Peaks and Valleys

another post by Scott!











I grew up in Hanford, a small town in Central California, about 90 minutes from the Pacific Ocean and an hour from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. When I was a kid my family made countless trips to both. I was never much an ocean lover; I always liked going to the mountains instead. There was something about the smell of pine trees and redwoods that I just loved. Or maybe it was just being able to breathe air I couldn't see that did it.

One fall when I was about 11 or 12, my dad took my brother Gary and me camping and fishing. It was at a small mountain lake with only a handful of campsites, no water hookups, and no electricity - which didn't matter because we camped in one of those canvas tents that I think my dad bought at an Army surplus store that sold World War I leftovers. It weighed about 250 pounds and as we carried it from our truck to our campsite it always looked like we were transporting a bagged corpse instead of a tent. As I type this I can smell the white gas, the kind you burn in those Coleman camping stoves and lanterns. We ate fish for dinner that we caught that day, along with the can of pork and beans that was placed right in the fire then handed directly to a preteen to hold and eat. Not sure about the statute of limitations on child abuse, but I'm sure that counts - either by the scalding of my hands or the carcinogens ingested from the burned metallic can. We would then play cards by the light of the lantern, ask dad a million questions about when he was a kid, have farting competitions, etc.

Finally we would head into the Spore Hotel, known as our tent. Had Madam Curie not discovered penicillin I am quite sure that a sample of one of the million spores that grew on the wall of our tent would have cured a few diseases, but they caused countless more. I may have black lung disease. Then came 8 or 9 sleepless hours. As a kid I was convinced some wild animal was going to come and maul me during the night, and being a good big brother, Gary always put me right next to the zippered door. Then just as I was about to believe I was safe from attack my dad would snore and scare me to death. I'm not saying my dad snored loud, but in the morning there was a note on our tent from a pack of wolves asking us to keep it down
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At about 3 or 4 in the morning the temperature would drop to what seemed about 180 below zero. Our sleeping bags were from the same Coleman collection as the rest of our gear. I think that had a rating of about 65 degrees, meaning anything below 65 degrees and hypothermia was only minutes away. Remember in The Empire Strikes Back when Han Solo cut open the two legged hopping horned horse creature and shoved Luke in it to keep him from freezing? By 5 a.m. that really sounded like a great idea, and prayed for that bear I feared earlier to come near as I readied my Swiss Army knife.

Finally it was morning, and by morning I mean the sun was hours away from sharing its light with us. Dad was out by the campfire having his coffee, wearing a short sleeved shirt and one of those vest coats that were popular in the early 80's. I was considering urinating on my fingers to keep the frostbite from taking them. I crawled out of tent half expecting to see the grim reaper ready to take me as I had died in the night. No such luck.

Our campsite sat in a valley with a handful of peaks shooting up all around. As I sat by the fire, close enough to keep death at bay and still not be burned - I noticed something. Sunlight. It was just kissing the top of one of the peaks right by our camp. That huge ball of fire in the sky refused to share its warmth with us until hours after the peaks got it, curse them. As feeling came back to my extremities I devised a plan on how cheat death the next morning.


The next day at 6 a.m. Gary and I readied ourselves for the journey to come. Even though we were both now borderline asthmatics from our fungi infested abode, we decided to make a run for it. We broke out of our tent and headed straight up the mountain. At first our rate of ascent would have made Sir Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay jealous, but by the time we got close to the top slugs were passing us and shooting us the finger for going too slow. We climbed for what seemed like hours, but we reached the summit and just in time. We saw it, that beautiful, warm yellow glow over an immense field of granite. We raised up our hands so our fingers could feel those first rays and stood feeling it move down our arms. Within a minute or so our entire bodies defrosted in that beautiful warming sunlight.

Having told this story with a joking tone, I would give anything to do it all over again. The times spent with my family camping, fishing, and skiing are by far the fondest memories of my childhood.

As a boy David spent much of his life outdoors in the wilderness of Judah. Tending to his father's sheep he had seen his share of mountains and valleys. I've never been to Israel but I've heard from those who have that the valleys in that region have sheer cliffs which are difficult to climb and cast deep shadows. In David's day this would be a perfect place for thieves to hide, waiting to beat and rob. Or for wild animals waiting to kill. In the 23rd Psalm King David writes about a valley in which he is walking - "the valley of the shadow of death". Shadow of death? Not despair? frustration? fear? loneliness? Nope, the valley of the shadow of death. Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Would a valley by any other name seem as dark? David writes to share that he felt as though death itself was enveloping him.

I read Spurgeon's commentary on this and he says:

"Yea, though I walk," as if the believer did not quicken his pace when he came to die, but still calmly walked with God. To walk indicates the steady advance of a soul which knows its road, knows its end, resolves to follow the path, feels quite safe, and is therefore perfectly calm and composed."

I am a world class pessimist (I call it being a realist, Kelly says pessimist... tow ma toes, tow mah toes) and some or most of the time I am a worst case scenario kind of guy. So having read what Spurgeon wrote, I realized that if I had written Psalm 23 this verse would have been more like " though I run frantically, tripping and screaming through the valley of the shadow of pessimism..."

We all have our valleys though. The valley of I have just been diagnosed with cancer. The valley of I want a divorce. The valley of I just lost my job of 20 years. The valley of my dad recently died and now I lay with my mother in her hospital bed (Lindy G.). The valley of.....fill in the blank - we all have them. Some are worse than others but when we are walking through our own valleys they are very real and dark to us.

As I think back to climbing out of the "valley of the shadow of hypothermia" with my brother, the word that gets me is CLIMB. We had to climb ourselves to get out. But sometimes our valleys cannot be climbed out of, they are too deep and too dark, no footholds, nothing to grab on to. The more we try the deeper we get.

After David tells us about his valley -you know that shadow of death one - He says he will "fear no evil." Why? Because "YOU ARE WITH ME"!!

Praise God He does not leave us in our valleys alone. He does not stand up on the peaks waiting for us to come to Him. NO, He is there WITH us.

He is here with me.

I am walking through the valley of fear, the valley of uncertainty, the valley of missing my adult children, the valley of missing home. But I am walking. Knowing that we are doing what Jesus called us to do..."unto the least of these." I walk on, only because I KNOW that You are with me.




photo credit (top) Declan McCullagh Photography
photo credit (bottom) Subrata Bose Photography