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| hiking to Marymere Falls, Olympic National Park |
Hiking isn't sexy. Except for a few Lululemon-clad Instagram influencers, hiking conjures up images of wide brim bug catcher hats and weird convertible pants that zip off at the knees. Attire aside, hiking is definitely at the bottom of the outdoor hobby hierarchy.
Chris Kalous, the host of the Enormocast, deridingly calls hiking "the long approach to nowhere;" suggesting that the only reason to walk in the woods is to approach something sexier (like rock climbing or backcountry skiing). So for a long time, hiking was something I only did on my way to rock climb, or with everything I needed for a week in the mountains on my back. I remember working as a backpacking guide and telling kids I don't actually like hiking, "I just do it for them."
Hiking on in its own merits was boring. Anybody could do it. It's not "sexy."
Now I see that these are the things that make hiking beautiful.
Hiking is like going to a baseball game. It isn't always exciting but the monotony creates space for talking. These conversations have the potential to be deep and meaningful but they also allow for the spontaneity of noticing a wildflower, an elk, or a scenic view just as you would a stolen base or a home run. You revel at the moment, soak it in, and then go back to talking about whatever it was you were talking about.
Rebecca and I hiked our way around Olympic National Park having our own conversations and as we did, everyone we passed was doing the same. Each unique person brought with them their peculiar set of experiences and emotions that run the gamut of human existence and shared them with family, friends, and partners while they inhabited this amazing place.
Rock climbing and backcountry skiing (or, to keep the metaphor going, a basketball game) are fun and exhilarating but there's no substitute for creating a good, deep conversation like a long walk in the woods.
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| on the way to Sol Duc Falls, Olympic National Park |
We spent a week walking in the woods around Olympic National Park. If you do not like the color green in all of its vast and sundry shades, then this isn't the national park for you. Green is the color of life, renewal, and growth and it is bursting forth from every log, rock, inch of dirt, and body of water there. As Becca and I hiked around the park, my mind kept coming back to the lyrics of The Band's "Atlantic City:" Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.
*put your flame-retardant suits on because this next paragraph is hot*
I know this song is originally by Bruce Springsteen but The Band's cover is far superior. Levon Helm's mandolin and whiskey-soaked Arkansas draw, Rick Danko's harmonies, and Garth Hudson burning the barn down with that cajun accordion? Come on. And I know that this is going to piss off a lot of music nerds but, Bruce Springsteen kind of sucks. If I wanted to listen to a guy sing like he had marbles in his mouth, I'd listen to Weird Al parody Kurt Cobain by singing with actual marbles in his mouth. And don't tell me that I don't get it. I have given The Boss his fair shake. My friend once said Bruce was "just a dude being cool when it was still cool to be cool." Which is just it. It's boring jock rock and I hate it. That's just God's honest truth.
Still reading? Let's get back to Olympic...
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| a nurse log in Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park |
In Olympic NP, everything that is dead is coming back. This is particularly visible in dramatic form in the Hoh Rainforest, where colossal trees -- Sitka Spruce, Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock -- grow from the trunks of fallen ones. The dead trunk is hauntingly wrapped in the healthy, living roots of the growing tree. These "nurse logs" turn life out of death. The decaying log offers nutrients, shade, and protection, nursing the young seedlings to grow to their towering heights.
I don't want to get too biblical here, but there is this text in First Corinthians where the Apostle Paul is writing about the life of the world to come and the resurrection of the dead. I know some of you are already rolling your eyes but stick with me. Paul couches the entire conversation in the context of the natural world. In fact, Paul reserves the word "fool" (which is Second Temple Judaism speak for "dumb-ass") for the person who does not think creationally about the world to come. For Paul, as in the Hoh Rainforest, there is always life after death. Drawing on the natural world, Paul basically poo-poos on the idea that our souls leave our bodies and float to some incorporeal cloudland in the sky. Instead, the act of new creation is a lot more like a Sitka Spruce being made new from the body of fallen Sitka Spruce.
What is sewn weak shall be raised strong and so on. And, according to Paul, so shall we, when all things are made new. Whatever your thoughts on all that, Paul's vision in I Corinthians 15 is a lot different than the American evangelical "I'll Fly Away" or Left Behind neo-platonic perversion of the gospel I was force-fed in my Baptist high school. Like Paul, I'd rather look to the field and forest for my eschatology. And I'd rather hear Levon Helm sing,
Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back. Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City.
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