First, plant your feet

So many choices!

Hiking in the Sierras is amazing.

In back of our cabin a slight granite ridge begins a public trail marked by occasional orange paint dots.

Beyond this ridge, little gray mini-cliffs rise helter-skelter above one another. A stream from somewhere above gurgles through the undergrowth as gravity urges it towards the lake. Aspen leaves quake in the breeze.

I soon learn, at least on this rocky ridge, that stopping to admire nature can be perilous. The narrow path drops too steeply on either side. To safely pause for scenery, first plant your feet firmly, then look around.

That’s not a bad motto for life either: Plant your feet firmly before looking around. How many times have we seen people looking left or right, or even back over their shoulder as they continue walking forward – right into a person, a post, or a tree?

Solid rock is a good place to stand while getting our bearings. It doesn’t shift, provides good footing, and offers a place from which to determine the next stage of our journey.

Let’s take the metaphor a little further. If that rock is Christ, the true idea of God, it supports every honest and unselfish desire as it breaks free of the undergrowth and tangles of selfish thinking. It provides a view of the future with so many possibilities, we scarcely know which path to follow.

Christ also speaks to us in ways we can understand, answering honest questions about life, helping us make wise and unselfish decisions. The path we take with Christ probably won't follow reassuring orange dots.

The confirmation that we are on a good path comes from our own on-going conversation with God, our own listening for His/Her direction, our own desire to walk hand-in-hand with divine Love's purpose.

“To ascertain our progress,
we must learn where our affections are placed
and whom we acknowledge and obey as God.

If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer,
and more real to us,
matter is then submitting to Spirit.

The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest
reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.”
Mary Baker Eddy

What does granite do when a galcier comes through?

When an irresistible force meets an immovable object

Margaret’s grand gesture took in the surrounding mountains as well as the lake our little boat was bouncing across. Above the purr of the motor, she explained, “These are all granite. This is all glacial formation.”

The deep lake scooped out eons ago by melting ice nestles snuggly among sunlit mountains and a brilliant blue sky. Somehow fir trees, redwoods, and manzanita shrubs have gained a roothold among these rocks.

At breakfast next morning, Jackie threw this out, “Have you ever thought about the granite that withstood the glaciers?” We hadn’t.

In spite of the power of the moving melting ice mass that excavated deep lakes and upheaved massive boulders, granite mountains remain.

I learned from Wikipedia that granite is igneous rock, meaning it was once molten. As it cooled and hardened it changed into the solid form we see today.

So how might this molten stuff-that-becomes-granite that-withstands-glaciers relate to you and me?

Even though we seem weak and vulnerable, our Maker has made us spiritually solid enough to withstand adversity. By turning to that one infinite Mind who created the universe, many people, including me, find strength, courage, and useful ideas.

Sometimes discovering and using these spiritual qualities means giving up my own view of how solutions should come about. But without exception, divine Mind’s ways are always better.

I think it’s because we tend to think in finite terms and limit our ability to do good – and God's purpose for us is unfettered.

God sees our unlimited potential, and shows it to us as we are willing to connect with that higher view. That purpose is much greater than to be just another rock thrown on the shores of time.

Each of us is made of solid spiritual substance that, something like granite, fully represents all that's enduring and good and true.

A Lifetime Relationship

Keen boots!

Hiking feet need to be happy feet. In my quest for comfortable hiking boots, I stopped at the local REI store.

The knowledgeable clerks offered guidance and answered questions I didn’t even know I had. And the boots felt like bedroom slippers. Well, pretty close. I had no idea hiking boots could be comfortable!

As I clutched the boot box to my bosom, the clerk asked if I knew about REI membership. I admitted I was not a member now, but had been in the early 70s. “Well then,” he smiled, “You are still a member. It’s a lifetime membership! All they need is your phone number or your address.”

In 1970 we had lived in Carmichael, California, many phone numbers and many addresses ago. It didn’t sound promising. Yet the check-out guy and his computer successfully retrieved my membership from the “archives.”

The integrity of the transaction pleased and amazed me -- that a business would remain so true to its intent, as to have recorded memberships that began over a decade before computers were generally available.

And then I thought of the relationship of mankind to God. That’s a lifetime relationship of integrity too. Even if we don’t report in for years, our creator as infinite Mind knows everyone of His/Her ideas. Wherever we are, whatever our circumstance, this infinite intelligence is right here for us.

So that when we suddenly decide to re-establish that connection, it’s incredibly simple. We haven’t even been archived! We are always on the active list. It’s easier than driving into the parking lot and walking in the door.

A sincere desire to really discover who we are in relation to infinity becomes a mental and spiritual reaching out to the Life of the universe. That help desk is open 24/7 and answers in the language of the heart. And the heart and the feet that make that journey are happy ones.

Going forward

Hiking down from "lunch in the clouds"

A willingness to go forward, and not to quit, is important in so many facets of our life experience.

After lunch, we four (see previous blog post, below) came down from not-quite-the-summit of Mount Gardiner, to find the road that would lead us through fields and fern forests to Elaine’s cabin overlooking the Pacific.

Somebody mentioned that a bus frequents this road. The option of riding back to the village and catching the ferry a day early appealed splendidly to my toes and legs. At the point of decision, Joan asked if I wanted to go on to the cabin (opposite direction from the ferry).

It was really dear of these Canadians to be sharing their special hiking treasures, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. It’s important to know that I’d been praying a lot all day to be a blessing rather than a burden.

When asked about the remaining terrain, was there much up and down, Elaine assured me, “Oh no, just a little up.” Yet it was startling to hear myself agreeing to continue to the cabin.

My prayer at this point became urgent.

“Father,” I said, “If you are sending me to this cabin, you’ll have to get me there. I cannot walk another step.”

In retrospect, this was not a bad prayer. Jesus had explained to his disciples that he could do nothing by himself, but depended totally on his Father in heaven.

It is spiritually healthy to be at the point of realizing that we can do nothing without aid from “above.” Somehow that low mental point often flings thought open to really letting God help. To letting God be God.

My sense of God is that He/She is infinite Mind, always active, always revealing creation, unfolding solutions to our human problems all the time. Mostly it’s a matter of our listening carefully and attentively enough to hear or see them.

Within just a couple of minutes of having agreed to go forward, the pain in my legs vanished. It was just gone. Gratefully I caught up with Joan, and we closed the gap somewhat with the gals who were leading.

In the cabin at last!

The uphill grades were indeed gentle. Cheeses and homemade bread for dinner tasted terrific. After the sun set, candles, substituting for electricity, lent a peaceful warmth to conversation .

And I learned once again the importance of being willing to go forward --whatever that means in one’s particular circumstances.

Lunch in Vancouver clouds!

Karin Heath at Camp Bow-Isle

shares her delicious homemade cookies!

My first clue that these women were serious hikers came when Joan offered some “hockey tape” for protecting friction areas on my (tender Midwestern American) feet. No, she didn’t need any tape for a short (8-hour) hike like this one.

So we walked a couple of blocks to the bus (I am learning to appreciate communities with good public transportation!), connected with Elaine and Shirley, caught the ferry and, following a ten-minute trip across the water, walked off the ferry into a quaint little village.

Some background: I knew Joan was a hiker, and when she invited me to visit her and Jim, I asked if we might do some hiking. She graciously arranged a very special trip with her hiking club (another clue) to Elaine’s A-frame on the Bowen Island.

So now from the village straight into the forest we trekked, first to a pre-season tour of summer Camp Bow-Isle which Joan had kindly arranged. Karin Heath graciously shared her delicious cookies with us, and we eagerly scarfed down more than was polite.

Her husband and camp director, Jon, and their black lab graciously guided us straight up through a magnificent pine forest for about an hour, to connect us with the path to our luncheon view.

After lunch. Notice the fog/coud to Elaine's left.

We lunched near the summit of Mount Gardiner on a cloud-drenched slanty rock – empty plastic bags serving as sit-upons and keeping our bottoms dry. Surrounded by a mist of gray tree trunks, we munched happily, nonetheless, on very good sandwiches on home-made bread.

This day I learned the grace of friends and total strangers. Seasoned hikers that they were, they could have reached the lunch rock an hour earlier had they not frequently and cheerfully, it must be added, stopped and waited for their Illinois "flatland" novice to catch up.

Being on the receiving end of compassion and patience – over and over – was something new for me. It’s amazing how humble and grateful at the same time, it makes you feel.