Caught in the Wind

As my time dwindles away here in Grand Teton National Park I find myself learning to accept what God has placed in front of me. There are so many blessings He has showered upon me thus far. Kayla and I led worship for three weeks at Colter Bay. We were able to worship with hundreds of people from every background and denomination: Amish Mennonite, Lutheran, Baptist, Mormon, etc. During one of our services we even reach a personal record of 70 people. During other services we even drew close to 50 people.
After a couple of our services, people even began clapping (hopefully, they were giving glory to Jesus and not us). It is also reassuring to have people tell me they enjoyed worship when I see them in the gift shop. However, not every service was spectacular.
For a couple of the services, Kayla and I showed up while being less than fully prepared; we started the whole service off on a bad foot and hindered people's worship of Jesus just because of our failure to come ready and with a humble heart.

It is often difficult to keep myself humble and a lowly servant for Christ as far as giving of my time. For example, I want to selfishly spend every second of my time doing adventurous things or just hanging out with friends. I slip into the mental indulgence of telling myself to make the most of my time here. My problem is in the way I inherently worded that sentence. I should say that I want to make the most of the time allotted me here. It is simply hard for me to comprehend that the time allotted to me is not my time. Leading these services really forces me to come to terms with that. I am praying and working for a change.

As far as work goes, I have surpassed the half way point of my contract with Signal Mountain Lodge and other friends are beginning to leave here, even though it seems our friendships have just begun. I am trying to relish the moments God is allowing me to share with friends who are still here. However, there has been talk among a few of us about working at a ski resort this winter, which would mean I would be temporarily extending my time out here. Deciding what to do next has been a struggle and I have been occasionally talking with a ACMNP support staff member about this. We have had long talks, gone bird watching, and wolf watching (and not seen any wolves) while talking about vocation and calling. It is so much easier to get into deep conversations with people while secluded in the wilderness. Just this past week I had the great opportunity of hiking with a Mormon. He shared some great insight with me about what he and other Mormons believe. They are not as crazy as the polygamy-crazed people others make them out to be.

If this entry has not made it evident yet, then I will explicitly state that I have been thinking about time lately. I preached last week on priorities and how our faith has to be the rock foundation upon which we build the rest of our lives. A wise man once filled a jar with rocks until everyone told him it was full. After that, he poured pebbles into the jar and everyone again agreed it was full. Finally the man topped off the jar with sand that fell between the rocks and pebbles. Everything can fit, but only in a certain order. The importance of the rocks, pebbles, sand is that you remember when to put them in your jar. The importance of rocks, pebbles, and sand is that you remember when too put them in your jar. The key to understanding is all in where you place your priorities. As Christians, we must see following Jesus as utmost importance. Our faith in Jesus must be the rock in our life that comes first, while the pebbles and sand are things that can come secondary.

Also, a lady in the gift shop asked me today if I had kids. Ah! Really, me? Kids? I started screaming under my skin. I guess I am starting to lose my hair. If anyone asks I will tell them I am trading my hair in exchange for wisdom. I think it is a fair trade...

So, as it goes, my life is certainly up in the air right now. I feel like it might be caught in the wind. With time, we will see where God directs my life. Maybe it will take a year or two for Him to reveal exactly where I need to go, but I will not let that stop me from trying to show others the light of Christ wherever I am. Maybe when God has me floating up here in the air He can use me to shine even farther than when I am on the ground.

Bear Encounters of the Third Kind

Finding a bear here in the park is by no means unheard of, but it is still a special occasion when you get to see one. The first bear I saw was on a float trip down the river. The bear was walking behind some trees in the opposite direction of the river's flow- two words to describe my view of the first bear are: quick and obscured. Although the bear was moving in no hurry, he was gone as quickly as he appeared. The second time I saw a bear was from inside a car as we drove to the town of Jackson. The bear was a quarter-mile away on the side of a hill. I don't think anyone even cared enough to stop and observe. I guess being on-time for Transformers 2 was more appealing to everyone else. Altogether, my two views of bears were lackluster in every way imaginable. What I had wanted to see was a bear come out of nowhere and roll down a hill, careening into the side of an unsuspecting deer and take a monster-sized bite out of it. I wanted to see the circle of life. Well actually, I just wanted intense action; I wanted nature in its rawest state. The third time I saw a bear, I would get my chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1GdZI1oPEE

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Okay, so I didn't actually get to see that but my story was close to being as exhilarating as watching a domesticated bear ride a moped in circles. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law came into play on my third bear viewing experience as I did not have my camera with me even though I take it with me everywhere.

Dancing in my underwear for the Olympics won me free dinner and it was when we were coming back from our free victory dinner that we first saw the bear action begin.

Riding in an open air Jeep Wrangler, we pulled off the road onto a gravel overlook that had an uninterrupted view of the low grasslands in front of Jackson Lake. On most days, herds of Elk can be seen eating in the grassland around dusk. It just so happened to be one of those days around that time. The elk where peacefully munching away until something spooked the entire herd into running. Then, out of the tall grass stumbled a burly grizzly bear. It took a moment before we realized what we saw, and by the time we did, the bear had broken into a sprint after the elk. The bear moved quickly even though it was not graceful. With each and every step, the bear was moving hundreds of pounds of muscle, fat, and fur, but when the bear got up to speed its momentum was unstoppable. A crash course with one of the elk would easily crush it into the ground and disable any option of escape.

The pursuit began with the chasing of the entire herd. Moving as one mass, the herd would run slower than they could run individually. Occasionally, a few elk would break off of the group and, when this happened, the bear would kick it into high gear. The elk was barely able to run at a higher speed than the bear but it was just enough to not get caught. However, the bear tried to cut corners and make up any distance it could in hopes a young elk would trip and fall victim. The bear's chance for dinner were fairly high since the young elk were still learning how to completely harness the mobility of their legs- insufficient practice could have resulted in a life-ending small stumble.
The rest of the herd stopped running as soon they were no longer being pursued. Even if the bear was a couple dozen yards away, the herd would not move unless directly threatened. Either out of laziness or intelligence (conserving all energy possible) the herd was doing the bare minimum to keep a distance from the bear.

We leaned out the Jeep and watched the bear chase the elk in circles around the open grassland. Every now and then, a couple cars began to stop alongside the road because they saw us pulled over. For several minutes we all watched the bear in pursuit. Every couple of minutes the bear would stop to catch his breath. During one of these breath-takers, a decision was made by someone to drive the Jeep back home and grab some binoculars and a camera. The rest of us were too enthralled by what was going on in front of us to leave. We hopped out of the Jeep and watched the bear chase the elk into a different field before it disappeared into the tall grass once again.
Time moved slowly as we waited for the bear to reappear. We waited as the sun began falling behind the mountains. Infrequently, we saw elk moving in our direction through the tall grass but our eyes could not catch a glimpse of the bear. We scanned the grass relentlessly until, finally, I saw a brown object moving in the grass 100 yards in front of us. About 15 seconds later, an elk popped out of the tall grass. My hopes were squashed; it was just an elk, but I didn't think about why the elk was coming out of the grass: the elk was running from the bear. A few seconds after the elk came out of the brush, the bear stumbled out as well.

By now, a dozen cars had stopped, including our returning Jeep with a camera and binoculars. People began to point and talk excitedly as the bear sat down to rest 30 yards away. A minute or so later the bear decided to get up and walk west alongside the bottom of the hill which we were all watching from. He disappeared into thick brush and we decided to take action and predict where he would show up next.

We drove down the road and staked out our positions as we waited. No bear showed up. We waited more until we got back in the Jeep and headed to where we had last saw the bear. Upon on our return we found dozens upon dozens of more cars and people. It had become a zoo. Listening to people's words and the tone of voice which they used, I searched for strangers to inadvertently tell me where the best spot to see the bear was. The pacing was frantic and we could sense that the people were close to being able to see the bear even though no one could. Judging from the fact that the bear did not head west like we had anticipated, I headed to the easternmost point of the of where people had gathered. I assumed the bear must have simply gone in the other direction.
As soon as I arrived, a young girl climbed up on top of her family's SUV and spotted the bear. Standing on my tippy-toes I caught a glimpse of the bear moving east in the brush. The road headed west as well, parallel to the bear so I began to walk on the road until I was stopped by an off-duty Ranger. Almost losing her voice in the excitement, I did not hear her until her second warning. After she told me that she thought the bear might cross the road I stopped walking and flagged the Jeep to come down over by me. As the Jeep pulled up, I had to explain that the bear was right up to our right and was moving west along the road.

I grabbed the roll bars of the Jeep and jumped in the backseat and we drove slowly on the road. Our eyes scoured the brush like our lives depended on it until the Jeep suddenly stopped. My boss, who was riding shotgun, saw something moving to our right and the driver had stopped. Sure enough, twenty yards off the road was the bear, moseying through the bushes. Cars parked behind us and cars parked in front of us, the stood alone on the road. We had found the only view of the bear.
In the bushes, the bear continued walking parallel to the road until he took a turn onto a game trail. The trail had switched the bear's path from directly parallel to directly perpendicular to the road. As quickly as the bear turned onto the path, I traced the path as it came up the ditch and onto the road. I was able to trace the trail because I was staring directly down it. The Jeep had become parked directly in obstruction of the bear's path. If the bear was planning on crossing the road, it was going to walk next to our Jeep.



With each passing second, the bear was drawing closer on a dead set path to the Jeep. In the backseat I was sitting on the far side, away from the bear, and my coworker Liz was sitting on the closer side. As the bear climbed the ditch, I waited for the Jeep to start moving, but it didn't. Liz began to lean back and frantically slide across the seat, away from the bear. In contrast, I reacted by leaning forward and trying to slide closer, for a better view. Each step the bear took towards the Jeep, the friction between Liz and I became more intense. I couldn't get enough. I wanted to have the best view possible. I wanted to get as close as possible, and that is when I realized the bear was on the road, within ten feet of us. The driver finally decided to inch the Jeep forward because the bumbling bear showed no signs of stopping on its path. The movement was not aggressive as he walked behind our Jeep. I could have jumped out and hugged the bear if I didn't value my life. Its fur was scraggly and its eyes were dark. It paid no mind to the crowd of tourists that had come to watch it. It simply continued on the trail across the road until it was climbing down the ditch on the other side. I looked in front of us and I looked behind us. We were still alone on the road. Behind us stood a crowd of people watching our encounter with the bear. A barrier of fifty feet floated between the sane tourists and us. We fumbled with the camera as the bear disappeared into the brush, and just like that, the bear was gone.

High off the adrenaline rush, we thought we could try and predict the next spot where the bear would come out. We rushed over to another area with an open field and an open view. A caravan of cars followed us, assuming we knew something they did not. Our reputation had been established among the tourists and our followers wanted what we had. Unfortunately, our luck and impeccable timing had run out.

We headed home as the last light of twilight evaporated into the summer sky. All in all, it was an exciting run in with a bear. On second thought, maybe I would rather watch a bear master the art of moped riding. One thing I learned when reading Guns, Germs, and Steel is that certain animals cannot be domesticated. Seeing as bears are an animal that cannot be completely domesticated, teaching a bear to ride moped is quite a feat. I mean, who thinks of these things? A bear riding a moped is comic genius but someone's face probably got mauled off in the process. I guess that is the price we pay for thinking we can control and harness everything in the world. In fact, I'll probably die being stupid and stubborn in the face of something I cannot control. I simply trust that God has a plan for me to carry out before that happens.

Preconceptions: The World Upside-Down

God has a funny way of telling me I'm wrong: He turns my world upside-down.

This past week I went camping with some friends in Montana. I had to ask off of work in order to go and was excited for the camping but not exactly excited about who would be joining me. I had talked very briefly with an individual who was going on the trip but I had not gotten to know this person well enough to see any common ground we could possibly share. To be blunt, I did not think I would enjoy this person's company. There was a slight fear that this person may detract from my enjoyment of the trip. As a result, I was hesitant about the trip, but the idea is comical to me now, as if my enjoyment was something I inherently deserved.

Within the first night of the trip, my preconceptions had already been broken down.

As we sat around the campfire, we talked of education and theoretical things and inevitably wound up on religion. Hours passed as we shared our definitions of faith in comparison to reason and science. The more I listened and the more I spoke, the more I saw common ground. In our differences we had similarities, and in our similarities we had differences.

The following day I was talking one-on-one with this person about preconceptions. She began to tell me about her very own preconceptions of another person and the effort it takes to get past an initial understanding of someone. Internally, I began to ask myself: why is it that our natural tendency is to judge and assume things about others? Just hours before I had assumed this person was self-centered and all surface and therefore, I was incapable of imagining her any other way. Yet, God turned my world upside down so I could see things how they really are. Like the human eye, the things we see are upside-down and need to be flipped right-side up in order to be interpreted.

As my eyes turned what they saw upside-down, I learned that the problem was with me and not the other person. I was viewing everything upside-down. My preconceptions were hindering my own view of reality by turning them upside-down. I was using a method of looking at things that assumed the upside-down way I saw life was really the right-side up. Just as I am so often wrong, God gently revealed to me that my perception of things is skewed and that I need help to see things right. I need lenses that refract light to flip things around. I need lenses only God can give me. Hopefully I can have the humility to pray for a new understanding and receive glasses that see the world right-side up.

The Basis of Religion

Here I am finishing work and grabbing some grub before bed and I find myself pounding out the nitty-gritty of morality and the ideals among humanity with a Buddhist, a Unitarian Universalist, and some fellow Christians. This comes after a night of listening to a new aged lady go on and on about how we are a microcosm of the universe and how the stars are our cells and our cells are the stars because we all come from the same. She believed that, since I was born in the 80s, I am an Indigo child, as opposed to a Rainbow child. The same lady claimed to be from the future and from Jupiter. To most people, she would sound crazy but her charisma and passion seemed to capture the attention of many of the people around. Especially when she got everyone involved in her drum séance and then proceeded to literally give everyone a crystal. I went back to my room and somehow ended up watching ALF on youtube. I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares. I was terrified. Nights like that fill me with joy to be a Christian. Nights like that make me stand assured in my faith. Nights like that also raise deep dwelling doubts in me. Thoughts sometimes linger.

This comes after a week where a few friends and I decided to celebrate the summer solstice by going out for a few beers. Conversations changed from sports, to life, to religion. I drifted in and out of attention as a seemingly random hand guided the topic of discussion to religion. Eventually, we started talking about morality as a universal basis for all religion. I snapped back into the conversation and proclaimed that morals are not the basis of religion. I might have spoke to soon. The night ended but my thoughts did not. More and more I thought about what I had said and more and more I thought about the differences between religions.

The next week, a few of us got together to talk religion again, and by this time I was solid in my statement (at least about Christianity) the morals where not the basis. When I was hiking with Henry, he made a great point that with every question science answers, another question is raised. As far as I know, science will always be inadequate when it comes to ultimate proof. At some level, you have to grapple with the idea of creation's origin. How did something come from nothing? Look at a spoon, it is made of a combination of metals, derived from the earth and manufactured somewhere on its path to your mouth. But before that, where did those metals come from? What were those minerals before heat and other factors changed their nature? Unless one believes everything has always existed, the spoon had to have come from somewhere. It is here that I find an example of faith.

If what we know exists, didn't something have to have brought it into existence? This belief that something/someone brought creation into existence is what I feel underlies the basis of Christianity: a faith. The faith that underlies Christianity is not the faith of a God at the origin of creation but the faith that Jesus Christ is God's son who died for us and will come again. I cannot speak for all religions in saying that faith underlies religion but I brought this up to my Buddhist friend and he is currently thinking about the basis of Buddhism.

To others, the basis of religion may be perceived as morality but the morals are just an outgrowth of something deeper. The way I see it, after you dig past the visible layer of morality, Christianity has a faith that rests as its basis.