Trail Thoughts Book Winners!

Congratulations BloggyGiveaway.com winners! I am delighted that so many of you participated and we were impressed by your responses which made selection of only ten winners very hard. For those who have won, we will be sending the books this week.

Trail Thoughts is organized as a year long daily devotional so it will be a friendly companion throughout the 2009 and hopefully beyond. And for those of you who love hiking, the passage for February 1st might be a great place to start. It is called "Winter Light."

For every one who participated, thank you. It is my hope that you will continue to follow my blog which is a continuation of what I started with Trail Thoughts last year. I hope to blog at least two to three times a week for this year and almost every day thereafter. And if you like what you find here, please tell your friends. Again thank you for participating.

We also have a daily email set up where you can get a Daily Trail Thought delivered right to your inbox! All you have to do is go to http://www.trailthoughts.com/ and click “Get it Now” under the screensaver offer. Once you enter your email address you will have an option to choose the Free Screensaver, Word of the Day, or both!

Here is the list of winners…Congratulations!
Jenn, Wendy, Lilly, RebekahC, Julie Rains, Penny, Jennifer Y, Kat, Shoshana, Anonymous, writesalot

If you are a winner, please email your full name and shipping address to Charlie@beaufortbooks.com and we’ll make sure your book is on the way!

A Daily To Do List

I am a big fan of daily routines. I start each day with a lectionary that guides me through a psalm or two, an Old Testament passage, a selection from a New Testament letter and a passage from one of the four Gospels. It is a great way to begin to prepare for whatever the day will bring. Recently, I discovered a more complete vision of how we should view the adventure of living each and every day to the full.

Here is your spiritual to do list. You have…

God to glorify.
Jesus to imitate.
A soul to save.
A body to control.
Sins to repent of.
Virtues to acquire.
Hell to avoid.
Heaven to gain.
Eternity to prepare for.
Time to profit by.
Neighbors to edify.
The world to shun.
Devils to combat.
Passions to subdue.
Death, perhaps, to suffer.
Judgment to undergo.

BloggyGiveaways Blog Carnival!

**this contest has ended. thanks to all who participated!**

I am giving away 10 free copies of my highly reviewed daily devotional book, "Trail Thoughts - 365 Signposts for Walking the Good Path."

In order to be eligible, you must leave a comment, answering the question below, and email address (so that we may alert you if you are a winner). Shipping will be to US and Canadian mailing addresses only.

In your comment, you must answer the following question: What is the most interesting journey of your life?

The winners will be announced on January 31 and February 1, and their “journey comments” will be posted on the site. Many thanks to BloggyGiveaways.com for hosting this Bloggy Giveaway event!

Gear Man

**Posted on 1/29/09, but back dated due to the Giveaway Sticky Post**

About ten years ago, I decided to learn about winter mountaineering. I enrolled in a class sponsored by the AMC and traveled to the White Mountains to join other like-minded novices on a four day adventure of survival in the rough and rocky terrain of the Franconia Range.

My group of ten was pretty diverse; young and old, experienced and otherwise, but there was one member who stood out. He was about thirty-five, tall, good looking with a mop of blond hair. He exuded confidence, but more significantly, he was adorned with every type of brand name mountain gear you would ever want to imagine. He was loaded with stuff from Marmot, Mountain Hardwear, and Asolo: He seemed like a male model right out of an REI catalog. And it was hard to believe that he was not everything a first class mountaineer should be.

At first, I was impressed. He talked the talk. He related tales of past conquests as the rest of us picked through our own meager equipment as feelings of inadequacy and doubt began to fill our heads. On the other hand, I had encountered a few of these self proclaimed Masters of the Universe in the past and found that word and deed did not necessarily match.

On the first day out on a practice trip, our group climbed up to Greenleaf hut using crampons and ice axes but without our heavy packs. The climb was steep in places, but not particularly difficult. Everyone did well, except Gear Man who lagged behind complaining about a previous leg injury. By the time we returned to the lodge late in the day, Gear Man declared that he was finished. He told the rest of us that his knee had given out and that he could not continue. So the next morning as our slightly diminished group set out for the summit of Lafayette for two nights in an igloo constructed in minus 20 degree weather, Gear Man was lugging all his stuff back to the warmth of his home somewhere in Massachusetts. Apparently, you cannot judge a mountaineer by the splendor of the gear he wears. Live and learn.

A JOURNAL FOR THE JOURNEY

My book, Trail Thoughts, is composed of 365 original short essays written between 2003 and 2006. Writing the book was no easy task, at least not at first. In 2003, I produced an essay every day, and even though I became a better writer as the year wore on, the overall effort fell well short of the mark. In fact, when I reviewed the previous year’s work in early 2004, I was appalled to find that what once seemed like profundity now was sadly trite and trivial when viewed through the lens of receding time.

The only solution was to buckle down to the hard work of revisions and rewrites. Even then, the job was not finished. I hired an editor who helped me reach to higher levels of expression. I asked a friend to help with further changes, and all the while, I kept on working on the text itself, always believing that I could find a better word or a more compelling sentence.

Recently, I heard an author quote another writer who had said that you never really finish a book; you just have to abandon it. I am near the stage where I am more than happy to “abandon” Trail Thoughts, even though I consider it an intimate friend who has spent some wonderful times with me. But like a grown child, my book needs to leave me now to go out into the world to build new relationships of its own. In the meantime, I am contemplating a new project that I have tentatively called the Trail Thoughts Journal which will be designed explicitly for the hiking community.

Many hikers keep journals. At the end of a long day they jot down thoughts or reflections to summarize some of the adventures experienced during their daily walk in the woods. With my new book, I want to include a biblical verse for every journal page and perhaps an occasional reflection of my own. I am hoping that the verse will prompt more than a recitation of the day’s events. I am also hoping that the journal will be only a first step in creating truly memorable pieces of writing developed from the raw material written down while on the journey. Most importantly, I hope to design the new book to be light and easy to pack. Hikers are very conscious of carrying too much weight; this little book needs to be viewed as an essential to the trip; otherwise, it will not be serve its purpose of encouraging truly reflective and original writing that expresses the true nature of the journey itself.

A Wise Leader

As we approach January 20 and the inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th President of the United States, we might ask what are we looking for in this new leader. The Old Testament tells us that we should hope for a good man who is blessed with right judgment and wisdom. King David, at the very end of his long reign, used poetic language to describe the blessings that flow through a righteous leader to the people of the nation:

“When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.” (2 Samuel 23:3-4)

If the ruler lacks wisdom, however, discord and dissension will spread through the land. This is what happened when David’s grandson, Rehobaum ascended to the throne forty years later. When the representatives of the people of Israel petitioned the new king to lift the heavy load of excessive taxation, Rehobaum sought advice on what to do.

He sent the people away while he conferred with his advisors. First, he consulted with the elders who said, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.” (1 Kings 12:7) Then Rehoboam turned to his youthful companions who told him to assert his power over the people by saying, “My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” (1 Kings 12:11)

The king rejected wise counsel and followed the misguided advice of the foolish and inexperienced companions and so peace in the land was fractured. The people rose up and civil war broke out.

May this nation be blessed with a leader filled with the wisdom of David. The wise ruler will always think of himself as the servant of the people. The foolish king always thinks that the people are there to serve him.

INTIMACY

The thing to remember about Eden is that it was an intimate place. There was no division between God, the Creator and, man, the creature he created. There was no division between the man and the woman; they lived intimately. And the first man and first woman were at one with their environment. It was the perfect place for them to worship God and enjoy his blessings. But paradise was lost, and when that happened, mankind lost the intimacy which God created us for and which we have yearned to recover ever since.

As a child, my own little corner of paradise was a lake in New Hampshire that I lived on every July for three years. When I think of that place, the memory in my heart takes me instantly back and there I am on my cot in a small cabin on the lake’s shore. Outside, moths and other insects, drawn by the light of my reading lamp, buzz against the screened windows. I can smell the scent of pine that permeates the soft summer evening air. And behind the nocturnal sounds of crickets and frogs, I hear the rhythmic lapping of the waves as they softly touch the rocks near where I am resting my head.

And I remember how early in the morning, my father would invite us to join him on a walk up Bean road to a small local farm. As we walked along the road, we could feel a mountain chill in the air and we could see the mist suspended like a blanket above the green fields. The farm itself rested between the road and the lower reaches of Red Hill, and so we gather up some strawberries or raspberries and thick heavy cream to take back for the family breakfast.

Of course, in this idealized place, I suffered the normal worldly intrusions of fights, skinned knees, hurt feelings and the rest, but this is not what I prefer to remember because my life at the lake touched a part of my heart that longed for something important that was lost long ago.

One of E.B White’s greatest short pieces is called Once More to the Lake. In it, he recalls a lake in Maine that became part of his own spiritual biography: “It is strange how much you remember about places like that once you allow your mind to return into the grooves that lead back. You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless; remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. The partitions in the camp were thin and did not extend clear to the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remember begin very careful never to rub my paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral.”

ILLUMINATION

Several years ago, I climbed Mt Whitney in the High Sierras. This was not the usual walk up, but a four day early spring adventure that required heavy backpacking up to Boy Scout Lake which is a snow filled bowl surrounded on three sides by jutting peaks. From this platform, we ascended Whitney itself by heading up a long, steep shoot that is to the right of the headwall. Beyond the shoot is a small flat area that stands hundreds of feet below the summit. Here we clamped onto fixed ropes with ascenders and maneuvered our way up until we reached the actual summit. We were lucky with the weather and so stayed on top for a few hours, enjoying the panoramic views on all sides, including what might be Death Valley far off to the east.

We spent that night once again at Boy Scout Lake. In the morning we awoke before sunrise to begin the job of packing up to head down to the Portal and the road out to Lone Pine. As any mountaineer can tell you, the cold and dark world seems to awaken with the rising sun. And when the light hits the dormant grey rocks, they catch fire and become magical golden shapes that seem to dance with the new dawn.

South of our tent site stand the Needles, four sculpted spires that rise up out of the mountain massif. They appear to the eye to be four steeples of a natural cathedral standing guard against the brutal forces that are constantly besieging this huge wall.

For the most part, I was busy packing up for our departure, but at some point I looked up to see that the light had transformed the stone spires of the Needles into a luminous, serrated gold bulwark set against the deep blue of a desert morning sky.

Luckily, my camera was resting on my sleeping bag; I picked it up and without hesitation, shot four or five frames with black and white film. I wanted to catch the gold rocks, but I had run out of color film, so I had no choice but to go with what was in the camera.

The developed pictures surprised me and taught me a few photography lessons. First, light is everything. The gold that caught my eye in the picture became vibrant rock formations. If you didn’t know better, it was a picture that seemed to be in the tradition of Ansel Adams. It wasn’t, of course, but still a very fine photograph was created by the light reflecting off of the rock formations in just the right way. The truth is that the right exposure was there in front of me and I only needed to recognize it. The second thing I learned was never hesitate. A brilliant moment can vanish like the wind, leaving you with nothing but, well, a not so great picture. How can an average photographer with an inexpensive pocket camera capture an outstanding picture? I think Ken Duncan, the world renowned landscape photographer (http://www.kenduncan.com/), captures it best: He has said many times, “I am just an average photographer with a great God.”

ROCKS

Hiking northward across the open ridge of the northern Presidentials in New Hampshire, I marvel at the odd arrangement of giant boulders lying all around this beautiful and forbidding place. Huge rocks, some the size of houses, lie scattered everywhere with some resting precariously at the edge of deep ravines. This vast, improbable stone-strewn landscape beckons me to ask myself the inevitable “how” questions: How did all of this come about? How did these rocks get here? It all seems so unlikely when it has taken me a huge amount of energy to just get myself up to and across this barren miles-long ridge.

Of course, I know the popular geological answers to these and other questions, but that is not the point. Up here, away from the cacophony of everyday knowledge and discourse, I am prompted to ask some of the more basic questions that go to the heart of why I am here observing all of this in the first place. For up here, surrounded by rocks and boulders, I am confronted with the improbability of it all. This disharmonious arrangement of granite reminds me that I am seemingly just as strangely situated on this revolving planet that whirls on its own journey through the universe. Here in the mountains, it is hard to avoid the deeper questions of my existence and the purpose behind it all. For to me, the rocks and ravines spell mystery and my mind naturally searches for solutions to the puzzle of life itself.

Philip Yancey describes G.K.Chesterton’s view of the world we live in “as a sort of cosmic shipwreck. A person’s search for meaning resembles a sailor who awakens from a deep sleep and discovers treasure strewn about, relics from a civilization he can barely remember. One by one he picks up the relics-gold coins, a compass, fine clothing-and tries to discern their meaning.” Yancey goes on to say that we, like the sailor, have only hints of a world that existed in the deep past: “Moments of pleasure are the remnants washed ashore from a shipwreck, bits of Paradise extended through time.”

For the next several weeks I want invite you to walk with me as I journey through this rocky landscape. Imagine, if you will, that we are companions and that we have abandoned the usual superficialities to engage in an exploration of the meaning of the “bits of Paradise” that have scattered themselves all around us. Can we find a way of fitting these fragments together? It promises to be a worthwhile journey, for we will ask the same questions posed thousands of years ago: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4) What is man, indeed? The next time we get together, we will begin to pick through some of the fragments.