Adventure

Three weeks ago I gave the message at the church where I worked for the past year. I returned as "pulpit supply" while the pastor was on vacation. The message circled around the concept of asking God for more. No, I have not stepped into the prosperity gospel camp. I do not believe that if you sow your seed (money) and give it to the church God will bless you with three cars and a million dollar house. God wants even more than that for all of us. God wants us to have a real, deep relationship with the one who threw the stars out into the heavens and set the earth spinning. God wants us to have more than just the drudgery of this day to day life, more than the discontentment that can so easily set in, more than rehearsing our old wounds and lashing ourselves on the back for our sins. God wants forgiveness for us, grace for us, love for us, hope for us. I preached that and I believed it, and I believe it still. But I didn't trust it.

Three close friends from the seminary come to the church to listen to me preach. While we sat in the church basement, eating delectable treats (no wonder I gained a few pounds this year), it started to pour outside. Monsoon-level. The streets were rivers, with water at least a foot deep in some places. Driving home, two of our friends, husband and wife, stalled their car in one of the impromptu rivers. Sarah and I were able to pick them up and take them home, but their car needed hundreds of dollars of repairs. We felt a little guilty, since they came to hear me preach, and we had given them alternate directions home, directions that led them through the water. But, they were gracious and soon forgave us.

Fast forward three weeks, and the third friend who came to listen desired my companionship on a road-trip to bring some of his things to storage in a town two hours away. He's moving to Ireland for the next year, and I wanted to spend time with him, so I readily agreed. We ended up taking the second vehicle of our erstwhile water-logged friends, an SUV. The drive up was wonderful, blue skies and the wind rushing past us, green trees and the smell of pine. We arrived and he unloaded his things (packed in heavy rubbermaid bins that he told me were too heavy for me--which was true--and that he proceeded to lug up two flights of stairs himself.) We spent a few minutes chatting with the woman at whose house he was leaving his stuff, then headed back home. He was craving hot dogs, so we stopped along the way at a roadside restaurant and he ordered two dogs with all the fixings and two birch-beer floats, one for each of us. (Birch beer tastes like a smoother, slightly more bitter root beer and is the color of black cherry soda.) So far, the day had been perfect. We took to the road again, relishing the fresh air and the good conversation.

While we drove I asked him what drove him. What was the passion underlying his time in seminary? What kept him going through the long nights of studying and all the frustration? Even as I asked him, I knew that I asked because I was having trouble answering the question myself. Back in high school I was surrounded by energetic friends in the prime of life. We prayed for each other, sang with each other, took trips to the mountains with each other. I was ready to do anything God wanted, ready to go anywhere. I read my bible daily, prayed every night and wrote in my journal at least once a week. I wrote songs and poems and novels. I was full of joy and passion. I was eager for God.

College hit. I moved miles away from my friends and the home I'd known for eighteen years. The new relationships I tried to build in college didn't last long. During an AOL chat with them, a girl mentioned something that was troubling her. I typed that I would pray for her, and instantly the backlash began. It was offensive to offer prayer in college. Offensive and pushy. Those friends soon turned their backs on me, especially after I met Sarah and started spending more time with her instead of them. Soon I met new friends, good folk who worked with me at the college chapel. But my life wasn't the same. I grew distant from God in college, angry. I did things that drew me away from God, things that I continue to regret. I took on too much in my first year, sleeping only four hours a night most nights. Then I vowed to never take on too much again. Living on the edge of sleep was exhilarating for me, but I didn't think it was healthy. So I curtailed my passions. Even though I wrote for all of my writing classes, everything I wrote was dark, writing became an assignment, working for a deadline. During some of the best times of my life, I often withdrew to my room and shut my door. I still regret having a closed door for some of the residents for whom I was an RA.

My friends from Utah faded to the background. I hardly knew them anymore. I was so busy in my first two years that I didn't stay in contact. Even the new friends I gained were kept at a safe distance. I didn't let them into my heart, into my life.

I learned that I had a fear of failure and, instead of facing it head on like I knew I should, I built a cocoon of safety. I did, and still do only things at which I can succeed. I don't let other people see my flaws. I let as much of myself out as is needed to retain friendship, but not enough to make it real. My relationship with God has fared the same fate.

After college, I followed the call planted in my heart in middle school and went to seminary, Sarah following me with love and trust and sacrifice. We arrived and the first year changed me again. It was hard to gain friends, hard again to get my footing. The call to be a church pastor disappeared quickly, pushed away by justified fears and by good reasons and good sense. God was still calling me, but now the voice seemed farther off, and in a different direction. God was calling me, but we were separated by fog and a sturdily-built cocoon. I was directionless, and far away again from God. I've spent my time like a pocketful of pennies, selling it for cheap. I troll the internet for interesting articles, and watch TV like I used to read books. I find myself grasping for the passion and eagerness I once had, grasping and holding nothing. My life is circular and stagnant. After my friend told me about his passion, I told him that I felt lost and that my relationship with God wasn't that good, that I wanted it to be better. I told him that the only thing driving me is the search for my old drive. He said that these dry times are why we need faith.

An hour away from Princeton, we ran into a wall of water. Monsoon-level, yet again. The rain was hitting the windshield so fast and so hard we could barely see, and we rumbled through the quickly-rising torrent, spraying muddy water everywhere. People were pulled over on the side of the road, hazard lights flashing like lighthouses in the darkness of the storm. Some cars were stuck in the flood, their owners knee-deep in water, trying to push them out. I was worried.

My friend is a wild, devil-may-care man, with a big laugh and an even bigger heart. The storm gave him energy. Soon he had me smiling with his effusive praise for how exciting it all was. Still, I held our map with white-knuckled intensity.

"It's odd," I said to him, "I'm smiling, but somewhere deep in my head I'm really worried. Not about us, but about the car. I don't want to be the cause of stalling two of their cars."

"I am too," he said. "But that's what makes it an adventure!"

Just last night, another friend and I were talking about joy. We talked about how fleeting happiness is, and how unattainable joy is. Happiness comes up like a weed, sudden and often. But it dies just as quickly. Joy is like a great oak, it needs roots and a firm ground. But how often is our true joy carried away by the carrion of life, how often does the seed of joy land on the hard ground, how often is it choked out by the very weeds of our happiness, choked before it can ever take root? Sometimes in our search for momentary happiness, we strangle our joy.

This blog is named after one of my favorite verses. "There is no fear in love." (I John 4:18) I have taken this verse to mean that I should not fear, and in doing so have avoided those things that scare me. Avoided deep relationships, avoided the pain of confronting myself, avoided the incomprehensible and wild God. Avoided where that wild God is calling me. But the verse goes on. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love."

Maybe this is an indictment from the writer of I John. Those who fear have not reached perfection in love. Our maybe it's a statement of reality. We all fear, we are all imperfect in love. Right before this, the author says that we love because God first loved us. God is love.

In reading this I realize that the fear has to be there for the love to cast it out. And in that split second between fearing punishment and failure and embracing, or being embraced by love, in that small moment is joy. After all, the contraction in the throat that comes with fear and the widening motion of the smile that comes with love are what make life an adventure. And perhaps by avoiding the fear, I've been avoiding the love and the joy too. Perhaps by trying to find a shortcut past my fear I've gone right around love and joy and into this wasteland where I find myself now.

And perhaps this is a turning point. And maybe it's not. The Israelites encountered a God who moved in cloud and fiery pillar, a God who split the sea in half; yet they still complained and worried about how they were going to be fed. Peter saw Jesus talking with Elijah and Moses on a mountain, witnessed him raise people from the dead and bring sight to the blind, and still denied his lord, his savior, his friend, three times when the fear of death came in a slave girl's accusation.

But that same God who took the complaints brought the Israelites to a good land just the same, though they had to struggle through the wilderness to get there. And that same God has preserved those people for thousands of years. That same God spoke to them lovingly again and again, trying to get them to turn around when they strayed, never giving up on them. That same God came down as a person, came down to take the brunt of our complaints and inattention, came down to be spat upon and ridiculed. That same God came down to befriend Peter, and when Peter betrayed him, that same God came back and restored Peter with love, affirmed his love three times, once for every betrayal. That same God loves me with a perfect love that can drive away my fear, because I can't do it on my own. That same God brought me the joy of my life--my wife--out of the midst of the wilderness of college. That same God brought me one of my best friends out of the driest time in my life. That same God brought me to this place, brought me this far, brought me through two floods and through this season of doubt to the place I am now.

The passion will come again. The voice will become clearer. The skies will turn from grey to blue and though I see now in a mirror, dimly, then I shall see God face to face. And even if all of this does not happen, God is still with me. Even when I turn my back on God, God is still facing me. And because God is facing me, and because God is pushing me from behind, and because God is walking right by my side, I can face my fears too. And that God of perfect love, that God who is love, will cast out those fears, and in doing so, bring me joy again. That's what makes it an adventure.

Thanks for sticking with me, faithful reader.

Loving A Place

I have lived in and called home three places: Salt Lake City, UT; Alma, MI; and now Princeton, NJ. Until this afternoon, at 1:00PM, I had been reticent to call Princeton my home. For, you see, I need to fall in love with a place and hear it speak to me before I can call it home. I have fallen in love with the people in a particular place and, in so doing, have been able to be comfortable living there (Charlotte, NC, for instance, where my mother, father, sister and nephews live), but I have not yet been able to call a location HOME, unless I have fallen in love with it.

Falling in love with something on a map is not exactly like falling in love with people. I knew I loved my eldest nephew from the first minute I saw him, mere moments after he had been born, his small, rumpled form held in my sister’s tired arms. I cannot remember the transformative moment when wide-eyed dependency upon my parents for sustenance became affection for the lovingly imperfect humans that they are, but I can recall the moments in my young adulthood when I made a conscious decision to love them, disregarding the monstrous angst that threatened to overwhelm me. I can pinpoint each step in loving my wife so far, from acquaintance to interest to romantic possibility all the way to a still blossoming love. In each of these relationships are the seeds of loving a place, but with one great difference. In my experience, places don’t begin to speak to you until you love them.

Similar to my experience with my parents, my love of Salt Lake City, the home of my birth and my upbringing, is dim and hazy at the beginning, but full of decisions to love despite its flaws. Likewise, my love for Alma, my second home, parallels my love for my wife, a step-by-step process. But in the human relationships, while I was still learning about my love for them, the people spoke to me, gave me reasons, inspiration. I interacted with them, pondered them, held them. I do not do this with places until I already love them; they do not speak to me until I do.

Today, at 1:00PM, with no forewarning, I understood that I loved Princeton, NJ. I realized that I could love this place, this geographical oddity, this garden stop on the road between Philadelphia and New York City, and Princeton began to speak to me. It was as if scales dropped from my eyes, my ears popped and I shed my winter coat. Until this afternoon, I might have been watching a silent movie, but no longer. Princeton began to speak to me. As I walked out of our campus dining center, I was overcome by warm sun-glow on the flowers, birds softly weaving their melodies, and people walking by in conversation. Held back by the winds of a gentle affection, I stood on the cafeteria porch, unable to move, or perhaps unwilling, filling my senses with a new home. Princeton began to speak to me. Or perhaps I finally listened. And now I can call it home.

Communing with Nature 4: Jenny Jump Beauty

Dear faithful readers, I can only apologize for my absence with excuses: the beginning of the school year, my duties as a deacon, and general laziness.  I am sincerely sorry for my absence.  Of course, maybe some of you are simply bored of this whole Jenny Jump review and are waiting for me to return to something more substantial.  Well, have no worries, I will.  In fact, I will try to post two quick final Jenny Jump posts and then finally post a third, general update of my life.  So, with all of that written, prepare yourself, dear reader, for a virtual (ha, because we're on the internet) glut of posts.

First of all, let's think about the beauty of Jenny Jump.  If you've never been camping, I really cannot adequately describe to you the musky, cloying smell of decaying leaves and the freshness of the air.  I cannot match the glory of a bright blue sky, the color of a baby's eyes, clear as sight will allow.  I cannot even broach the subject of a midnight sky with a few whispy clouds and the comforting sight of familiar constellations far from home.  Camping brings me to my roots, makes me wonder how afraid our tent-dwelling ancestors must have been, surrounded by the bark of wild animals and the twinkling sounds of insects.  Every motion teasing their nerves.  How insulated we are in our cities full of human noise.  I feel more awake and alive when I'm camping.  I feel more aware.

And the art of camping itself, well, how can I describe to you the success of a fire made only with a few pieces of newspaper, a match and some dry wood?  How can I tell you how satisfying it is to sleep in a tent erected with your own hands and sweat (even though Eddie Bauer helped with the design)?  How, if you've never been camping, can I possibly manage to evoke the weary pride that comes from hiking for five or six hours, the refreshing feeling of slick sweat pouring from your pores, the knowledge that you have worked and you have achieved something as you stand at the cliff edge on the summit of a mountain, surveying the terrain before you?

All of that to say that my deepest wish for you, dear reader, is that you know this joy, you know this pride, you know this radical experience (radical meaning "going to the root").  My heart aches for you to go camping for yourself if you never have.  Meanwhile, these brief descriptions, I hope, encourage you to go.  And now these brief descriptions will be supplemented by pictures.

The eponymous fire, built with my own hands.  It was a quick fire, meant to burn out before we went to sleep.

Just one of the spectacular views from our many hikes.

A Jenny Jump Sunset.  Wild bats were flying around in the gathering dusk.  I tried to capture them with the camera, but they were fluttering too fast.

I love pictures of paths.  Maybe it's my current preoccupation with a search for a vocation, but I think I've always been fascinated by a good path picture.  Not to say that this is a particularly good path picture, but something about the dappled light on the brown dirt and the golden sun striking the green undergrowth caught my eye.

And finally, the satisfaction of a successful hike.  And a beautiful woman by my side.

Stay tuned for the final Jenny Jump update and then a life update.  Thanks for sticking with me, faithful reader.

Communing with Nature 3: Jenny Jump State Forest Review

Well, here it is, finally, the review of Jenny Jump State Forest.  First, a couple of preliminaries.  I made a decision right when I created this blog that I would moderate the comments.  This means that, before I post the comments, I will review them.  So, if you comment on a blog post your comment might not appear right away because I make sure that i read them through before posting them.  This is simply because I want to make sure that some random person doesn't post something offensive in the comments.  This does not mean that I won't post something if someone doesn't agree with me, but only that I won't post something if it's from someone I don't know and I feel that it will be incredibly offensive to someone I do know.  Also, I would love to respond to every comment on every blog post, and that was my initial intent, but I don't think that it is a realistic goal.  I wish that it was.  I may comment back now and then, but, please don't take offense if I don't comment on something that you write.  Please know that I do read all of the comments (obviously, since I moderate them all) and that I thank you so much for writing.

Now, on to Jenny Jump.  The first thing I have to say is that a state forest like Jenny Jump proves that New Jersey does, in part, deserve the name of the "Garden State."  Obviously, large cities like Trenton and Newark and the mess and smoke and urban sprawl that naturally come with large cities dominate the rather slim state of New Jersey.  But there are plenty of beautiful spots here, and Jenny Jump is one of them.

From hilltop vistas to beautiful hiking trails, Jenny Jump is a sight for sore eyes.  Here are a few pictures for proof.

A view from the Ghost Lake trail.

A view from the Summit trail.

Another view from the Summit trail.

A view of the Summit trail.

The campsites themselves are quite nice.  There are both roadside and walk-in campsites.  Roadside ones are a few feet off of the road.  Walk-in sites are either 25 yards or 75 yards from the road that runs through the forest.  Sarah and I chose a 25 yard walk-in site, and it was perfect.  Each site has a fire pit, a bear-pole to hang trash/food (although they highly recommend putting trash and food in your car trunk for safety) a picnic table and plenty of cleared space for tents.  The State Forest also has eight "cabins" which are log-structures with an outdoor fire pit and picnic table, an indoor wood-burning stove and four bunk beds.  And the Forest has two group sites, one for about 20-25 people, the other for about 40-60.  All of the campsites are close to restrooms that are cleaned regularly (and thoroughly) for those who really don't like to use leaves for toilet paper and to dig a pit in the ground.  The staff at Jenny Jump was extremely nice and very helpful (even staying a few minutes late so that we could finish registering and giving us advice on where to get cheap firewood).  Here are a few pictures of our campsite:

The picnic table and our tent and camp chairs.  Notice that you cannot even see our car.  The path goes down directly from behind our camp chairs.

Me, starting a fire at our fire pit.  You can see its proximity to the tent and picnic table.

Sarah and I were in Jenny Jump during the week at the end of the summer, after labor day, so our time there was pretty quiet.  But, as far as we can tell, Jenny Jump is not very well known in New Jersey (we had difficulty finding reviews and websites about it, and many of those reviews mentioned how quiet it was).  Nevertheless, for us it was very quiet and we had a very relaxing time.  None of the hikes were more than two miles, and, while several of them had a few challenging spots and some steep inclines, they were generally accessible and very fun.  There are a few campsites and I think one trail that are disability accessible.  

A few drawbacks: the forest is close to a few major highways (including I-80), and traffic noise is heard amongst the many forest noises of squirrels and owls.  There are black bears in the area, so you have to be very careful with food and other things.  This fact especially left me a little jumpy and cautious, as we rarely had to concern ourselves with bears in Utah, and so I hadn't dealt with them before.  But the office does provide information and hints on bears, and if you follow their advice you should have a great time.  Also, ticks.  There are ticks in New Jersey forests, and in Jenny Jump.  Some of them carry Lyme Disease and other ailments.  So, another thing that you have to watch out for.  Wear long pants, use bug spray.  Again, the office has hints.  Of course, I couldn't sleep well the first night after reading the guides on bears and ticks, but the fear faded soon (ish).  Finally, the Ghost Lake is not as pretty as it looks in pictures.  It's not bad, but it's not very big and it actually is not open for fishing right now.  The hiking trail there was beautiful in its own right, but I was underwhelmed by the lake.  Still, we came at the end of summer, and perhaps it was more beautiful early on.  Here are a few pictures.  Judge for yourself:

This is pretty much the extent of the lake.  It was full of lily pads and weeds and you could tell why it was called Ghost Lake.  It seemed haunted.

There were a few beautiful lilies in the lake.  We also saw a few wild turkeys, but we couldn't get a picture of them.  By the way, did you know that Male Turkeys can fly up to 50 mph and grow a "beard?"

Overall, the trip was wonderful and relaxing and I would recommend the Jenny Jump State Forest to anyone interested in camping in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area.  Tomorrow: Beauty in Jenny Jump.  Thanks, as usual, for reading.

Communing with Nature 2: Jenny Jump Review

Greetings faithful reader!

I apologize for not updating over the last few days.  Obviously, Sarah and I were camping for the first three days of the week, and I've been recuperating and watching the Republican National Convention for the last two.  So, now I'm back and ready to be posting.  I think I'm going to do a short series, perhaps three separate posts, on our camping trip.  It was so amazing and so many great things went on, that I don't want to overwhelm you with a huge, long, unreadable post.  So, I'll start off with a review of Jenny Jump State Forest, continue onto a discussion of beauty and all that we saw at Jenny Jump, and finish with thoughts and experiences that came from our trip. Part 1 - a review of Jenny Jump State Forest will be appearing either tomorrow (Sunday, September 7) or Monday, and then each following day I'll post about the other two topics.

So, thank you again, faithful reader, and I'll leave you with a teaser of our adventures.

Sarah and I sitting outside of our tent.

A home away from home, complete with uno cards, a word puzzle book, and, if you look closely, my guitar.

At the end of our adventures.  Both of us look a little sleepy, and I'm pretty greasy from two days without a shower, but I'd say we're a pretty handsome couple.  (Side note, isn't it interesting that the word couple, which is essentially gender neutral, is often paired with the word handsome, which is often connotative of a masculine trait?)

Communing With Nature

For all of you faithful readers, a quick update:

This past weekend my parents came up to visit us.  It was a whirlwind trip, driving twelve hours on Saturday, spending Saturday night and Sunday with us, and then leaving for a return drive of twelve hours at six o'clock this morning.  Though the visit was brief, the time was precious.  We played yahtzee, ate well, talked quite a bit, and just spent time together.  (for those keeping count of such things, my mother won both yahtzee games).

As I type, Sarah is cleaning out our cooler.  We are preparing to go to Northern New Jersey for what we hope will be a relaxing two-day camping excursion.  Our camping site of choice is a place called Jenny's Jump (I'll type the story of the place later, but as a teaser, I'll say that the area includes quite a few places with the names of Ghost and Dead).  It's supposed to be a very quiet, restful area, with a few camping sites, a nice hiking trail, and good weather this week.

I'm typing quickly, as I need to pack, but I will give you a full update when we return on Wednesday, including a review of the campsite, pictures and any thoughts that come to me while we are communing with nature.