Seeing eternity in a corner of the forest

Sometimes, I just need a day away from it all. A mini-vacation, somewhere between a long look out the window, and a "shut down the office and leave for a week or two" vacation.

So, Wednesday, I attended a two-hour meeting three-and-a-half hours from home. You read that right -- I drove for seven hours total to be in a two-hour meeting. Had it been in Yuma or Globe, I wouldn't have considered it. But the opportunity to drive to the White Mountains ... ah, sure. Bring it on.

I consider naturalist John Muir to be one of my favorite theologians. Muir saw the wilderness as the threshold to all that is sacred. "The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness, Muir remarked.

Before I leave the Prescott National Forest, the high desert landscape turns into conifer-covered ridges. The temperature drops 10 degrees and the scent of pine and juniper refreshes me. It's a world away from the scrub vegetation around Prescott Valley. I drive into clouds towering before me, dropping moisture everywhere. I leave the car window wide open until the rain blows in my window.

Perfection.

I arrive at Lions Camp Tatiyee in mid-afternoon. Envision a summer camp, and this will be nothing like it. There's a lake for fishing, but most of the swimming takes place in an indoor pool equipped with ramps and lifts. No steps up to the cabins. No dirt trails -- the roadways are paved and wide enough for golf carts and vehicles. Camp Tatiyee hosts groups of kids and adults with various disabilities all summer long. Everything has to be accessible for the campers who are blind, deaf, orthopedically and sensory challenged. Some weeks, there is one staff member for each camper.

Our business for the day involves making sure this property and these facilities are available to the people of Arizona in perpetuity. For going on 60 years, the camp has been a contracted user of Forest Service land. With a recent land exchange, the Lions of Arizona will own the land under all of these buildings. A legacy.

Priority for the drive home -- dinner and something to drink. Then I soak up the heady forest fragrance until my ribs hurt. I savor the invigorating breeze like a captive embraces freedom. It's so unlike the inoperable windows and filtered air of my office.

Every trip to Lakeside-Pinetop takes me through a memorial -- my own term for how humans can destroy nature's magnificence in a careless instant. Even 16 years after Rodeo-Chediski ravaged the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, swathes of uncleared, charred trunks stand over brown and gray detritus, where proud Ponderosas reigned at the turn of the century. A doe and her fawn graze at the edge of the highway.

Pulling off, I drive along a forest road. Three large RVs are parked among the disbursed campsites, portraits of those who pull their urban life into the wilderness, like kids who dip their toes off the dock, but never throw themselves into the lake.

It's there that I find it, the hidden nursery of oaks, ponderosas and junipers among the stumps, milkwood and charred remains. Infants tended by the forest family. In 80 years, they will be the gigantic spreading timber that will be touched off again: by lightning, an abandoned campfire, an arsonist. Fire is the catalyst of change, arbitrarily wiping out trees, brush, undergrowth and living things.

A microcosm of life, of time, of eternity itself. Growing. Falling. Renewing. Dying.

The way the Church is dying, Spirit whispered, and I connected the dots. Survivors standing tall, keeping watch over deadfall and the barren landscape. Hanging on to the proud traditions of liturgy and classes, buildings and rituals. And among the ashes, infants are born that won’t know the Church as it was, discovering their own ways to live, growing into the Mystery, and abiding in it. As I trust the regeneration cycles of the forests, the uplift of new landscapes and the renewing of all that is, I will trust that the Church will survive, despite its fires and devastation, and people will keep finding their way to the Creator of it all.

Gradually the darkness recedes

I've worked solely with people with mental-health issues, some of them with severe mental illness, for the past 20 months. Prior to that, I saw a lot of people with mental-health issues in my work in poverty relief and as a benefits counselor to people with disabilities. And most of that time, I felt like I was on the outside, looking at people from a different place.
 
I've always considered that my mental state was a little on the low side of normal, whatever "normal" is. I may have experienced a little more depression and despair than most people, but not enough to consider therapy or medication.
 
That changed this fall.
 
Over the past 2 1/2 years, I've had my share of loss. My only sister died 2 1/2 years ago. Then, in succession, my son moved out of our house, I lost a job I loved, my husband's physical pain and physical limitations weren't resolved by surgery, my son moved out of state, and I lost a good friend. My mood tanked. And in early October, I seriously considered taking my own life.
 
How does that happen? How does a mental-health professional -- and all the people around her -- overlook the warning signs?
 
How do you boil a frog? Gradually. The frog never notices.
 
The dark clouds of despair roll in like fog, gently, until they surround you. The isolation starts slowly, as you make excuses for quitting groups and not seeing friends. And things that once brought joy lose their attraction. Pretty soon, being secluded with no distractions is your goal for the day. And death is the final seclusion.
 
I couldn't see it coming. And that afternoon, secluded for hours, swallowing a handful of pills would have been so easy.
 
Even typing the words this moment sends shivers up my neck.
 
Major depressive disorder was the diagnosis when the doctor spoke to me. One drug had no effect. A second drug, now in its third week, seems to be reversing my course. I've let the people closest to me know what nearly happened, and what I'm doing to deal with it. Besides my medication, I am starting grief therapy next week.
 
I realize how close I came to ending my life, and it terrifies me. I have a new level of empathy for the people I work with daily. How hard life can be. How much most of us take for granted. How fortunate I am to be here and writing this.
 
How grateful I am for today.

Filled with immense gratitude despite the current chaos

I was made to do something. Too much time on my hands drives me over the edge. And I've had too much time for the past week.

Tomorrow will be two weeks since my official last day of work, but the end came a week and a half before that. I'm so stubborn that my gut told me this was over for the past four months, and I've lingered on, hoping to re-engage. Like a friend told me this morning, "you've known, but didn't do anything. So the universe hit you over the head with a 2x4." Pretty astute. That Monday, I felt like I had been hit by a 2x4. And the concussion hasn't healed.

This afternoon, another friend checked in with me. I told her I had an interview Tuesday, and hoped that this wouldn't go on very long.

"It won't -- have you met you?"

I have to say, that phrase just planted me. Yeah. I have. I've met this woman who has pulled all-nighters to make sure a project comes off perfectly or grant is submitted on time. I've met this woman who can pull together and motivate amazing teams of people. I've met the woman who hasn't found a technology she can't conquer. I've met this woman who worked two jobs while finishing her degree -- an opportunity she earned by writing an essay in a national contest. I know her. I'd have hired her twin in a second.

I like me. I'm damn proud of me. And some company or organization is going to be lucky as heck to get me. I'm tired of underselling myself.

That's my motivational speech for the day.

But there's more. Whether I'm hired next week or months from now, I'm just filled with gratitude. I have the best friends anyone could ask for. I just counted 11 amazing woman and one special guy friend. The kind that would drop anything for me in a minute, or kick my butt when needed. And I'd do the same for any of them. Seriously? Who has 12 friends like that? 10 years ago, I knew just one of these people. I'm so grateful for the people in my life.

Going to the mountain to find life again

It was the last of my 2015 resolutions: "I love living in Arizona and enjoy being outdoors. Hike at least twice a month." Almost an afterthought to the other six, and certainly no stretch. That's just 24 hikes a year.

Has my life come to this? That I have to resolve to hike? That I have to clear my schedule to do what I love?

That I have to lose my job to be myself?

Valentine's Day, 2015. I've dropped my husband at work. Six and a half hours until the end of his shift, and I'm headed for Granite Basin Lake and Trail 261. Destination: the mountaintop.

Granite Mountain has always seemed like sacred space to me since I moved to Prescott Valley. As one orients to a new community, some landmarks are necessary, and mountains are visible boundaries. Granite Dells, Thumb Butte, the Bradshaws, Glassford Hill,Spruce Mountain, Mingus Mountain, the San Francisco Peaks in the distance. And Granite Mountain.

Rugged, bare Granite Mountain, where water and wind and earth and fire collide. I hiked it in April 2007, on a day with nary a care in the world, blue sky, artistic clouds providing a backdrop to the sand and rust blends of the earth and lush green vegetation.

Today was different. As if allegory for my life was necessary, the trail provided it.

The descent from a trailhead crosses from the real world into a mystic place, a wilderness where I could disappear forever if that was my intent. And today that thought lingers. Lots of people would know and care, but at this juncture, would it make that much difference? I resist the impulse to actually think through the answer.

Juniper and ponderosa pine, scrub oak and mesquite scents mingle to fill my lungs with the final border that my eyes and ears already have accepted. I am as alone as I will be today, and I am grateful.

Snow melt continues to create little water crossings through and over the trail. As the vegetation thins, bare winter trees turn to bare blackened trees. The fire zone. Here the Hotshots fought, just two weeks before their deaths in Yarnell. Here the fire blazed out of control, but storm and wind created no confusion or trap. Alligator junipers became charcoal monuments to a wilderness in a cycle of death and life. At one tiny rivulet, eroded granite soil shows a line of baby ferns, a fragile and unique ecosystem that will last just a few weeks.


Surrounded by burned trees,
Death.
But not quiet.
There a bee buzzes, a bird sings.
And in the distance, a mountain.
Granite. And water. Life begins again.

Out of darkness, light
Out of death, life.
The cycle continues.

The trail turns and steepens. Past the barrier fence that leads to Little Granite Mountain, and a certain alligator juniper. The one that serves as a monument for the Yarnell 19 (or is it 20 -- certainly the remaining young man's life is altered forever).

My last major hike didn't go so well. Heat, pollens and pace combined to set off my asthma. I pause for water and my inhaler before I start the climb. I write some notes, let two groups of hikers pass.

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

The opening two verses of Psalm 121 bury themselves in my head, an apt thought. Where does my help come from? Mike's surgery and my joblessness have left us reeling...what a strange transition. Will I find something better? How long before our finances will force my decisions?Will I have to grasp something for income and then look for a meaningful, fulfilling job later? How soon before Mike will return to work? When that happens, will he want to return to this or something more?

Back on the trail. Switchbacks and rock hopping to the top. I pass a group of local hikers, headed back down, hear a snatch of conversation about their weekly trek. Today is madness, they're saying, the Presidents' Day weekend free public lands crowd. One of them knows me from somewhere and stops to note, "If a few more people were on the top, Granite Mountain would fall over, making it much easier to reach the summit." I chuckle. I'm one of the not-so-often hikers who is cluttering up the trail today.

I make the decision not to climb around the summit to the trail's end, where the crowd will be. Instead, I will climb to the saddle and take a less known short hike to the back face, looking out over Williamson Valley rather than the lake. Hopefully, I will have a little more solitude.

Charred trees continue to surround the trail, occasionally seeing one that only took half a hit. One side dead, the other side still struggling and green. Is that me? Dead on one side, still struggling on the other? I take a broad view and realize the fire claimed everything in my view. The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Can I still recite the entire Psalm from memory. Yes. Because the valley part is a bit too close right now, literally and figuratively. What's next?

...I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I can't find any, but I know the burned soil and trees will give way to seedlings soon. It's the cycle of life in a forest:

Where there are trees, there will be fire;
where there is fire, there will be ashes;
where there are ashes, there will be seedlings;
where there are seedlings, there will be trees.

I'm tired, and my poetry is gone. I'm focused on reaching the top, and it's just a couple more switchbacks away. Oddly, the charred trees give way to bright white ones. The fire was hottest here, at the top, and all the bark is gone, but the fire raged past without charring the timber. Like a handful of transfiguration statues, the trees mark the turnoff to the north face. I drop my backpack and grab water and an energy bar.

The fire didn't completely claim this face. While some blackened trees are

evident, I'm surrounded by healthy green ponderosa, brimming with pinecones. Grassy hillsides and moss. I've passed through.

I'm alone for approximately five minutes before seven teenagers find the same turn. The main trail is the other way, I tell them. But one girl says she doesn't care -- this is beautiful. Music blares from their iPhones, laughter and friendly chatter surround me. For a moment, I am irritated. Then I realize -- it is the noise of life. I am surrounded by joy and life and humanity. The valley is gone. Celebrate...you are new again.

It is time to come down from the mountain. My eyes stray away from the dead trees surrounding me, and I keep finding signs of life. New prickly pear cactus. Tiny wildflowers. The bright mahogany branches of manzanita.


Through the dead parts, through the darkness,
Through the regrets, through the emptiness,
Until one by one, you find the living again,
And you move on.

What if...?

I'm a different person than I was six months ago.

I don't know of any other half-year in my life that has changed my outlook, my passions, my spiritual center more than this one has. A chance comment in March turned into a lunch, a plan, study, and a weekly commitment. Along the way, there have been joys and challenges, frustrations and discoveries. And I'm not sure where this journey will lead.

I knew writing would re-open some history, which it has. I still agonize over words and ideas, and become obsessive. I stress myself out over things said and unsaid.

Writing for worship takes hours of study time, reflection and feedback from my mentor. It's like an intense Bible study, a creative writing exercise and a technical writing project blended together. The funny thing is, it seems to have this unusual way of changing me, far more than I've impacted it.

Every week, some new insight fills me with wonder. It would have made sense to be filled with revelations in the first weeks, but the inspiration seems to grow stronger, week to week. The past two epiphanies have left me awed.

Along the way, I've joined a handbell ensemble, started to practice the keyboard again, and remembered that I have a gift for taking photos. I've committed to learning the multimedia system for worship and have been nominated for church council.

And I've lost my alienation with celebrating the anniversary of the Christmas event, year in and year out. I've gained a new perspective on heaven and hell, the second coming and the desire to change my corner of this world in the meantime. I've gained a connection between my daily life and my spiritual life that never existed, a blurring of the lines that makes me wonder where one part of my life ends and another one begins.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had God succeeded in that little tug at my heart at 16, when several people around me nudged me toward ministry: pastoral ministry or another call. And I turned my back, went to school and wrote professionally for 15 years. Had I gone another direction, would I have always longed for the writing opportunity I missed? Is this God's way of redirecting, refocusing, repurposing me, some 35 years later?

I will never know. God is patient and finds ways to use us for good, wherever we are, at the moment in life when we turn around and look. God's love has no limit.

No stones here

I read something I wish I could wish away. Someone I know is in trouble.

I wish my first thoughts were as gentle and Christ-like as I hoped they would be in this situation. But they weren't. Here they are, raw and uncensored:

"How could you? You've ruined everything. You had everything going for you, and you destroyed it."

It took me most of a day to get that out of my head. I have a long way to go on my Christian walk.

Finally, the part of me that I'm nurturing came out: "pray for him. pray for his family. pray for the other people affected by this. pray that good will come out of this. because when God's involved, everything works for good."

I'm working my way up to expressing that to him. Not sure what I'm going to say, or maybe I'm just going to express it in a note. Something encouraging. Something that wraps him in grace, because he is a man of God, human and frail, but first a child of our heavenly father.

"We all are broken-heartened at the recent news. But the good news is that we are all broken. Period. We've all made bad choices that we've regretted and hurt other people. There are no stones here. We're praying for you and your family. We love you. I hope the people in your life surround you with love and forgiveness."

Impatiently waiting for pretty much everything

I've said it before, and I'll say it again for emphasis: There's no such thing (to me) as patiently waiting.

I'm impatient by nature. I want things to happen now, if not yesterday. At a meeting today, people chuckled when I clapped at someone else's comment that we can't wait any longer. I imagine they were surprised I didn't say it first. Apparently I have a comrade in arms.

It's been a challenging week. I'm waiting for something to happen that I'd prefer not happen at all. But if it has to happen, get it over with. I don't want to wait until next week. Just do it.

I remember my mother saying, "Watched water never boils." Actually, if you have enough flame under a kettle, it has to boil. But her point was, why stand there and watch it? It will seem to take longer that way. Go do something else.

So I'm not watching the pot. The week is busy enough. I have more than enough to do without fretting over something that will come anyway. There's almost nothing I can do about it.

There are lots of frustrations in life like that. Meetings that are cancelled or delayed. Having to wait at an office. Getting stuck in traffic. Watching the little wheel spin when a computer process takes a minute. Submitting an application and waiting for an answer.

Most of the time, that's just the way it is. Sometimes it's someone's decision or inaction that causes it. While there's rarely a point to getting steamed, I often do. I recall hearing that getting angry shortens your life. So, how much time have I lost?

The more I have to wait, the less patience I seem to have. I'm not getting any better at being patient. In fact, I seem to be growing more impatient about my impatience. Frustrated about being frustrated.

I'm not watching the kettle, or thinking about the week-off event. I think I'm going to bed. I have no impatience about sleep at all.