Faith My Eyes

In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. -Isaiah 30:15

Jesus Christ may be to us either crucified and buried or risen and ascendant, depending on the reach of our faith. This is what it means to believe. It is more than mere mental assent to a set of extraordinary doctrines; it is identifying with and actualizing the life of Christ in my mortal flesh. Immediately I take myself in hand and choose to praise, the Word becomes alive again.

"Faith is not pathetic sentiment." Too often our "praise" is pensive and spineless, when it ought to be joyfully and earnestly real. We are more than conquerors, and as such we ought to hold our heads high. "We Christians must not sit among unbelievers like melancholy owls." And this is the hard thing: in order to praise God in the midst of trial, one must admit that it is not that hard after all. Personal pride always insists on the hardness of things.

How often has our courage failed us when the storm is raging and the sea is high. "Oh ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" There's Jesus, rubbing his eyes and grinning. "You think this boat is gonna sink, man? Chill out and row! I'm God, ok? Geez."

***

Keep on comin' - these lines on the road
Keep me responsible, be it a light or heavy load
Keep me guessin' with these blessings in disguise
I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes

-Caedmon's Call, 40 Acres, "Faith My Eyes"

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Stimulus or Sidestep?

I imagine many of you have received or are expecting your "Economic Stimulus Payment" - a tidy gift of several hundred or several thousand dollars from our wonderfully benevolent government. This seems like a nice gesture, but before we get too excited about Uncle Sam's newfound generosity, lets take a moment and ask where this money comes from.

The government obtains money in one of two ways: taxation and printing. While many people who will raise a hue and cry over excessive taxation, they tend to regard the printing of money as essentially harmless, and few understand that printing is actually another form of taxation, and a particularly insidious one at that. Without a fixed basis of value, it is easy for the purchasing power of currency to erode quickly as the amount of currency is increased.

Austrian economists tend to view fiat increases in the money supply as particularly pernicious in their real effects. This view typically leads to the support for a commodity standard of a very strict variety where all notes are convertible on demand to some commodity... -Wikipedia

If you have studied economics, you will recognize the phenomenon described above as inflation. For the rest of us, what is inflation, and how does it work? Well, imagine you live in a small town where the total currency in circulation consists of 100 blue marbles. The mayor is in charge of minting more marbles incrementally, in order to keep the value of the currency stable as the town grows. However, it's very tempting for the mayor to cast more than necessary, especially when he can place them directly in the township treasury and spend them himself. Before you know it, it starts taking more and more blue marbles to make purchases: the greed of the government has crippled the buying power of the public. You can think of inflation as an infection of the economy: it makes things cost more because it makes your money worth less. If inflation is allowed to spiral out of control, it will eventually collapse the economy.

While I can hardly complain about receiving a $478 check, I would prefer the government stop bothering with pacifiers that only exacerbate the problem and concentrate instead on restoring the strength of the dollar. The government can cut taxes left and right and give away all the money it wants to, but until they succeed in curtailing federal spending and stop printing money by the truckload, the economy will continue to suffer and all we'll be left with is a lot of money that isn't worth anything.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to receiving my stimulus payment around the end of the month, and then sending it right back in the form of 2nd-quarter estimated taxes. It sure is an absurd little game we play with Uncle Sam.

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Pundit Profile: Thomas Merton

"Those who love solitude have a special claim on Providence and must rely on God's love for them even more blindly than anyone else."

"There is a time to listen, in the active life as everywhere else, and the better part of action is waiting, not knowing what is next, and not having a glib answer."

"At moments one gets a flash of Zen in the midst of the Church! There should, in reality, be much more. But we frustrate it by reasoning too much about everything."

Thomas Merton was a 20th-century Catholic who wrote profusely about social justice, Christian spirituality, and particularly the contemplative life. He died in 1968, having lived the last 26 years of his life as a Trappist Monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.

Whatever your opinion may be of Merton's Catholicism, it must be admitted that his work constitutes a profound analysis of the human condition. His ecumenical humility leaves him open to the charge of universalism, but at the same time reminds the attentive soul of the danger in preferring Christianity over Truth. Whatever Christianity is, it's certainly much more than loyalty to dogma.

I am presently reading Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, a loosely organized collection of his thoughts during the early 1960's. The book is arranged in the form of a journal, without any topical structure. Comments on nature, solitude, theology, spiritual literature, and living in a fallen world tumble over one another with all the exuberant ecstasy and inexorable serenity of a waterfall, inspiring and challenging us to step into the current and be washed away - to allow God to unscramble the mess we've made of life. Purity involves purging, and purging involves pain. The Gospel is the greatest dare-double-dare ever.

Writers such as Merton, Mariani, Berry, and Abbey - men who differ enormously in terms of their spiritual outlook - seem to share a common romantic impulse to observe and describe nature fresh, raw, unadorned, uninterpreted; purely for the sake of herself. To put it another way, they understand the joy and beauty in freeing experience from the shackles of explanation. If we are constantly fretting about having something meaningful to say, we will end up squeezing blood from stones and talking nonsense and drivel. Sometimes it is enough to just watch the clouds and absorb the cleansing and concrete abstractness of reality. If we can break the habit of trying to make a metaphor out of every molehill, we may begin to discover meaning in unlikely places.

Merton's work sparkles with this simple beauty, and is packed with the irresistible candor of a human being. Personality is inimitable, and therefore all the more invigorating when you encounter it in its more developed state, as in the case of a man who has voluntarily chosen to lose his life and ends up finding it.

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Narnia meets Hollywood

Now wait just a minute: what are movie reviews doing on Sojourner's Song? I know I'm supposed to keep my nose in a book (and I do have my nose in a book - several actually), but right now I'm broadening my cultural literacy, ok? Harry Potter is probably next, so watch out.


The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
This book is the heart and backbone of the Narnia Chronicles, and it's important that the central themes of sacrifice and redemption are accurately portrayed. In the main, they are, and consequently the movie captures something of the timeless beauty of the book.

The movie takes a long time getting to Narnia - longer than the book. This is somewhat disappointing, because the pre-Narnia time is wholly devoted to establishing the personalities of the Pevensie children, while the time in Narnia has more action, more humor, and more meaning. But, seeing the latter adventure isn't possible without the former groundwork, I suppose the extra time at the Macready mansion is justified.

The challenges and stress involved in being in a new world do not at first draw out the nobler emotions of the children. However, as they rally together for the cause of life and freedom, and especially when they encounter Aslan, they begin to overcome their selfishness and lay down their pride. The transforming work of Christ is made very real as the children embrace after the great battle as brothers, sisters, and comrades.

I was gratified to hear several favorite lines from the book, among them Mr. Beaver's rustic pride in his dam-building prowess and Aslan's businesslike admonition to Peter to clean his sword after slaying the wolf. There's plenty of Narnian goodness to go around; sometimes it's tucked in the corners, but it's there.

Some may have quibbles with the character of Aslan - I personally think it is rather well done, which is no small accomplishment. As everyone knows, he's not a tame lion, and "whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind." (CofN, 185) Aslan is calm, assured, in control. He is gentle, fierce, noble, the embodiment of true authority (Mt 7:29). There is an understanding sadness about his eyes that speaks of intimate familiarity with suffering and pain (Is 53:3), and yet in those same eyes dances a light that speaks of the ultimate victory of love.

The Nazarene could hunger
And the Nazarene could cry
And He could laugh with all the fullness of his heart
And those who hardly knew Him
And those who knew Him well
Could feel the contradiction from the start
-Michael Card, "The Nazarene"

The symbolism in the story is plain enough, and I will not expound on it here, aside from two observations:

1. It was touching to see Susan and Lucy accompany Aslan on his midnight walk to the Stone Table - his Via Dolorosa (Lk 23:27). After he bids them to leave him, they sneak along behind, watch his execution through tears (Jn 19:25), and come to mourn over his lifeless body as the morning is breaking. They are also the first to witness his resurrection (Mk 16:2, Lk 24:1, Jn 20:1). I think the prominence of the women in the Biblical account of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection constitutes a quiet but tremendous tribute to that gender, and both Lewis and the Disney screenwriters captured the essence of that compliment beautifully.
2. After defeating death, Aslan goes straight to the Witch's castle (Eph 4:8-10, 1 Pet 3:19), where he breathes on the victims she has turned to stone (Jn 20:22) and restores them to life. Needless to say, this is a powerful spiritual picture.
   

1300 years later...


Prince Caspian
Like many others, I think Prince Caspian the weakest book of the Chronicles. On the same token, lots of action and a thin plot make the story an excellent candidate for the big screen.

Cinematically speaking (is that a word?), the movie makes several improvements over the book. The extended castle siege that dominates the first half of the film is not to be found in the book at all, but it contains a profound lesson about the danger in succumbing to pride and impatience instead of relying on the direction of God and the counsel of others. Peter's selfish and brash decision to storm the Telmarine castle proves to be ill-advised, and a large number of innocent Narnian lives are lost as a result. As Peter hesitates outside the closed gate, knowing full well that he is leaving his soldiers inside to be slaughtered, you can see the despair and terror in his eyes. It drives home the destructive nature of pride rather strongly.

After the tragic defeat at the castle, the Narnians regroup. In a brief but pivotal scene, Peter voices some of his frustration to Lucy: "Where is Aslan? Why doesn't he prove himself?" Lucy, in her sweet, uncompromising way, answers: "Maybe he wants us to prove ourselves to him." Chills down my spine, exhale slowly - quite possibly the best moment in the movie.

The movie features several colorful characters, most notably Trumpkin the dwarf and Reepicheep the mouse. The four Pevensie children have matured considerably since the first film, and though they still have their occasional squabbles, they work together better and show more courage and self-control - Susan and Edmund in particular. Prince Caspian himself seems mediocre, and his character is never really anchored satisfactorily. In my view, the half-hearted romance between Prince Caspian and Susan is distracting and unnecessary. But some people evidently want to see that, so I suppose the rest of us will just have to put up with it.

In short, both movies are enjoyable and, if your paying attention, edifying as well. If you look closely, you will see pieces of your own story, and be inspired to fight the good fight like a man - or like a mouse, as the case may be.

Images courtesy of moviesmedia.ign.com and collider.com

Seeking The Kingdom

Greg Boyd posted this profound picture on his blog several months ago. I think this picture beats a thousand words by a mile, but I'll add some meager commentary anyway.

Christianity is not about rules and morals and "being a good person." It's not about democracy, or free markets, or being the world's conscience. It's not even about being right.

The essence of the Kingdom has never changed: love God and love your neighbor. That's it. Pass along the bread and watch it multiply. But what about Social Security? What about the immigration problem? What about Iraq? Good grief - sometimes we spend so much time fixing our neighbor that we have no time left to love him.

Jesus has already set the example, and He didn't set it by running for President. He set it by washing the feet of sinful men and dying on a Roman cross like a common criminal. Everywhere He went, love and healing followed like flowers after spring rain. Christianity doesn't need a constitution - it already has one.

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Jesus on the Warpath

I was debating an ACLU attorney at Christmas on an NPR station. I pulled out a Xerox copy of The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States and said to her: "Until you answer this book, the ACLU can't make a case against America's Christian founding." She was shocked when she saw it. She asked where I had gotten it. The only thing that gave her relief was the fact that the book was not in print. BUT NOW IT IS!

Be afraid ACLU. Be very afraid. Benjamin F. Morris packs The Christian Life and Character with page after page of original source material making the case that America was founded as a Christian nation. The evidence is unanswerable and irrefutable. This 1000-page book will astound you and send enemies of Christianity into shock.

[Insert Spartan scream here]

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Pray for Myanmar

While in Georgia I had the opportunity to meet Ram Khaw Lian, a brother from Myanmar (formerly Burma) who was visiting the church in Atlanta. It was his first visit to the States, and as he shared about what God is doing in his home country, you could see the fire of purpose burning in his eyes. The Church needs more men like this, going about their work with imperturbable simplicity, hearty zeal, and raw faith.

According to this brother, the political situation in Myanmar is just as oppressive as North Korea. However, because Myanmar does not pose a nuclear threat, the country does not receive nearly as much international attention. Too often, we think about the world in terms of politics instead of people. We think of places as abstract points on a map, and people as abstract statistics.

For shame.

On May 2nd, cyclone Nargis smashed into southern Myanmar, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Burmese. You can get the full story on Wikipedia or from the American Red Cross. Obviously, the entire country is very much in need of our prayer and support. Here's the report from Voice of the Martyrs:

Thousands of people have died as a result of the recent cyclone in Burma. According to media reports, the military government has been resisting assistance from countries around the world. On May 12, the United States government was finally able to deliver its first relief supplies to Burma, as the United Nations urged the reclusive nation to open its doors to foreign experts who can help up to 2 million cyclone victims facing disease and starvation.

Christians in Burma are working to assist survivors of the cyclone. A believer told The Voice of the Martyrs, "I believe that as we bring relief assets to the orphanages and churches with whom we are partners, we will not only be helping them, but also providing them with the necessary resources to impact their immediate communities with the tangible love of Jesus. In the end, I believe that the church will shine in this dark hour and that the Kingdom of God will be advanced in this nation."

In Burma Christian persecution exists in every province. Believers risk arrest, detention, corrupt court proceedings, jail, fines, confiscations, threats, destruction of property, and occasional martyrdom. Persecution comes predominately from the military junta, and also from the majority Theravada Buddhists. Family persecution is also a reality, as it is in many countries. Tribal groups who are strong in their various ethnic spirit beliefs persecute converts to Christ, as well. The Karen group is probably the most severely persecuted group in Myanmar today, and they are in hiding along the Thai-Burma border.

To learn more about Ram and the work in Myanmar, visit their Church website. Let us pray that the light of the Gospel will shine forth in the midst of this tragedy, and may we learn to identify - spiritually and actually - with the trials and sufferings of these our brothers and sisters.

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The Ball And The Cross

Book reviews have been rather haphazard around here lately, and this one is no exception. It seems the decision to write a review depends more on the time I have, and less on the actual significance of the book. It is something of an injustice that I am going to review The Ball And The Cross before I properly review what is - in my view - the superior work: Manalive. I've also listened to several noteworthy titles in audiobook form, and I'm currently reading Charles Dickens. Dickens is something of an anomaly in my literary diet in that I do not find his work particularly quotable or even intellectually provocative: it's just page after page of strong English prose - delightful, to be sure, but rather the opposite of deep. But I severely digress.

The Ball And The Cross, by (who else?) G. K. Chesterton, revolves around a lengthy duel between an Atheist and a Catholic. I say lengthy because the two combatants are continually prevented from completing their contest by some fantastic interruption - usually the police, but sometimes a motor-car accident or a rising tide. As an exasperated MacIan says in Chapter 9, "By the run of our luck we have never had time to be either friends or enemies. Something always jumped out of the bushes."

In Chesterton's typically anarchic style, they wind up being chased all over England by the law, while their escapades are cheered by the public and discussed enthusiastically in the newspapers. Eventually, the two antagonists have been through so much together that they become - somewhat against their will - a rather strange and extraordinary pair of friends, and begin to discover what they have in common and accept the missing pieces of their respective worldviews.

The ball and the cross are a bit of symbolism borrowed from the fixture adorning the top of St. Paul's Cathedral: the ball stands for the physical world, the cross for the scandalous paradox of righteousness and redemption. They are, in Chesterton's view, alike necessary in maintaining a stable and comprehensive worldview.

Near the beginning of the book, Chesterton colorfully describes the progression and inevitable self-destruction of the strictly scientific, anti-religious view of the world - the ball-without-the-cross:

"You begin by breaking up the Cross; but you end by breaking up the habitable world. We leave you saying that nobody ought to join the Church against his will. When we meet you again you are saying that no one has any will to join it with. We leave you saying that there is no such place as Eden. We find you saying that there is no such place as Ireland. You start by hating the irrational and you come to hate everything, for everything is irrational."*

If you reject the inherent reason of the unreasonable and think long enough and hard enough about an alternative, it is not particularly difficult to think yourself into the freedom of nothingness. It is as Chesterton says above in so many words: if you insist on abolishing the unexplainable, you will end up abolishing the universe, which has certain harmful consequences.

However, even as the world is vague and meaningless apart from the cross, so the cross is abstract and purposeless aside from the world. Clearly, while the cross originates outside and lasts beyond the world, the fact remains that the world is the only reason it exists at all. That's not a new idea - that's just John 3:16.

"I had a dream," said Turnbull, thickly and obscurely, "in which I saw the cross struck crooked and the ball secure--"
"I had a dream," said MacIan, "in which I saw the cross erect and the ball invisible. They were both dreams from hell. There must be some round earth to plant the cross upon. But here is the awful difference - that the round world will not consent even to continue round. The astronomers are always telling us that it is shaped like an orange, or like an egg, or like a German sausage. They beat the old world around like a bladder and thump it into a thousand shapeless shapes. Turnbull, we cannot trust the ball to be always a ball; we cannot trust reason to be reasonable. In the end the great terrestrial globe will go quite lop-sided, and only the cross will stand upright."**

The world, for the moment, anchors the cross. But the cross, in what it stands for, outlasts the world that it stands on. The cross is in the world, it is not of the world. This is a riddle and a mystery, and it will likely remain so until the stars fall. In spite of man's frantic search for the answer, he has remained, by and large, unsuccessful, with little to show for his weary quest but grim battlefields sanctioned with sophistry and drenched with blood. But there is hope, and Chesterton offers, in his farcical, fatherly way, the best answer we are likely to hear this side of heaven: not war, but wonder.

*G. K. Chesterton, The Ball And The Cross, (The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. VII (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 44)
**Ibid., 247-248

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Blessing and Devotion

A story is told of Jesus and His disciples walking one day along a stony road. Jesus asked each of them to choose a stone to carry for Him. John, it is said, chose a large one while Peter chose the smallest. Jesus led them then to the top of a mountain and commanded that the stones be made bread. Each disciple, by this time tired and hungry, was allowed to eat the bread he held in his hand, but of course Peter's was not sufficient to satisfy his hunger. John gave him some of his.
Some time later Jesus again asked the disciples to pick up a stone to carry. This time Peter chose the largest of all. Taking them to a river, Jesus told them to cast the stones into the water. They did so, but looked at one another in bewilderment.
"For whom," asked Jesus, "did you carry the stone?"

-Elisabeth Elliot, These Strange Ashes, (Harper & Row: 1975), 132

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Alone in Big Bend

It's Saturday morning, and I'm up before dawn to get on the road to Big Bend. As I drive out of the campground, the sun is just breaking over the horizon. The sunrise is a singular ceremony in that it may be performed a million times but is never the same and never gets old.

On the way to the park I am pulled over on two separate occasions by Texas Troopers who don't exactly appreciate my California driving habits. Apparently, you don't add anything to the speed limit in Texas. Thankfully, both officers only gave me warnings, upon receiving which I gulped down my pride and impatience and slowed down.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they'll confirm that I've talked about visiting Big Bend for years. It is remote, wild, and lonely: a veritable backpacker's paradise. This was to be the hardest, hottest hike, and serve as the closing chapter and the grand finale of the whole venture.

Last night, Paradise Springs Campground (in Guadalupe) being full, I wound up sharing my campsite with an Indian doctor from Houston who came in late and was headed into the backcountry the next day. We enjoyed some friendly and animated conversation into the evening, and he gave me some pointers about the hike I was intending to take in Big Bend. As in Guadalupe, there is no water available in the backcountry, and when hiking the 32-mile Outer Mountain Loop, it is necessary to cache water ahead of time at a certain location where the trail passes near the road.

Accordingly, I purchased several gallons of water from a gas station and once inside the Park proceeded directly to the cache location. From there I drove up into the Chisos Basin to obtain a backcountry permit and begin my hike. Had I not known about the cache strategy ahead of time, I would have wasted valuable hours in preparing for the trek.

Inside the Visitor's Center, I explain my plans to the Ranger on duty. As soon as she learns I am going solo, she becomes rather grave and goes into the back room, returning momentarily with a special form and a camera. In addition to the normal questions regarding where I would be staying each night, etc., I have to provide detailed information about my physical characteristics, level of experience, and even the color of my clothing and tent. The ranger then takes a picture of my face, my pack, and the bottom of my boot, all the while clicking her tongue and generally insinuating that if I've never drawn up a formal Will and Testament, now might be a good time to do so.

Packing my Osprey on the tailgate in the parking lot takes longer this time, because I will be out for two nights, in unfamiliar country, alone. Finally, all the necessary equipment is properly stowed in the pack, sunscreen is applied, truck is locked up, and everything I'm bringing has in some way or another been strapped on to my person. Stopping at the sign at the trailhead, I note the time, say a prayer, and psyche myself for the climb. From here, it's 3-1/2 miles and nearly 2,000 feet of gain to the crest of the ridge, which is about halfway to the open camping zone in Juniper Canyon, my destination for the night.

I set an aerobic pace up the trail, concentrating hard and pushing myself forward over the steps and inclines. The afternoon sun is hot, and the pack is the heaviest it's been so far, with upwards of 6 liters of water - enough to get me to my cache sometime tomorrow afternoon. Before long, however, the sweat and stride pay off, and I'm at the top.

After consulting the topo map I purchased at the Visitor's Center, I stow my pack in a conveniently located bear locker and dash up the spur trail to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park at 7,825 feet. It's a little over a mile and another 800 feet of climbing, but I don't think I'm going to be this close anytime soon. Jog up, snap some pictures, run down. I always find trail running mentally and physically exhilarating: flying over rocks and obstacles, making split-second decisions about foot placement, keeping your momentum and balance under control. On the way down I misjudge one step and fold my left ankle under slightly. I slow down, remembering that I need to be careful. Fortunately, it's not serious, and will feel fine after a few miles.

Retrieving my pack, I notice one of my water reservoirs is leaking slightly, and has dampened my sleeping bag. I tighten the lid on the reservoir, and folding my sleeping bag in half, strap it to the outside of the pack, and let it hang behind me to dry - not particularly fashionable, but it sure beats crawling into a wet bag.

After another few miles, some beautiful Texas Rainbow Cactus, and a young Whitetail buck in the trail, I locate a nice campsite in Juniper Canyon and set about preparing a belated supper. Following that, I gather my food into my empty tent sack and tie it near the top of a small juniper. It won't protect it from the bears, but it should require them to make enough of a ruckus to wake me up and give me a chance to scare them away.

As it happens, however, there are no bears, and the night passes quietly. I'm up at dawn, eating my breakfast of oatmeal and fruit and preparing for a long day on the trail. A few more miles brings me to Texas Shoe campground and the start of the Dodson Trail - a 14-mile trek through the desert on the south side of the Chisos.

Most people picture the desert as hot, desolate, and interminably flat. I suppose the origins of this stereotype are honest enough, but in reality it falls far short of describing the depth, complexity, and variety of the real thing. As I grind out the miles on the Dodson Trail, cross gullies, walk through washes, and scale ridges, I am amazed by the diversity of the landscape. Dozens of different species of flora decorate the hillsides and brush past my bare legs. It is hot, yes, but decidedly un-flat, and very much alive.

I've been carefully gaging my water consumption to ensure that I will not run out before I reach my cache at Homer Wilson Ranch. I have enough, but no more, and I'm obliged to drink less than I would normally, especially given the heat and distance. Around 2 o'clock I reach the Ranch, retrieve my water from the bear locker, and head up to the Ranch overlook along the highway.

Though the water is rather warm, I'm glad to have it. I drink my fill, replenish my reservoirs, and pour the rest over my head. Some motorcyclists stop by, and lacking anything better to do, take a few minutes to question me about my adventure. Mentioning nonchalantly that you've just hiked 16 miles through the desert and you have 4 more to go before the day is out is one of the best ways I know of to impress a big, tough, tattooed biker.

Since I don't have that much farther to go today, I decide to take a couple hours in the old Homer Wilson Ranch house to rest, do some reading, and have a little church. This way, I can take advantage of the shade (something of a rarity in the desert) and avoid hiking during the hottest part of the day.

Starting up the Blue Creek Canyon trail, there's a warning posted about an aggressive mountain lion in the area, advising against taking small children up the trail. Great. According to the Park literature I received at the entrance, there are about 150 lion sightings reported annually. Though 90% of these sightings occur along roads, not trails, I would venture to suggest that this figure is somewhat misleading, because most people who visit Big Bend never set foot on a trail. As a matter of probability, then, you're much more likely to see a lion along a trail than you are along a road, because fewer people hike the trails and more people drive the roads. Have I confused you yet?

There have been two lion attacks during the last 20 years, although neither of them proved fatal. The Park brochure offers the standard tips about making yourself appear larger and never under any circumstances showing fear, and concludes by advising the visitor to "Avoid hiking alone, or at dawn or dusk."

I locate a campsite for the night, in a sheltered glade just off the trail. Nearby there is a long branch overhanging a dry wash, over which I throw my parachute cord for a nice high Sierra-style bear hang. Following my dinner of ramen and beef jerky, I spend some time reading before turning in.

Alone, with the wild night noises all around, statistics somehow become less comforting. My small L.E.D. headlamp throws a whopping ten-foot beam, and that not very brightly. While I'd still like to see a lion during the day, on level ground, I'd just as soon not meet one in the dark, thank you very much. As is my habit, I lay my trekking poles outside my tent door, and also pile up a few good-sized rocks for good measure. If any lion decides to jump me during the night, he's going to have a surprise.

Brave talk aside, the lion threat makes for a wakeful night. I am glad for the morning, and waste no time in breaking camp and hitting the trail. I have a thousand feet of climbing before I crest the ridge and drop back down into Chisos Basin, but it doesn't take long. When I reach the top, though it has been light for some time, the sun is just beginning to break over the mountains in places. Rich, heady wildflower scents come wafting across the path, laden with the memory and promise of the day's warmth, contrasting with the delicious coolness of the desert morning. It's a fine day, and though I'm tired, hungry, and more than a little dirty, I'm thankful to be alive and thoroughly at peace with myself and everything else.

Into the Guadalupes

Wednesday night I put Tucson several hours behind me, enjoying listening to a book by George MacDonald and stopping once to fuel up and grab a quick Subway - a little real food before I head back into the wilderness. Sometime before midnight I pulled off at a rest area in New Mexico and slept in the back of the truck.

Now it's morning and I'm closing in on Guadalupe National Park, located in the extreme western tip of that monstrously large state known as Texas. The day is clear, warm, and windy, and though I'm beginning to feel tired, I'm wide awake and ready for a new trail.

After obtaining a permit in the Visitor's Center for an overnight trip, I drive over to the trailhead and set about packing my Osprey once again. I'm headed up into the mountains, and unlike the Sierras back home, there is no water available. I must carry all that I will need.

There is a quote from Wendell Berry on a plaque near the trailhead, and I pause to read it and take a moment of reflection and reverent awe as I cross the threshold into the wilderness. Over the last several years I have come to greatly appreciate that fading strain of practical, thoughtful, independent men: Wendell Berry, Colin Fletcher, Edward Abbey - these are the types of men that embody America's soul, if she has one.

I work my way up the mountainside, enjoying the wind gusting across the grasses. The wind accomplishes three things: firstly and most obviously, it has a welcome cooling effect that somewhat mitigates the intensity of the desert sun. Secondly, it greatly diminishes the mobility of certain unfavorable insects. And lastly, it lends to the landscape a wild and savage look, which in turn makes it all the more beautiful.

As I ascend higher, the distant eastern horizon widens below me. When I reach the top of the climb, I slip off the pack and lean it against a large juniper, jogging the 1-mile spur trail to the top of Hunter Peak with just my camera.

Returning to the main trail and shouldering my pack, I finish the last few miles to the campground. Up here, several thousand feet above the surrounding desert, the air is cool and the terrain is mostly forested. The Guadalupe highlands are, in many respects, much like the Sierras. Several times I have caught myself imagining I was hiking some trail out of Clover Meadow in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, or along the Kern River in the Golden Trout Wilderness.

My evening in camp is leisurely. There's no one else around, though sometimes I fancy I hear voices or even conversations on the wind. It's a strange thing, being alone. I cook dinner, spend some time experimenting with the camera, and turn in for an early night.

The day dawns clear and cool, and I don my jacket and locate a sunny spot to eat my breakfast. By 8:30, I'm back on the trail. Hiking along with the morning to myself, it occurs to me that my chances of seeing a cougar are somewhat improved by several factors. One, I am alone, and can avoid making an excessive amount of noise. Two, it is a fine morning, there is little to no breeze, and the backcountry is by all appearances largely deserted. Maybe I'll get lucky. Still, I am aware that I am at a wide disadvantage. I know few of the animal's general patterns, and none of its local haunts, and I know that a mountain lion can generally avoid being seen if it chooses. Besides, I have never mastered that delicate Mohican art of walking through the forests and meadows without creating a cacophony of snapping twigs, which of course plainly announces to the entire local animal kingdom that there is a blundering biped in the neighborhood.

What had begun merely as a casual interest yesterday has now become an obsession, and I continuously scanned the ridges and vales around the trail, in search of that elusive slinking shape. I pass some scattered bones of a deer lying just off the trail, bleached and sterilized by the sun. This is encouraging: Mr. Cougar has hunted here before. Still, these skeletal fragments could be several seasons old, and it's possible the predator has moved on to other areas. Seeing a live deer on the opposite slope of the canyon doesn't tell me much either; lions follow deer, and deer do their best to avoid lions. A lion may be nearby, or it may be nowhere in the vicinity - either inference is equally valid.

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. -Henry Beston, Guadalupe Mountains Visitor's Center

Compare this with Romans 8:19-22:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

I return the trailhead, again having seen no one. My plan was to drive to Big Bend this afternoon, but after a bit of thought and prayer I decide instead to stay the night at the campground here in Guadalupe and do the drive to Big Bend in the morning. This gave me some time to relax and also to take the 4-mile round trip hike to Devil's Hall, which is the hike we did several years ago when we stopped at this Park briefly with the Lindvalls and I privately vowed to come back.

It is very interesting to return to this trail after several years and notice how different it looks. The change, I believe, has been mainly in myself. I feel I am observing (and absorbing) much more of my surroundings, and my thoughts are quieter, more reflective, less commercial. I want to experience the place, and all the intricacies and varieties of life within it. I do not want merely to get to the end of the trail.

Sun and Saguaros

After pulling out of Bryce Canyon in the late afternoon, I turned south towards Arizona, stopping briefly in southern Utah for dinner and later getting a hotel in Flagstaff for the night. I'm now on my way to Tucson on Highway 17, enjoying a light breakfast of diced fruit, a granola bar, and coffee from the hotel lobby.

Ever since visiting the Grand Canyon six years ago, Arizona has held a special mystique for me. It is a colorful state, full of deserts and mountains and rivers and flowers. Driving this stretch of highway between Flagstaff and Tucson in the bright morning hours is particularly striking; the wildflowers are in bloom, the air is clear, and as I progress farther south, I begin to see saguaros.

Saguaros - the classic symbol of the American Southwest - are beyond doubt one of the great wonders of the plant kingdom. Growing to heights as great as 50 feet and weighing up to 9 tons, these huge silent sentinels of the desert are as majestic as they are mysterious. They can live for as long as 150 years, and their pleated exterior enables them to expand and contract like an accordion as they gain and lose moisture. In May, their great green limbs are festooned with delicate white blossoms - the state flower of Arizona.

Saguaro National Park is divided into two parts, one on either side of Tucson. I follow the brown signs off the highway to the western half of the Park, arriving around 11 AM. After studying the maps and obtaining some information from the Visitor's Center staff, I elect to take the Hugh Norris Trail to Wasson Peak, a 10-mile round trip with some moderate elevation gain.

The trail is excellently made, and though the temperature is a good deal warmer than it was in Utah, the miles count off easily. The better you get at hiking, the better ratio of inspiration to perspiration you can achieve. Honestly, it's not much fun if you're working so hard that you can't enjoy yourself or take in the scenery. Get toned before you go, because a National Park is no place to be getting in shape; there's too much to see.

The sign at the beginning of the trail warned of Africanized honeybees, so I'm keeping a sharp eye. I'm not afraid of much, but there are a few things that will freeze my blood and stop me in my tracks, and bees are one of them. Many years ago, our family was attacked by an angry hive of big, mean, hairy bumblebees, and as a result of that traumatic experience I developed an irrational fear of buzzing flying things, which I carry to this day. I personally think that some bees take a sadistic delight in dive bombing me just to see me duck and cower. Suffice to say that I avoid bees as much as possible, and thankfully the few that I met in Saguaro were content for the most part to leave me alone.

I have recently been growing more and more interested in finding out the names of things in order to appreciate them more fully. I used to think that I could enjoy a burst of butterflies or a riot of wildflowers just as well without knowing their name: I see now that I was quite honest, quite idealistic, and quite wrong. There is character, information, and identity in a name that allows one to appreciate a specimen as something unique, something with it's own peculiarities, something alive. G. K. Chesterton, in The Napoleon of Notting Hill, observed that "in proper names themselves is half the poetry of all national poems."* It is the specificness of this thing or this flower as opposed to some other thing or some other flower, and the only way to fully enjoy this precise personal connection is to know the name.

Toward this end, I purchased a book in Saguaro that briefly describes 100 Desert Wildflowers of the Southwest - a small beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. At the very least I wanted to be able to identify the most prominent flora in the desert parks, and in this I have been largely successful. By the end of my desert tour, I was greeting the Ocotillo, Teddy Bear Cholla, Strawberry Hedgehog, Prickly Pear, Barrel Cactus, Staghorn Cholla, Texas Madrone, Alligator Juniper, and Soaptree Yucca like old friends.

Atop the peak, I sign the register, chew on some beef jerky, apply some duct tape to some hot spots, and enjoy the view of Tucson. After a few minutes I gather my gear and head back down. The sun is beginning to cast eastward shadows, and my thoughts are turning eastward with them, to the Guadalupe Mountains of western Texas.

*G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 69

Bryce Canyon

Out of all the parks I visited, Bryce Canyon was unequaled for sheer scenic beauty. It's a 2-hour drive from Zion, leaving Zion via the east entrance, driving up Highway 89, and passing through Red Canyon and Dixie National Forest on Highway 12.

First I drop into the visitor's center to get oriented. Following my normal procedure, I look for the longest, steepest dayhike, talk to a ranger about the trail conditions, and go for it. Here at the northern end of the park, there's an 8-mile loop dropping down into the canyon called Fairyland Loop. Perfect.

It is with difficulty that I restrain myself from gushing about this park. I would say the entire place is a postcard, but I think that would be giving postcard companies too much credit. It's just beautiful - dramatically, exotically beautiful.

There's snow on the ground here, and where there isn't snow there's mud. The elevation is several thousand feet higher than Zion, but the weather has been warming, and the temperature in the sun is comfortable.

I descend into the canyon, gaping like a tourist from California, transfixed. Over the centuries, the sandstone here has been sculpted into an endless variety of shapes, including isolated columns called "hoodoos." As I hike, the camera clicks away madly in an utterly futile attempt to capture the magic of the place.

I turn the corner, hoodoos rising above me like the ruins of an ancient temple. Out here, that hardly seems like a metaphor. This is a temple. These are ruins.

Observing the stones and branches scattered around the trail, I am reminded of how nature is so effortlessly random, while man remains, by and large, doomed to symmetry. Even man's attempts at randomness are defined in terms of the absence of symmetry (a-symmetry). Nature's randomness is not defined by anything.

Man is a part of nature, but he is not the same thing; they exist in a sort of parallel symbiotic relationship. God grants life to man through the processes of nature, and God grants life to nature through the words of man. One could hardly maintain that the animals fully existed before Adam named them, and in the same way nature does not exist apart from the delight and observation of man. If there was no man, there would be no nature, for there would be no one to enjoy it and give it a name.

The leaves of the low-growing manzanita here are a brilliant yellow-green, almost giving the shrub the appearance of a wildflower. When the leaves die, they turn a rusted copper color,* falling from the branches and lying in the path like old pennies. Unlike old pennies, I do not pick them up, because they belong where they are - crunching under my muddy boots and decaying into the sandy soil - a million microscopic molecules that will eventually be drawn into the roots and veins of future manzanita bushes, reaching for the sun and reveling in the profound ecstasy of photosynthesis. Life goes on.

*I know: copper doesn't rust - it oxidizes. But I'm a writer, not a metallurgist.