Some of you have been wondering if I am still alive and kicking....well, here's the proof!It's been a summer of fun days on the rock, as well as hiking, backpacking, fishing, riding, birdwatching, whatever it takes it get outdoors. I figured I would try out the new photo feature on the website and throw up a pic from one of this summer's climbs. That's Cynthia at the bottom belaying me. I wish I could look more stylish and cool like they do in all the climbing mags, but I happen to like my brain a whole lot and prefer to keep it intact with the bucket on my head (just in case you didn't recognise me!)
Climbing is such a focused activity for me, allowing absolutely no other thought besides -- where's my next hold and, deeper down, that intuitive sense of -- thrill. I have been wondering lately if I have kept myself too busy this summer with activity as a means of distancing myself from things I don't want to ponder. As I've circled around that question any number of times, the consistent answer I seem to be getting from my insides is that NO, the activity hasn't been an escapist activity, but a functional one. Let me explain.
One of America's greatest female mountaineers says that because of the prolonged periods of focus she experiences on her climbs, she is more able and more creative as a scientist. Her greatest scientific insights, she says, have always come shortly after returning from one of her expeditions, during which, there is precious little time to think about anything beyond the immediate task. My theory is that when the mind is forced to cut out all static -- particularly when your physical survival is dependent upon this -- the soul-bear stirs and stretches and smells the air. Hibernation, in its season, has almost passed, and it is time to awake from a winter of necessary rest into a summer of eating and reproducing. (Sounds like a good time to me!)
So that's what my soul has been doing -- eating and reproducing ;-) It has been in a state of expansion and growth. Imperceptible movements to those who look on, but I know, that within me there is some serious frolicking going on. That bear is about to break down the house! And when she's done, there will be some provocative reorganisation that will have happened.
Thus, returning to the question I posed to myself above about activity's role in either avoidance or growth, I am casting my vote for the Yea side. I've ranted about how too many people glorify over-activity in our culture (I still believe that), but when there is a beckoning to the Spirit of God to be present in the midst of what is not avoidance, but focused occupation, the Soul can live, rattle around, and remember what the smell of blueberries is like, and grow -- something that I really do think pleases God to no end.
