For those of you who don't already know, I do a lot (most) of my thinking & figuring through writing. Some people play music, others dance. I think my brother plays Freecell when he processes life, but me, I write.
I've been thinking a lot about community & Christianity lately, mostly because of the markedly polar experiences I've had at the event horizon of those two concepts. Oh, and when I say polar, I really do mean polar: diametric opposites.
At camp over this summer, I experienced all things good when Christians gathered as a community, with a common goal & a common focus. I experienced what it was like for a group to adopt a common goal: to become one in Him, as Christ was one with the Father (cf. Jn 17:11) and to reach out in ministry with this as our foundation. Day in, day out, there was no escape from the community. We were forced to be together, because there was nowhere you could go to escape from it--not that we needed to be forced to be together. It was a beautiful thing: an environment that brought a lot of healing to many members of the community--myself included.
Now that I am back in Edmonton, the stark contrast is richly evident. Community is sparse at best, and as of yet, I've yet to see a purpose-driven community adopt John 17:11 as a primary tenet since I've been back. Christianity in the city seems to be a secondary objective, and I've found myself getting caught in the social inertia of such a lifestyle. Between work, entertainment & consumerism, there leaves little resources to devote to the King of Kings & the Lord of Lords. But, like I've said, I noticed myself getting caught in this trend. I don't like it. I don't like it at all, and it's going to change. I already have made steps to try to rectify this slide in my own life, but more need to be taken & that's my primary goal for the next bit.
Reorientation
Last night, I started uploading some pictures of my summer adventures to my Flickr photostream, and as I was e-leafing through my photos, I ran across a series of pics from the day in our COLTS training that we went on a blindfolded orienteering exercise. The goal of the exercise was to test our skills in map-reading, geographical feature identification & triangulation. It worked well, since none of us were really all that familiar with our surroundings yet (was like the third week into training) & without having the added bonus of being able to see where we travelled from, we really didn't know where we were (Okay, that's partially a lie: I almost immediately new where we were--kind of--since it was a field that we had passed through the year before on a dayhike at Sr. Outcamp.).
Compare that exercise to my Solo out trip--pretty much the final practical exam of COLTS--where our leader, Dustin, blindfolded me & drove for half an hour, only to drop me off on a logging road beside a reforested cutblock in the middle of nowhere. It was far enough that none of the mountains that I could see were familiar & the trees were high enough to obscure the majority of the horizon. The first blindfolded adventure had the advantage of being in an open field with many, many easily recognisable features available. This new one had none of those. Did I sit down & cry, or did I pout about how there was nothing to see? No, rather, I did what I was trained to do: "If you're unsure as to where you are, walk twenty feet & look again."
Okay, so the 20-foot meander didn't really help all that much in this alien area, but the underlying concept rang true. I hoisted my backpack & started walking up the forestry road: there were footprints in the now dry mud, and I didn't see any coming back from that direction, so it had to be a good bet.
After half a kilometer of hiking & looking around, I had a good guess as to where I thought I might be. Nonetheless, I wasn't sure. I kept walking along the forestry road until it came to an abrupt stop. I had become surrounded by a steep, wooded bowl. Should I go back along the road I had just travelled, or was there another option? My inferences had led me to believe that I needed to be heading N by NE, and it just so happened that a very forested ridge was right along that path. In order to really know where I was going, I needed to get up high above the treetops anyways, so I decided to make the move upwards.
The first section of this steep incline was an old cutblock which had been replanted a couple of years ago. It brought back memories of times gone by when I was the unfortunate individual who was given the charge to heft 50 kilos of water, soil &twigs up such slopes only to offload the payload and reload time and time again until the section had been completely filled in like one large--and much less fun--game of Tetris. I smiled to myself as I sweated under the large backpack I was bearing up this hill, for it gave me great comfort knowing that I would only have to climb this cutblock once & never again.
Halfway up the hill, I was met with a series of horrible screeches punctuated only by the soft shadow of a falcon breezing over the land around me. The further up I went, the more insistent this bird of prey became, letting me know that I really wasn't all that welcome. Nonetheless, I kept to my upward course, and although my feathered fellow did protest all the more vociferously, he eventually abandoned the outcry as I passed through or by his territory. Now, though, the cutblock ended and the true bush began.
It wasn't so much frustrating as it was unfortunate (in fact, I didn’t find it frustrating at all: merely one of those facts of life) that I still hadn't been able to spot any recognisable features on the horizon so far. My view of the western skies was quite clear, and along with the lack of visual obstructions was the general lack of prominent landmarks. The two directions I really wanted a clear vantage of were to the south & to the west, yet it just so happened that those (as well as north) directions were beautifully masked by thick, tall stands of spruce. "Surely," I said to myself, "once I crest this ridge, I will be able to get a good view of the land around me and all of my questions will be answered."
I crested that ridge a little while later. No questions were answered at all. Instead, I was met with more thick stands of trees. Following where I had guessed I was on my map, it looked like this ridge would decline steeply. Steep slopes usually mean that you can get a good peek out over the tops of trees as they grow ever lower in front of you. Heading for the eastern edge of the ridge, I looked for open spots. By now, the eastern side had become densely packed with undergrowth--so much so that I literally had to squeeze my way through the bramble of limbs and branches before me.
I was no longer having any fun. The steep slope was quickly becoming treacherous, as the alders which sprawled all over the place complicated manoeuvrability. It often meant walking on the slippery limbs which jutted out a couple of feet above the steeply graded ground. The view wasn't getting any clearer at all: in fact, the only places that I could safely travel were becoming even more densely wooded, whereas the "open" views turned out to be gullies too steep to provide any solid footing. Now, I was frustrated. I considered turning around several times but reconsidered, knowing that I had to reach an open view at some time.
The battle of my resolve against my frustration finally ended. I turned around and started climbing back up the hill, having become completely frustrated with my inability to venture forward without becoming snagged by all the branches around me. Retracing my steps proved to be as difficult as proceeding, so the only solace I had was knowing that the ridge's peak was free of underbrush. I still really didn't know where I was for sure, but at this point, I didn't care: whether I was where I thought I should be or not, the inability to make any headway wouldn't help me reach my intended destination. I needed to get moving, and I needed at least to get to some sort of open space where I could have a clear vantage point, allowing me to triangulate my position. I didn't want to backtrack, but going along the same game trail that I had been following wasn't going to help me get anywhere. I was stuck in a lose-lose situation, so I chose the outcome with the better possible results. In the end, though, I did neither.
About five minutes into my backtracking, I saw a small game trail shooting off to the north. I hadn't noticed it on my way down, because the brush from the other side completely obscured it from sight. I contemplated taking this new route for a second, and then looked forward, up the hill. My "path" down to where I had come suddenly appeared to be one-way: the dense brush and tree branches had blocked off any ascent. Like a valve made of branches, it allowed me to come down by pushing the brush aside, but ascent was impossible. All of the sudden, this new game trail looked all the more appealing, and I took it.
Now, in case you get the wrong idea, this game trail was not one of your back-country highways, allowing speedy travel through the wilderness. No, in fact, this trail would be more classified as one of those "necessary access" corridors that maintenance workers in buildings or large vessels only crawl into: a route used not because you want to, but because you have to. It wasn't all that much better than the first game trail I had chosen to follow, but it was at least better.
I followed this new trail while keeping my eyes peeled for openings in the forest around me, hoping that I would catch a glimpse of the surrounding terrain. No such luck, unfortunately. However, after a good long while of struggling through alders and other shrubs, the game trail finally opened into an old-growth stand of conifers.
Never before had I been so elated to stumble into a patch of wilderness that had no underbrush. It was truly delightful. By this point, I had given up any chance of actually finding an open lookout, so instead of looking around, I followed the game trail along its path downwards into the quickly-approaching valley, and then it happened.
No sooner had the spruce patch began than it ended, exploding into another reforested cutblock. Just like that, I could now see the hills and the mountains around me: it was beautiful. Beautiful, except for the huge ridge right in the way of where I was hoping to find some familiar peaks. Nonetheless, the clearing was open enough for me to stitch together the geographical pieces from both sides of the ridge I had just hopped over. There I was, 82G/10 XXXXXX. In the bowl SW of Trail Hill, due north of Tent Mountain: right where I was hoping I'd be. The rest of my venture was a cakewalk, as I had quick access to quad trails all the way from this cutblock to my target coordinate.
Tying it Together
So, what's the deal with these two stories & why did I bother to tell them in this blog entry? Well, besides relaying some of my summer adventures to you for entertainment purposes, it helps me get my point across. As I said at the beginning, I think through writing. In both of my COLTS stories, I was led to a new location blindfolded & thrown into this foreign environment without being given any information. I did, however, have a couple of things with me: I had my map, my compass and my training. I had the tools I needed to figure out where I was & what was going on around me. I had the knowledge through instruction on how to use these tools and how to proceed to get the information I would need to orient (or orientate for your English nerds) myself in the new environments. In the first example, I had access to a handful of others who were stumbling through the exercise alongside me. In the second one, I had only what I brought with me.
I have been translocated to a foreign environment yet again, though the geography and the structures of this environment are well known to me. Nonetheless, the social environment and the cultural orientation are vastly different than those you would find at camp. It's easy to get, be and stay lost in this culture, where the dangers are different but just as real as those in the wilderness. Again, I have only what I've brought with me: my tools, my experience and my training.
My personality and my identity refuses to allow myself (or my Self, depending on how you want to look at it) to get lost in this society & to enter into "survival" mode, where I'd do enough just to get by. No, I am compelled to know exactly where I am and to head towards the destination that has been given me. That destination is utter intimacy & community with Jesus Christ, and it is this that I want, this that I strive for.
"If you're unsure as to where you are, walk twenty feet & look again." It's time to start doing a bit of meandering and looking around, I think. In fact, I do believe that I have already begun this process. I've noticed the slow cultural assimilation that I've been undergoing & now I am entering into active resistance. My time will not be wasted by turning off my brain & by spending money on comfort & entertainment. No: there are more important things to do. There are people to connect with, there is ministry to be undertaken, there is a relationship with the Lord of the Universe to be had. These things I strive for, and these things I will pursue. It's not good enough to sit around and mope about being lost in an environment that isn't Home; instead, it's time to press on towards Home & to help others get there too.
I'm on my way: care to stumble through it along the way with me? You're invited.
