August 2013
By now you may have seen that I’m growing a beard (What? You didn’t notice?). Right now it’s in its scraggly, scruffy stage, but I trust it will grow out. I’m telling people this is my “mountain man look” because I’m spending time in the Olympic Mountains this summer.
I’m taking my vacation days on Wednesdays and Thursdays so I can take two or three-day backpacking trips in Olympic National Park. For me, there’s nothing more freeing than wandering up the deep valleys and climbing over the high passes.
We’re fortunate to live so close to Olympic National Park, and many of us have spent considerable time hiking in the park. Tony’s Trekkers often venture up the trails of the Olympics to enjoy the wilderness. Even if we’re not hiking into the Olympics, we all enjoy the tremendous sunsets with the mountains silhouetted to the west.
To me, spending time in the wilderness is renewing and refreshing. I leave my ordinary life behind and immerse myself in the challenges of my hike and the beauty of my surroundings. God speaks to me in a special way in the mountains. It’s no exaggeration to say that the mountains are a natural cathedral, a holy place we go to seek the presence of God.
Henry David Thoreau said, “In wildness is the salvation of the world.” I think what he meant by that is that we need wilderness to balance out the technology and science that distance us from the natural world. No matter how sophisticated we humans have become, we are still part of the natural world that God set us in and made us stewards of.
We desperately need the silence, grandeur, and peace of the wilderness to calm our souls and remind us that we are part of the creation. We humans need this reminder to prevent us from destroying the creation with pollu-tion, overconsumption, and greed.
I hope you’ll have a chance to spend time in nature this summer, whether it be in the Olympics or some other natural setting. And I hope your time will allow you to renew yourself and reconnect to God the Creator.
Bill
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