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Pilgrimage West |
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Week Seven Ramblings and Pictures |
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Richard Niebuhr states that “pilgrims are persons in motion, passing through territories not their own, seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which the spirits compass points the way”. Such is the quest of this pilgrim, as I continue to pass through territories I have only dimly, even poorly imagined, responding to yearnings I have yet to completely discover, beholding the sacred as the winds of the Spirit continue to propel me further westward. Jagged peaks, deep valleys, cascading waterfalls and over 300 glaciers adorn the North Cascades National Park Service Complex. Over 60% of the glacier covered area in the continental United States is located in this complex. “Glaciers are formed when more snow accumulates than melts or evaporates. The weight of this continuous buildup of snow is immense and causes the snow to compact into ice, which then slowly moves downhill. As glaciers move, they gorge the land and redefine the landscape. Mountains may appear to be in suspended animation but, like everything else, they are in a continuous state of change.” A continuous state of change…that’s the reality we live in, individually and corporate. It is a reality we spend a good deal of time and energy and effort trying to deny, especially in the church. Those that have been Presbyterians a long time likely tire of the oft repeated mantra “Reformed, always Reforming”, but it does illuminate this basic reality of change – that life is not static, that we are created to always imagine exciting possibilities, that our quest for a loving, diverse humanity is a our lifelong journey, that there are no destinations where we pull in like a train stop and just get off... Henry David Thoreau learned from his experience at Walden Pond… “I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail… simplify, simplify, simplify… I listen to the water cascading down waterfalls too numerous to count as I walk upwards, I hear the snow releasing off the mountain, tumbling down tons at a time, I tread carefully across the snow covered Cascade Pass, I gaze in awe at the wonder before my eyes… I am blessed, and I am grateful, and I am hopeful… Thanks be to God… |
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