All posts tagged Mountains

  • July 28, 2014

    A Dusting of Snow During a Bloody Summer

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    A Dusting of Snow During a Bloody Summer
    Brian Zahnd

    It’s been a bloody summer. In Iraq, Syria, Gaza, Nigeria, and the Ukraine.
    Kill the bad guys and there will be peace is the tired refrain.
    All sides say it. Ad infinitum.

    (I didn’t even mention the bloody streets of America, to which we have grown so numb.)

    But I am where I always hope to be this time of year: In the mountains that I love.

    When I hike above treeline onto the great expanse of the high tundra my soul finds room for expansion. I’m no longer hemmed in by the din from the reactive ideologues. I find time and space to pray and think.

    And as I pray and think, I know this…

    Creation is good. Very good. It bears witness to its Creator, who is good too.

    In our primitive dread we imagine a god who is petulant and hard to please, vindictive and retributive, capricious and cruel. But these are only petty projections born of our own fear.

    The mystics (and maybe the mountaineers) know better.

    When I can clear my head, I know better. High on the tundra between Longs Peak and the Never Summer Mountains I know the greatest of all truth: God is Love.
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    6 Comments / Jesus, Kingdom, Nonviolence, Peace, Violence, War /

  • August 6, 2007

    A Christian in Christendom

    What does it mean to be a Christian in America today?

    What does it mean to be a Christian in a 21st century Christendom?

    How are we to be Christians who are countercultural, transcendent and subversive in a quasi-Christian culture?

    What do you do when Christendom and Babylon are woven together in a single culture?

    How are we to be authentic Christ-followers in a nation where 88% of the people identify themselves as Christian?
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    1 Comment / Christianity, Culture, Mountains /

  • July 30, 2007

    Mountain Misery

    My feet hurt
    My head pounds
    My lungs burn
    My legs buckle
    I’m cold…now hot…now cold

    Why do I do this?
    Man! Can I do this?
    The sky looks wrong
    Was that thunder?
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    2 Comments / Mountains, Travel /

  • July 17, 2007

    Mountains, etc.

    After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John
    and led them up on a high mountain.
    -Matthew 17:1

    That’s what I’m going to do! Six days from now I’ll be leading Zahnds and others up on the high mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mountains like…

    Longs Peak
    McHenrys Peak
    Halletts Peak
    Otis Peak
    Ypsilon Mountain

    I love these mountains. I’m fanatical about them. The mountains motivate me to stay in shape for the few weeks a year that I have a chance to hike and climb. As I type the blog I’ve got maps spread out on the floor as I plan various mountain adventures.
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    2 Comments / Christianity, Mountains, Music, Travel /