I'm Coming With You

Do you ever find it hard to say “Follow me” without feeling arrogant? I’m not perfect; who am I to be the example? As leaders – and all of us are leaders in one capacity or another – we have to get over that fear. Asking people to follow us is an integral aspect of leadership. We can’t change the world unless we understand our own value. Unless we consistently give ourselves away, we are wasting what God has entrusted to us.

I’ve been working on my next book, exploring how to give away what many people invested in me all through my life. I’m hoping the book will help me know the best way to do that in the 21^st Century.

Back in my university days, in the late 1970s, I heard Chuck Madden, one of my spiritual leaders, describe how he was mentored by Leroy Eims (who served with The Navigators for over 50 years). We asked Chuck about the process of being discipled and he said it wasn’t as rigid or structured as we imagined. They lifted weights together every morning, went running, worked on writing books, and like that. There was no structure or step-by-step plan, just the rubbing off of spiritual depth from constant exposure.

Maybe that’s how it really works for all of us; the qualities and depth of people we admire rub off on us. And we rub off on other people.

My writing took me back to a familiar Bible story about Elijah and Elisha. To be honest, I’ve always thought God played a joke on us by sending two powerful prophets back-to-back who almost had the same name. I got these two men confused for years until I realized they served God in alphabetical order – Elijah was first, then Elisha was second.

In 2 Kings 2 we can read about the aging Elijah who knew his ministry was winding down. He made a farewell tour around the country checking in on other prophets and giving his last words. Elisha went with him.

At every stop on the journey, Elijah tried to talk Elisha into staying behind. I can’t tell if Elijah wanted to walk those last steps alone and having Elisha around was bugging him, or if he was graciously giving Elisha a face-saving way to drift away. Or maybe Elijah was checking Elisha’s resolve, as in, how bad do you want to come?

Elijah said, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”

Elisha replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” This same conversation occurred several times.

It reminded me of what Sam Gamgee said to Frodo Baggins, “I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise. “Don’t you leave him Samwise Gamgee.” And I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to.”

Later, Frodo said, “Go back, Sam. I’m going to Mordor alone.”

Sam said, “Of course you are. And I’m coming with you.” Sam Gamgee was just like Elisha.

I think Elijah knew he had a loyal follower in Elisha, but maybe it was hard to believe someone would stay with him for so long. Elijah spent most of his prophetic career alone, and it probably didn’t seem real that anyone would want to follow him all the way out to the edge of his life.

But Elisha was having none of the “why don’t you stay here” talk. He wanted to stay with Elijah to the very end. In fact, he said to Elijah, “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.”

Elijah replied that whether or not that happened was up to God, not him. He couldn’t pick his own successor, only God could do that. It wasn’t his gift to give.

It seems a bit presumptuous for Elisha to say “I want twice what you have,” but I doubt he meant it that way. He was paying honor to Elijah, saying he understood the most important and valuable part of Elijah’s life, and he wanted some of that. A double portion.

As leaders, mentors, teacher, disciplers, or trail guides, we are obligated to give away what has been invested in us, but it often comes as a surprise that people are willing to follow us all the way to the end.

However, investing in people is our call, and we have to stay with it. In his book, The Lost Art of Disciple Making, Leroy Eims referred to Jesus’ prayer in John 17: “I have brought your glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” In that same prayer Jesus referred forty times to the men God had entrusted to him. Those men were the work Jesus was so proud of. Eims wrote, “His ministry touched thousands, but He trained twelve men. He gave His life on the cross for millions, but during the three and a half years of His ministry He gave His life uniquely to twelve men.”

I’ve told myself when I’m teaching a large room full of men and women the real audience for that particular lesson is probably only one or two people, not the entire crowd. I do that partly to tamper my own expectations, but more because of what Leroy Eims said, that the real work we have before is the few. It is our opportunity, our obligation, to pour our lives into those few who’ve been entrusted to us by God.

So follow me. Let’s go together.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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From a Thankful Heart

This morning we engaged in one of our semi-annual Thanksgiving traditions – we joined 15,000 other runners and walkers for the Ft. Worth Turkey Trot 5K race. It was a great morning; just cool enough stay comfortable in winter running gear, but warm enough to be pleasant and friendly. Entering a race with 15,000 people takes courage; our ability to perform is public, on city streets, for everyone to see. But it’s also very private because all those peering eyes are only worried about their own lives and loved ones.

Yet, it’s great fun to be part of such a large tribe of people, to be one of us with all of them. It’s contagious. We’re all wearing the proper tribal colors (race T-shirts, high-tech fabrics, running shoes), and we all had fun.

Maybe the reason we hang on so desperately to family traditions (watching the Muppet Christmas Carol, running the Turkey Trot, reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, going to a Thanksgiving movie together, and like that) is because we need them.

Too many things in life change too much too fast; we need traditions to hang on to.

Because …

Families change is ways we never expected.

Some relationships get destroyed, other relationships get restored.

Daughters fight through disappointing outcomes and feeling abandoned and unimportant.

Sons fight their way back down long crooked roads to find their voice and place and value.

Parents fret over life’s role reversals and take on responsibilities for their own parents they never expected. Parents fret over their own kids long after those same kids are grown adults.

Grandparents find expected and unexpected joy in being called by name by little girls.

Living with families breaking up and families being restored takes courage because everything is so unexpected. As my dad said after an hour of hiking on Guadalupe Peak, “You can’t train for this, you just have to do it.”

The grace of God flows down and covers empty chairs and broken hearts and restored lives and lost memories and growing boys and lively little girls, so that making the best of it becomes a worship experience.

"I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Living a Life of Faith

Faith is fundamental to our relationship with God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Yet, faith is almost impossible to define. There are too many facets to grab all at once. We often pray for more faith, but it isn’t the sort of thing we can measure.

Sara Miles wrote that faith was hardly the miracle she first imagined. It was more like living in a different key, being tuned, as the hymn said, to grace.

Part of living a life of faith means making deliberate choices. We choose to believe in God’s rescue rather than coincidence; we choose to believe in God’s providence rather than accidents; we choose to believe in God.

A life of faith is a life of expectation. Hebrews 11 calls us to emulate the lives of the men and women who leaned into their future in hope and faith.

Faith is not wishful thinking. It is the confident assurance of the reality of God’s promises, and that assurance gives us the ability to carry on with confidence regardless of our present circumstances. (Erwin McManus)

Faith isn’t about having a bigger idea than other people; faith is the conviction of things unseen.

Faith isn’t about speaking something into reality; Faith is joining God in a life bigger than we can even dream.

Faith isn’t the magic ingredient that impresses God; Faith is confidence in God’s character, that He is good, true, and beautiful.

Living a life of faith often means giving up security and certainty, and moving into the unknown life God has for us.

Living a life of faith means not simply letting our life happen, which is the same as giving God our leftovers. Living a life of faith means actively running toward Christ. (Francis Chan)

Living a life of faith means seeing what God sees, seeing the invisible.

Faith grounds us in the certainty of God’s faithfulness; hope pulls us into the mystery of God’s future. (Erwin McManus)

Faith means leaving our search for security in exchange for significance.

God is glorified when you simply live a life of faith, living your life for the right things, whether you succeed or fail.

A life of faith isn’t as much what you expect out of life but what you put into it, not about being entitled, but being engaged.

Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging, therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried. (Oswald Chambers)

Living a life of faith means having confidence in God even beyond the horizon.

Faith means interpreting what we see in the light of what we believe.

A life of faith requires maintenance, tinkering, rebirth, and surrender.

Faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Can We Change The World?

On my bookshelf in a small clear plastic box I keep a piece of concrete that my daughter, Katie, brought back from her visit to Germany. She spent 2011-2012 as a Rotary Exchange Student in Odense, Denmark, and at the end of her tour she joined other exchange students from around the world for a quick tour across Europe. Her special gift to me was a piece of the Berlin Wall. I think one of her friends grabbed it from a pile and snuck it in his pocket. Or something like that. A piece of the Berlin Wall is a big deal for someone who grew up during the Cold War. The Wall was the symbol of tyranny and political slavery and injustice. Through the seventies I remember hearing news stories about the possible reunification of Germany, but it never sounded like a good deal for anyone. The assumption was that the combined country would look and feel more like the communist East than the democratic West. Democracy as a system took a beating during those years and it was inconceivable that communist governments would decrease in number.

From today’s perspective the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union seems inevitable and unavoidable, but no one thought that during the seventies except Ronald Reagan. He forecasted that Communism would someday collapse under its own weight, but few publically agreed with him. At every turn the USA and Jimmy Carter were outfoxed by the USSR and Leonid Brezhnev. Democracies seemed to have outlived their usefulness and were on a worldwide decline.

So the peaceful revolution that changed so many governments in the late 1980s was a huge surprise. Even more shocking was that so many began in church prayer meetings that spilled out into the streets.

This past Sunday morning I read a newspaper story about a man who served in the East German army, Lieutenant Colonel Harold Jaeger. He was in charge of the Berlin Wall border crossing at Bornholmer Street, which on the night of November 9, 1989, was being crowded by about 10,000 people in the streets. They were responding to a vague and premature promise made by an East German government official that the gates would be opened. Colonel Jaeger asked his commanding officers what he should do about all the people who were becoming unruly and shouting, “Open the gate.” His chain of command ignored his questions and told him to solve his own problems.

He said, “At 11:30 PM I ordered my guards to set aside all the controls, raise the barriers and allow all East Berliners to travel through.”

Before the night was over, more than 20,000 people had crossed over. Many of them hugged and kissed the border guards and handed them flowers.

I remember watching the images on television and it was unbelievable. Once the gates opened, they stayed open. The world changed for Berliners that night. It took a while to realize it, but the world changed for all of us, too.

In my writing and teaching I use the phrase “Change the world” often, maybe too much. But I believe individuals acting in courage can literally change the world. Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger didn’t mean to make a permanent political statement that we could read about 25 years later, he was simply trying to prevent thousands of people from getting hurt. He solved the immediate problem in front of him by choosing peace and kindness instead of force and anger, and your life and my life are better today because of him.

As so, is it possible for you and me to do the same thing? I believe it is. But I don’t believe world-changing actions happen when that is the goal. Rather, I believe our greatest opportunities to create permanent change comes when we live our lives in the mercy and grace of God, choosing peace and kindness, making daily decisions that pull us further up and further in to our relationship with God.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Musical Roots

My daughter, Katie, posted a photo of my granddaughter Madden in her Lady Bug costume posing with a man and woman dressed as Mary Poppins and Bert. She captioned the photo, “M meets her favorites.” I wrote, “So who is the Mary Poppins couple in the photo?”

“I have no idea. We were at a trunk-or-treat thing. But M knows all the songs and loves the movie so it was perfect.”

Well, that just made me happy. Even more than seeing my cute granddaughter in her Lady Bug costume. She loves the movie and knows all the songs.

Music is a deep root in our family and it makes me happy to see it blooming in this little girl. It feels like success. Like one more family treasure has been preserved in the next generation.

I don’t know how far back music goes in my family; what I meant is, I don’t how many generations were musicians. But I know my grandfather, Cy Simpson, learned to play piano from a correspondence course. I wouldn’t’ve thought it possible to learn piano that way except we have a stack of his old correspondence. He learned to play shaped notes, which is an old-school way of notating music. Each shape corresponds to a different note on the scale, and changing keys is very easy.

My dad and his sister, Betty, used to stand beside the piano and sing duets while Cy played. He could change keys on a whim, even in mid-phrase, which he did often, just to mess with the singers. Joking at each other’s expense goes way back in my family, too.

As a young man my Dad lead the music in small churches all over central and west Texas. In fact, he men my mom at a revival at First Baptist Church in Ackerly, Texas. My other grandfather, Roy Haynes, was pastor, and his oldest daughter, Lenelle, played piano for the worship services. My dad was the visiting musician for the revival, what we used to call the music director and now worship leader. He was a student at the time, at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas.

Music was part of our home life as far back as I have memories of anything. My dad had stacks of long-play record albums, mostly of Southern Gospel singing groups. He also had the Greatest Hits of Glen Miller, and I played it all the time. It was my first exposure to big band jazz, and hearing it so much was fundamental to my being a musician today, 50 years later.

I credit my dad with the fact I am a musician today. He never pushed or pulled me into music, but he certainly inspired me. In my life as a young boy, because of my dad’s obvious example, music was something grown men did regularly. It was a manly pursuit. So I pursued it.

And just like my Dad, I married a musician. Cyndi played melodic percussion (bells, chimes, xylophone, etc.) and I played trombone, and we played together in various church ensembles as often as possible.

Our children, Byron and Katie, became musicians. They both played piano and sang in children’s choirs. We used to sing songs together while driving around Texas in our Chevy Astro minivan. Especially during the Christmas season, which in our family begins November 1^st, as soon as Halloween is over.

Both B&K went on to play trombone, and one of my favorite memories is Christmas caroling as a trombone trio. We kept trying to bring Cyndi into our group so we could become the Simpson Family Quartet, but she said we were just making fun of her as a percussionist. She was a little bit correct in the making fun part, but still, we wanted her to join.

And Cyndi and I still sing along with movie musicals. Especially during the Christmas season. We’ve already sung our way through the Muppet Christmas Carol twice this season, and White Christmas isn’t far behind.

So, back to my first story: The fact that Madden loves Mary Poppins and knows all the songs makes me a happy “Pops.” I hope we have decades of music ahead of us.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Charting the Path Ahead

What made me angry Monday evening was that after I pressed the “start button” on the Strava app on my phone, put the phone in my pocket, and began my run, the app apparently started asking more questions about whether I would like to add some features. As a result, it never started timing. I didn’t know that until I got back from running and there were the silly questions. Which means, I had to get my reading glasses from inside the house to see what the app was asking so I could say “No” again.

So I asked my Facebook friends for recommendations for a different app. What I want is something simple that plots the route on a map (with elevation), records my time, calculates average pace, and then stops. That’s all I want. I would buy the premium version of an app like that if it promised never ask me to upgrade or chose more add-ons. There should be a “Pay $10 to leave me alone” option.

I’ll confess I like to know how far I run. In the old days I measured all my routes with my car odometer, which meant I had to do some creative driving to measure routes down alleys and through parks and drainage ditches.

Through the years I’ve run with two early iterations of GPS watches. The first had a small satellite receiver that I wore on my arm, which was more of a fashion commitment than I cared for. The second looked like an over-sized running wrist watch and worked well except the rechargeable battery often quit before I finished my long slow lumbering runs. And uploading the data to my computer was confusing and unreliable.

I know there are better GPS watches nowadays and they’re easier to use and I would probably be happy with any of them (and I am open to suggestions, by the way), but it’s so easy to carry my phone in my pocket (now that all my running shorts have pockets) and I have the added benefit of having my phone with me in case I need to call Cyndi so she can rescue me from a pack of wolves or an angry hail storm.

One of my longtime friends, Jeff Blackwell, responded to my Facebook question with this: “Go old school..... run to enjoy it...use your muscle memory to set your pace. Electronics (especially cellphones) have ruined the reasons we ran to begin with....to relax and get more in tune with our thoughts and nature. Maybe that is just me.”

Jeff makes great sense, and I can’t argue with his passionate plea. A lot of runners don’t have to record the time and distance of every run (I’m married to a runner who doesn’t), but for me, keeping that log is one of my favorite things about running.

More to the point, charting and graphing is one of my favorite things about life. It’s how I recognize trends and patterns, how I understand numbers, and more importantly, how I interpret the world. I have a notebook in my library full of run logs listing every mile I’ve run since 1978. They include more than numbers. They tell stories of vacations and business trips, races and marathons, and adventure runs in exotic locations. They describe training programs full of optimism and hope.

One of the things I like about myself is that I know I’ve run 36,874 miles as of Wednesday, October 29, 2014. I’m not the only one who knows, either. Psalm 139:3 says God charts the path ahead of me and tells me where to stop and rest. Every moment God knows where I am.

This is great comfort to me because of what it says about the nature and character of God. He cares enough about the details of our lives to chart our paths, and He knows enough about our individual energy levels and recharge demands to know where we should stop and rest. A God who uses charts and maps can be relied upon, it seems to me.

Well, I’m sorry to go on and on about my GPS problems, and some readers are already typing “That’s a first-world problem” into the comment section. But for those who appreciate the granularity of life, details like time and route hint to the bigger story, and log books indicate the future direction of life. Keeping track, charting and graphing, is how I pay attention and I’m not yet ready to give it up.

How about you? What details of life do you track?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Are Your Best Days Ahead?

This week I told my life story (that’s right, 1956-2014) to two young men, something I’ve done many times as part of the Journey Group exercise. It always leaves my heart soft for several days afterward. Maybe because of the raw exposure, or the vulnerability of being known, or maybe it’s the recalling of those scary episodes I was lucky to survive. Being the reflective and analytical type, I end up wondering why events happened the way they did, and more importantly, what will happen next. And I wonder what I will have to offer in the next decades of life.

I recently attended a retreat in Colorado with The Noble Heart ministries, and one of the speakers, Gary Barkalow, talked about the value we gain from our years of experience. He quoted Proverbs 20:29, which says, “The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old.” (NLT)

Now that’s the sort of verse I can enjoy since I have several gray hairs of my own. Gary said men often fret because we don’t have the strength we used to have when we were young, and we tend to discount the strength we now bring. Since we are not the man we used to be, we must be less of a man now, so we pull back and sit down and give up.

What a terrible way to live.

At the retreat in Colorado it rained and snowed all day so it was too wet outside for a big campfire. We watched a manly movie, instead. We watched Skyfall. There was a great scene where James Bond, thought to be dead, comes back to finish his mission. He was questioned by Gareth Mallory, Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman, who wondered why Bond was so determined to return to his very dangerous job. “Why not stay dead? Few field agents get to leave so cleanly.”

Do you ever hear this voice in your head? As in, Why don’t you simply retire, stand down, let the younger passionate guys handle it from here? Don’t you think you’ve earned a break from the action?

But if we are following the calling God gave us, we can’t simply stop. Gary said when the stress of his own ministry becomes overwhelming he sometimes says to God, “That’s it, I’m done,” and God replies, “You don’t have permission to be done.”

God says that to all of us. It’s actually good news, not bad. It’s confirmation that we still have lots more to accomplish. We still have value to add.

We discussed another Bible verse, James 1:3-4, which includes, “… the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.” (AMP) These qualities … endurance, steadfastness, patience, come only through time, struggle, and battle. They don’t dwell among youngsters. And because of these, we are more, not less.

Back to the movie. When he finally meets the villain, Bond says his hobby is “resurrection.” You and I ought to make that our own hobby, our own life objective. Resurrection. We should be continually restoring what we’ve lost, constantly learning new things, redefining ourselves, and embracing the next phase of our calling.

I have been reading the new book by Sam and John Eldredge, Killing Lions: A Guide Through the Trials Young Men Face, and one of the first things I’ve noticed is how the trials that young men face are the same trials that all men face. The spiritual battles are the same no matter how old we are. The difference is that having many years of survival helps bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

Any time I go to a workshop or retreat I come away with a bigger vision of life … which, of course, is one of the main reasons I attend in the first place. And I came away from this retreat repeating what Gandalf said about Bilbo in The Hobbit: “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”

I need to be reminded of that constantly. So do you. Your best days – your most enduring, steadfast, and patient days – are still ahead of you.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Open Hearted

How many times has God finalized His message to me while I’m running down a dirt road? Too many to count. It happened once again last Friday as I “ran” on the Old Stage Road near Bear Trap Ranch, in the mountains above Colorado Springs, Colorado. It had been raining and snowing all morning. After lunch it finally dried out enough that I decided to go for a run. After all, I didn’t bring my gear up here for nothin’. Unfortunately the camp is about 9,300’ elevation and every road is either steep up or steep down, so what I really did was walk at slightly-above normal pace while wearing my running gear. There were no disappointments, though, because what I really needed was not exercise but information processing, and that happens best for me when my feet are moving.

Earlier that same day I listened to a great talk from my friend, John Hard, which he titled, “Experiencing the love of the Father.” And by listening, I mean I really only heard part of it since John began his session playing a song by Geoff Moore, Listen to Our Hearts. It took me back several years to a time when my heart was soft and full of Jesus. After that it was difficult to concentrate on anything else with that song rolling around inside.

John ended his time sending us out to be alone with God to answer two questions: (1) What is the Father saying to you right now, and (2) what facades are you using to hide your true selves?

By the time I walked downstairs to my bunk room the words I was singing inside my head morphed from “Lord, listen to our hearts,” to “Berry, listen to your heart.” And so I started writing in my journal the thoughts that rushed at me concerning my own heart and what I was hearing. I wrote:

I get so caught up in teaching and sharing and writing and mentoring (my calling, the very things I should be caught up in) that I’m afraid I’ve lost something that needs to be restored.

What have I lost? Maybe loving God from my heart, not just my intellect.

And for me, opening my heart means more music. Music is the secret code that goes straight to my heart. I need to find ways to let music speak to me, to open my heart again.

Have I lost something by becoming so narrow in my relationship with God?

Sometimes on the journey we’re so focused on what’s important we fail to notice what’s even more important.

Has my spiritual connection become more about data-gathering and insight-harvesting, rather than heart-loving and soul-feeding?

And what is the facade I hide behind? I’m good at telling the story and teaching and writing. I’m good enough to cover and hide the inadequacies of my heart … at least, for a while.

That afternoon I took a first step toward feeding my heart during my run by listening to music (instead of my normal practice of learning more by listening to podcasts). Specifically, I listened to an old standby, the Exodus album released in 1998 by Michael W. Smith. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the songs by Sixpence None The Richer, titled Brighten My Heart, has the lyric: “Help me open my heart to You.”

And so, it wasn’t that my application from the weekend was to go home and simply listen to more music. Music is merely a tool. It isn’t enough.

What I need is to restore that heart-level connection that was once so important but has become lost in the clutter of all the good and important things.

Help me open my heart to You. Help me restore what has been lost.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Mountain Solitude

Where do you run to, to find answers? How do you reboot your brain? How do you settle your brain-floaters (those nagging thoughts that won’t go away and won’t solve)? Me, I’m a solitude seeker. That probably comes as no surprise if you’ve read my writing before.

In 2004, at the age of 48, I made my first solo backpacking trip into the Guadalupe Mountains, looking for answers. It was my first planned solitude.

The curious thing is, at the time I didn’t have any haunting questions, or burdens, or emotional struggles. I wasn’t fleeing responsibilities or trying to connect with my mountain-man self. I just wanted to do something radically different to feed my heart and connect with God. Someone recommended a solo backpacking trip, so I went. I borrowed an ancient Boy Scout backpack, used my own broken sleeping bag (I didn’t know the zipper was broken when I left home), took a finicky tent that was too heavy, hiked in the snow, and thought I was going to freeze to death during the night and knew Cyndi would be really mad if I did.

I survived the night. I had a great adventure. God spoke to my heart in comfort and acceptance and companionship. I was hooked. I’ve made many more solo trips into those very same mountains since then, and I hope to have many more.

I recently finished reading Running to the Mountain by Jon Katz, a book he wrote in 1999 to chronicle his escape to solitude, to a dilapidated mountain cabin in upstate New York, where he confronted his own questions about spirituality, mortality, and his own self-worth. He was even less prepared than I was for his solitary mountain adventure.

He wrote, “On the mountain, I found myself truly, literally alone for perhaps the first time in my life – solitude being very different from loneliness – without really being prepared or knowing how to respond. Like (Thomas) Merton, I’d left the real world, though temporarily.”

When I read that, it reminded me of a backpacking trip I took in 2008, when, like Jon Katz, I was literally alone for perhaps the first time in my life. I wrote in the margin of my book: “Like Wilderness Ridge. I was alone. No one could’ve hiked up during the night in the dark. The gate was locked.”

It wasn’t scary. It didn’t make me nervous. I knew I could hike out of there in a couple of hours if I had to. I wasn’t lost. In fact, I could see my car way down in the parking lot. And besides, I went up there to be alone.

I had been by myself in the Guadalupes many times before, but this time was more definite. I could see the trailhead parking lot from where I was sitting on the edge of the cliff, 3,000’ higher and four miles of trail away from the visitor center, and my car was the only vehicle in the lot. I knew the entrance gate was locked, but it was too far away to see. However, that locked gate and empty parking lot was a picture of finality - at least, until the next morning, when the visitor center would reopen.

As I sat watching the sunset, with my feet dangling over the cliff edge, it occurred to me how few gates had closed behind me in my life.

I was laid off more than once by various employers, but I eventually found work in my same profession, so that wasn’t so final.

In 1980 when our son, Byron, was born, I felt like a gate had closed behind me; it came over me all at once during the first half of a six-mile run down Highway 137 in Brownfield, Texas. Being a father was the most permanent and irreversible change in my life to that point. But that evening, as I ran on those thoughts, I began to see it as gate opening instead. By the time I’d finished my run I was happy and ready to be a daddy, full of joy over that tiny boy with skinny legs. I couldn’t really count that as a locked gate.

I’ve closed and locked the gate myself on several foods that I once enjoyed. Green bean casserole, for one. And kale. I both cases I remember my last serving, when I knew it would be my last bite. But neither of those choices left me feeling alone.

But my sunset experience on Wilderness ridge was a turning point in my life that I still don’t completely understand. The solitude felt warm and comfortable, as if God was reminding me to trust Him a little while longer.

That evening I felt the need to make a statement, so I marked the cliff face in the fashion male mammals have used since the beginning. Whatever happened in my heart up on Wilderness Ridge, whatever the closed gate meant for me, however I was supposed to be alone, I now owned it. It belonged to me. I had marked the moment.

QUESTION: Are you a solitude-seeker or community-dweller? Have you had an experience similar to mine? Or Jon Katz’? I’d love to hear about it.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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Adventure in Our Own Backyard

“What’s wrong with your eye?” was the question I kept getting Sunday morning, which surprised me, since my eye wasn’t the part of me that hurt the most. In fact, I was totally unaware of any problem in my eye except that I remembered poking it on a bush branch while digging a ditch across our side-yard flower bed Saturday afternoon. I must have poked it worse than I thought. The parts of me that hurt the most were my hands and shoulders, which also surprised me, since I expected it to be my back and knees. My knees because they always hurt a little bit no matter what, but my back because I shoveled, not just dirt, but heavy sticky clay, for hours Friday and Saturday afternoons. Apparently that put a greater strain on my upper body than my lower body.

In spite of all that, I was a happy man. Why? Because I had taken the first step in fulfilling Cyndi’s anniversary gift wish.

This past July we celebrated 35 years of marriage. First we took a very cool trip to Mexico in May to celebrate. And if that wasn’t enough, when I asked Cyndi what she wanted for her anniversary gift she asked for an outdoor shower.

So this past weekend the weather was finally cool enough, and since it has been raining for two weeks the ground was finally soft enough, for me to begin making Cyndi’s wishes come true, which, as it turns out, is my primary purpose in life.

However, I should back the story up a bit. This idea of having an outdoor shower all started when Cyndi and I attended a retreat at Vallecitos in Northern New Mexico, in 2011.

One night after her workshop and after a late night shower, Cyndi whispered to me (whispering because it was camp silent time) “I took an outdoor shower - I was butt naked - and there was a man in the shower next to me!”

The next day after my morning run I decided I needed to know more about Cyndi’s experience. The outdoor shower turned out to be mounted on a flat wooded balcony that was closed on three sides, including the side between men and women, meaning Cyndi was correct when she said a man was next to her but there was a substantial corrugated tin partition separating them. Hardly as naughty as Cyndi made it sound.

But the third side was open to the mountain and the entire world. Granted, it faced a ravine and a steep wall of Aspens so that someone would have to go to a lot of trouble to find a place to watch naked bathers - probably more trouble than an adult is willing to make.

Still, while showering, you were definitely naked and vulnerable to the outside world in a way that seldom happens as an adult. It was fun, much more fun than a conventional shower, maybe because of the adventure, maybe because of the rarity but also because it felt free and wild.

And then last May at our vacation in Verana, Mexico, the only shower accessible to us was outdoor and open to the Bay of Bandaras. If someone in Puerto Vallarta had a powerful-enough telescope and knew where to look, we were only 16 miles across the water.

By this time we were old hands at showering outside and took it completely in stride. It was after that trip that Cyndi asked for an outdoor shower of her own.

So why am I writing about this except to brag on my own hard work and sore muscles? It goes back to something I read in Patricia Ryan Madison’s book, Improv Wisdom. "There are people who prefer to say Yes, and there are people who prefer to say No. Those who say Yes are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say No are rewarded by the safety they attain.

Granted, taking an outdoor shower in our own backyard, which is very small and close and private, is at best, a small adventure. But Cyndi and I know our lives will become more closed and private as we get older unless we deliberately open up. We have to intentionally add vulnerability, say Yes more often, to prevent that progression.

Besides, once we start using the shower, who knows what other adventures will open up to us.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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