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When I was in my mid-twenties I was a youth minister with junior high kids. I worked with a guy named Randy Smith. We did crazy things with the kids. We got away then with what we could not do now. We jumped off 60-foot cliffs into a reservoir at night. We explored caves with kids deep into the bowels of the Rockies. We rappelled off buildings and mountain overhangs. We rode bulls with them at a ranch. We canoed, got stuck in quicksand, got lost in the desert with little water, and got stuck in a blizzard in the Rockies at the beginning of August with 15 kids and no survival equipment. The list goes on.
Once we had 40 kids on 2 buses headed for the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona. We were to help a community named Chilchinbito cut pinion pine, strip the bark, and make fence stakes. We then dug the holes by hand, stretched barbed wire, and fenced off 10 acres of desert to keep sheep away from hogans and other buildings.
On our way to the project site, both buses broke down. We were stuck in the desert for 2 days, alongside the road with 40 kids, waiting for help. Kids were restless, complained, some fought and some cried. Every one of them and the attending adults had to learn to be flexible and make meaningfulness out of boredom as we waited. Finally, help arrived! One bus was salvageable and the other bus was abandoned. Each year we returned to the project site, the bus was observed, gradually being buried by blowing sand.
Every now and then I come across someone who was a part of those memorable experiences. They always talked about the things they experienced and learned from the crazy adventures during those junior high days.
There were many things that every person learned during those experiences. Once while spelunking through Fulford Caves in Eagle Colorado, one of the kids slipped on black ice and fell 40 feet. He was unconscious deep in a cave. It was a tough time. There was an ER doc who was hiking through the cave at that very time. He helped us stabilize the boy and it took 7 hours to haul him out of the cave to safety. On that trip, we learned to believe in miracles.
There were many other times that kids got homesick, lovesick, and flu-sick. Once while traveling on a bus to a project site, all the kids got a stomach virus. They were throwing up. I and others cleaned up their vomit and tried to comfort each kid. The smell of the bus alone would make you want to vomit. Eventually, everyone got the virus. I was sitting deep in the middle of the moving bus. Suddenly, I knew everything was coming up. I looked for a way out and there was none. Without control, I vomited projectile all over one kid sitting in front of me. Learned how to be helpless in that moment, humble, and how to be earthy. It was not a fun learning experience for me or the kid with vomit all over their back and neck!
Another time we were climbing out of Keet Seel Canyon in Northern Arizona. This was a 17-mile hike and we left way before dawn in order to knock out most of the miles in early morning. The last mile was a steep climb out of the canyon with a lot of sand. One of the kids who was ahead of me had taken his shoes off to feel the sand in his toes while climbing out. He had been warned that this was not a good idea. As a result, he blistered his feet from the sand that heated up very quickly to his surprise. He thought his demise had come and he was writing a goodbye letter to his family. In retrospect it was funny. In the moment, we had to figure out how to get him up the canyon trail and eventually treat his sun-blistered feet. We all learned about grit, grind, and going for it that morning!
In the outdoors, everyone learned to face unpredictability, boredom, fear, loneliness, frustration, flexibility and adaptability. There was a sense of wonder about the great outdoors. There were times when kids and adults both cried from fatigue and discouragement. Those experiences exposed everyone to how to be human. There was no room for a prima donna attitude or behavior. Nature quickly squashed all of that from participating kids and adults. Most importantly everyone increased deep belief in themselves and the value of community. Cool kids learned to hang with kids deemed not cool and became best friends. Adults learned to stop bitching and complaining about bitching and complaining kids. Everybody learned to exercise and strengthen resilience. Bouncing back was absolutely necessary to work through difficult environmental and relationship conditions.
Those experiences became a springboard for the rest of my life. I don’t think you have to do crazy things in the outdoors but you must learn the life skills it taught to grow yourself up. All of these skills saved me when I became suicidal and incapacitated by depression in a psychiatric unit at one point. The losses of loved ones, friends, and heartache would never have been transformed into meaningfulness without learning to incorporate these life skills.
There is a tendency to want to avoid and distract from dull misery and everyday struggle. Yet life teaches that through pain and loneliness, you can survive your most difficult feelings and still come home to a place of love and acceptance. Addiction recovery will teach these skills. The truth is that addicts and non-addicts alike must learn to master these skills to make meaningfulness from struggle and create serenity in disappointment and quiet suffering.
Life is always renewing itself; nothing lasts, good or bad. It’s the way life unfolds. It’s enough today to enjoy my coffee, take a walk, and appreciate the people in my life. I can rest in a quiet sort of understanding that all of these learned skill sets bring me to a peaceful acceptance and understanding that this is what life is all about.
If you seek stability in sameness, you run the risk of forcing yourself into a mold of something you no longer are. Through life, the point of power is in the present. It cannot be lived backward or forward. You are always evolving, changing into something new. You are always spawning new thoughts and new awareness. You can only embrace the context of today. If you truly engage in this moment, you will experience more awareness and connection than if you were a brilliant scholar or a prophet able to predict the future.
It is in the present moment that all the experiences of life converge. This is where the brilliance and wisdom of the ages can be found. It is all within you. Everyone has this capability. You work out past issues so that you are free to embrace a fuller presence in the here and now.
