Tag: college

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Well THAT Almost Ended Badly!

Late August/early September is when college students usually head off to school to continue their education. I had some fun jobs during college. One of the ways I kicked off my senior year was by starting a job as a Teacher’s Assistant during a half-semester kayaking class.

In my senior year I was Vice President of our kayaking/whitewater rafting club, and had already spent a good amount of time playing with kayaks in the college’s pool. I liked the job because it had hours that worked for my schedule and was fun to do. A lot of it was simple stuff: setting up and putting away equipment, helping students get sized for their boats, helping them get in and out of the water, and just kind of being another set of eyes while a class full of novice paddlers grew in their ability to operate out on the water.

On our first day the teacher went over the different types of equipment we’d be using. Early on we just focused on the boat itself, the paddle, and the skirt. The skirt is so named because it resembles that article of clothing. You step into it, pull it up around your waist, and cinch it snugly around your waist. When you sit in the boat (still wearing the skirt), you stretch the rest of the skirt (the hemline, if you will) around a lip lining the boat’s opening. When paddling through rough water or you end up capsizing, the skirt prevents water from entering the boat and swamping it.

Skirt with a red loop at the front

It takes a little practice, but it doesn’t take long to get proficient at attaching the skirt to the boat. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to get out of the boat quickly, there’s a big loop at the front of the skirt you can tug on, easily breaking the seal and allowing you to exit. For safety reasons, one of the first things we did in the pool was practice flipping upside down while in the boat, then yanking on that loop so students got familiar with how to safely get themselves out of a capsized kayak.

If you’ve never used a whitewater kayak, they have sort of a different feel to them as far as how they move in the water. The keel is shaped differently from canoes or flat-water kayaks, so they handle differently. Designed to be more maneuverable in volatile currents, it’s easy to flip whitewater kayaks over if you try to turn them without flexing your hips to present more of the boat’s bottom toward the water you’re heading into (that might still be unclear; just know that it’s easy to flip the boat in a turn until you figure out how to do it). To gain experience, the teacher had everybody get into their boats, get in the pool, and have a friendly game of kayak water polo (no paddles, just hands).

It was a fun way for everyone to get used to how the boats felt in the water. Every now and then someone would hit a turn in a way they didn’t expect and end up tipping over. That team would be down a player while they dragged their kayak out of the pool (with some help from the teacher), got it drained, and got back into the game. It was a good way for the students to start putting together some of the basics.

The game continued for awhile, and everybody began gaining proficiency, so some of the students got more competitive. I raced against one of them to the ball, and I think the only reason I came away with it was because I knew how to anticipate the turn. He got there quickly, but he flipped his boat either reaching for the ball or trying to turn without doing the hip thing.

Whenever someone flipped during the game, we paused until we saw them safely exit the boat and their head broke the surface. I floated very near his boat, waiting, but he didn’t come up. I saw the boat shaking and his hands grabbing the underside of his boat, as though trying to push himself up and back, out of the kayak. For whatever reason, it wasn’t working; the guy wasn’t getting out of his flipped boat and he couldn’t get his head above water to breathe. Fortunately, we were in the shallow end of the pool. I pulled my skirt and rolled out of my boat into the water, then got to his kayak as fast as I could. Since time was a factor I skipped trying to help him exit the kayak and grabbed the stern of his boat, then twisted the whole thing hard so he was right-side up and could breathe again.

As the excitement faded and heart rates started coming back down to normal, we figured out the loop of his skirt was tucked underneath its hem. In his haste to get into the water, he had only focused on securing the skirt around the boat’s opening, and hadn’t paid any attention to ensuring the loop was easy to grab. When the time came to use it, it wasn’t there. It was like a fighter pilot needing to eject, but the ejection handle wasn’t there.

Is there any safety measure in your life you’ve been neglecting? The Bible gives plenty of advice about wise living. While few of its passages address situations as urgent as this, they nonetheless confront challenges every bit as dangerous. Are you hanging out with people influencing you negatively? Are you in a relationship the Lord wouldn’t approve of? The wisdom books of the Bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) provide plenty of insight on things to avoid and things to pursue. It explains the power of having friends you can trust (Ecc.4:9-12), the value of holding your temper (Prov. 19:11), the personal character we should strive to have (Psalm chapter 15), and numerous other bits of wisdom that can vastly improve the quality of your life.

Read these books, and then read them again. Reflect on different passages that stick out to you, and memorize them. When they help guide how you think and live, they help steer you away from the types of danger others fall victim to.

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Hoping for the Best is Not a Course of Action

I went into college not knowing what I wanted to major in. That kind of thing is fine, as long as you figure it out a semester or two into the degree. I didn’t figure out what direction I wanted to go until I started running out of general education classes and had to decide what to start concentrating on. I’ve written before about how the choices (or lack thereof) I made early in college affected how the rest of my college career turned out.

I think I was halfway through my sophomore year when I figured out I was going to pursue a degree in biology. If you’re majoring in any kind of science, you’ll need to complete a lot of science classes (imagine that!). Science classes normally come with a lab session that occurs in the afternoon, so a typical science class meets for three hours during the mornings of a week, and one afternoon a week there will be a three-hour lab session. If you stack up two or three science classes in a semester, you start running out of room in your schedule. You can see how it’s nice to spread out the required classes over eight semesters rather than five.

Since I found myself running a little behind schedule, I looked around for opportunities to catch up. It turns out my school offered something called a May term. After the regular spring semester ended and most students went home, a handful of classes were available. One-credit courses like tennis lasted a week. Two-credit classes went two weeks, and so on. One of the options was a four-credit science course I’d need for graduation. I ended up enrolling in it and stuck around after the spring semester wrapped and all my friends went home for the summer.

That class had to be one of the most stressful classes I took for my whole degree. The course material that was normally spread out over a semester got compressed into four weeks. Class all morning, take a lunch break, then meet in the lab for three or four hours every weekday afternoon. After that, grab some dinner, go back to your room and work on a paper or read the next chapter for the following day. I would read the material, but my mind just didn’t have the time to absorb it like it did during a normal semester. The lab sessions relied heavily on genetics experiments we did with fruit flies, which had a 14-day life cycle, and we needed to get at least two generations to have results for our final paper, so there wasn’t much room for error. While students in other classes spent their afternoons playing ultimate Frisbee or sunning themselves on the quad, I spent my time worrying about bug larvae.

The weeks went by, and as the shorter classes finished up, fewer and fewer students remained on campus. I was so stressed. I was the oldest person in the class; everyone else was an honors student who had spent the second half of their freshman year doing a semester abroad, and this class was mostly available to help them keep up with their pre-med degree plan. I wasn’t quite on the same level as them academically.

I eventually made it through the class, but it was a rough go for awhile. Here’s the important thing: I did this to myself. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was my lack of planning ahead that led to this predicament. I had to live with the consequences of my own actions.

As Christians, we have the hope of the life to come, but first we have to make it through this one. People of all races, nationalities, and backgrounds are Christians, and Heaven will be full of incredible diversity as we’re united in Christ. All of us, however, will have had to live with the consequences of either our actions or someone else’s actions. That could mean broken relationships, poor credit history, self-inflicted medical issues, or a variety of other challenges.

As a Christian equipped with spiritual gifts, how are you empowered to either help yourself or help others through the unique challenges in life?

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You Won’t Know how Strong you are Until Being Strong is Your Only Option

I’d bet few of the people reading this have given much thought to the types of rope used in rock climbing. Climbing ropes are meant to catch somebody who’s lost their grip and taken a fall. As you might imagine, if you’re going to be betting your life on the integrity of your equipment, you don’t want to use just any old rope.

When used properly, the gear used in climbing can withstand harder shocks than your body can. The human body itself is the weak link in the system. To help the climber endure hard falls, the rope itself is designed to have some stretch to it.

As you can imagine, it’s very important that the rope’s owner/user keep track of the number and intensity of falls the rope sustains. Some falls are very easy on the rope; sometimes a climber just kind of slowly loses their balance or their grip and rolls away from the wall without actually falling. In this case the rope holds the weight of the climber, but doesn’t absorb a shock. On the other end of the spectrum, if a climber freefalls 8-10 feet before the rope starts going taut, not only is the climber going to be wincing in pain, but the rope will have used up a great deal of the stretch it’s capable of. That portion of the rope is now both less stretchy during a future fall, and it has less tensile strength and is more likely to break since the stretch is gone. After enough falls, that rope can no longer be considered safe, has to be pulled out of active use, and is retired.

In the last post we talked about succession and training your replacement. This time I’d like to focus on people that may feel like they’ve been forced into something different.

Although many times God will move you from one challenge to a larger one, there are other times He seemingly pulls you out of something and just kinda…leaves you hanging for awhile. Whether it’s ministry or some other profession, or something in your personal life, sudden changes can throw you for a loop. A job loss, a sudden injury, or maybe retirement that came sooner than expected are all examples of a situation leaving you scratching your head and saying “well, what now, God?”

In college I had a professor who taught us about how to safely set up ropes for climbing. He taught us all about knots, setting anchors, and proper care for ropes and gear; these are all technical skills needed for safely scaling or descending walls. As a part of the course he gave all us students a piece of climbing rope about a foot and a half long. He expected us to bring the ropes to class and we used these ropes to practice different knots throughout the course. He didn’t just take a new rope and chop it in pieces; it was a retired rope repurposed to be useful in a different way. Cutting up an active rope to serve this purpose would have worked, but it would have cost the overall enterprise.

If you’ve been forced into a position you wouldn’t have chosen, it’s certainly something easy to grumble about. Maybe you simply can’t perform the same way you previously could, and others that have been waiting for a shot at the role you held are getting a turn at it now. Don’t think that means you have less value. It means your value is going to be used differently. If lots of people can do the job, maybe it’s better to move into something fewer people can do, like a role benefitting from hard-won experience. Just because you can no longer do something you formerly could doesn’t mean you’re without purpose; it means your purpose has changed.

That same professor told a story about when he was younger and managed a nearby ropes course. Since the course was fairly secluded, it was inconvenient to carry ropes back and forth each time the course was going to be used, so the staff had a shed or a box near the course where they secured the ropes after being used. He arrived at the course one day to find the shed had been broken into and one of the ropes stolen. Strangely, a few days later the rope showed up again at the shed.

Not quite sure what to make of this, he knew better than to trust the rope. It had been outside of the ropes course staff’s control, and could not account for the activities that had been done with it. He later heard through the grapevine some students had “borrowed” the rope to pull a car out of a snow bank or something. If that’s true, it was probably a few guys that simply didn’t know their use of the rope would cause it to be retired. I don’t know what my professor ended up using the rope for, but there are plenty of other possibilities. Aside from cutting it up to be used for instruction, rope can also be used for hauling gear up and down a wall, lashing gear to packs, tying down equipment to keep it safe during high winds (or in the back of a vehicle), acting as a drying line for wet gear, improvising shelters out of tarps, etc. After its retirement, the same rope can be used for all of these purposes before they stop being useful.

If you find yourself in a situation where a few bozos made a snow bank-like blunder that ended up costing you, I’m sorry things went down that way. It’s understandable to be upset for a bit, but I have to ask…how long will you dwell on it? If you’ve still got plenty to offer and you’ve got the desire, what other ways can you use your knowledge and experience to benefit others?

It’s never too late to be who you might have been. –Mary Ann Evans

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There’s no Business Like Snow Business

In the last week or so here in the DC area, we’ve had the most snow we’ve had in a couple of years. Though it’s just about completely gone by now, the snow and accompanying cold snap we’ve had has got me thinking of days gone by when I spent more time in the snow.

I took up the sport of cross-country skiing when I was in college. I took a half-credit class my Freshman year, and man, did I enjoy it. After I got bit by the bug, I got a job repairing/maintaining the school’s skis (which meant I could take them out whenever I wanted), I went out and bought my own skis, and I spent a lot of time skiing around the college’s cross-country running trails. I can only remember cutting class once in college, and it was to go out XC skiing on new fallen snow on a Friday afternoon.

One of the things I liked so much about cross-country skiing was the mobility I had in places I wouldn’t otherwise go. When you couple that freedom with the peacefulness that’s out there in nature, with sounds muffled by the snow, it was something I enjoyed very much.

Well, I need to tell you about a dopey move I made on skis. The college I attended had its own mini ski slope. It wasn’t anything major, but it was great for teaching people who have never gone downhill skiing before. For those that aren’t familiar, these are two very different types of skiing. Downhill skiing is the stuff you do when you get all bundled up and ride on chair lifts, and cross-country skiing is the stuff that NordicTrack tries to simulate. This ski slope had a green circle (bunny slope) to teach students the basics, a blue square to give students more room and a steeper slope to try out their skills, and a black diamond (more of a blue square plus) with a still steeper slope to let students pick up some greater speed.

One night a buddy and I wanted to go take advantage of the fresh powder that had just fallen. One of the best places to go was near the ski slope. The ski slope was closed and there were no lights in the area, but after being out in the dark for awhile my eyes adjusted, especially with the snow making things brighter.

Now cross-country skiing isn’t exactly the most relaxing sport. You’re doing a lot of work; you’re always either kicking with the skis or pushing with the poles. Since you’re the one providing the propulsion, the sound and cadence of skis and poles moving through the snow are ever present. That constant effort makes you really appreciate the free trip you get when going down hills, and it can seem almost otherworldly to glide down a hill without all the noise.

The powder on this occasion was deep enough that it prevented me from building up a lot of speed. It was just the right depth that I could go sailing straight down the main ski slope without bombing down the hill at a breakneck pace, something you don’t normally get to experience on cross-country skis. Only the front tips of the skis stuck out of the snow, and as they blazed trails through the unspoiled powder, snow the consistency of powdered sugar sprinkled with salt caved back in on the skis and covered them, all while I moved down the hill with no more than a gentle swishing sound. It was a delightfully serene moment I wanted to capture as best as I could.

I had my camera with me (back when people carried cameras but not phones), and even though I knew it wouldn’t do justice to the real thing, I wanted to try. I took out my camera and turned it on, and looked through the viewfinder (remember those?) to get the view of my skis that I wanted. I pressed the button, and a brilliant flash from the camera, which then reflected off a totally white surface, blinded my perfectly adjusted night vision as I continued straight down the hill.

Very quickly I realized there was a decision I had to make. There were trees, machinery, and other stuff at the bottom of the hill that I could crash into and get seriously hurt, but I figured I would probably miss it all. My vision might even come back early enough for me to make out any dangers before I got close to them. I could also start turning across the slope to buy myself some time for my vision to return, but then I would be heading toward some trees for sure. Cross-country skis don’t turn as easily as downhill skis, especially in powder, so that would also be an action that would benefit from being able to see.

Well, I probably could’ve made it to the bottom safely, but the choice seemed to be all risk and no reward, especially considering how soft it would be to fall down in that much powder. I intentionally fell over and waited until I stopped seeing stars. My serene moment was fun while it lasted, but it ended when I slumped down into a frozen white blanket until I could see again.

It’s a pretty unremarkable picture if there’s no context

Whatever the weather’s like where you are, I hope you’re healthy and well, that the first month of the new year has been treating you right, and that in the coming weeks you get some weather you enjoy.

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Be Ready; Things Can Change and Change Quickly

Ever been in a situation you thought you were prepared to handle, only to find out that conditions kept changing beyond what you anticipated? In February of 2002 I had the privilege of attending some of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah with my college roommate.

If you’ve followed my posts for awhile, you’ve heard about this before. As college students, we had to make this trip happen on a budget. No hotel rooms, no airfare. We drove from New York state to Utah and either slept in the car at rest stops or winter camped in a tent in a national forest.

One of the things that’s most difficult to anticipate or describe about this kind of trip is the cumulative effect of constantly being in cold temperatures for a week. We only attended one indoor event (and it had an ice arena, so it wasn’t the warmest). Aside from driving from place to place we didn’t really spend a lot of time either indoors or being warm. A few fast food restaurants, a Walmart once or twice, and various gas stations and rest stops were the only real times we had a roof overhead. Between poor nutrition and having to spend more calories on staying warm, I lost almost 15 pounds on that trip. My nose was cold for an entire week.

Spending so much time in the cold was a major reason why we were so happy that it got sunny and warm on the day we went to watch bobsledding. I think it got up into the 50s, and the sun felt amazing. It was almost too warm to bobsled. They had to put sun shades over parts of the track to keep the ice from melting.

The previous day we had worn some of our warmest gear when we went to watch Giant Slalom. Walking up a mountain in hot clothing on a mild winter day led to some sweaty times. We weren’t going to make that mistake again, and we opted for lighter clothing that day. Instead of our thermal underwear, big jackets, and wool hats, we went with long-sleeve tee shirts, windbreakers, and baseball hats. I remember there was some dude there with no shirt, something painted on his chest, and he was swinging some nation’s flag around. I felt nice and warm, but not that warm.

Well bobsledding was cool to watch, but the novelty sort of wore off after awhile. The event was two days long, and we had tickets for day one. It was neat to see the sleds whip past on a vertical wall going 70 mph, and of course we kept an eye out for the Jamaican bobsled team (unfortunately they only had competitors in the two-man bobsled races that year). There were more wrecks than they show on TV, too. Overall, though, the stuff we saw wasn’t super exciting. It wasn’t like we were seeing any medal-deciding runs. I think a lot of other people felt the same way because the crowds started thinning out as the day went on.

We really noticed a change when the sun went down. We started getting a bit more chilled, and we had to move around more or stamp our feet to stay warm. Hands went in pockets and stayed there. Arms stayed glued to our sides. One guy standing near us, on his way out, said “here, I think you need these more than I do,” and handed my roommate some 6-hour handwarmers he had been using.

The bible is the kind of book that has stuff for both beginners and expert users. Some readers on the newer side of the spectrum will decide that they’ve read it enough to know what they need to know. Although I’ll concede that they can easily read enough to know the most important things, I’d argue that they’re simply not in a position to accurately predict what passages of scripture they’ll need to be familiar with. The only way to be better prepared for what God throws at you in this life is to keep reading that bible and keep engaging with Him in prayer. Finished reading one of the books of the bible? There are plenty more. Finally got all the way through the Bible? Congratulations, that’s awesome! Do you feel like you understand it all, or are there parts you need to have another look at? (If you understand it all, there are some things in there I don’t totally understand; maybe you can explain them to me.)

Another way to look at the illustration is that while you may feel prepared and equipped for the phase of life you’re currently in, there’s always change coming. Keep that bible handy and keep reading it. What about if you think it’s a stretch to say you’re prepared and equipped for the phase of life you’re in? All the more reason to study and prepare.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; -2 Timothy 3:16

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When the Routine is a Painful One

Back in college there were a few of us among our larger group of friends that would hit the weight room on a regular basis. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around 6:30 pm, Tyrone, Gabe, and I would meet up and head over to the gym.

It was a good routine for us; most of the time all three of us kept the appointment, but of course there would be times when one of us had to catch up on school work, make up some time on a project, or pull some extra hours at work, so the trio would be down a man. That’s when having a group of three paid off, there would still be two guys that could meet up and get a workout done.

Consistency was the key to results. Getting into a routine was important, and after a few weeks of regular workouts, the body came to embrace the physical stress. It was also a good mental discipline for all of us. There were definitely times when I didn’t feel like going, but knowing there were two other guys that were going to come looking for me to go with them helped get me ready to head out the door.

Now, missing a workout every now and then wasn’t a big deal. You can skip a workout and still jump back in without much of an issue. Christmas break, on the other hand, was something you had to figure out how to deal with. Bench press and bicep curls were some of the mainstay exercises we did in the gym, but neither of those exercises were something you really performed naturally in normal life. If you had a couple of weeks off from school (and the weight room), you probably missed a bunch of workouts unless you did something really creative to stay in shape, and those muscles didn’t take long to begin to atrophy.

Every January when we arrived back on campus, we kind of dreaded the first time we got back into the weight room. We still had muscle mass, certainly, but it had noticeably lost some of its density and tightness. We wanted to get back into our routine, but we were also a bit reluctant to get started up again because after you go for a few weeks without doing unnatural movements like bench press, and then you start doing it again, it becomes very painful.

What we came to realize was that it wasn’t the first workout back that we needed to fear, it was the second.

On the first workout back, we’d try to hype each other up a little bit, probably spout off something about working out harder in the new year, and grit our teeth as we pushed through. Sure, we took a couple of steps backward for that first workout, but the goal was to just get through it.

On the second workout back, we wouldn’t be gritting our teeth, we’d be wincing in pain. The acute stabbing pain in our pectoral muscles was terrible as we asked our bodies to work through the soreness that came from our first workout back. The only way to get to the other side of the pain and back into the reality of exercising without that kind of hurt was to just keep going. “If you can make it through the second workout, you’re home free,” we used to say.

As Christians, we’re entrusted with spiritual gifts. If Christ is your savior, you’re equipped with what you need to perform the work God’s asking you to do. We go through different phases and chapters in our lives and we’re capable of giving more effort in some phases than in others, but at some point during our lives God calls us to do something on behalf of His kingdom.

Perhaps it’s been a few chapters since you were willing to step outside your comfort zone to follow God’s will for your life, and you’ve been trying to get back to fulfilling your calling. Things tend to align against you and work to dissuade you from getting back into that sort of routine.

I can’t sit here and honestly tell you that you only have to get through two sessions of whatever it is that God’s called you to do before it gets less painful, but I would encourage you not to give up, and urge you to stick with it. To His followers, Jesus promised persecution, difficulties, and generally some hard times. He said that we’d need to have perseverance and grit to stick it out. I may not know you personally, but I can tell you that you’ll have challenges in this new year. Stick it out. Hang in there.

I’ll leave you with two Bible verses on perseverance. One is addressed to you as an individual who needs encouragement to follow Christ, while the other is addressed to you as an individual who’s exhorted to fulfill your calling. In both cases, note the need for persistence and perseverance.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. –James 1:12

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. –Galatians 6:9

May 2023 be a year of persistence and growth for you, and I wish you the best in getting past your discomfort and into the routine God wants you to pursue.

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Reduced by $10,000, or Paid in Full?

It’s not the best example, and I’m not fond of the idea, but since it’s a current event, I’m using it.

Think about the number 10,000. If you had to count from 1 to 10,000 you could do it, but it would take long enough to be super annoying, so it’s definitely a substantial number.

Yesterday President Biden announced an initiative to forgive holders of federal student loans up to $10,000 worth of their debt if they met certain criteria. These days education can be ridiculously expensive, so it’s very easy to incur that much debt (many times over, in fact).

Still, though, imagine waking up one day to the reality of having that much of your agreed-to obligation wiped out. Then, when you inquire about it, you hear “Don’t worry about it, it’s gone from your ledger.” All you can do is express thanks.

While 10,000 dollars’ worth of debt is certainly nice to not worry about, it’s still a quantity that we can mentally grasp, and most students can eventually repay. What if the total amount of all your different types of debt numbered in the millions, or even in the billions? Having $10,000 forgiven would still be nice, but it would hardly make a dent in the bottom line figure of what you owe.

Now imagine a debt so large that you can’t even comprehend it because it’s so abstract. What if you personally owed debts totaling one hundred trillion dollars? That’s a one followed by 14 zeroes. Nobody on the planet right now could pay back a debt that large. Not even the U.S. Government could do that. You’d have no hope of putting that debt completely to bed in your lifetime. The constant phone calls and mail from debt collectors would be all-consuming; the debt would be the only thing on your mind. You wouldn’t be able to enjoy food, sleeping well is no longer a thing, and you wouldn’t even be able to take pleasure in the little things in life.

But if you had your debt totally wiped out and the balance restored to zero, how thankful do you think you’d be?

It would be the largest weight ever…lifted right off your shoulders. That’s what Christ offers to you, me, and everyone else. There are two ways to get to Heaven: 1. live a perfect and sinless life, and 2. ride the coattails of someone that’s done exactly that. If you slip up even once, route number one is no longer an option. No amount of money can buy back a single mistake. Since nobody reading this can claim eligibility for the first route, you’re left with the second route, and only Jesus Christ has lived a life without sin. God hates sin, and He will not tolerate it in Heaven. When Christ sacrificed Himself on the cross, He essentially gave Himself as an offering that satisfied God’s wrath. That was Him saying “my coattails are right here, waiting for you to grab them.” By claiming Christ as Lord of your life, you gain the status of being covered by what He’s given. It’s Christ saying “don’t worry about it, it’s gone from your ledger.” You’re standing at the pearly gates, trying to get in, and Christ says “yeah, open the gates, they’re with me.”

Placing your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior is the only way for you to go to Heaven. When you trust in Him, your spiritual debt has been wiped clean. It’s gone. Even if you had been living under its crushing weight, it no longer exists the instant you welcome Jesus into your heart.

You want to talk about having a major debt forgiven? There’s no greater example than that one.

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Road Trips are Less Fun When You’re the Only One Awake

While we’ve still got some Winter Olympics going on, here’s another tale from when my friend Jeremy and I went to check out the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

On the way out west we had plenty of time to get there, so we drove during the day and stopped at night to sleep at rest stops. On the way back east we were in a hurry to get the rental car turned back in and get back to school. To save time, our plan was to drive through the night.

On our last day in Utah we watched a cross-country skiing event and then left to start the trip east directly from there. Jeremy took the first shift driving, and drove most of the day. Still keyed up from our experiences so far, it dawned on me a little too late that I should be trying to catch some sleep while he was driving. I do okay when I have to get up early, but I don’t do real well when I have to stay up late. I think I tried catching a nap, but when there’s pressure to fall asleep, it makes it harder to do, so I don’t think I got any sleep to speak of.

When the time came for Jeremy to tag out, I got behind the wheel and started driving. I don’t remember if it was dark when I started, but if it wasn’t, it wasn’t long before night fell. Jeremy racked out in the back seat for awhile. Between the darkness, drone of the road noise, lack of conversation, and the cumulative excitement of the day (and past week plus), I was ready for some sleep and it got hard to stay awake and alert.

I’m not saying anyone should do this, but we had learned through experimentation that the max speed you could set the cruise control to was 82.5 mph. That speed sounds really fast, but it wasn’t egregious when the speed limit was 75. We regularly set it that fast, but slowed down when we saw cops off in the distance. It was great because out there, where there were big stretches of wide open road, cops with radar guns had nowhere to hide; you could often see for miles.

You can’t see them at night, though.

You know that point in sleepiness where your eyes are half-lidded and moving your eyeballs around seems like it takes too much effort? That’s where I was, when, at 82.5 mph, I blew past two cop cars parked on the median somewhere in Nebraska.

Well, the red and blue lights came on and started coming my way. That makes for an uncomfortable way to rouse someone from their slumber. “Hey dude, wake up. Um…we’re getting pulled over.”

If I had been half asleep 30 seconds ago, I was wide awake now.

I pulled over on the shoulder and waited while the officer ran our plates. Eventually he came alongside the passenger’s window, taking a peek inside with his flashlight. He probably didn’t know what to think as he saw a dude in a sleeping bag in the back seat, boxes of supplies and cold-weather gear scattered throughout the front and back seats, and skis and ski poles stuffed along the side of the car. We handed both of our licenses over and sat there waiting as he ran our names through his computer.

I don’t totally remember the sequence of events, but I ended up going to sit in the front passenger’s seat of his cruiser with him (no, not while wearing handcuffs). I told him a little about us, that we had driven across the country to go watch some of the Olympics, and now we were on our way back. It’s important to understand that the animosity toward cops that’s so prevalent today wasn’t the case back then. This was a mere five months after the events of 9/11, when police officers and other first responders were hailed as heroes. There was a much greater attitude of “we’re all in this together” among Americans. He asked me about some of the events (and big-name athletes) we’d seen and what else we had done while we were out there. I think we probably broke up a boring night shift for him.

He had clocked me driving at a speed that gave him leeway to decide whether to give me a ticket or to let me off with a warning. I think he kind of liked the idea of the adventure we were on, so he let me off with a warning, but he did recognize that I was a legitimate danger to myself and others on the road because of how tired I was. He stressed the importance of being alert and urged me to get somewhere safe and get some sleep…soon…then let us go. We stopped at the next exit, gassed up, and switched drivers. We made it back to school the following evening.

Nobody likes to see those flashing lights come on in their rear-view mirror. I’m not sure how long it took me to realize it, but getting stopped on this occasion quite possibly saved not only my life, but the life of the passenger in the back seat, and maybe others on the road that night. If I hadn’t been stopped, I probably would’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. I guess you could say that God threw a little hiccup in my plans, which ended up saving me from myself.

There are things that will happen in this life that you’ll gripe and grumble about as they’re happening, only for you to realize later that those were things to be grateful for. Live through enough of those events, and it helps you realize that you’re probably better off not grumbling about things that seem bad in the short term, because you don’t yet know how they tie into the bigger picture. God often makes you take the scenic route while you have the express lane in mind, and vice versa. We don’t see until after the fact that it was something we wouldn’t have chosen, but had unforeseen benefits.

The next time you get hit with something that seems like something to groan about, try holding off on the complaints for awhile. It might just be God’s way of saving you from yourself.

To all those officers out there, thank you for being willing to step into tense and uncertain situations on the public’s behalf every time you go to work. Additional thanks to those of you that have cut a little slack to people that just needed to be scared a little bit by the flashing lights of a police car.

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Winter Olympics, From Salt Lake City to Beijing

Though I’m not really paying much attention to the 2022 Winter Olympics, it does bring up some fun memories. For those of you that are long-time readers of the blog, you may remember that when I was in college my roommate Jeremy and I drove from Western New York State out to Utah to attend some of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. It’s crazy to think that our Utah trip was 20 years ago. Today’s entry doesn’t really have a “moral” to it…just some memories.

I don’t want to rehash a whole lot right here (you can read some of the previous Olympic entries here), but when you’re trying to pull together a trip like this on a budget, you’re going to have to forego some amenities. During our whole trip (nine days), we didn’t shave or sleep indoors at all. We either slept in sleeping bags in the car at rest stops or in a tent in the mountains. Ours was a very outdoorsy college, so we were able to rent a large amount of camping gear from the recreation department. Our diet wasn’t the healthiest, either. I remember a lot of Cheez-Its and an apple every now and then.

Anyway, we got out there early enough to have a day without any plans before attending our first event. I forget if it was a state park or a national forest somewhere, but we parked in the parking lot and used cross-country skis to head in and scout a spot to set up camp.

The snow was pretty deep, and if you tried walking through it without snowshoes or skis, you’d sink up to your knees or so. When we first arrived, it was snowing pretty hard and it was starting to get dark, so we had to find a spot and set up camp pretty fast. We skied off the main trail and uphill into a wooded area where we weren’t likely to get mowed over by snowmobiles. We made a few sharp turns to get through the trees…something that can be tricky in tight quarters if you’re wearing skis that are taller than you are. We found a spot that would work, then skied back out to the car to grab our backpacks and gear. We hurried back in, set up camp, then warmed up some food and turned in for the night. (I think up until that point I had only camped in someone’s backyard overnight a single time. Between worrying about getting buried by a snow squall, being afraid of freezing to death, and hearing coyotes howling all night, it was a pretty intimidating experience for me.)

We spent two nights there, and on the second morning we broke camp to head to our first Olympic event. As we packed up everything and made sure we didn’t leave anything behind, we prepared to ski back out to the car. We attached our skis and buckled on our packs. Jeremy went first, heading back downhill toward the main trail. I brought up the rear.

On the way down, I approached one of those sharp turns a little too quickly. I had plenty of experience using cross-country skis, but I wasn’t accustomed to wearing a pack that was heavy enough to throw off my center of gravity. I took the turn like I normally would have, but between the deep powder and unusual weight distribution, my legs made the turn, by my upper body kept going. I biffed right there in the snow.

Remember what I said about walking in snow that deep without snowshoes or skis? Now imagine you’re lying face down in that kind of snow while wearing a backpack that’s pushing down on you. Every time you try to push yourself up with your arms, your arms sink back into the snow. I don’t even remember what I did to get back upright again; I must’ve packed the snow or grabbed some small trees or something, but I’m sure I looked like some kind of sedated walrus or something as I tried getting my feet back under me while wearing a puffy jacket and a backpack.

Anyway, the memories are mostly good ones. The bad ones just add a little variety. I’m thankful to have been able to go when I did, because if I were going to do it all again, there were some things I was willing to tolerate back then that I’m no longer willing to put up with now.

I hear that Salt Lake City is in the running to host the 2030 Winter Olympics. I don’t really see myself going, but if I did, I can’t say I’d be willing to drive there from an East Coast state, sleep in a tent (or in a car, for that matter) for more than a week in freezing temperatures 28 years after the first time I did it. Also, while Cheez-Its may still be on the menu, I think they’d be a much smaller portion of my overall diet than they were back then. I’m not totally shutting the door on the possibility of going, but I think I’m a tentative “no” for 2030.

Lord God, this life is full of memories, good and bad. Thanks for both kinds, and please help us to keep our focus on You as we age, and not get wrapped up about the things we can no longer do. Please grant safety and health to those participating in the games, as well as to those in attendance, and many, many thanks for a warm, comfortable bed and indoor plumbing! Amen

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The Safest Time to Kayak Over Waterfalls is When the Water’s Big

I feel like I’ve had a lot of “20-years later” stories either lately or coming up. (Kayelling, 9/11, attending the 2002 Winter Olympics). Well, Senior year of college was a busy time for me, I guess. Today’s post talks about an event that happened 20 years ago this week.

There’s a creek near where I went to college that had a pair of roughly 6-foot waterfalls that were spaced about 50-100 yards apart. During most of the year, this is a very scenic spot with a water depth of only a few inches, but during the spring rains and snow melt, the creek swells, the current becomes much swifter, and for kayakers, the water gets too big to resist.

Gearing up for a double waterfall!

A 6-foot waterfall doesn’t sound like much. I’m a little over 6 feet tall, so it’s no big deal when I look eye-to-eye with another person the same height as me. It’s a different story when you’re sitting on the floor, looking up at someone that tall. That’s sort of what it’s like when sitting in a kayak and looking at a 6-foot-tall waterfall. I’d been over a four- or five-foot waterfall before and it went very well, but it wasn’t in water this big and it wasn’t in a “must-succeed” situation where a second set of falls lay waiting beyond.

There were three of us going that day. We all slid our boats into the water and allowed ourselves to get a good amount of space between us. Our most experienced paddler went first and demonstrated the line we should follow. As the least experienced kayaker, I went second, and the third guy brought up the rear. I followed the guide’s line, and I hit the first set of falls perfectly. I paddled right over the edge and had a great landing, and it was exhilarating!

On approach to the first waterfall
Quit while you’re ahead

I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but I think I hit some kind of undercurrent I wasn’t expecting, and I flipped over. I can tell you from experience that it’s a very unsettling feeling to be headed toward a waterfall while floating upside down in a capsized kayak.

Even though the creek was swollen to several times its usual size, the water was still only about 18 inches to two feet deep. As I was upside down, my helmet bounced along the bottom of the creek bed. I moved the paddle into position to right myself, but I had to modify the technique because the water was so shallow. I think I was trying to decide whether I should try the technique I’d practiced countless times in the pool, or let go of my paddle and use my hands to try pushing off the bottom to get flipped back up, hoping to catch the paddle again afterward. I didn’t want to risk going over the second set of falls without a paddle, and this wasn’t really the best time to try flipping back over using a method I’d never tried before, so I went the traditional route, but the water was too shallow to make it work the way I’d practiced. I don’t remember how many times if I tried it, but between not knowing how far away the upcoming falls were and confronting a compelling need to breathe, I decided to bail out.

Without question, it was really nice to be able to take a deep breath again, but I still had to contend with some challenges. After dragging my head along the bottom and fighting against the creek bed to try to position my paddle, I figured I wouldn’t have any problem just standing up wherever I was. I faced upstream and got on my knees. My wetsuit stopped above my knees, and I later realized that being pushed along while kneeling on a stone creek bed tears up your shins pretty badly. I got up on one knee, but my sandals couldn’t get any traction. I think I tried on the other knee too, but neither try worked. With my back to the looming falls, I did the only other thing I could think of: I swam as if my life depended on it in a foot and a half of water.

Thankfully, I did NOT take a trip over that second set of falls. I made it to the bank safely and jogged downstream to catch up with the first guy, who recovered my boat and paddle for me.

Ever have something just go in a TOTALLY different direction from what you expected? Don’t let it get you down. Living a life for Christ is going to have moments where you simply feel overwhelmed or inadequate. Then on top of that, experiencing failures only makes it feel worse. I’m certainly thankful there weren’t too many people there to witness this embarrassing situation. My two fellow paddlers were extremely gracious, and they reminded me that outings with the biggest mishaps make for the best stories.

If things had gone according to plan, it would have been an amazing 90 seconds to experience, but it wouldn’t be a very exciting story to pass along. Don’t be afraid to attempt big things in the name of building Christ’s kingdom, but when things don’t work out the way you expect (because God doesn’t follow YOUR plan), learn from the experience and use it to either make the next time different or to benefit someone that reminds you of your unfortunate or inexperienced younger self. You’re not the first one to make mistakes, but maybe you can pass along the wisdom you’ve learned through hard-won experience so others don’t have to make the same mistakes you’ve made.

Lord Jesus, when I look back at all the crazy situations I’ve willingly placed myself in, and how unscathed I came out of them when I should have met with much more serious consequences, it’s clear to me that there’s something after those experiences You wanted me around for, and it reminds me not to waste this life. Help me learn from the past, be bold in following after You, and share the things I’ve learned with others. Also, I don’t know how many guardian angels you’ve assigned to me, but please…thank them and bless them in a special way for me!