We couldn’t find the campsite this past Monday evening up near Mt Baker, so instead of camping, we walked around ‘picture lake’ at dusk which, perhaps we wouldn’t have done had we found our campsite and done our more epic hike the next day. The lake’s name derives from the fact that thousands of pictures just like this one (taken this past Monday) are taken by visitors to this little corner of the Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest each summer and fall. The mountain in the distance is Mt Shuksan, and embodies, perhaps more than any other mountain, all that I love about the Pacific Northwest, which has been my home since 1984. As the church I led was growing rapidly, head hunters from the Southwest and Midwest offered me chances to really ‘go big’ and lead some sort of mega church, but I always gave them the same answer, ‘the PNW is home, and I’m not leaving.’ What I recalled, quite powerfully this past Monday night though, is that my roots in the Pacific Northwest are directly tied to Picture Lake and Mount Shuksan because they ‘called me here.’ Let me explain.
My dad had died while I was still in high school, and that had led to my taking a vacation from God. I also made a commitment to become an architect because, ‘we’re not on this planet for very long, and if I leave some spaces I designed I won’t be forgotten.’ I’d been accepted into a highly competitive architecture school, and was outwardly killing it. Academically I was doing well and enjoying the classes, especially creative design work. Socially I was in the college marching band, playing half time shows for NFL games and going to parties. It looked great on the surface. Plus I’d been recruited to play piano for worship at a Bible study by a bold fellow architecture student. Though I was on a vacation from God I saw God began to work in the lives of other students, as our little grass roots gathering grew from a dozen to over a hundred students by year’s end. Still, God was peripheral at best in my life at that point.
But then a girl invited me to a Christian ski retreat for college students in the Sierra’s. She was cute and I was interested so the answer was a dating based, not faith based, yes. It was there that a speaker from Portland spoke on the subject of knowing God and on the first night, literally pointed his finger ‘randomly’ at me and said, ‘ there are some of you in the room who are outwardly killing it. Your getting the grades, going to the parties, and people think you’re on top of the world. But under the veil, you’re lonely, depressed, and haven’t got a clue what to do with your life.’ That pointing finger was unnerving. Did he know me, because it sure felt like he’d singled me out of the crowd. I leaned forward as he continued. ‘You need to make knowing God the number one goal in your life.’ I remember the text from which he spoke, and remember clearly going out into the snow outside the chapel after the talk and kneeling to pray. ‘God, I don’t know what this means, but I want to make knowing you the main pursuit of my life. Show me how to do that.’
It’s a longer story than a blog, but one of the ways God answered that prayer for me was that, by the end of August in 1976, I had decided to change my major from Architecture to Music Composition, thinking God was calling me to some sort of music ministry because I had played piano for the dorm Bible study. Plus I thought I needed to minor in Christian Education so that meant finding a Christian school.
Enter the decision making process of finding a new college to attend. Good music programs in Christian schools included choices in Southern California, a few hours from my house, or an outstanding program in the Midwest, and one on the east coast. Also, there was a school I'd never
heard of called Seattle Pacific College that boasted of a decent program too. Though I’d never been a inch north of Sacramento in my 19 years, I wrote and asked for a catalog. When it arrived in the mail I opened it and may eyes fell on the picture of Mt Shuksan on the cover. (I still have the catalog - see photo)
My safest, most joyous memories, throughout my young life, were almost all events that happened in mountains. Maybe that’s why, as soon as I saw the picture of Shuksan, something inside me leaped, and I knew I wanted to go there. So I applied, was accepted, and just a few weeks later had loaded down my Mustang to drive north from Fresno, California. And, with the exception of three years in Los Angeles for seminary, the PNW, with its mountains and waters, and bald eagles and rain, and glaciers, and rivers, and salmon, and rich, painful, native history has been, in the truest sense of the word, my home. Though I’ve made a million mistakes, one of things that I’m proud of in my life is that I’ve tried to love the place where I live, and work for its good. As it applies to Puget Sound and the Cascades, I’ve learned her history, cheered her teams, summited her volcanoes, seen my children enter the world here, and raised them to love the land as I do. As I write this by a wood stove on rainy afternoon, I can honestly say, ‘there’s no place like home.’
What’s the moral of this story?
The fall line, or light in the wardrobe, is quite often God’s guidance. If you’re a skier you know about the fall line. When you’re at the top before descending, you’re looking for the best way down, but the reality is usually this. Don’t overthink it. Instead, find the fall line (applies to inbounds skiing only) and it will give you the best adventure. It will also push you to develop new skills by putting in a bit over your head at times, but its only there that you will find that, because of an inner Spirit strength you likely don’t even know you have, you’re capable of more, much more than you realize. Too many people stand at the top and look for the safest way down. They’re rational, objective, and rarely fall. But they’re also exhausted from both fear and overuse of their leg muscles, because they never learned to let gravity be their friend.
Similarly, many people choose the safe and predictable over and over again in their lives, and its difficult for our wild God to break through and use us in new ways. We overthink it, making five year plans, or even ten, and then breaking the macro goal down into annual, semi annual, and quarterly, ‘deliverables’ and then off we go. We’re competent, careful, controlled, and silently bored (and too often boring)
There will be similar ‘Mt Shuksan’ moments in your life. In CS Lewis’ ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ such moments are characterized by the light in the wardrobe, which beckons the child Lucy to explore it and discover a world previously unknown. It’s often those unknown worlds, beyond the safety and familiarity of our routines, that our transformation toward our higher selves is to be found. But of course, we need to go there.
All this was swirling as I walked Picture Lake this past Monday just before sunset. 48 years ago this month, the catalog and my response to it became my ‘light in the wardrobe’ and following that Light has made all the difference. That Light has shown up many times over the decades:
Saying yes to the chance to preach for a chapel service at Biola led to an invitation to become a pastor in Friday Harbor, allowing us to return to the PNW three weeks before our first child was born.
The purchase of a book as a 12 year in 1968 led to a relationship with Torchbearers Missionary Fellowship and the privilege of preaching Christ in many nations around the world.
An unplanned visit to a property in Marblemount led to the birth of Alaythia.
A conversation over breakfast in India, with a man I’d never met, led to my calling as Senior Pastor of Bethany Community Church for over 25 years.
A hike at Snoqualmie Pass 13 years ago this month led us to buy a property with a mother-in-law apartment, long before we know that my mother-in-law would come live with us, as she has now for the past ten years.
The light In the wardrobe, like the fall line on a long ski descent, never lays out a full plan. It just invites you to the next step. Taking it means relinquishing control to Another, but its that One who promises that following Him will lead, not just to life, but to life abundant. May we see the light and have the courage to follow it, not just in our twenties, but every day, every decade, until our final breath.
O God of the fall line
Thank you for the adventures that await as we follow you on the fall line.
Grant us the courage to relinquish control as you call us to next steps:
across social divides
to new geographies
to new relationships
to new vocations
to great risks
May have have the faith to believe that, come what may, you meant what you said when you promised to always be with us. As we walk the path you offer, may we rest in your strength, made perfect so often when we feel in over our heads. Thank you. And thank you for the lake that reminds me of all this, once again all these years later. You remain the same! Amen
Just what I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it! Thank you Richard for your Holy Spirit driven blogs!