Have you gazed on naked grandeur    where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven,     which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? Have you swept the visioned valley     with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost? Have you strung your soul to silence?     Then for God’s sake go and do it; Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost. [from Call of the Wild, by Robert W. Service, 1916]

I don’t know if the picture above does anything for you — maybe the picture is too small, maybe you have to be there, or maybe alpine scenery doesn’t stir your soul — but I will tell you that this landscape deeply moved me last week on my summer vacation.  It was my favorite vista of a great trip that included so many wonderful landscapes.

My time away was a week-long backpacking trip from near June Lake, California, going over 50 miles across the Sierra Nevada to Yosemite Valley, mostly on the John Muir Trail .  This picture was taken just after crossing Donohue Pass, which at 11,056 ft. was the highest elevation we attained on the hike.

While I am personally careful not to confuse the Creation with the Creator, I none-the-less am surprised whenever I do a trip like this how much the Creation stirs my soul.  And some of these quotes do a great job of putting into words those emotions, whether it be from Robert Service poems or a well known quote from John Muir:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

Something about these trips work deep inside me, give me an appreciation for the Creator, allow me time and space to think, and return me home with renewed energy.

This was a trip with family and friends and the camaraderie and companionship were as much a part of experience as the scenery and tired feet. The emotional “high-point” of the trip was on the last day when we ascended Half Dome.  Here is my younger son and I on top with Yosemite Valley behind us.

One of the constant balancing acts of the trip was the competing interests of taking in the vistas and keeping moving so we could get to our stopping point for the night and set up camp.  The picture at the bottom of this post is a small part of my second-favorite vista of the trip.  We had just crested a ridge and now had an unobstructed view of all of Little Yosemite Valley and the south side of Half Dome.  I was asked “Ready to go?” to which I responded “No! I could easily spend another hour looking at this.  But I guess we better get going and get to the camp site.”

Whether it be our own spiritual journey or our Presbyterian way of doing things, in those areas we also hold in tension the reaching of a goal and the value of the journey along the way.  The end result is important, but how we get there can be valuable and rewarding as well.

(And I do realize that while on this trip both the journey and the destination were positive parts, there are times in both daily life and ecclesiastical government when the journey is not as enjoyable and edifying and there is an urge to get through it and reach the goal.)

Looking ahead, on the trip I did a bit of reading and a lot of thinking, but this year the reading and thinking raised far more questions than they answered so I’m not sure when, or even if, any of it will find its way into this blog.  Time will tell.

However, in whatever way works for you and at whatever time your schedule permits may you too find rest, refreshment and renewal in whatever ways God works through the Holy Spirit to provide it in your life.  May God’s blessings be upon you and those close to you.

	Let us probe the silent places,    let us seek what luck betide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know. There’s a whisper on the night-wind,     there’s a star agleam to guide us, And the Wild is calling, calling. . .let us go. [Call of the Wild]