From My Nature Journal: Making Peace with Western Washington Weather While On the Road to Rhodies

Okay, it’s time. I’ve been here long enough and I’m done bellyaching about Western Washington weather. And though it’s stretching me, I may even be ready to begin making peace with it.

No, Colorado, that doesn’t mean we don’t still miss you desperately, and the utopian weather we’d relished all our years with you. Your year-round nearly predictable sunshine was a hiker’s delight, and this Vitamin D deprived region could use a bit more of it. Oh, weather is predictable here from October to May, too, if you want to call ‘rain and within six degrees either side of forty-two’ predictable. It’s just that it’s about time I stopped moanin’ and groanin’ about how much we dislike the rain here. They said it would take a year for us to get accustomed to it. They lied. We’re still not used to it. That being confirmed, it’ll take an act of the will to make that happen.

And so, as an expression of that will and a symbol of my new resolve, Gail and I went to REI a few days ago and I outfitted myself with some serious Gore-Tex raingear, inaugurating it yesterday with relative success. No, I’ve never paid that much even for a Minnesota-worthy winter parka, or maybe even the three winter jackets put together that I’ve owned in my entire adult life. Still, though I can’t yet say that I LIKE hiking in the rain, at least I’ve made a start of it.

But in addition to my brand-spanking-new orange raincoat, there’s another thing that is motivating me these days: we’re coming up on rhody season here in the Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Pacific Rhododendron -- the Washington state flower -- is about to make its annual showing. Our little acre here in the woods outside of Coupeville, in fact ALL the wooded areas in the region, are nearly covered with the dazzling things, and we can hardly wait to see them in bloom, yes, even while we hike in the rain. In fact, it’s going to take a hike in the rain to see them, rhodies, among the loveliest of state flowers.

Rhododendrons are found in numerous places around the world. In fact, a thousand of these evergreen species are known in Europe, China, Australia and North America. Besides, horticulturists have cultivated many hybrids for garden plantings over the last two hundred years. But the wild Pacific Rhododendron, rhododendron macrophyllum to be precise, may be one of the most beautiful, especially in the context of its natural environment. A leggy, understory shrub that can grow to twenty feet and more while it reaches for light beneath towering conifer groves, its large, showy and prolific light pink to purple blooms stand out refreshingly on gray, misty days, particularly amid the dark, wet trunks of enormous Douglas Firs nearby. Made prolific due to toxins in the plant that make them unpalatable and unbrowsable to deer, it is that aforementioned rain combined with the acidic soil beneath those gargantuan conifers that make conditions right for the rhody to thrive.

And those trees themselves present another ambience unique from my more familiar Midwest haunts: on wooded trails snaking through giant fir groves, it might be upwards of fifty feet from the forest floor to the lowest branches, leaving a cavernous, auditorium-like opening akin to a large room, one full of flowering bushes. R. macrophyllum, which literally means ‘rose-tree large-leafed,’ stretches from southern British Columbia to northern California, and is variously known as the Pacific, California, Western, Coast or Big Leaf Rhododendron, or the California Rosebay. It was first described for science by famed botanist Archibald Menzies, who collected the plant in Washington while accompanying the Pacific Northwest exploration of British sea captain George Vancouver in 1792.

So back to the rain. The Bible says that God causes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), inferring that his manifold blessings are heaped upon both those who revere him and those who have not yet learned to do so. I am grateful for wild rhododendrons, how they will beautify the forest under dark and rainy skies. My new raincoat and I are ready for them now.

“Consider the lilies,” Jesus said, “how they grow. They don’t toil or spin, yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as one of these. But if God so clothes the grasses of the field… can you not trust God to care for you?” (Matthew 6:28-30)

~~ RGM, February 26, 2018

From My Nature Journal: All Who Are Thirsty

Chihuahuan Desert

We took a hike last week in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and ran out of water along the way. It wasn’t a problem at all: we were nearing the end of our trek by the time the water was low and drained our nalgenes with that knowledge. But we did continue long enough to become somewhat thirsty before finishing.

It has caused me since then to do some thinking about true thirst. I’m not sure I’ve ever been thirsty or dehydrated to a point of danger, though there have been many times I’ve been thirsty to discomfort. In fact, altitude sickness here in Colorado or other high places first seems to manifest itself in low-grade head achiness before it turns to nausea; visitors and natives alike do well to simply drink a lot more water than they may be used to in order to avoid it completely. Actually, they say that when one hikes in arid areas carrying ample water (minimum two quarts per day), one should keep ahead of their thirst: in other words, they should drink smaller amounts often, before any inclinations of thirst even present themselves. (This concept would really preach!!!) Gail is much better at that than I; usually I don’t even think of it, then get thirsty and drain half a bottle in two quick gulps. Or if she and I are only out on our regular three-mile exercise circuit, I’ll just drink hers, which can annoy her.       : )

I’ve read of people who’ve died while hiking the desert, most typically the inexperienced who leave their car at some remote parking area in an expansive southwestern public park, and either lose their way as they hike or bite off more than they can chew. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they take on more than they can swallow.

But it’s the feeling of thirst I am trying to think about today, because, wouldn’t you know, the Bible has something to say about that… What would it be like to desire God’s presence MORE than one would even desire water while in danger of dying of thirst? Psalm 42 says. “As the deer longs for the water brooks, so my soul longs for You, O God.” Or again, Psalm 63, “God, I will earnestly seek You. My soul thirsts for You… as in a dry and weary land where there is no water…”

What would it be like to desire

God’s presence MORE than one

would even desire water while

in danger of dying of thirst?

Let’s get into it a bit. Consider the many words that can denote thirst or dryness, and think about them as you do. Thirsty. Dried. Dehydrated. Arid. Shriveled. Scorched. Burnt. Baked. Sweltered. Waterless. Sere. Desiccated. Unslaked. Dry as a bone. Dry as dust. Parched. Hot. Blistering. Scalded. Searing. Sizzling. Scorched. Famished. Blazing. Barren. Bone-weary. Weak. Deserted. Faint. Desolate. Bleak. Inhospitable. Singed. Forbidding. Drought. Wilted. Torched. Forlorn. Blistered. Forsaken. Kindled. Evaporated. Withered. Blighted.

Just reading them over now makes me need to lick my lips. Or go ahead, try whistling after you read them. They’re enough to make one want to go right to the faucet or fridge this moment and wet one’s whistle.

Physical thirst is one thing. Spiritual thirst is similar, but is another. Thinking of physical thirst helps me imagine my need for God, helps me know that my spiritual thirst can and will indeed be satisfied. Jesus and St. Peter promise it (John 4:14 and Acts 3:19): 
“…Whoever drinks of the water I (Jesus) will give him will never thirst again… but will become in him a wellspring, a river springing up to eternal life... So turn… that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.”

I like the song:

All who are thirsty, all who are weak:

Come to the fountain. Dip your heart in the stream of life.

Let the pain and the sorrow be washed away

In the waves of His mercy, as deep cries out to deep:

“Come, Lord Jesus, come.”

Or one from my youth:

And Jesus said, “Come to the water, stand by my side.

I know you are thirsty: you won’t be denied."

~~ RGM, November 6, 2014,

from a journal entry a couple months back

From My Journal: Going Up You Get Tired, Coming Down You Get Hurt

I don’t know how many inexperienced hikers I’ve told that old adage to. Back in the flat Midwest it’s not something one says much, but here in the Rockies it is advice well heeded.

On top of Mt. Bierstadt, our first fourteener 
(and only so far)

Going up you get tired. Many trailheads, in fact most here, seem to start at the bottom of a long incline. Before I became more accustomed to the altitude, I wouldn’t be a quarter mile in and I needed to stop to catch breath, filled with the wondering of whether I was going to be able to enjoy this hike after all. But I found even then that I would finally hit a steady rhythm, "pickin’ ‘em up and puttin’ ‘em down" one foot ahead of the other, and the steady pace, even if modest, gave progress.

Goin' up...

But going up you get tired. You long for the summit, or at least time or trail’s apex, because the ascent is wearing you out. Going up has gotten all of your attention, especially if you are a novice. It’s up and to the right that is the order of the day. Maybe all the while you know you have a final scramble ahead of you, following cairns, picking or pulling your way through boulders. Your heart is pumping wildly, your lungs ache, you’ve perspired to the point of dripping, and you long for the time you can descend. You even hear your inner monologue: “Oh, going down will be so great,” you say, “all of the beauty and none of the pain, objective accomplished!”

You forget (or don’t know) that coming down is the more likely time when you can get hurt. It’s a bit counterintuitive. With the strain of the ascent one is lulled into thinking the descent can’t be much, nothing but a piece of cake. But physical exertion has already been exacting and one may not realize how tired they already are. Muscles have been taxed, and sometimes that shaky feeling of adrenalin deprivation has even set in.

'Tis the art of the skillful

descent that should require

as great an attentiveness...

Comin' down...

So coming down is usually when you get hurt. Your foot slips. Your hand fails to grip a hold. Think of it: mechanically, going up is actually much easier than coming down. On the way up your body leans into the angle’s pitch, it hugs the trail, the path almost welcoming the next footfall. Going down, the center of gravity has been reversed with centrifugal rather than centripetal force being exerted. The body now leans away from the angle’s pitch, away from the trail, and every single step is a lurch forward into space, into nothingness, into unwelcomeness. You discover that both the ascent and descent can be painful, though with different kinds of pain. Going up it’s the exhaustion of exertion, lung pain. Coming down it’s the checking of momentum, the jarring of knees and hips, and even the occasional fall or injury.

'Tis the art of the skillful descent that should require as great an attentiveness.

So in life. We long for the pinnacle, then for the chance to be done with the hard pulling and enjoy the downhill coast. But coming down from a height to a place of normalcy is where I can fail, or fall, where I need to humble myself, remove myself from my exalted position. Yes, the skillful descent requires a retiring grace.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face (see Exodus 34:29-35) so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor... And we all, with unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another... (2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 18)

                                       ~~RGM, from an earlier journal entry,

Adapted for Blog May 3, 2013