So the title is kinda cheesy and potentially cliche, but it is so incredibly true.
I had the chance to hike part of Mt St. Helens last Friday (after sleeping through my alarm and various other set backs) but BOY was it worth it. The drive in and of itself was gorgeous with stunning views of Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier.
As I hiked Harry's Ridge, I began to notice several things. One, I was walking on ash. Pretty crazy. Two, there were very sparse trees, and the remnants of trees which remained looked as if they had been sliced off at the trunk. One full hillside was littered with scraggly tree remains, bent and disfigured.
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| On the way up Harry's Ridge. Can anyone guess the mountain in the distance? |
Jon, my hiking buddy for the day, pointed out how long it will take for those trees to grow back, let alone reach the size, character, and grandeur they once were. We both wondered how many years old some of the fallen trees were, and how many years they had grown strong and tall to be wiped out in one day by the eruption of Mt. St Helens.
As I looked around my feet, however, there were stunning wildflowers in a variety of colors, shrubs, and lots of different grasses. According to a Volcanologist at UCSB, "crops, forests, orchards, and animals grazing or browsing on the volcano's slopes or surrounding lowland can be leveled or buried. But that is the short-term effect. In the long run, volcanic deposits can develop into some of the richest agricultural lands on earth."
Ok, first of all: Volcanologist. That is the funniest word, but so awesome. Can you imagine being at a dinner party and someone said, "So, Joe, what do you do?" "Oh, I'm a volcanologist." That's pretty sweet.
ANYWAYS, the destruction of a volcano is devastating and yet the long term affect is quite magnificent. This doesn't negate the pain, suffering, and anguish of the destruction. Not at all. It actually testifies to it, in a sense, since all of the beauty is growing up out of the remnant of what is left.
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| Mt. St. Helens in all her glory! |
This reminded me of a devotion by C.S. Lewis I read yesterday from the book Devotional Classics:
"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want YOU. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked -- the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.' Both harder and easier than what we are all trying to do. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, 'Take up your Cross' -- in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, 'My yoke is easy and my burden light.' He means both. And you can just see why both are true."
So, friends, I leave you with these words and a few pictures to ponder. I am one of the biggest control freaks out there, I have realized, and these words will challenge me daily:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:a The old has gone, the new is here! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5
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| Probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever eaten a PB&J. |
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| Spirit Lake which is filled with tree remnants (the white patches) |
