He was a spritely old guy. He was loud and he was funny. And the few times he was not actually voicing his opinion about something; he would be juggling a sunflower seed somewhere between his semi-toothless smile and flapping tongue.
He called himself Pete. Oh, I am sure that is what his parents named him seventy years before but for some reason; it just makes more sense to me thinking it was he who named himself. Pete was that bold about things.
At the beginning of my hike along the Appalachian Trail; I religiously signed each and every journal that came across my path; the one's stuck in boxes nailed to trees; the one's left behind in shelters (called "Lean-tos" by "real hikers") by researchers, students and fellow hikers and the such. I signed each and every one of 'em the same way:
"Spanky was here... (Date) Psalm 139"
Not much to look at I suppose; but, Pete noticed.
Pete had a rountine. All hikers do I suppose. He may have been loud. He may have been brash. But, he was organized. Like a fine tuned clock; Pete would set up his tent, unfold his folding chair, break out the sunflower seeds and then read for hours. When satisfied that he learned something from that book he was reading, he would wake me up to explain what I thought his book meant.
Pete's book was a big book... full of thoughts and theories about who the "historical Jesus" was. The author sure spent allot of time trying to prove that this Jesus fellow was just a man- not the God He claimed to be. I think Pete would have been fine with that if it weren't for the fact that he noticed I signed all my journal entries with "Psalm 139".
It was an epic clash of the reading titans. Pete on one side, welding that big book full of human wisdom and I on the other side; letting the Bible answer his challenges. The Pete provoked debates would go on late into the night and when he was satisfied; he would abruptly say, "Good job Spanky! Time to get some shut eye!" and just like that, would fold up his folding chair, turn off his headlamp and duck into his tent and within minutes be snoring away.
I would lay there staring up to the stars and wonder what Pete was looking for...
"To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it." The Book of Psalms (Bible) 139:1-6
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Big Men Do Cry...
I thought to myself, "He sure is a big guy!" as we dropped our backpacks alongside one of the several dirt roads that criss-crossed the famed interior of the "100 Mile Wilderness" portion of the Appalachian Trail. Slumping down on our packs- we took deep breaths and just sat there for a moment.
Everyone needs a trail name if they're going to hike the Appalachian Trail. I chose "Spanky" for several reasons; my dad said that I reminded him of that mischevious rugrat from the kid's show "way back in the day." I thought it was better than being called by my nickname "Willy Wump Wump."
I met "Win" at the foot of Mt. Kitahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine. That is where the northern terminus of the A.T. is. For Win and I as southbounders; the beginning of sorrows. For northbounders; the completion of their personal "hike of a lifetime."
As we sat there on our backpacks; totally exhausted after a long 20-mile hike through the first portion of the "100 Mile Wilderness", Win and I must have began seeing mirages. As we came around a slight bend in the trail; they were just standing there... 14 French-Canadian girls with smiles on their faces. "Naw! This ain't real!" I said to myself as one of them handed each of us a submarine sandwich and a piece of homecooked pecan pie.
Until then; I did not realize just how hungry hiking makes you. It took us but seconds to gobble down the food offerings given.
Sitting there in silence now; Win gently began speaking- not to me in particular I suppose but more to himself outloud. "I have a wife that lives along the coast..." Seeing the kindness of those young ladies and their bright shining smiles provoked my remembering my own wife and daughters back home in Miami, Florida. I lost track of everything else Win was saying specifically but I caught the gest of it:
Win was having problems on the home front... the wife of his youth was living on the coast all right; but, not in the same house as he. Suddenly, as if a switch turned on- the tears began rolling down his steeled and leathery face.
There is something unique observing a man crying. Something special. Here is this guy, sitting on a backpack; a often times decorated Viet Vet; successful businessman and as strong and as big as an ox; weeping over the possible demise of his status as husband and father. That is powerful stuff.
Win and I hiked all the way to the New Hampshire border... the last thing he told me was that he was seriously thinking about heading home and trying to patch things up with his wife and family.
I hope he did... I really hope he did.
"In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." Ephesians 5:28
Everyone needs a trail name if they're going to hike the Appalachian Trail. I chose "Spanky" for several reasons; my dad said that I reminded him of that mischevious rugrat from the kid's show "way back in the day." I thought it was better than being called by my nickname "Willy Wump Wump."
I met "Win" at the foot of Mt. Kitahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine. That is where the northern terminus of the A.T. is. For Win and I as southbounders; the beginning of sorrows. For northbounders; the completion of their personal "hike of a lifetime."
As we sat there on our backpacks; totally exhausted after a long 20-mile hike through the first portion of the "100 Mile Wilderness", Win and I must have began seeing mirages. As we came around a slight bend in the trail; they were just standing there... 14 French-Canadian girls with smiles on their faces. "Naw! This ain't real!" I said to myself as one of them handed each of us a submarine sandwich and a piece of homecooked pecan pie.
Until then; I did not realize just how hungry hiking makes you. It took us but seconds to gobble down the food offerings given.
Sitting there in silence now; Win gently began speaking- not to me in particular I suppose but more to himself outloud. "I have a wife that lives along the coast..." Seeing the kindness of those young ladies and their bright shining smiles provoked my remembering my own wife and daughters back home in Miami, Florida. I lost track of everything else Win was saying specifically but I caught the gest of it:
Win was having problems on the home front... the wife of his youth was living on the coast all right; but, not in the same house as he. Suddenly, as if a switch turned on- the tears began rolling down his steeled and leathery face.
There is something unique observing a man crying. Something special. Here is this guy, sitting on a backpack; a often times decorated Viet Vet; successful businessman and as strong and as big as an ox; weeping over the possible demise of his status as husband and father. That is powerful stuff.
Win and I hiked all the way to the New Hampshire border... the last thing he told me was that he was seriously thinking about heading home and trying to patch things up with his wife and family.
I hope he did... I really hope he did.
"In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." Ephesians 5:28
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Just as it was in the Days of Noah...
"Things are very different than when I was a kid your age." my father would say. A young lad at the time; I would just sit there on the front porch with dad and listen to him. "Yep! When I was your age, I remember my neighbor getting a new fangled thing called a television set. All the kids in the neighborhood would all gather 'round in the living room and watch the test pattern on the screen."
"Boy... what a weird thing for dad to do!", I thought to myself. In my mind, I quickly inventoried all the cool stuff I had in my possession; an AM pocket radio that ran on AA batteries; a 13-inch black and white t.v. that had both VHF and UHF; a new reel to reel that was small enough to fit in my lunchbox and cartoons!"
Thirty years have passed and I am thinking to myself, "Things are very different than when I was a kid growing up."
It seems that "one hundred year weather events" are occuring on an annual basis, nudity on televison has replaced cartoons which are themselves rich with graphic sexual innuendo, science is outpacing moral absolutes and God has finally died in the minds of a whole generation of young people.
The older folks remained clutched to their possessions they "worked so hard to obtain" and their siblings are wondering how they will buy bread when they are their parents age.
Babies are called "fetuses" and therefore; not privy to a right to live and yet, Terry Shiavo's removal of her feeding tube is raising international uproar because she cannot speak for herself either.
The bible is taken out of our public schools so students can kill one another over everything from taunting, drugs and gangs to sex, hatred and vengeance.
Science spends billions of dollars to prove there is no God only to discover that they cannot fathom the complex discoveries in the universe proving their theories were wrong all along.
When I was a lad; walking in the woods behind my house was an incredible adventure that opened my eyes and mind to the thought that there must have been a pretty big God to create such wonders. Today, people worship nature as if it were to be revered more than the God who made it.
I have hiked the Appalachian Trail; my feet have reached the pinnacles of mountain summits; my ears have heard the nocturnal meanderings of the wilderness night; and I have met the pained souls of men seeking the meaning of life as they traversed God's creation. They have no lasting peace in them; no joy; no answers... they just hike and hope one day that things would be different than before.
I have concluded a thing. I and my dad was wrong. Nothing really has changed at all. God is. We aren't. He wills. We can't. He loves. We hate. He gives. We take away. He offers. We reject. He says He is coming. We say things are just as it was during our father's time.
"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot--they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all-- so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed." The Book of Luke (bible) 17:27-30
"Boy... what a weird thing for dad to do!", I thought to myself. In my mind, I quickly inventoried all the cool stuff I had in my possession; an AM pocket radio that ran on AA batteries; a 13-inch black and white t.v. that had both VHF and UHF; a new reel to reel that was small enough to fit in my lunchbox and cartoons!"
Thirty years have passed and I am thinking to myself, "Things are very different than when I was a kid growing up."
It seems that "one hundred year weather events" are occuring on an annual basis, nudity on televison has replaced cartoons which are themselves rich with graphic sexual innuendo, science is outpacing moral absolutes and God has finally died in the minds of a whole generation of young people.
The older folks remained clutched to their possessions they "worked so hard to obtain" and their siblings are wondering how they will buy bread when they are their parents age.
Babies are called "fetuses" and therefore; not privy to a right to live and yet, Terry Shiavo's removal of her feeding tube is raising international uproar because she cannot speak for herself either.
The bible is taken out of our public schools so students can kill one another over everything from taunting, drugs and gangs to sex, hatred and vengeance.
Science spends billions of dollars to prove there is no God only to discover that they cannot fathom the complex discoveries in the universe proving their theories were wrong all along.
When I was a lad; walking in the woods behind my house was an incredible adventure that opened my eyes and mind to the thought that there must have been a pretty big God to create such wonders. Today, people worship nature as if it were to be revered more than the God who made it.
I have hiked the Appalachian Trail; my feet have reached the pinnacles of mountain summits; my ears have heard the nocturnal meanderings of the wilderness night; and I have met the pained souls of men seeking the meaning of life as they traversed God's creation. They have no lasting peace in them; no joy; no answers... they just hike and hope one day that things would be different than before.
I have concluded a thing. I and my dad was wrong. Nothing really has changed at all. God is. We aren't. He wills. We can't. He loves. We hate. He gives. We take away. He offers. We reject. He says He is coming. We say things are just as it was during our father's time.
"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot--they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all-- so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed." The Book of Luke (bible) 17:27-30
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