Take me away
To the State of E
Where war is waged
With foam swords,
Foam blocks –
Where death
Relinquishes
Its foe
Through kisses.
A land of
The Tiny Bomb
Explosive with
Vitality and
Vigor
From day
To night
(with a nap in the afternoon).
High screams,
Low growls
And sand
Spread all over
The yard
On the best February spring day.
“Let’s Go!!!!”
Away, away
To the State of E.
Latitude 63 in July does not leave much time for darkness. As soon as the girmen closed their eyes, the wakening dawn nudged them.
While the hours of hiking helped aid their slumber, sleeping on a thin Therm-a-Rest camping “mattress” on gravelly and pebbled terrain did nothing to encourage a shift of position to continue the night’s rest. Compounding the issue, the eyes respond to light, setting off a chemical reaction in the brain which brings the whole body to life.
The McKinley River percolated around them, and they eventually reached for the zippers to greet the morning properly. As they righted themselves after crawling out of their tents, they found themselves face-to-face with Denali. It was as if the mountain saw all the effort they made to arrive at its base, so graced them by standing boldly before them – snow its only covering, reflecting the light so intensely its peaks seemed to glow.
They stood attempting to fix the moment in their minds. The girmen meant for the camping adventure to lead them to bears, but the wilderness meant for them to stand awestruck before the highest mountain in North America.
Their revery lasted some moments before the next thing had to be done. It was getting the food down and over for breakfast, then breaking down the tents, packing all the gear back into packs and finally beginning the trek back up the hillside toward the road.
Nothing particularly noteworthy happened on the trip back up. The mosquitos buzzed around them, small helicopters crashing into skin, mouth, eyes. Remarkably, they ran into another hiker – a solo hiker – his head covered in mosquito netting. He knew Jen’s roommate somehow and became an unofficial 5th wheel. They all appreciated another focus for their conversation.
The hiker wore a “pith helmet” with netting hanging from the brim’s edge and draping his shoulders. The girmen had heeded the advice to “bathe” in DEET, but with the clear day, the humidity and the exercise inherent in carrying a 20 pound pack up a hillside, the DEET seeped into their eyes and mouths, stinging and souring them in turn. Had they been hiking further; they might have heeded the baser instincts of the survival of the fittest, tore the hat from his head, then argued and fought over the hat until one conquered the rest.
Instead, they knew the road, and civilization, lay just above the horizon, and they pushed forward. Once returned to some semblance of a road, they sat on their packs beaming at their accomplishment. They had braved the wild of Alaska and returned intact. They would not be a headline or cautionary tale. Instead, they would eat their lunch and wait for the school bus returning to the park’s entrance, swatting mosquitos and aching for a soft bed.
2/27/26
None of the less experienced girmen thought a trip across the tundra might entail the snail-like pace and danger to life and limb it did. Seriously, it looked like a golden beach dotted with spruce – a carpet spread out before the mountains. How long could the trip down the hillside and across the plain take? Denali was RIGHT THERE, and the McKinley Bar was just before Denali – piece of cake!
But, no – no piece of cake.
While not intuitive, the heat of July in Alaska covers the body like a wet blanket. The Southerner grew up in hot humidity, so the beads of sweat on her forehead and neck felt familiar. Her companions had no such familiarity. They cursed the weight of water (and having to carry it) but delighted in its presence as the day grew on.
Jen’s roommate kept them on the correct path, keeping Denali to the left and finding as much tundra as possible to maintain good visuals. The other three mainly followed, initially buzzing with stories and excitement and then, as the day’s hiking wore on them, fell silent with muffled grunts and the occasional curse as yet another something snagged their clothing, or worse, their skin.
Daylight in July shortens by several minutes daily in Alaska, but the days remain long. While the girmen hiked until the sun began to set, it was still closer to 10pm when they finally arrived at the McKinley Bar. Here, at last, was the beach they had dreamed of – at least a beach of a kind. While bits were gravelly, large river stones (baseball-sized or slightly larger) covered the ground. They were elated to have made it this far, but in camping, there is always more to do.
They needed to keep their food 100 yards from their camp (and 50 feet off the ground) and 100 yards from the area where they planned to eat. The eating area and camping area also needed to be 100 yards apart. So they looked for trees near the beach, but also a more gravelly area 100 yards away for sleep. As an added bonus, the trees provided cover for hygiene and bathroom needs.
They found something more gravelly, less rocky far enough away from the trees and within a few feet of the McKinley River. Some parts of the river were clearer and good for water purification. They set up their 2 tents and Jen’s roommate secured the food. They ate something cold, then headed to bed.
The waters surrounding Denali hummed by their tents, the voices of nature pooled together and singing their enchantments over the landscape. No other sounds drifted into their hearing. As the sun dipped below the horizon, and with no other lights for competition, the Milky Way spread out it treasures freely, with abandon. No other night had been so silent or so filled with language.
And with Mother Earth cooing over them, they floated off to sleep.
(To Be Continued)
2/26/26
About a hundred yards down the slope they could see Jen’s dream come true: A grizzly stood in the tundra, its gaze looking toward them just as they came into view. The park rangers told everyone in those days to try and scare the bears away. Waving one’s hands, attempting to look bigger and yelling would ignite a bear’s natural instinct to stay way from humans. If those tactics failed, then covering as many body parts as possible (particularly the neck and head) while curling into a tight ball and playing dead was the next best option.
Jen began waving her hands in the air and half-singing, half-yelling, “Hey, Mister Bear!” The rest of the girmen joined in waving and yelling and even jumping up and down.
To their relief, the bear turned and began running toward the mountain. . .then three fluffy dots trailed behind her. A MAMA BEAR! They watched her cover more ground in 5 minutes than they could in the next 3 hours. They stared at each other in disbelief while their knees wobbled and the packs suddenly weighed twice what they had before. Mama grizzlies strike terror in hikers who know, because mama grizzlies do not play with the safety of their cubs. They will fight to the death.
As they continued to hike downward, they rehearsed their good fortune and kept a sharp eye out for any more bears.
After several hours of walking through the tundra, they met their next obstacle: a river. Because of their glacial origins, the river’s water remains icy cold and filled with glacial sediment. Coming from thousands of feet above, the waters move swiftly. Because of the silt, one never knows how deep the water is and some get swept away.
Photo credit here.
Jen’s roommate knew this well, so she oversaw the reconfiguration of packs to keep everything hip height or above. The Southwesterner was tall and had somewhat more experience camping and had forded a stream at least once, so she got more gear while Jen and the Southerner got less. They discussed strategy for successfully reaching the other side, namely linking arms and holding tightly to each other while carefully securing each step less someone slip and take them all downstream.
Jen’s roommate scouted the river’s edge to find what she guessed was the best place to cross. Then they lined up: The roommate, Jen, the Southerner and then the Southwesterner. The water froze them immediately and with each step, they went deeper into the current. They yelped and screamed but kept inching toward the other side.
Wet from hips to toes, they emerged victorious and shivering. They spent a few moments taking off their boots and wringing out their socks. The Southerner was amazed by the glacial sludge and its ability to color everything. Gray water poured from her socks, the bright clover green of her Merrell boots turned murky, her white cotton thermal underwear, a dull gray which never washed out.
Then they put socks and shoes back on and moved on. They had miles to go before dark.
(To Be Continued)
2/25/26
“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir
Jen wanted her birthday celebrated in a portion of the park with grizzly bears. Growing up in the Northern Plains, she had little experience with bears and thought the idea exciting. Her two other friends – one from the Southwest and one from the Southeast – also innocent to the ways of the grizzly encouraged her in the adventure. Her roommate, however, spent too much time in the woods to go quietly into bear country. She also did not want to be complicit in a tale gone badly: “Three Hikers Found Mauled in Denali National Park.” The mountain had already taken the lives of several climbers that year, she knew she must provide some wisdom to the otherwise naïve teens.
They all worked just outside the park and a perk included packed bags of gorp, sandwiches and other food items for all those employees using off-time to camp. The four girl-women went through what gear they brought, then borrowed the rest. The Southerner, in particular, borrowed pretty much everything. She had not even had a decent pair of hiking shoes until a month before Jen’s birthday. She did not realize stores existed just for hiking and camping as these sports failed to register in a home dominated by football and wrestling. Her idea of hitting a trail was driving the Roaring Fork Road in Gatlinburg. She had no idea what awaited her.
Jen gathered the permits to camp in the backcountry where grizzlies had been spotted. She obtained bear cannisters for all food items. Her roommate tried to educate Jen and the other two about the importance of clothing, DEET and smell elimination. No “Secret” or cherry-scented lip balm. The mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds and may actually eat you alive. Yes, you will get hot, but you will get cold and you HAVE to have clothing for all occasions.
They finally made it to departure day and loaded one of the school buses the park used to travel the 11 hour plus road to Kantishna. All along the park road, the younger three laughed and talked about their non- or inexperienced experiences with camping. None of the 3 had ever gone into a backcountry where no trails existed, no blazes. They were all bluster and excitement.
After 7 hours of bumpy riding and jaw dropping scenery, after watching the caribou herds in Polychrome and scanning the hillsides for Dall sheep, the bus stopped – nowhere in particular – and indicated the quadruplets needed to get their gear and head to the left. The emergency door in the back opened to them and there the girl/women heaved their packs on while all who were left in the bus pushed themselves up off their seats to wave a final good-bye to the girls: “Four Hikers Found Mauled in Denali National Park” and they would have been some of the last to see them.
(To Be Continued)
2/24/26
Dr. Frost spoke to the teeming auditorium of orienting Freshman students, a chore he performed year-after-year. He taught Russian language and culture at The University and had a mandate from the Dean to increase his enrollment. So he stood at the podium and spoke into the sea of high school Seniors overloaded with pamphlets and papers, to-do lists and like-to lists who were completely caught up in the tide of excitement which comes with promises of adulthood and freedoms as yet unknown.
He encouraged the students to consider something beyond the Romance Languages, spoken by half of the world and critical to the development of relationships between those in post-Cold War, post-USSR countries and the USA. Business, government and educational institutions would be clamoring for those who knew and understood Russian language and culture. He guaranteed those venturing into the Slavic world would not be disappointed.
Then the coordinator of the program signaled him to wrap up his speech, so he ended with, “See you in class – dosfidonya” and hurriedly walked off the stage.
A young woman sat in the sea of rising Freshmen glad for the cool of the auditorium. Walking back and forth across the Quad in June heat and humidity was a new experience but all of it was a new experience. Her high school class numbered around 200, and she felt insignificant amongst the thousands of people at The University. While she topped her classmates at home, she registered her lack of qualifications to apply for University Ambassadors or other top tier extracurriculars. Small fish, big sea.
By the time Dr. Frost made his way to the stage, her future plans muddled with worries of failure. She had completed a placement test for French earlier in the orientation weekend, so she knew she could begin in Sophomore level classes. Still, Russian sounded exotic, and she had taken a Russian culture class during high school and yes, the opportunities available to someone who knew Russian could be endless. . .and in that moment, she recognized possibility again and registered excitement for the first time since the Welcome Reception on campus. She thought, “Why not?” And when the good doctor said, “See you in class,” she replied, “Yes, Sir!”
2/23/26
Every new beginning
Grows from some finality
Or simply an evolution -
The theme of the start
Heard in phrases of the old.
Today, we begin again
Tulip magnolias spraying fuchsia
Against sky and ground.
Echoing caverns dampened
By family all chipping in.
So many gifts
From deliveries of frustration -
One might think
The path met fate
Or God or destiny
Years ago
When so much that is,
Was yet to be,
The future a mystery
Yet disappointingly predictable.
I am glad to be here
With you:
Aching back,
Tired body
Yearning for rest.
The birth of a new dawn
Wooing us.
A call floating
On the wind:
“Begin again.”
2/21/26
After reading my first two posts, J asked what spurred my return to my family of origin drama. My retort: when did I ever leave it? Reality is - the soup in which one is cooked during childhood flavors the remainder of life. I consider myself lucky to have J as opposed to all the other boyfriends past who dramatized my life with the spices of my childhood: addiction, indifference, misogyny (and more!). I got out of the bowl, by Grace alone, but the broth soaks in deep. Okay, enough soup metaphor. . .
I don’t care to wallow in all the crazy of my past, but I find its subterfugery sprinkled in the most mundane daily occurrences. Why did this exchange with a coworker twist me in knots? Why are my shoulders often tight or my stomach clinched for no apparent reason? Evidence less mundane exists, too, like how easily I distrust others or, on the flip side, how the feeling of safety alludes me. I get tired of “rehearsing” my past; I also tire of feeling separated from life.
My sense of the divide has lessened significantly over the years, but only because I keep diving into the abyss looking for light.
02/20/26
“In other words, disillusionment befriended me at an early age and maybe my experiences of God in the disillusionment saved my faith.”
Maybe this isn’t exactly true. I had one defining experience of God, of Spirit, when I prayed, as certain branches of Christianity say, “for Jesus to come into my heart.” I sat on the kitchen table while my Mother prayed the “sinner’s prayer” with me. I distinctly remember a sensation of being filled with a newness and lifeforce which was not my own. I did not begin speaking in tongues nor did I fall out as if dead. But I knew something changed within me, filled me, that moment.
I can’t say I had any other similar experiences of God throughout my childhood and adolescence. One night in my early teens, in a dream, I began writing something akin to poetry and woke up sensing an imperative to write it down. I transcribed the poem as faithfully as I could and I continued to write other poems and reflections, but was that God?
I mainly clung to the Psalms and felt the moans and cries of the psalmists deeply. I appreciated the authors’ honesty in pain and suffering. The constant questioning of God - from motives to presence to care. I followed suit with my own sadness, frustration and worry, and like the Psalmists, overall, I had a sense of what I called God’s presence at the end of my diatribes and rants.
A truer statement than the one initially given might be I found other disillusioned souls in the Bible and mainly in the Psalms. They taught me the freedom I had to bring my disillusionment to God along with any disillusionment I had with God. Both were worship – the honest offering of my life. God could handle all of it and God would remain present. I was not alone.
*I imagine some of the psalmists like Lt. Dan - angry, passionate and engaging God directly.
2/19/26
Lent has returned for the 2026 season and with it my 40 days (not including Sundays) of getting a little writing onto blogger (so antiquated, but I think it will make a comeback).
Year-to-year, I wait to see if a theme for Lent rises to the surface. This year, as last, I only have the desire to write or share writing I have completed sometime in the past (genre fluid). Themes feel restrictive and possibly a little too difficult to maintain over 40 days, and I certainly don’t plan my Lenten blogs throughout the other seasons of the year. So if you are reading, welcome to the thoughts pinballing in my brain and thanks for reading!
Over the past 2 years, a group of 6 women have gathered monthly to discuss the ministry we do in whatever work employs us. A Lilly grant funds our meetings and occasional special events but this year the requirements of the grant specify we must focus on the act of, or development of our own, preaching. To that end, we agreed to read through Barbara Brown Taylor’s The Preaching Life.
Because I love BBT and have for years, I knew I had the book somewhere, but then I couldn’t find it since the things of our lives live half-out and half-in boxes after moving into my parents’ home in 2020. Fortunately, the book announced itself during a recent rearranging of furniture, and I read the first “chapter” (really it’s a book of her sermons) again today.
She talks about the post-Christian era beginning with the cautionary tale of the Georgian church: Once primary and dominating, now memorialized with church-as-museum outposts or as crumbling ruins on almost forgotten paths. On this side of the Atlantic (and specifically in the USA), the faltering of Christendom arrived on the heels of unpopular war with a concomitant “God-how-could-you-let-this-happen-we-were-keeping-our-end-of-the-deal” mentality. She welcomes the disillusionment with God as the doorway to losing our presumptions about who God is and how God works. Given the great mystery of God arising from this questioning, she moves to the necessity of Christ, fully human and fully God, who understands our fleshy existence and thus interprets God to us and us to God.
The craft of BBT’s sermons remain unparalleled. I love the reasoning overlayed with gentle narrative and careful nudges to step into a different perspective. Her sermons take my hand and guide me through an array of human experience, then point out the hard-to-see divine imprints scattered throughout.
For me, today, the trip she planned brought me to a side trail of thought. She assumes a give-and-take theology as ecclesiastical baseline for most and infers a home or social environment where more-or-less nothing goes wrong or is wrong. I have no business speaking for the millions whose experience challenges her assumptions, but I can speak to my own.
My normal growing up included an addicted and (unscrupulous, unpredictable, angry) brother who routinely broke promises, walls and spirits. My parents, desperately wishing to save him from harm, sacrificed the rest of us for his possible redemption. I suffered physically and emotionally at his hands, and I learned early the tenuous nature of trust and how worthless it becomes with repeated violation.
I did not have the luxury of believing “if I am good, things will be good for me,” though my church taught this transactional theology. I tried to “be perfect” primarily to ease the burden for my parents and with the gift of maturing and time, I recognize I took on the role to simply not feel all the pain and rage which surrounded me and welled within me.
In other words, disillusionment befriended me at an early age and maybe my experiences of God during my childhood disillusionment saved my faith. . .
Lunch is calling, as are tasks. . .to be continued. . . maybe I DO have a theme for the week!
February 18, 2026
Photo credit here. Eastern Angel Blow upon this sea Thick with reeds And re-create Dry land from Water’s depth So all of us Living in capt...
