Thank You Lord for Camping Trips

I love the outdoors. I find God, peace, and myself there so well. It's because when I'm outside and away from this thing called civilization, there are no distractions. It's you and the most natural form of creation, along with anyone else that might be there. In this case it was my fraternity brothers. We had a great bonding experience. Our camping trips are always so meaningful even in the most difficult circumstances. The talk this time was a bit more serious in nature, which I appreciate, but during the day I learned alot more about myself.

I saw this huge oak tree in the middle of a field and some missletoe at the top. I thought to myself how neat of a gift or keepsake that would be, as most people have only seen plastic missletoe, including myself. I was a bit nervous at first, but i swallowed it and climbed the tree. After all, it was the highest tree I've ever climbed before. Around half way up I looked down and realized the dangers of my situation. Any mistake at that point would have been fatal, and it was really windy at the top of that hill at the top of that tree. I almost turned back, but then, I have a real problem with giving up. So I climbed the rest of the tree and grabbed a hunk of missletoe by the hand and cut it with my pocket knife. On the way back down, on the very last branch about 7 feet high, i got a cramp in my leg and fell. It was an amazing adventure for me atlest, maybe not to you. But the lesson learned here was based on fear. I've always known that fear is a debilitating emotion, but I never had such a clear cut example of it. I could have turned back in all rationality, and I probably would have forgotten about the missletoe by now but I wanted to proove something, either to myself or to someone else. Fear was the only thing that put me in danger in that situation. I had the full physical capability to climb that tree up and down a few times without faltering, but the fear made me hesitant and THAT was where the danger originated. When you are climbing and you plant your foot down on a ledge, you must be confident in that ledge and your footing or you will slip and fall. Half way up the tree I decided to be confident instead of fearful. The next thing I learned is why women kiss guys under a missletoe. It's because if the guy picked it... then it took lots of strength and guts, so he probably deserves it. I made that note somewhere between falling out of the last limb, and landing on my back.

The trip also yielded an opportunity for me to use my creativity. A car ened up getting stuck in the mud and we had to solve the puzzle of getting it out. I LOVE doing stuff like that. It's weird, the things I consider fun, but I like challenges like that, and helping people. We ended up using two car jacks to get the front tires out of the mud so we could put boards under them. It worked and we all had a great time.

Football wasn't that fun for me to begin with. I get really compedative when I play sports, so generally I don't like to, especially when I'm getting beat like nothing else. But I ended up just letting go. Sure I was tired, sure we had no hope of winning, but that wasn't the point. The point was the company.

At night, Matt, Scott, and I slept outside the tents under the star lit sky by the fire. It was incredible! I haven't seen that many stars since I slept out under em in Guatemala four years ago on the top of that mountain with the windmill. We learned how to tell time by the placement of Orion in the sky. He's the easiest one for me to find, followed by Taurus and the Big Dipper. Earth is also going through the Leonite Meteor ring right now, so we were able to see lots of shooting stars. I counted 19 myself.

It was cold though. It was real cold at night when the fire died down, but suprisingly I slept fairly well considering. I was the desire to compete with nature that kept me going. I told you I am compedatively based. Competition is fun for me. Challenge is fun for me, and whether I emerge victorious or I fail, I always learn something new. Just to let you in on how cold it was, there was a pond near by that froze over. Also this morning when I woke up, my pillow was covered in frost except for where my head was.

So all in all, though this weekend was very tiring, it was also quite enjoyable and meaningful. In this estrogen pool (I'm not saying that in a sexist sense) known as Belmont University, a man's true calling and wild nature is often discouraged, and over time, extinguished. Going out to the wilderness and surviving by chopping wood and kindling a fire re-ignites the fire in our hearts as well. Where did the men of the Bible go to gain clarity and regroup their souls? To the gym? No, they went to the wilderness. That makes sense to me now. I just want more of a challenge. I want to do something like hunt for the food that I eat in the woods. That would be tough. And I would want to go somewhere with large wild animals. How safe would you feel squatting in the woods there eh? I was thinkin... I wonder if I got in a fight with a bobcat and I had a pocket knife... who would win? Bobcats are fast and ferrocious, but I wrestled once in high school so that would be a tough call. Anyways, I'm getting rediculous and that can only mean one thing. I haven't had enough sleep. Hope you all are doing well. peace and love.