Climbing the Frankenstorm Fir Tree

I have been writing a book for the last century it seems for students going to college. I am really trying to take an atypical approach. Rather than blather on, I hit the themes of college hard but briefly and trust that the emerging adults are smart enough to get the point so I don't have to pulverize my thoughts into a book like Gerbers strained peas.

One principle I emphasize is "No risk equals no reward" and that a good part of the challenge of life is taking good risks. If you are not willing to wager, you won't win type of deal. But, one of the challenges of writing a book is to write something but to do so from the safety of the desk. This evening, I put my word into action and climbed a tree.

Below is an excerpt from my book, "On The Edge, Helping Students Transition Imaginatively to College":

Mark Batterson shared this in his sermon “Looking Foolish” on December 20, 2006:

“A few months ago I was reading the writings of John Muir—the founder of the Sierra Club. Muir is tough to describe, but the love of nature was the central passion of his life. He spent his life studying it, protecting it, and appreciating it. One of my favorite Muir moments happened in December of 1874. John Muir was staying with a friend at his cabin in the Sierra Mountains and a winter storm set in. The wind was so strong that it bent the trees over backwards. But instead of retreating to the safety of the cabin, Muir chased the storm! He found a mountain ridge; climbed to the top of a giant Douglas Fir tree; and held on for dear life for several hours feasting his senses on the sights and sounds and scents. In his journal, Muir writes:“When the storm began to sound I lost no time in pushing out into the woods to enjoy it. For on such occasions, Nature always has something rare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.”

Batterson goes on to write how much of a shame it is to become a spectator of one's life, rather out taking risks. Today, I crawled out from under my roof (my house is in the picture) and climbed the Fir Tree out back. I went up another ten feet but didn't think it wise to try and snap a picture because the branches I was perched on would have snapped first without my hands holding onto the trunk of the tree. There are upper limits to risk but I wanted to get right up to it.  

The Biblical writers assumed that words were important, but that words without action were useless. As James notes, "Don't just be hearers of the Word, but doers." Well, tonight I did. Done. In Hurricane Sandy no less. Awesome.