Mountain Magic

I haven't written for a good long time.  I've been pretty busy remodeling my lifestyle.  It's time I explained and got back to writing. 

My theme for this blog refers to the business of mortality.  The business of living and learning.  This latest episode has been pretty intense in that regard.

A little over a month ago, I hired on as Wilderness Staff for an outfit called Mountain Homes Youth Ranch / Ashley Valley Wilderness.  When I went to my doctor for a physical he said he thought I'd come to the wrong doctor, suggesting I needed to have me head examined.  Indeed, I probably should.  What business does an old geezer like me have camping eight days at a time in the snow, mud, rain, wind of the Book Cliffs, with a bunch of troubled kids.

I guess I didn't feel like reporting on the new adventure until I had some experience with it.  I needed to see if I would enjoy the experience and actually invest myself in the process.  I do and I have.  I have stumbled onto a rare and unexpected opportunity.  This company is amazing in it's preparation to make a difference in the lives of children with behavior problems.  Couple that with the miracle of the mountain and you have a formula for success.  This is a good time in my life to be envolved in making a difference. 

It turns out that I actually have something to offer.  Students and Staff alike express appreciation for the calming effect an older participant can bring to the program.  Clearly, I lack the vigor and energy of the younger staff, but I don't lack experience and a settled, comfortable relationship with the principles and processes of joyful living.  I think my greatest asset is patience.  It takes time to make the changes we hope to help these youth experience and I am content to let the process do it's magic.  Seeing those changes transpire is it's own reward.

I never dreamed my life would lead me to such an occupation.  I never imagined that I would be suited for such a thing.  The other night though, laying in my bag after a challenging day, I couldn't help but rejoice at the long, protracted set of experiences, trials, talents, blessings, set backs, afflictions and serendipitous circumstances that had brought me to that glorious moment of joy.  There I was in a tent in the middle of nowhere with a bedraggled bunch of strangers for whom my heart was absolutely bursting with love, and hopes, and dreams.  I had just serenaded them to sleep with my native american flute and was in no rush to sleep myself.  I just wanted to bask in the glow of a culminating moment that seemed to have been forseen by a loving God who had somehow brought me here.  I unexpectedly felt a sense of mission and purpose and realized that the mountain holds magic for me as well.

I work eight days on and six days off.  I expect you'll hear from me every other week.  Perhaps with more stories and observations.  The wilderness camp is a microcosm of life.  There on the mountain we are all on an excellerated course of living and learning.  Life is challenging there, but it is also simpler, with far fewer distractions. I like that.....

Book Review - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder's interesting book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey won a Pulitzer Prize.  I have no quarrel with that; it is wonderfully well written.  It is so very interesting to learn of Colonial Peru and the daily life of Limeans.  I was a bit disappointed though that Wilder was, in the end, unable to answer the question the book so intriguingly poses.

A 100 year old foot bridge suddenly collapses and five people perish in a horrifying plunge into a deep gorge.  Brother Juniper wonders why?  Was it part of God's Plan or merely an accident?  He decides to examine the lives of the victims and see if he can discern the answer.  He discovers that though every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, nothing unique pegged these folks to perish at this particular place and time.

I have dealt with the same question much of the past year.  I've watched good people die at the most inopportune times.  No amount of faith or pleading with God could turn the tide of death that overtook and destroyed.  For me, accident, disease, ultimately death are all an integral part of God's Plan.  They are not necessarily caused by God, but the Fall of man and the earth as Adam and Eve were driven from Eden, set things in motion that God intended and fully sanctions.  I also believe, that on occasion, God deliberately countermands the course of nature, intervening in man's behalf.  Why He does on one occasion and does not on another, is not my affair.  I trust Him to know fully, fairly and perfectly, what He is up to.  We have no right to boast that He has favored us with a blessing we desire and we have no business condemning Him when He does not.  Either way, He is favoring us with that we He, in His infinite wisdom, sees fit for our best - in the long run - interest.

I don't think Brother Juniper ever figured this out.  But it seems He did come to understand that love bridges the gaps between us and lends meaning, when all else seems to fail.  Considering, Brother Juniper was a man of the cloth, he might have gone on to discover that despite life's troubles and trials, the love of God undergirds and overarches all and in the end can heal all wounds. 

Philosophically, I thought Wilder came up just short of his target on this one.  Too bad.

Opportunity

I've enjoyed a bit of a wake up call this week.  All my life I've associated opportunity with goals.  Making that association has been rather crippling as I look back on things.  Goals have been connected with such adages as "shoot for the stars," so I've spent my time seeking pretty lofty opportunities.  Couple that with the adage, "opportunity only knocks once," and you have a formula for scarcity thinking.  I've always been a relatively positive person and always anticipated the appearance of the next opportunity.  Usually, they have come, sometimes in disguise, but always beneficial.  Trouble is, I've wasted a ton of time looking for the big opportunities and overlooking the little ones.

Let me give you a current example from my life.  I'm looking for a full time employment opportunity.  As I have yet to find one that has materialized for me, I'm rather strapped for cash.  I have often said that my unfinished basement is bogged down because when I have time I have no money and when I have money I have no time.  The other day, while taking a walk, I realized that doing so was a luxury, when compared with my past, when finding time was so difficult.  I realized that right now, I have the opportunity to walk without much time constraint.  That got me to thinking about this subject.  How many little opportunities have I overlooked, looking beyond the mark so to speak?  How many days have I wasted because I was so focused on the distant goal that I couldn't see right in front of me.  How many days of opportunity lie in that basement that don't cost money.  Things that could be done so that when money becomes available, they don't have to be done then.  Days and days worth I suspect.   I thought of another adage.  "Better to aim for the sky and hit the horizon than to aim for the horizon and hit the dirt in the foreground."  I'm not so sure about focusing all my attention on the distant goal, especially if it causes me to look past opportunities in the present.

My friend Dixon often says,  "The past is history, the future a mystery, today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."  I love that.  Since making this discovery I've come to realize that the present is rich with opportunity.  It reminded me of a song I'd not adequately considered.  "There are chances for work all around just now, opportunity right in our way, do not let them pass by saying sometime I'll try but go and do something today."  (Hymns, 223, Have I Done Any Good in the World Today.)  Tomorrow's opportunities may be wonderful and appealing, but there is no better opportunity than lies right before me, right now.  Ever.

There are constantly opportunities to serve others, to learn more, to improve something, to love someone.  These are the opportunities that matter.  We don't have to wait for something big or momentous to take blessed action, we can do it now!  I'm so impressed with the myriad souls who've dropped everything and gone to Haiti to help with the disaster there.  They must be opportunity seizers.  This isn't likely to be their first rodeo in the opportunity game.

One of the great troubles that comes of addiction is the decline into utter selfishness.  I spent so many years in addiction that I've missed out on so many simple pleasures, so many useful concepts and principles.  This is surely one.  Those who know me might point out that I've served long and well in my life and while on the surface that is very true, if I look back and examine my motivations, they are purely self serving ones.  I saw opportunity and service as a means to advance my own ends.  I seldom if ever saw it as a means to bless the lives of others.  Because of that I came think of opportunity as a scarce commodity in the market of life.  Looking beyond the perspective of self, I suddenly have discovered that opportunity is more abundant than anything else.

Every time I have such an epiphany I feel a little foolish for having gone so long with out realizing such a thing.  But that is mostly swallowed up in rejoicing that even this late in life, even after having become so lost and misguided, this earthly probation can be long enough for one such as I to get straightened out and come into the light.  What an ungrateful thing it is to overlook the profound blessing of opportunity.  It is much like the Atonement itself.  It is always available, but what good is the gift if I am unwilling to receive or even recognize it?

Pen Pal Wanted

I've just watched a wonderful old movie starring Anne Bancroft called 84 Charing Cross Road also starring Anthony Hopkins.  It is a wonderful, true story, based on an epistolary memoir of the same name by Helene Hanff.  I've been fascinated lately with epistolary books and have enjoyed several including The Bachelor Brother's Bed and Breakfast books, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Third Wish.  I've come to love that method of story telling as well as the simple, yet fine art of letter writing.

Letter writing is a dying art.  A loss which I am learning to lament.  I shall never forget reading some of Abigail Adams' letters in John Adams by David McCullough, and thinking what a joy it must have been to receive such a letter.  There was so much of warmth, good humor, cleverness and wisdom captured in those marvelous epistles.  How I'd love to write such letters and have a correspondent who would both appreciate and reciprocate with such ease and delight.

The upthrust of all this is that I've decided I just have to do it.  The biggest problem will be to find a like minded soul out in the world somewhere, who might like to embark upon such an adventure.  I went on line and Googled Pen Pal and found those sites to be mostly engaged in matching lonely persons to someone of the opposite sex.  I am not at all interested in getting into a romantic foray with some lonely woman, or man for that matter.  I am very happily married thank you very much.

So, I am taking applications if you will.  I'm hoping for a long term, mentally and emotionally taxing relationship with a total stranger.  People who cannot make such a commitment need not apply.  Applicants must write a letter of sufficient interest and quality as to spark my imagination and persuade me that I've found someone with whom I'll happily correspond.  You need not be like me anyway.  If you disagree with me that is fine, so long as our disagreements are not allowed to foul our friendship.  This of course requires an open minded individual who doesn't mind banter and isn't easily offended.

Email will be an acceptable medium, so long as the bulk of our correspondence is done, thoughtfully, deliberately and dependably.  Typical email and chat abbreviations and streamlining methods will not be tolerated.

I suppose I'd prefer someone from far away, in different circumstances to my own.  Someone who's life and culture do not mirror my own.  I'm afraid I must restrict applicants to English as I have not bothered to become proficient in any other language.  Scold me if you will.  Even so, I'll entertain a pen pal from just around the corner if their personality and presentation so inspire me.

I expect that the person I'm looking for has ideas of his or her own regarding what form such a friendship should take and I am open to negotiations.  Certainly, once the relationship is established further negotiations will be called for as the friendship or perhaps mere association develops.

If you dear reader, are not so inclined, but know of someone who might be please forward this along to them.