LOVING LIFE

"Often to get through the struggles of life we don't need the advice of an expert, but could use the wisdom of a friend". This book contains a series of letters that were written by Eugene Peterson to his life-long friend. 

The book reminded me of an incident a few years ago, when I spent a few days with some friends at the ocean during a major storm. Instead of staying in the dry condo, our friend Steve decided to experience the storm. So he headed out to the dock and held on for dear life during the wind and rain, not unlike the story found in the forward to this book. Check this out:

p.9 "The year was 1874. Muir visited a friend who had a cabin, snug in a valley in the Sierra Mountains - a place from which to venture into the wilderness and then return for a comforting cup of tea. One December day a storm moved in from the Pacific - a fierce storm that bent the junipers and pines as if they were so many blades of grass. 

It was for just such times this cabin had been built; cozy protection from the harsh elements. We easily imagine Muir and his host wrapped in sheepskins, safe and secure in his tightly caulked cabin, a fire blazing against the cruel assault of the elements. But our imaginations betray us. 

For Muir, instead of retreating to the coziness of the cabin, pulling the door tight, and throwing another stick of wood on the fire, strode out of the cabin into the storm, climbed a high ridge, picked a giant Douglas fir as the best perch for experiencing the kaleidoscope of color and sound, scent and motion, scrambled his way to the top and rode out the storm, lashed by the wind, holding on for dear life, relishing weather: taking it all in - its rich sensuality, its primal energy.

Throughout its many retellings, the story of John Muir, storm whipped at the top of the Douglas fir in the Yuba River valley has become a kind of icon of Christian spirituality; a rebuke against becoming a mere spectator to life."