and now higher up and further in....
"I can't even put into words the experience of standing on top of a mountain, completely buffeted by the wind and snow, staring out as far as I can see into God's creation."
"God just keeps moving the boundaries of what I think I am able to do!"
"I hiked into our site a couple of days ago with a heavy heart, and have really spent our time up here wrestling, doing a lot of thinking. It was cool to discover as I hiked out that I still had a song in my heart."
These are some of my favorite quotes from our experience two weeks ago in our camping trip in the High Peaks. Here's a brief summary: We loaded all our gear on our backs and hiked in about 3 hours to our base camp, which was actually a really nice, warm cabin. Girls stayed in the cabin (apparently so warm that they didn't even use their brand new North Face sleeping bags). Guys stayed in the lean-tos (a little colder, especially with 10-year old bags). The cabin was great, we had breakfast and lunch in there, as well as a couple of meetings, worship times, that sort of thing. Great place for building community. We spent three nights out there, and the third night we all slept outside. Some slept in the lean-tos, while the rest of us built and slept in Quincy's. To build a quincy: back a bunch of snow down, then begin shovelling snow onto that spot, building a mount, packing it down as you go. Build it up about head high, then shovel out the insides, making a make-shift igloo. The girls' was big enough for about 5, and we fit 10 in the guys. I'm not kidding--it had two rooms, a door in between, two entrances, and even two windows of ice some guys dragged up from the river. Style. Quite the experience!
But this week was about far more than experiences, hills, or snow. It was about worship, about developing the bonds of our community, of struggling through cold and exhaustion, of supporting each other, and realizing our failures. And more than that. I can't blog it all, but I will say this: it was a good week. I'll share a couple stories in particular that highlight our time of worship in "the wild".
We hiked a couple of mountains, the most significant of which was Mt Marcy. Marcy is the tallest mt in NY, and really was an adventure at the summit. The wind really picked up above the treeline, and the final 1/2 mile or so of the hike was a fight against the elements, carefully picking your way along the treacherously icy, barren hillside, leaning into the wind, trying to ignore the pelting snow that was pummelling your face. There is just something about being stretched to the limit of our physical capabilities that makes us feel that we are human, that we are alive...hard to put into words, actually. :) There is a unique awe of God you feel as you lean into a freezing wind that is almost strong enough to actually hold you up, and so loud that you have to shout to be heard...and to look out, and see for miles, and know that the same God who made all that can hear the prayers you utter silently in your own mind.
I'll round out the story of the tempestuous storm at the top of Marcy with another one from a different perspective. For some reason at some point I was out walking alone, and happened to cross over a frozen river near our cabin. A soft snow was falling, it was one those times where the white blanket just muted everything. I paused in the middle of the river, taking in the stark beauty of the WHITE. Standing on a frozen river, covered in snow, surrounded on every side by towering trees weighed down with their burdens of snow, and giant, silent flakes falling all around me. We had just witnessed the glory of God's power on the peak of Marcy, and now I was hearing the still, small voice of God.
And, as I drank of God's beauty, i noticed, down a ways from me, perched on a rock, all by herself, one of our LIFTers. I just stood there for awhile, unbeknownst to her, watching her as she worshipped. I can describe to you the things that I saw, but I can't put the experience into words. There is just a beauty to God's creation, and a futher beauty to silently witnessing one of God's daughters drink in that beauty in worship... I can only thank God for the moment.
It was a good week....one that i still don't quite have all the words for. But I have a song...
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