Tales from the Trail

I returned from five days on the Appalachian Trail Saturday with 15 teenagers in tow. The common reaction usually indicates some kind of mental condition on my part for wanting to spend 9 days away (3 on the road, 5 on the trail and 1 at the base camp) with all these teenagers. At first I was surprised by the reaction. I came to understand that this kind of comment presumes that the teens are all so self indulged that there is nothing of substance and all fluff.  But the teens are great. Get them away from all the electronics and the superficiality of modern culture and together we become "real."

That's it. We are so engaged by the superficial that we hardly recognize what is really real and what is manufactured real. We think we "neeeeeed" all kinds of things when in fact all the things simply end up controlling our lives. We spend so much time with the things that we forget what it is really like to encounter what is really real.

You know, we stink! We actually have BO. No, that is not unnatural. That is natural. We can climb mountains, walk 45 miles, push through hurting feet and knees and accomplish so much more than we thought we could. We can actually entertain ourselves and each other without looking into a screen of some sort but rather look into each other's eyes. We can talk, laugh, play games, tease, joke and laugh some more. We can break bread together, share experiences, share our thoughts, questions and perspective. We can be real without any pretense formed by designer clothing, cologne or perfumes, or ranking. We can discover who we really are as God created us to be.

Rather than being formed by "the world," we can be formed by "The Word," a Word that goes on and on and on forever.