some fine new gear (thank you, Father's Day contributors) and we've been taking the boys hiking a couple of times a week. I'm hoping to take a long trek up in Big Bear sometime this month before the big trip in August.
All this manly outdoorism has also reawakened a very old dream I've squirreled away for a score of years: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. For those outside the loop (and a pretty small loop it is), the PCT is a 2,650-mile trail that wends from Mexico to Canada via the major mountain ranges of the west coast (you can read more on it here). To through-hike the whole thing takes 5-6 months, and I'd love to do it. I amend that—I'm going to do it. I've already secured the blessings of my splendidly generous wife; right now, we're on the 11-Year Plan (I'll be starting off in late April, 2017, if the planet hasn't imploded by then), once the kids are of a manageable age. By then my writing career should be in full swing, and who knows—perhaps I'll swing a deal to write about the experience of the trip.
Part of the trail runs right through our mountains, and I remember as a kid being fascinated by such a mighty journey and imagining making the whole trek. I'd not thought about it much until this new obsession blossomed, and now I'm daydreaming about it with some consistency. I took the boys to Big Bear a few weeks ago and found a forest road where the PCT crosses it; we hiked about 300 feet of it then, so I'm well on my way. Only 13,991,700 feet to go.
(2) Last week I read John Eldredge's Wild at Heart, and it made my head come off. My insightful sister gave me the book over two years ago, and I hadn't gotten into it then, but Skaggs has become all Wild-at-Heart-y recently, and he's a man with some traits I'd like to cultivate, so I gave it another shot.
Holy cow.
I'll probably be yammering on about the book in future posts, so I won't go into depth here. Suffice it to say that the book hit me where I needed to be hit at this particular stage in my journey. A lot of the material is stuff I'd heard before but never quite in that way, and it's made a huge difference in my outlook and my faith. In brief, Eldrege encourages men (at least in this book) to embrace those "manly" virtues that have lost their prominence in recent decades (honor, fierceness, wildness, passion, heroism); he also admonishes that Christian men in particular have lost their way and their hearts, allowing a milquetoast, passive image of Jesus to dominate our thinking rather than the more dynamic, passionate, dangerous picture the Gospels paint of Him. Through scripture, Eldrege argues that God made us the way we are for a reason, and that our passions and longings are part of that design (revolutionary, I know; as I said, it's stuff I've heard before but this is the first time it really stuck). Eldredge outlines an invitation to live a life of risk. He doesn't promise success or achievement, but an adventure, and that spoke so clearly to my soul that it felt like he was inside my heart, kicking at the walls to make a little more room for the Spirit.
Now, for those of you worried, I've not become an Eldredge groupie (though he is dreamy... I bet under all that rugged "man" stuff he's really sweet and would be a fun prom date... Oh! Sorry. I have to put down my Tiger Beat magazine and go paint my toenails now). To paraphrase Max Lucado, it's not the words, but God in the words that makes the difference, and I think God used these to waken something in me that had been long lying dormant.
Okay—on to the story.
In my pursuit of this elusive adventure, I obtained the Wild at Heart Field Manual, a kind of workbook/journal/tool/thing to aid in wrestling with the concepts presented by the book and find ways to explore and apply them personally. The book encourages you to go out into the outdoors somewhere to work on it, and I was more than amenable. On Monday, I journeyed up to Big Bear along Highway 38, the long, winding, and—most importantly—less-traveled road. There were still a lot of tourists for the holiday weekend about, so I was trying to think of a place I could go to get a little solitude.
Forest roads and campgrounds are to be found just off the highway all over back there, but none of them called out to me. I remembered that the PCT passes through Onyx Summit, the high pass before the road descends into Big Bear, and a part of me really, really wanted to find it. "What better place," thought I, "to start this spiritual journey than on the trail that is calling me to a physical journey?"
After a while, though, I got discouraged. Who knew which of the myriad roads actually intersected the trail up there, or how far back that intersection might be? I put the thought from my mind and settled for searching for some back road with a good view.
Boy howdy, did I find it. At the top of the pass there was a forest road that looked like it was blocked off by downed trees, but there was space for the truck to climb through. The road was strewn with a blanket of loose rocks and wound about through gnarled pinyon pines and scrub. I found a turnout wide enough to get the truck off the road a few miles in and a comfy seat among the scree.
Below me opened up the whole vista of the Big Bear valley, and beyond the distant shadows of Wrightwood and Mt. Baldy. To my left, Baldwin Lake was a thousand feet below, and dropping down to the north was the prospect of the desert beyond, stretching into gray-brown haze. To my right the granite cliffs and crags thrust up through the forest, and the vale to to the south was a sea of pines. As if that wasn't enough of a gift, thunderstorms were sweeping the valley, and a dark gray landscape of clouds rumbled across the sky. I could see the rain falling in writing tentacles; though I didn't see lightning, thunder rumbled through every few minutes. I sat in muggy sunlight, but the wind from the north blew chill into my face.
It was a glory.
I alternated watching the display and writing in the journal, answering questions about my walk with God and those things which speak to my soul, the dreams that make my heart come alive. On the theory that what we do in our free time is a window into our heart, it even asked about what I would do if given three months and a large enough bankroll to do whatever I truly wanted. I immediately granted myself an extended leave of six months and wrote about that elemental journey up the PCT.
I continued in that vein for about an hour, taking a short break to sit in the branches of one particularly monstrous pine just down the slope. Then the rain swept up my way, and I decided to take my leave. I had to drive further along to find a spot to turn around before heading back. A few hundred yards further on, I saw an inviting spot, but decided to journey a bit further before I had to return to civilization. Eventually I found a wide space with a view of the next ridge, reluctantly got the truck pointed back the way I had come, and headed out.
But I couldn't resist the call of that inviting spot, so I pulled in on the way back. It was on the edge of a small open space bounded by pines and manzanita. It had clearly been used before—a small cairn of stones stood in the center of the clearing. I stood there in the rain and it occured to me that despite my thinking about God and my place with Him, I hadn't actually prayed. So I did so. Feeling particuarly melodramatic, I knelt down in the clearing and prayed for a good long time. Being in such an awe-inspiring setting, I really wanted to have an overwhelming experience, to be overcome by emotion and a sense of God's presence. The confusion of everyday life was supposed to resolve itself in one mighty moment of clarity and purpose, and all would be made clear to me.
It didn't happen.
It was good to pray, longer than I had done for a great while, but I didn't feel particularly uplifted or enlightened. I tried to be still and just listen, as I had so often been counseled to do but which I have never really achieved. I did manage some semblance of it there in the rain from the heavens and the dry earth beneath my knees, and I decided I'd sit there and wait until some kind of answer came. Some sort of sign would make itself known, even if it was just being struck by lightning for sitting in the middle of an open space on a high ridge during a thunderstorm. I vowed I'd wait and listen.
Only I had to get back. My watch (as the Liliputians would have it, my pocket god) showed me that there would be trouble if I didn't get home. I told God that my family was waiting on me and I should not shirk my responsibility to them. So I vowed to keep listening in the truck on the way home, and in my house all evening, and in the dark of the night. I'd keep looking for that sign.
It still felt like failure, and I was kind of downcast as I climbed back into the truck and backed onto the forest road.
However, as I did so, I saw a sign.
A small wooden sign, actually. I stopped the truck to stare. It was carved with the legend "No Motorized Vehicles Allowed." And at the top, a bit faded and worn, was the spade-like tree-and-logo symbol of the Pacific Crest Trail. I had been sitting almost on top of the trail the entire time.
I laughed out loud for full five minutes, giving way occasionally to tears. I climbed out and walked along the path for a hundred feet, stoppping every few minutes to put my hand on a boulder or a tree and guffaw, shaking my head in wonder at what we see and do not see. If anyone else had been about, they'd have thought I was a loon.
It was so clearly an answer that it seemed supernatural—and I'm sure it was. I'm not positive what the message was, except that I could very nearly see God giving me a slow wink and saying, "You are on the path. It's been here the whole time." I don't know what else is packed in there, but I intend to find out.
It occurred to me when I thought about putting this all down here that anyone who reads this and doesn't know God's goodness and overwhelming love, who doesn't know Christ's generosity and patience, is sure to chalk this up to chance and emotional turmoil, or at best some kind of numinous "fate," to explain and rationalize away the meaning or to ascribe it to my own mental processes. I am sorry for you, truly. It was a moment that marked me and in which God spoke right into my heart. The circumstance was small, but the voice was thunderous. If you don't know Him, find Him out. I am done with doubt.
Now to see where this new path leads...
Several people have voiced their disapproval over my disappearance from the blogging scene, and I'm grateful for the encouragement. When my mom asked last night, "Why don't you blog anymore?" I knew I was in trouble and had better get back. I had actually been planning to blog for quite a while, but as we know, the line between "blogging" and "planning to blog" is a mighty and powerful one.
The reasons for my absence are far too long and uninteresting to go into here. So as an alternative I thought I'd post a long and more interesting (at least to me) account of a real "God moment" that smacked me upside the head earlier this week.
Two pieces of information are important as background, though:
(1) In a few weeks, I'll be taking a backpacking trip with the Professor, Skipper, and Gilligan in the Sierras, and the prospect of that has electrified and resurrected my old love of camping and backpacking. I don't know why, but since we decided to do it I've been obsessed with getting back out on the trail. I've collected some fine new gear (thank you, Father's Day contributors) and we've been taking the boys hiking a couple of times a week. I'm hoping to take a long trek up in Big Bear sometime this month before the big trip in August.
All this manly outdoorism has also reawakened a very old dream I've squirreled away for a score of years: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. For those outside the loop (and a pretty small loop it is), the PCT is a 2,650-mile trail that wends from Mexico to Canada via the major mountain ranges of the west coast (you can read more on it here). To through-hike the whole thing takes 5-6 months, and I'd love to do it. I amend that—I'm going to do it. I've already secured the blessings of my splendidly generous wife; right now, we're on the 11-Year Plan (I'll be starting off in late April, 2017, if the planet hasn't imploded by then), once the kids are of a manageable age. By then my writing career should be in full swing, and who knows—perhaps I'll swing a deal to write about the experience of the trip.
Part of the trail runs right through our mountains, and I remember as a kid being fascinated by such a mighty journey and imagining making the whole trek. I'd not thought about it much until this new obsession blossomed, and now I'm daydreaming about it with some consistency. I took the boys to Big Bear a few weeks ago and found a forest road where the PCT crosses it; we hiked about 300 feet of it then, so I'm well on my way. Only 13,991,700 feet to go.
(2) Last week I read John Eldredge's Wild at Heart, and it made my head come off. My insightful sister gave me the book over two years ago, and I hadn't gotten into it then, but Skaggs has become all Wild-at-Heart-y recently, and he's a man with some traits I'd like to cultivate, so I gave it another shot.
Holy cow.
I'll probably be yammering on about the book in future posts, so I won't go into depth here. Suffice it to say that the book hit me where I needed to be hit at this particular stage in my journey. A lot of the material is stuff I'd heard before but never quite in that way, and it's made a huge difference in my outlook and my faith. In brief, Eldrege encourages men (at least in this book) to embrace those "manly" virtues that have lost their prominence in recent decades (honor, fierceness, wildness, passion, heroism); he also admonishes that Christian men in particular have lost their way and their hearts, allowing a milquetoast, passive image of Jesus to dominate our thinking rather than the more dynamic, passionate, dangerous picture the Gospels paint of Him. Through scripture, Eldrege argues that God made us the way we are for a reason, and that our passions and longings are part of that design (revolutionary, I know; as I said, it's stuff I've heard before but this is the first time it really stuck). Eldredge outlines an invitation to live a life of risk. He doesn't promise success or achievement, but an adventure, and that spoke so clearly to my soul that it felt like he was inside my heart, kicking at the walls to make a little more room for the Spirit.
Now, for those of you worried, I've not become an Eldredge groupie (though he is dreamy... I bet under all that rugged "man" stuff he's really sweet and would be a fun prom date... Oh! Sorry. I have to put down my Tiger Beat magazine and go paint my toenails now). To paraphrase Max Lucado, it's not the words, but God in the words that makes the difference, and I think God used these to waken something in me that had been long lying dormant.
Okay—on to the story.
In my pursuit of this elusive adventure, I obtained the Wild at Heart Field Manual, a kind of workbook/journal/tool/thing to aid in wrestling with the concepts presented by the book and find ways to explore and apply them personally. The book encourages you to go out into the outdoors somewhere to work on it, and I was more than amenable. On Monday, I journeyed up to Big Bear along Highway 38, the long, winding, and—most importantly—less-traveled road. There were still a lot of tourists for the holiday weekend about, so I was trying to think of a place I could go to get a little solitude.
Forest roads and campgrounds are to be found just off the highway all over back there, but none of them called out to me. I remembered that the PCT passes through Onyx Summit, the high pass before the road descends into Big Bear, and a part of me really, really wanted to find it. "What better place," thought I, "to start this spiritual journey than on the trail that is calling me to a physical journey?"
After a while, though, I got discouraged. Who knew which of the myriad roads actually intersected the trail up there, or how far back that intersection might be? I put the thought from my mind and settled for searching for some back road with a good view.
Boy howdy, did I find it. At the top of the pass there was a forest road that looked like it was blocked off by downed trees, but there was space for the truck to climb through. The road was strewn with a blanket of loose rocks and wound about through gnarled pinyon pines and scrub. I found a turnout wide enough to get the truck off the road a few miles in and a comfy seat among the scree.
Below me opened up the whole vista of the Big Bear valley, and beyond the distant shadows of Wrightwood and Mt. Baldy. To my left, Baldwin Lake was a thousand feet below, and dropping down to the north was the prospect of the desert beyond, stretching into gray-brown haze. To my right the granite cliffs and crags thrust up through the forest, and the vale to to the south was a sea of pines. As if that wasn't enough of a gift, thunderstorms were sweeping the valley, and a dark gray landscape of clouds rumbled across the sky. I could see the rain falling in writing tentacles; though I didn't see lightning, thunder rumbled through every few minutes. I sat in muggy sunlight, but the wind from the north blew chill into my face.
It was a glory.
I alternated watching the display and writing in the journal, answering questions about my walk with God and those things which speak to my soul, the dreams that make my heart come alive. On the theory that what we do in our free time is a window into our heart, it even asked about what I would do if given three months and a large enough bankroll to do whatever I truly wanted. I immediately granted myself an extended leave of six months and wrote about that elemental journey up the PCT.
I continued in that vein for about an hour, taking a short break to sit in the branches of one particularly monstrous pine just down the slope. Then the rain swept up my way, and I decided to take my leave. I had to drive further along to find a spot to turn around before heading back. A few hundred yards further on, I saw an inviting spot, but decided to journey a bit further before I had to return to civilization. Eventually I found a wide space with a view of the next ridge, reluctantly got the truck pointed back the way I had come, and headed out.
But I couldn't resist the call of that inviting spot, so I pulled in on the way back. It was on the edge of a small open space bounded by pines and manzanita. It had clearly been used before—a small cairn of stones stood in the center of the clearing. I stood there in the rain and it occured to me that despite my thinking about God and my place with Him, I hadn't actually prayed. So I did so. Feeling particuarly melodramatic, I knelt down in the clearing and prayed for a good long time. Being in such an awe-inspiring setting, I really wanted to have an overwhelming experience, to be overcome by emotion and a sense of God's presence. The confusion of everyday life was supposed to resolve itself in one mighty moment of clarity and purpose, and all would be made clear to me.
It didn't happen.
It was good to pray, longer than I had done for a great while, but I didn't feel particularly uplifted or enlightened. I tried to be still and just listen, as I had so often been counseled to do but which I have never really achieved. I did manage some semblance of it there in the rain from the heavens and the dry earth beneath my knees, and I decided I'd sit there and wait until some kind of answer came. Some sort of sign would make itself known, even if it was just being struck by lightning for sitting in the middle of an open space on a high ridge during a thunderstorm. I vowed I'd wait and listen.
Only I had to get back. My watch (as the Liliputians would have it, my pocket god) showed me that there would be trouble if I didn't get home. I told God that my family was waiting on me and I should not shirk my responsibility to them. So I vowed to keep listening in the truck on the way home, and in my house all evening, and in the dark of the night. I'd keep looking for that sign.
It still felt like failure, and I was kind of downcast as I climbed back into the truck and backed onto the forest road.
However, as I did so, I saw a sign.
A small wooden sign, actually. I stopped the truck to stare. It was carved with the legend "No Motorized Vehicles Allowed." And at the top, a bit faded and worn, was the spade-like tree-and-logo symbol of the Pacific Crest Trail. I had been sitting almost on top of the trail the entire time.
I laughed out loud for full five minutes, giving way occasionally to tears. I climbed out and walked along the path for a hundred feet, stoppping every few minutes to put my hand on a boulder or a tree and guffaw, shaking my head in wonder at what we see and do not see. If anyone else had been about, they'd have thought I was a loon.
It was so clearly an answer that it seemed supernatural—and I'm sure it was. I'm not positive what the message was, except that I could very nearly see God giving me a slow wink and saying, "You are on the path. It's been here the whole time." I don't know what else is packed in there, but I intend to find out.
It occurred to me when I thought about putting this all down here that anyone who reads this and doesn't know God's goodness and overwhelming love, who doesn't know Christ's generosity and patience, is sure to chalk this up to chance and emotional turmoil, or at best some kind of numinous "fate," to explain and rationalize away the meaning or to ascribe it to my own mental processes. I am sorry for you, truly. It was a moment that marked me and in which God spoke right into my heart. The circumstance was small, but the voice was thunderous. If you don't know Him, find Him out. I am done with doubt.
Now to see where this new path leads...