Beautiful, But Not Safe

There are three men missing up on Mount Hood. It happens. There have been a number of people who have become lost on our local mountain, and quite a few have not returned.

There was a phone call from one of them a couple of days ago. He was holed up in a snow cave he had made and the other two had gone off for help. It doesn’t sound good.

Rescue Attempts

As I am writing the light is failing, and a storm is rolling in tomorrow.

A week ago there was sad news about the man who had gone off looking for help after he and his family had been stranded in the coastal range here. After hiking sixteen miles he had died of hypothermia.

It made my heart ache to think about his family, left alone in that cold car while he went looking for help. To think of that four year old, that seven month old, nursing on their mother as he went off into the beautiful wilderness to die cold and alone.

I was watching Larry King Live and he was trotting out the survival pundits. Mr. King said something about how “Or-ee-gawn seems like such a safe place (we pronounce it Ory-gun).”

It isn’t safe at all.

Every year people come to look at our beautiful country. The waterfalls, the rivers and lakes, the snow. Every year many such people die.

I love snow. My favorite time to enjoy it is in the middle of the night. When we get our first real snow of the year I get up during the night, about 2:00 a.m., and go to Molalla River State Park. I jump the gate and walk out through the woods and fields.

Every bit of light seems to be absorbed and reflected back again from the snow. Everything is hushed. It is so beautiful it makes my heart leap, and I naturally fall into an internal place of worship and praise.

It is the kind of beauty that can take ahold of one’s heart and recognize that there is something supernatural within that makes our kind the pinnacle of God’s creation. If my dog is with me, he is scampering and playing and laughing. But he has no appreciation of beauty. That is something for me, not for him.

That sense if enjoyment is what calls to people, pulls them to such places as this. They come to Oregon because it is beautiful. It is pretty and it brings great joy.

But it isn’t safe at all.

There are other places in the world which are also very beautiful. I went to Wyoming last summer. Yellowstone was amazing. The animals, the landscape, the geysers and hot springs. But every year people walk right up to bison and are trampled to death. Every year someone leaves the marked paths and the ground gives way, dropping them into scalding pools.

It isn’t safe.

Every year people go to Alaska to watch bears and other wild life. Folks, the world is not tame. It is not simply pretty. It is beautiful and it is dangerous.

The enjoyment I get from nature is something my Lord has given me. It is something which draws me closer to Him.

It is similar to the joy I feel when I worship in church, when I pray...

When I am in such a frame of mind I feel close to my Lord, my master, and I tremble.

When I was young I did not understand the phrase “fear of God.”

Jesus is my friend. Why should I fear Him? He loves me. He cares for me. There is nothing to fear.

But as I have grown older I have grown more aware of the awesome power of my Lord. It makes me tremble.

When I worship I consider the power of creation (read my post “Soot” for more on that). I see my Lord’s supernatural beauty, the source of wonder which I sense when I see anything of great beauty, like that first fall of snow.

And I consider the awesome power of who He is. And a simple thought occurs to me:

He is good, but He isn’t safe at all.

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All praises to my Lord, my Master!
All praises to the Creator of all things!
All praises to He who knew me before time began,
Who hold me up, gives me strength.
All praises to the one true God!

Use me Lord. Take my life,
Take this life as a living sacrifice.
Tell me what You want of me...

And I will obey.

-- Amen