Tinkerings

As I mentioned in my last post, I took some time to walk up a mountain over the long weekend.  It was cold and bright and brisk and challenging and… fantastic.

On the walk up, I was challenged with being short of breath from the climb (did I mention the 20 pounds of backpack and camera equipment I was lugging around on my back?).  It is interesting that going uphill is difficult on your quads, but going downhill is just as difficult on your knees.  Marathon runners tell me they have to train just as hard learning to run downhill safely as they do trying to breathe on the way up.  I get it.

The trip up helped me get in touch with myself a little better.  My mind was beginning to be uncluttered for the first time in months.  I saw a family of four at the top of Benton Falls for about 30 seconds.  I passed two mountain bikers on my way down as they were ascending the toughest parts of the trail.   Other than that, it was just me and the mountain for five hours.

I decided to take one of the Slick Rock Loops as a diversion as I was returning from the Falls.  It added about a mile and a half to the journey.  While Clemmer Trail is fairly wide and open, the beginning part of the Loop was just a single foot path in the middle of undergrowth.  I listened carefully for sounds of bears or dueling banjos.  Thankfully, I heard neither.

And then, unexpectedly, the trail burst out into an open field somewhere on the side of this mountain.  It was brief.  But it jarred my mind into a new thought process.

I began to retrace my literary journey through Henri Nouwen and found my mind wrestling with The Jesus Prayer.  In monastic life, The Jesus Prayer is used to concentrate one’s mind on the singularity of one’s faith.  The form I use is, “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

In the writings of Nouwen, he talks about this prayer becoming the very “breath” of life to those who pray it.  It takes a shortened path with part of the prayer used to breathe in, and another part for breathing out.

(While breathing in) Lord Jesus

While breathing out) have mercy

This prayer is meant to occupy the mind so that all other thoughts are crowded out.

And so, for the first time in a long time, I allowed my mind to rest totally on God for about 30 minutes as I walked through trails, logging roads, and open fields on the side of a mountain in the brisk, bright, bold winter’s day.

I didn’t think about work.  I didn’t think about my Mac.  I didn’t think about taking pictures.  I didn’t think.

I breathed.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.  Lord Jesus.  Have mercy.

Somewhere along the path I noticed that both my backpack and my soul seemed a little lighter.  I stopped to pull a bottle of water out of my pack, and I took a look around.  I mean really looked around.

Just me and the mountain.

And my heart smiled.

Yesterday I did something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing just a few short years ago.  I blame two people, of course.  First, I blame Lance with the Discovery Educator Network because he put the DEN SI in one of the climbingest places known to man two years ago.  Second, I blame Tom with…well, Tom… for inviting me up to Pigeon Forge to “hike” a trail.

And what did I do you ask?  I parked my car at the bottom of Chilhowee and hiked the 4.3 miles up the slope to Benton Falls just to take a few pictures.  Of course, I took a small extra loop on the way up and another larger one on the way down.  I walked a little over 10 miles.  It took me 5 hours (to the minute).  And it was uphill both ways.  Or at least it felt like it.

All joking aside, it was a beautiful, gorgeous day.  The first thirty minutes of the hike was a pretty good uphill trek.  All of it.  I was afraid to stop for fear of talking myself into going back to the car.  I kept going by paying attention to three things.

First, I began to listen…really listen…to the crunching of my hiking shoes as they plodded through fallen leaves and small gravel.  Each surface had its own unique sound.  And they changed slightly when the trail finally leveled off.

Second, I started to notice the cacophonous sound of my own labored breathing.  There were parts of the trail where these two sounds were all there was to hear.  Occasionally a squirrel would rustle through some leaves or a bird would chirp, but for the most part I was the only animal dumb enough to be moving around in this cold.

Third, I began to notice the crashing sounds of waterfalls.  Suddenly, they were everywhere.  They faded slightly as the trail bent in toward the mountain, but came back even greater as the trail edged its way over the valleys.

And somewhere along the trail, in the midst of these sounds, I noticed my mind was less cluttered.  Less busy.  Less… techie.  The competition I thought I would feel with this trail became a partnership of sorts.  We worked together on this goal of mine.  Step for step.  Breath for breath.

And I realized that far too much of my life is a competition.  There are not near enough partnerships.  And somehow, I need to find a way to flip the two.

The mountain showed me that.