ANALYSIS: How to Have a Rich and Meaningful Life

Here's what I know for sure: the entire lyrical database of the Coheed and Cambria discography, how to build an equalized rock climbing anchor, and the secret to living a rich and meaningful life. I didn't know I already knew the meaning of life until my friend Josh pointed it out to me last month; I'm a pretty happy guy so I guess I've had it all figured out this whole time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. Laughter: a rich and meaningful life needs joy and silliness. Refuse to harden your heart. Be an easy laugh. Laugh at your farts. Laugh at Johnny Knoxville getting hit in the nut sack. Laugh as your friend tells a story about a coworker stealing another coworker's pickle recipe and selling it as their own (#picklegate). Life is absurd, man. Take the barbed wire off of your heart and approach it with joyous whimsy.
2. Adventure: give your life some color. Pick a human-powered activity that's moderately hard for you, go to some destination, and sleep outside. Bikepack. Backpack. Climb to a big ledge on a 5.6 multipitch route. Sleep there. Make coffee. See the sunrise and go home. Now you have a story to tell.
3. Doing good: we are not made for ourselves alone. Make other people laugh. Take someone who never thought they could go on an adventure on an adventure. Organize a block party. Know your city council member. Replace people's tail lights for free. Raise a child. Plant a garden. You can't save the world but you can't neglect it either. 

Your mileage may vary. That's cool too. 

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A Place Called Providence

Providence Canyon, Georgia

Between Chattanooga and my hometown, I drive a long stretch of Highway 27 through the prosaic farmlands of southwest Georgia. In the early 1800s, plantation owners and other farmers clearcut the native forests of Stewart County to grow cotton mostly, also peanuts. Being the big-brained geniuses they were, they failed to consider rain runoff, which cut the soft soil like a hot knife in butter. By the 1850s, a vast network of ditches 3-5 feet deep ran throughout the county. By the end of the nineteenth century, those ditches became gullies, and the gullies became canyons that now descend as deep as 150 feet into the earth.

They call it Providence Canyon. It's a state park now; considered one of Georgia's "seven wonders" with hiking trails, scenic overlooks, and backcountry campsites. All of this, even though there is nothing naturally wonderful about the place. Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon" is the product of human activity: the forced removal of the Muscogee by European settlers, the destruction of native forests, and the short-sighted implementation of unsustainable farming practices. 

It took God, the Everlasting Song of the Universe, eons to carve the many canyons of the world. It took careless Georgians less than a century.

Without getting too deep in the theological weeds, certain reformed protestant traditions understand providence to mean that God governs the course of nature and history down to its minute details. I think this view of things is bogus but it is held by a great many people, both in its hardline Calvinist and slightly softer Augustinian formulations. 

According to this view, God orchestrated (Calvin) or oversaw (Augustine) the Creek Wars of 1812 and 1836, the clear-cutting of native pine forests, and the implementation of unsustainable farming practices fueled by the horrors and human misery of the Atlantic slave trade. And finally, God pushed the rainwaters through the fields in such a way that a canyon worthy of a spaghetti western formed in the coastal plain region of southwest Georgia.

If this view of things is correct, then it would also be true that God breached the human-made earthen work dam on Pennsylvania's south fork of the Little Conemaugh River that killed 2,200 people in 1889. The private owners of the dam even argued in court that the dam's failure was the product of divine providence rather than human negligence, despite overwhelming evidence of the latter. They won. Think about that. Their legal defense was "God did it" and they paid zero dollars in legal compensation for the losses. If folks want to fill up the Sunday morning pews to worship a god like that, I cannot stop them; but I will not. 

It seems much more likely, moral, and coherent that God's initial aim for the world is one of beauty and flourishing for both the human and non-human world. Humans inhabit a space of open possibilities and may accept this aim or reject it. Because God is love and love, by nature is noncontrolling, then God needs humans to actively participate in working towards that aim or expectation of wholeness, order, and flourishing -- what the Hebrew writers called shalom.

Pope Francis wrote in the 2015 encyclical Lautado Si that "The present world system is certainly unsustainable from a number of points of view, for we have stopped thinking about the goals of human activity." He continues, "If we scan the regions of our planet, we immediately see that humanity has disappointed God’s expectations." We often reject the "initial aims" or "goals of human activities" for short-term gain, private interests, and profit margins.  

Hence Providence Canyon, hence the Johnstown Flood, hence a lot of things. 

The walls of Providence Canyon are diminutive compared to the canyons of the Four Corners region. The destruction is also small compared to the man-made disaster of the Johnstown Flood. But Providence Canyon does bear witness to the awful potential of human ignorance and avarice. That's not to say you shouldn't visit it. It is truly something to behold. So go. Hike. Picnic. And when you do, consider the irony of its name because Ignorance and Avarice Canyon State Park doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well.

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The Common Grace of Tailgate Beer

(Independence Pass, CO)

Benjamin Franklin was a syphilis-ridden inveterate skirt-chaser who thought the turkey should be the national symbol but he was right when he said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Wait. Google has informed me that Benjamin Franklin never said this. This, despite its numerous sources on sidewalk kiosks outside bars and breweries. We can all go back to thinking Mr. Franklin was just a chubby ol' creeper with a penchant for electricity and bad ideas (looking at you, Articles of Confederation [though, admittedly, the Constitution pretty much sucks too]). 

Whoever did say it was on to something. Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. 

The biblical book of Ecclesiastes is the author's written wrestling with the theological dilemma of existence and the perceived absence of God. The book has been referred to as the world's first piece of existential philosophy. The author lives in a world with a volatile economy, judicial problems, and new and disparate socioeconomic classes (no, not America; post-exile Persia) and confesses an existence that is contradictory and absurd, yet tries to make sense of it all. 

There is a common theme throughout Ecclesiastes that gives me great joy and hope: enjoyment.  

"There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their work. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (2:24-25)

"I know that there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their work." (3.12-13)

 

"This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the work with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us." (5.18)

"So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them through the days of life God gives them." (8:15)

"Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long approved of what you do... Enjoy your life with the one you love and whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might." (9.7-10)

 

"Have you had a PBR with lime? It's the reason I still go to church." (my friend, Payton)

That last one isn't from Ecclesiastes but it works. The gulf between God and humans is bridged in these moments of humans receiving and enjoying the good gifts of creaturely life: food, drink, friends, and even meaningful work. The German theologian and Nazi resistance leader, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the message of Ecclesiastes: "We ought to find and love God in what he actually gives us; if it pleases him to allow us to enjoy some overwhelming earthly happiness, we must not try to be more pious than God himself." I grew up in a teetotaling culture that tried really hard to be more pious than God's own self. 

Oh, if the elders at Timberlane Church of Christ could have seen the pile of empty cans that accumulated throughout our stay in El Rito, New Mexico. Josh and I spent every day clipping bolts on beautiful, steep conglomerate walls in the dry desert heat and finished every night by a campfire with Doc Watson on the BlueTooth and a PBR in our hand. I spent the previous year in a "dark night of the soul" of sorts. But that week in New Mexico I saw the Deep Mind of the Cosmos in the panoply of stars. I heard the Everlasting Song of the Universe in the howls of coyotes. And I felt the Spirit of Creative Transformation in the conversations between two brothers, alone in the desert. 

Every can of cheap beer enjoyed on the tailgate of a truck or around a campfire with friends is a foretaste of the life of the world to come. At least that's the preferred vision for the future of Saint Brigid of Kildare. Brigid was an abbess in fifth-century Ireland known for her Christian virtue and “as a woman who likes to feast with plenty of ale and divine company.” She is purported to have prayed, “I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings with Heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity.” This is my entire eschatology.

Happy summer, megasplitter friends. I hope it's full of swimming holes, gravel rides, and tailgate beers. May the common yet good gifts of creaturely life mediate the presence of the Divine Mystery, whatever your religious persuasion. 

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The Buddha and the Pain Cave

Running hurts. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably says wheatgrass juice tastes good too. (It does not.) Some want to pretend that running is always social media-worthy, but running will almost always bring you to a point where you look like death and everything sucks. That, to me, is part of what makes it so beautiful. 

My favorite running photo is of the finish line of a hundred-mile trail race. A middle-aged man weeps as he struggles to make it across the finish line before the cut-off time. He's fighting, with everything he has, for dead last place. And everyone around him is going berserker to cheer him on. It's heartbreaking and beautiful and I wish I could find the link to it. I like running because it pushes the body and brain beyond the threshold of discomfort. It requires the runner to dwell in the pain cave.

The "pain cave" is a term used by endurance athletes to describe the deep, dark place where physical, mental, and emotional fatigue coalesce. It sounds bleak and yet you'll find about 3,830,000 google results for "embracing the pain cave." Many feature ultra-runner Courtney Dauwalter, who is largely responsible for popularizing the term. If you don't know who Courtney Dauwalter is, her ultra-running rap sheet is impressive. My favorite tidbit is her performance at the 2017 Moab 240 (that's 240 miles). Dauwalter finished in first place, kind of a big deal. She also finished 10 hours ahead of second place, which is a remarkably huge deal. Close your computer and ponder the world's greatest athlete you've never heard about. Courtney Dauwalter knows a thing or two about pain and how to deal with it.

Pain is the language our body uses to tell our brain that it does not like what is happening. I love this line from Haruki Murakami's, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." It's a Buddhist saying. The implication is that the body feels pain but the brain chooses what to do with it. You could give up. You could quit. Or you could delve deeper into the pain cave. Descend into the recesses of your mind and find the inner mental strength to carry on.

Watch any Courtney Dauwalter interview on youtube and she's grinning ear to ear as she talks about the pain cave. It could be her bubbly personality. Or it could be a peculiar love for this dark and agonizing mental space. For Dauwalter, the cave is the place to grow as a runner and a human being. 

Some runners transcend the pain altogether and achieve a "runner's high." I am not one of them. When I enter the pain cave, I bring an imaginary tent and sleeping bag because I'm going to be hurting for a while. I don't always tap into my inner-Dauwalter. Sometimes I have a pity party and cut my run short. I am not a world-class endurance athlete. I hesitate to call myself an athlete at all. But I do know that if I dig deep enough, enough times, my brain actually can dominate the body. And I've got pretty good at settling into the pain and suffering my way through things. Even when I hate it, I love it. And I almost always want to do it again.

I teach comparative world religions to eleventh graders in high school. I love my job. My favorite unit to teach, but the hardest for my students to grasp, is Buddhism. The First Noble Truth uttered by the Buddha is that life is suffering (dukkha). It is always interesting how my students respond to this assertion of the world. For many, it seems bleak or pessimistic. Still, others nod their heads in affirmation. Divorce, sickness, loneliness, death, poverty, bullying. Many students are acutely aware of the reality of pain. 

Last fall, in the middle of my Buddhism unit, our school experienced an awful object lesson in the truth of suffering. "If we are afraid to touch our suffering," Thich Nhat Hanh explains, "we will not be able to realize the path of peace, joy, and liberation. Don’t run away," he continues, "Touch your suffering.” This is the meaning of the First Noble Truth. And so that's what we did.

We didn't run away. 

We touched our suffering. 

We entered the pain cave. Sat with it. Kept company with the pain and suffering. Only then, the Buddha says, one can be on the path of release. But that's hard work. We'd much rather stuff it down, compartmentalize it, or run away. We put smiles on our faces and say we're good when everything seems like it's falling apart. This emotional bypassing is a pathological condition among Western folks, especially Western Christians. I mean, consider the great American folk song but the God-awful theology of the hymn, "I'll Fly Away:" 

Some glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away!  Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away! Yeah, when I die, Hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away!

This is either the ramblings of a psychopath with a death wish or a neo-platonic perversion of the gospel. Either way it's dirty brown water trash. Instead, the Buddha instructs us not to escape from life "but to help us relate to ourselves and to the world as thoroughly as possible" (Hanh). Yearning for a better life after death is passive. The Buddha encourages us to be active. Lean into the suffering and work towards its cessation here and now (Cūḷamālukya Sutta). "To be truly happy," insists Arya Namdol, "one must be intimately connected to and bear witness to suffering" (Namdol). That's a valuable lesson, even for non-Buddhists and, especially, for Western Christians.

Life, like running, involves tremendous suffering. But that is not the whole of it. The Buddha indeed taught the truth of suffering, but he also taught the truth of "dwelling happily in things as they are" (Samyutta Nikaya). And that, to me, is the meaning of the saying, "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." And that, to me, is the work of the pain cave.

So the next time you are edging toward the dark gaping mouth of the pain cave, physical or existential, set out for yourself a metaphorical meditation cushion. Maybe one day you'll reach enlightenment or whatever.

Further Readings (and Listenings):
Courtney Dauwalter on Embracing the Pain Cave (ep. 234 of Running On Om podcast) 
Courtney Dauwalter: How to Embrace Pain in Our Lives (Rich Roll podcast) 
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor 

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Not My Words: And God Said, Let There Be Marshes

Palmetto Island, Florida

I grew up in Florida surrounded by swamps, marshes, and estuaries. However much time I spend in the mountains, these grey areas between land and sea are home to me. Maybe it is because of this that I was so struck by Austen Hartke's reflection on the biblical creation poem in Genesis. The following words are his, discovered in a recent book club read. I leave them here, without comment, for you to ponder in your heart.  

"For a kid who liked order and organization, the story of creation in Genesis 1 was just about perfect. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. This kind of structure was something that I appreciated up until my teen years, when I began to get a better sense of the way life sometimes fell outside black-and-white boundaries. Biologically, I learned that the world isn't separated distinctly into land or sea; there are also marshes, estuaries, and coral reefs...These binaries are not meant to speak to all of reality -- they invite us into thinking about everything between and beyond... 

Instead of asking the text to define and label all that is, we can ask God to speak into the space between the words, between the biblical times and our time, and between categories we see as opposite." -- Austen Hartke, Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians (2018)

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This is How God Wants You to Poop (Outside)

I updated THIS chart from LNT to be theologically accurate.

Let’s talk about poop. Pooping is this totally normal thing that we do. I’m no scientist but my understanding is that after we eat food, it turns to moosh in our bodies as the healthy bits (or unhealthy bits) go into our bones and muscles and stuff. The leftover moosh builds up until we can’t take it anymore and we push it out our buttholes. We all do it. You might be doing it right now. 

Working as a backpacking guide in Colorado, I literally got paid to talk about poop. Taking a group of thirteen teenagers on a multi-day trip in the woods means they’re going to poop. It was my job to teach them how to do it responsibly. The normal range for daily pooping is from three times a day to once every three days. So let’s say the average person poops once a day. Thirteen teenagers plus four adults backpacking for five nights equals 85 poops, give or take. 

*insert Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park clip*

Nobody likes to talk about poop or pooping because of another science thingy: the psychological impulse of disgust. Once the thing — the poop — has been removed from our bodies it is other. It’s set apart and its set a part-ness makes it foul and icky. Unclean. This makes sense. Human communities are living things that must necessarily make boundaries between clean and unclean. This is good and practical. For example, you shouldn’t eat egg salad made on the back of a toilet in a truck stop bathroom. The impulse of separating clean and unclean is an ancient one. 

(SIDEBAR: This desire for purity is a good one. The danger comes when we start making distinctions between “clean” and “unclean” people. Please don’t do this. In the Gospels, we repeatedly see Jesus blurring the boundaries between clean and unclean through his table fellowship with tax collectors and prostitutes. Please do that.)

One of my favorite weird biblical texts is an obscure commandment made in Deuteronomy 23:12-14. Here, God sets the regulations for the proper method for disposing of the Israelites’ poop during a military campaign. 

"You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you."

These banal and mundane requirements of hygiene cloaked in theological language make practical good sense when large numbers of men are living close together in hastily-built and ill-protected conditions. In fact, modern outdoorsy-types familiar with proper Leave No Trace principles will recognize the most widely accepted LNT practice of waste disposal: the cat hole method (LNT Principle 3). For those taking notes, here’s a side-by-side comparison: 

Two out of three ain't bad. 

Although hygiene is the most obvious objective of proper poop disposal, Gerhard von Rad, Walter Brueggemann, and J.G. McConville all assert that the real underpinning behind the ancient Near Eastern Leave No Trace method is holiness. Holiness is, after all, the proper habitat of God. According to these scholars, the rules outlined in Deuteronomy 23.12-14 are determined by the cultic and ritual assumptions of primitive peoples. The cultic ritual is a precondition for Israel’s military success. 

But I'd argue that the rationale is not entirely cultic, nor is it totally about public health. It's somewhere in between. Actually, the whole reason is rather pedestrian. Let’s take a closer look at v. 14. It reads, “Because the LORD your God travels along with your camp…” Or in Hebrew: מִתְהַלֵּךְ בְקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶךָ or “God paces/walks with your camp.” See? Pedestrian. Israel must go outside the camp, dig a hole, and bury it is because God doesn’t want to step in their poop. 

What’s truly astonishing to me is that throughout the long editorial process of compiling what would become the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites felt compelled to include this in their holy scriptures. The proper disposal of one's poop is enshrined forever in the 613 mitzvot. Perhaps you find it a bit nutty to consider what this ancient text and these pre-scientific people did or thought. Perhaps you fancy yourself a modern man, you're thinking, "I don't derive my ethics from ancient narratives, I get my morality from corporations like Amazon and Netflix." Yes, you're very sophisticated. 

Dismissing ancient wisdom just because you have an iPhone is insane. Instead, maybe do the work of finding principles within the Law and making application in a different setting and context? It adds flexibility to a law and allows it to find meaning when the particular circumstances of a law have changed. You can see how this can be helpful not just for pooping outside but also, for example: debt and loaning on interest, which is the paradigmatic evil in the Old Testament. 

"Literalism is the lowest form of meaning."

Or you can roll your eyes all you want at these ancient “primitives.” But I bet if we had more folks think about what they did with their poop as thoroughly as the ancient Israelites, you wouldn’t wander off into the woods at Foster Falls and find a big ol’ pile of human excrement twenty-feet away from a popular sport climb. Yes, we're very sophisticated these days.  

So next time you're out in the woods and you have to take a dump, ask yourself what would ancient Israel do? God doesn’t want to step in poo and neither should you. So please, for God’s sake, leave no trace.

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Zen and the Art of Hike-a-Bike

photo by Brooks

Unpopular opinion: I love hike-a-bike. I really do. Hike-a-bike is the act of pushing, pulling, or carrying your bike, usually because the terrain is too steep or too loose to pedal. In the bicycling community, this would be like saying, “I enjoy paying taxes” or “I love washing the dishes.” A friend once threatened to extend the ride by 13 miles just to avoid a short hike-a-bike up a steep horse trail. Paying taxes, washing the dishes, or pushing your bike up a hill can be difficult and tiresome but also incredibly mundane - Sisyphean even. 

Thich Nhat Hanh claimed you can meditate while washing the dishes. Think about that. The second most-famous living Buddhist (second only to the Dali Lama), a world-renowned and revered Zen master says you can do this transcendent-touching, nirvana-actuating activity while doing something as banal as washing your dishes. That’s amazing. And, I think, if you can meditate while doing the dishes, you can meditate while pushing your bike up an enormous hill. If you don’t ride a bike very much, copy and paste this into your word processor and word search and replace “hike-a-bike” with whatever “hard thing” it is that you do. The same can probably be said about trail running, climbing off-widths, or sinking a putt for birdie. 

A Buddhist once described meditation to me as the middle of a three-circle Venn diagram, where the three circles are concentration, awareness, and mindfulness. Concentration is the ability to focus tightly on an anchor or object of meditation. Richard Rohr, a Catholic contemplative, describes this exercise as “a long, loving look at the Real.” While a ridgeline, the end of a switchback, or the backside of your friend who’s way ahead of you is not the Ultimate Reality, I find the ability to focus tightly on an anchor like this good practice for the real deal — the lotus position under a bodhi tree or washing the dishes kind of real deal.

Awareness and mindfulness are more difficult to differentiate. Both help us be present. Anyone can white-knuckle grin and bear it to the top of a hill. Or clasp their eyes shut  until finally the singing bowl bell gongs. I have. These experiences sucked. Meditation is more than the furrowed brow of concentration. It also requires the space to have a sense of all that is happening around you. In other words, having a sense of our physical sensations and mental contingencies while keeping an object of meditation. 

The textural sound of pea gravel beneath my shoes and tires. The pleasant ambiance of the forest: locusts, birds, and streams. The feeling of sweat in my mustache, hunger in my belly, and fatigue in my legs. Seeing the path of least resistance ahead of me. Noticing the rutted dirt, the blocks of rocks, or even the owl in the tree. Noticing it all for what they are while ever moving toward the anchor. That's meditation. 

If this sounds all too much for you, try this. The next time you’re pushing your bike up some heinous climb, take some deep breaths. Begin to notice 5 things you see; 4 things you hear; 3 things you feel; 2 things you smell; and 1 thing you taste. I promise you won’t regret it. You may not achieve nirvana but you’ll be closer to getting back on your bike and with a more “present-presence” than you would have otherwise. I think a 20% grade climb up loose gravel in a forest is a worthy monastery or meditation cushion. There are no to-do lists, emails, or notifications. Really, the only thing that exists is the present moment. So just be there. Or rather, just be. 

Meditation or looking deeply, Thich Nhat Hanh says, is to see the true nature of things. Which, according to Buddhism, is to see and understand things as impermanent. You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate this. The hill I am pushing my bike up; the feelings of joy and grief I experience; the thoughts of compassion and greed that come and go inside my head; indeed, my very life is not forever. How could they? The future doesn’t exist (this is a hill I am willing to die on). 

Don’t believe me? Listen to Marc E., from Collection 8, Episode 3 of The Great British Baking Show. Marc finished his showstopper dharma wheel cake while the other bakers worked frantically to finish their final touches. Sitting on his stool, like a zen master with a Cornish accent, he counseled, 

“I take every opportunity I can just to take a mindful breath. Just kind of brings me back to the present moment. ‘Cause when you think about it, when we’re worrying, we’re worrying about things that happened in our past. Or [we’re] worrying about the future. And ultimately, we’ve got no control over that, have we?… Of course, it’s easier said than done.”

Easier said than done. Like pushing a bike up a hill. Thanks, Marc. 

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On Hiking, Bruce Springsteen, and the Eschaton

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.

 

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...

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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