"Disasters Fairest Children"

Even though I haven't posted anything for a while, I've still been writing, and this weeks return to Mt. Hood for yet more lost climbers, brought up this bit of thought I penned at the first incident when lives were lost of the three climbers who died on Mt. Hood.

"In the worst of the worst, we saw the best of the best !" ( Kelly James)

As Americans we have probably never been so aware of Mt. Hood than they have this past weeks.

Jagged peaked and formidable it filled our screens with it's terrible beauty.

Under the snow capped mantle, solid as the rock that formed the mountain, was the haunting truth that men and women were lost in the midst of beauty and wildness.

For centuries, men have been drawn to mountains. To stand victorious with nothing above them but the heaven's and nothing under their feet but the ground they had gained, ..........to stand on one of earth's peaks reaching into heaven's space. No longer bound in the lower levels of daily commerce and hustle of the world , but not yet into the heavenlies.....just between both,

in a place of separation from both worlds.

How powerful it was to hear the witness of Kelly James' widow ; eyes brimming with her grief, yet proclaiming her faith in God as the source of strength to get her through the long days and nights of searching . And citing the unique fellowship of those who risked danger, cold and avalanche to try to find her husband as part of the inspiration that helped sustain her through the worst week of her life.

Robert Ardrey in his book, "African Genesis" said something that I cannot forget in this situation:

" Change is the elixir of the human circumstance,

and acceptance of challenge the way of our kind.

We are bad-weather animals, disasters' fairest children.

For the soundest of evolutionary reasons man appears at his best when times are worst."

If men and women can climb mountains risking frozen death to find brothers of kindred climbing hearts, what will we risk to save the kindred hearts in our own life circle?

It is not the vast ocean of the souls of humanity around which we are to close our net and drop wriggling, squirming thousands onto the deck of the kingdom.

It is the circle of friends and people with whom we daily traverse the dangers and pitfalls of life. It is to them we are called to offer the nail-scarred hand of rescue from the barren slopes of life's' emptiness, wind-swept of hope.

Courage is required ; this is not for the timid soul! But no one who goes, travels alone.