Kirk Couloir Memories - I Think I'm Gonna Be Sick

By a fluke of the Web, I just happened upon the tragedy of Douglas Beach, a firefighter from Cheyenne, WY, who died on June 11th of this year after falling on an ill-advised descent of the Kirk Couloir, which drops from the saddle between Challenger Point and Kit Carson Mountain on the north side of that connecting ridge.

On June 25th, 2002, I took that very same, ill-advised descent route to avoid having to return over the top of Challenger Point to my camp at Willow Lake. I knew when I got down to the snowfield fingers that poke up through the rocky bluffs that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake; my ice axe was back in the pickup at the Crestone trailhead. But once I had committed, I had to see it through, and it was terrifying. By the time I lost my footing, I was - thank God - over the part of the big snowfield to the west that just ran out into the rocks, rather uneventfully. My attempt at arresting my slide was laughable - a silly little nickel-plated latrine shovel or garden trowel.

Douglas and his five children and his wife paid for his mistake with his life. I walked away with ice burns on my forearms, knees that knocked for the next 48 hours, and a severely chastened spirit for almost having left my three boys fatherless.

To whoever found my North Face shell halfway up that snowfield back in '02: keep it. I never want to see it again.

qb

A Different Kind of Sermon?

Big Mike’s rhetorical question about “a different kind of sermon� rings truly with me.

(See Big Mike Lewis' comment at http://www.preachermike.com/2006/06/14/training-for-professionalism#comments)

I’m not really sure that when Jesus sat down and started to teach on the hillside, he prefaced his remarks by saying, “the sermon starts here; I’ll let you know when I’m done.� The sermons of Acts 17, Acts 2, Acts 8 and elsewhere just aren’t that awfully long, and they seem to fit more squarely into a model-less model, a context that Willard seems to hint at with his renaming of the “discourse on the hill.� They were ad-hoc remarks that jump-started a dialogue, in other words, instead of standing on their own as one-way sermons. The one-way sermon model seems to lend itself to perpetuating and being perpetuated by the anthropocentrism, preachercentrism, “you da man� culture that pervades the contemporary church across all denominational strata.

The passage that lurks in the back of my mind here is I Corinthians 14, in which Paul makes it pretty plain that he wishes all of the church “members� or “body parts� would prophesy. Similarly to Moses (Numbers 11?), Paul was not interested, apparently, in being considered the ultimate prophetic authority within a group of Christians. He wanted that gift to be dispersed among all who aspired to it, had been gifted by the Holy Spirit “just as he wills� and had the humble temperament required to exercise it faithfully.

qb

A Small Victory for Federalism

"Voters will have the final say on South Dakota's tough new law that bans almost all abortions."

(See http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ABORTION_SOUTH_DAKOTA?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-06-19-21-44-19)

SD legislature passed a tough anti-abortion law last year, but instead of trying to fight in court, abortion-rights advocates collected signatures to put the law to a referendum. They got the necessary signatures.

That seems, to me, to be a hopeful sign...getting the courts out of the business of splitting moral hairs and inventing new law, reserving their efforts for interpreting laws already on the books written by legislators who are accountable to the people. Short of a benign dictatorship, this seems to be the best way of resolving our national dilemma: let the individual states decide what they're going to do.

qb

Addition by Subtraction? A contrary view

In responding to a recent blog by Mike Cope (www.preachermike.com), "Addition by Subtraction," a brother or sister with pseudonym CB wondered whether that whole notion meant that "our family wants us to leave, or is just indifferent to our staying." CB, I'm inclined to share your apparent distaste for the whole idea. (That does not mean, of course, that I am attacking Mike. My desire is to add to the conversation, not to condemn a man who has amply demonstrated his compassion for and devotion to the saints of God.) The context of Mike's post was a shift in a local church toward a "missional" posture, and the discomfort that would inevitably result among some in the rank-and-file.

The whole notion of “addition by subtraction� seems tainted by an elitist point of view unless it is applied to the situations to which Jesus Himself applied it:

1. In the matter of church discipline for public sin (Matthew 18)
2. In the matter of choosing whether to serve Jesus or not (Luke 14)

We are clearly shown that these weighty matters justify the separation of believers; even if it’s painful, it must be done. But is it equally justified in the matter of choosing what our evangelistic strategy is going to be? That seems to be a stretch, a nod to efficiency, a desire not to be held back by “those recalcitrants,� a form of pin-your-ears-back urgency that neither the Gospels nor the Epistles seems to convey to us.

In musing over this whole idea, the thought occurred to me that no shepherd in Jesus’ mold would be content simply to let some sheep wander off to God-knows-where (Luke 15) without some bona fide effort to reach them, communicate with them, listen to their hearts. “Addition by subtraction� is euphemistic language for, “we’re probably better off without you anyway.�

Of course, no shepherd has standing to prohibit someone from moving on if that is his/her conviction and intention. But simply to let him/her go without challenging his/her decision with a pastoral heart just seems contrary to the spirit of John 10:1ff, Luke 15 etc.

qb

Iran's got us over a barrel - a few uneducated musings

As it is, they can yank our chains anytime they want, almost without impunity. If we slap worldwide sanctions on them, then they've got nothing to lose, so they pull their oil off the market, and we end up in a bidding war with China, India, Europe and Japan for the rest of the oil on the market, followed hard by political upheaval here when Sadie Q. Public has to cancel her trip to Los Cabos and the truckers across the country revolt (see also, "France.") Maybe we win that bidding war, but at what price? $100/barrel? What Bin Laden was unable to do on 9/11, Iran can do almost at will, at least as far as major, irreversible body shots to our economy. And they don't have to fire a bullet to do it; it's all economic policy stuff. It stands to reason, though, that when Iran pulls its oil off the market, the cost of our war in Iraq goes up immediately, which means more domestic pressure to pull out, not less. That nutcase in Tehran is crazy...like a fox.

Krauthammer said it right (although he had the wrong solution): "we are criminally unserious about energy policy." OPEC has us by the short hairs, and all it takes is one serious player to bring us to our knees. Saudi Arabia may be trying to help us right now, but their fields are in decline, and their claimed reserves may not be real. Canada's tar sands have everybody licking their chops, but how much oil does one have to burn to extract a barrel's worth of oil from those super-gummy reservoirs? Ethanol's all well and good, but how many acres of cattle feed (corn and sorghum) have to be redirected to grow corn for ethanol, and how are our beef-eating citizens going to like it when their double-meat McSlams end up doubling in price because feed costs have doubled...or when we start buying more Argentine beef to compensate for the higher livestock production costs here at home? It's a monstrously complicated picture, but I can't think of any scenarios under which to be terribly optimistic.

So I dunno, but I wouldn't get too wrapped around the axle about an Exxon exec's $400 million parachute. That retirement plan doesn't even cause a blip on the economic implications of Iran's upcoming decisions.

Who knows? We might be forced to view an Iranian move to take its oil off the market as an act of war. Lampooning the Iraq conflict as a "war for oil" misses the point: From here on out, every war is a war for oil, until we can figure out how to reduce our dependence on it. We dare not waste our strategic reserve just to keep Sadie comfortably in First Class on her way to Cabo.

In the meantime, some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots. How do I raise my boys in such a way that they will trust in God instead? America's had a great run for 200 years, but the party hostess is starting to bus the tables.

Elders as a "Board of Directors?"

I guess I just don't get it these days. Since when did the primary function of elders become "to meet and make decisions," with a secondary function of "setting congregational policy?" Ugh. I'm having one of those moments. Ezekiel (see Chapter 34) didn't excoriate the elders of Israel for being "insufficiently nimble in their administration" or "insufficiently responsive to the directives of the CEO, aka the 'senior pastor.'" But that's what we're left with these days, or so it seems in the modern church that aspires to megachurch status.

*sigh*

qb

This One Looks Good

From all appearances, Judge Alito looks like an excellent pick, certainly more energizing and compelling a choice than Harriet Miers. It boils down to this, it seems to me: if there's gonna be a brouhaha, and there is, we might as well make sure that it's not wasted on a nominee about which we're lukewarm. Let's get it on. Best wishes to you, Judge Alito.

qb

A Sigh of Relief

Peggy Noonan has done it again.  Put words – her strongest suit – to your servant’s thoughts.  Sort of.  Consider this closing excerpt from her October 27 column:
*****
Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.
I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."
You're a lobbyist or a senator or a cabinet chief, you're an editor at a paper or a green-room schmoozer, you're a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief, and you're making your life a little fortress. That's what I think a lot of the elites are up to.
Not all of course. There are a lot of people--I know them and so do you--trying to do work that helps, that will turn it around, that can make it better, that can save lives. They're trying to keep the boat afloat. Or, I should say, get the trolley back on the tracks.
That's what I think is going on with our elites. There are two groups. One has made a separate peace, and one is trying to keep the boat afloat.
*****
I find over the last year or so that I have spent less and less time and energy pondering political things and more and more time and energy pondering spiritual things.  (They are exclusive sets, or so they tell me.)  Yeah, the Miers nomination – and she’s a great American patriot, don’t get me wrong – was a boneheaded move that self-inflicted unnecessary headaches on my beloved President Bush.  No, the president does not deserve all of the unalloyed vitriol that is spewed his way; these three hurricanes, and quite probably 9/11, would have happened no matter who was at the tiller.  All that, and so much more.
Still, despite the plain fact that such malignant attitudes could be rationally and successfully contested, I find myself disengaging from the Op-Ed page and all of the related venues for one simple reason.
It’s not quite the bunker mentality that Noonan seems to describe.  It’s more of a resignation to the Second Law, a concession to the monotonic descent to disorder.  And a subconscious decision to operate in a sphere in which my influence actually counts for something instead of being merely an oboe amongst the brass.
And I find myself doubting that many of our so-called “public servantsâ€� are really all that wise, all that noble.  The public they “serveâ€� surely cannot conceal its contempt for them, that much is clear.  And so what’s the point?  Even if they were noble, we don’t view them that way.  Substantive arguments are viewed as war, or at least intemperate rudeness.  George Will is a “brute?â€�  Really?  And if that gentle sage can be labeled a “bruteâ€� – that’s the root of the word “brutal,â€� may I remind you – then what chance do I have to be heard at the level of merits?
It’s not fear of being persuaded to abandon my current beliefs; I’m secure enough in my identity to handle that.  And it’s not shame; I’m convinced that being a conservative is worth the price one pays for making it known.  It’s just a sigh of resignation, of futility.
And of relief.  What greater joy is there than to retreat from all of that and take refuge in the park across the street with three healthy boys, all of them wide-eyed with the naïve assurance that if they just packed enough engines onto that model rocket, it could carry them off to Cygnus?

Challenger Point summit shot 26 June 2002

 
 

If Only Alec Baldwin Had Been Serious

Drudge is linking to a story in the IH-T about disaffecteds for whom the Bush victory on 11/2/04 was the last straw and who are actively making plans to emigrate to more liberal-friendly Canada, where many of them can pursue their agnostic or extramarital agendas unfettered and unencumbered by the emotional load of a diversity of social opinion weighing on their shoulders. They are in desperate search of a more uniformly accommodating politic, it seems...and they will surely find it on Front Street.

Alas, it looks as if only 18,000 will make it this year. qb wonders aloud, "how can I help you guys?"

qb

p. s. ...many of them, in a delicious twist of irony, from the Seattle area. What a hoot *that* is!

The Divine Conspiracy

Those of you needing something inspiring to read might want to pick up a copy of Dallas Willard's _The_Divine_Conspiracy_. Man, is it ever toothsome reading. You will never look at the Sermon on the Mount in quite the same way. qb is just about halfway through the book - it's not the easiest read in the world - and is mesmerized by the depth of it.

BTW, as qb learned this morning, if you pray for other people out of a desire to be their hero, it's time to check under the hood. God does not favor using His power to make US look good. About time qb learned that!

qb

The Right to Be An Ignoramus

Perhaps qb would think differently if he had lost someone in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon or in a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11...but the outrage over CU Professor Churchill's speaking engagement at some obscure college in the Rust Belt seems a bit over the top. In what way, precisely, does Churchill actually threaten us? One extremist after another keeps popping his head up and exposing himself for what he is, and qb is actually grateful for that.

The present political environment, in large measure created by President Bush's stubborn resolve, has been cathartic: the Michael Moores and the Howard Deans and the Terry McAuliffes and the Jacques Chiracs of the world have nowhere to run from their legacies and nowhere to hide from their true identities. Churchill is just another sorry example of the self-loathing left, and it comforts qb greatly to have such folks raise their heads instead of lurking down beneath somewhere, undetected and unexposed.

Mount of the Holy Cross 2005

I made the mistake yesterday of lingering over the "Best New Gear" edition of Backpacker magazine, and it reminded me that 2005 must be the year in which I summit the Mount of the Holy Cross via the Notch Mountain shelter. I'll want to take a group with me to share the views, and maybe reminisce a little about how John Eldredge's books have brought the Scriptures to life again for me. An overnight next to the shelter would be a total gas.

Any of you who has summited by the Notch Mountain route, I'd be grateful for your tips and observations and trip reports. I'm a seasoned fourteener veteran (if 15 summits qualifies for that - does it change your opinion if one of them was Longs?), but my rather extreme experience descending in 2002 from the saddle between Kit Carson and Challenger Point has chastened me a bit about my intuition up there at 14,000'. (If you are the one who found my beloved North Face shell halfway down the big snowfield on June 26th, congratulations on a worthy find.)

A Luddite No More

OK, folks, you win. The trend has overcome qb. Welcome to qb's blog, a repository of random musings from the fringe, a stream of consciousness with no apparent thematic center.

In qbland, we lean pretty far to the political right, but contrary viewpoints get a fair hearing if they're expressed with elegance and style. If you're up to the task, bring it on.

Enjoy!

qb