I wrote the “I was Lost” posting in the RMC on July 23^rd. A lot happened with that post, on two levels, which I will explain as I go.

I attended the church on Sunday, July 22^nd, and sat down the first thing on the morning of the 23^rd and wrote RMC #31: “I was Lost” (http://rockymountainclimbing-a-diary.com/rmc-31-i-was-lost). Later that day I received a number of emails from various welcoming committees from the Vail Church (http://www.thevailchurch.com/). Somewhere in the responses I sent back to these well wishers, I included a link to the posting. Here is what happened then, in the words of the people who sent them.

First:

Durk,

Your blog was so uplifting for our staff…we read it in our weekly staff meeting.  So encouraging to know that He is drawing people to worship Him here.  Thanks so much for sharing your life with us, we look forward to watching the Lord use us and you at our lil’ mountain church.

Scott Leonard

The Vail Church

Then I received a call and an email asking if they could use my writing in the following Sunday sermon. From the pastor at the Vail Church, Craig Smith, came this:

Hey Durk,

Craig Smith here with The Vail Church.  Just wanted to say thanks for allowing me to share your words this coming Sunday.  Scott passed on your blog to me this week and it was so encouraging to read.  Thanks for sharing your story.  Once a year, we do what we call our “State of the church” address.  It’s a time to re-visit the vision God has given us as well as celebrate His good work over the past year.  I’d love to share your words with our church family this weekend – they speak well to our desire – that people would meet with Christ each Sunday and leave changed.  So, with your permission, I’d love to pass along how God met with you and your wife last weekend.  Your words celebrate our God and that’s always worth sharing.  We’re glad you came – this weekend we will outline clearly who we are, where we’re going, and how to dive in and serve alongside us in the work ahead.  There’s much to be done in this valley and around the globe so we’re anxious to stack hands together and get to work.  Your ministry experience is a tremendous blessing – let’s talk soon and figure out the next steps.  Let me know how I can be of any help along the way!  Grateful for you both…

Craig

To say I was blown away was an understatement. I always understood that I was writing with a purpose. That was always clear to me. God had a purpose for me, though clearly, I wasn’t always let in on the plan. But then I also started receiving great comments from my old friends, mentors and much loved people.

From my spiritual mentor Ed Murray, I received this:

Durk, I don’t often reply to all because of a number of reasons. But I was so touched by your diary this week that I had to let everyone know how much it touched me.  I could feel my throat choking up as I read your lead in to the songs and for the life of me I could not even mouth them – you almost had me crying along with you.

God was working that day to make sure you found a good refuge in which to serve him.  What a testimony to “God is good”   — — —- “All the time”  — — —-!

Ed

From Carl Gustafson, an Emmaus Reunion Group buddy:

Good mornin’ brother,

I must admit, I’m not as strong as Ed, I DID cry a bit.  This email was topic of conversation this morning and celebrated on your behalf.

Ok, why did I cry?  After your email last week, I felt moved to reply but didn’t.  Then this one came and I had to do what I failed to do last week.

I too was looking back and found that through complacency, I had fallen away.  When things in my life stretched Jennifer and I in every direction, we got tired, worn out and complacent, failing to work on, or even be a part of our relationship with God.  I can’t describe, although I know you know what I’m talking about, the hole of void.  What had once been a very close intimate relationship was quiet.  In short, I was wwwwwaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy off in the weeds.  A couple of weeks ago, I showed up Tuesday morning, ponied up, and admitted to the gents at the table, I’m off in the weeds.  Their response, “what can we do to help?”  Now how’s that for a lifeline?  My response, accountability.

From the time of that admission, I jumped back into the relationship.  It was quite a shock to the system.  I started reading religious books at a fervent pace and committed to teach Sunday School for K-5 journey rooms.  This past Sunday, I went to one of my favorite places, the small chapel.  I ponied up to the rail, and on bended knee, admitted my complacency and jumped back in the game.  Communion, in that small, quiet, chapel was very special as I felt a “welcome back”.  Now that’s prevenient grace.

Now to my point….  Believe it or not, I’m celebrating my complacency.  That’s right, celebrating it.  Why you ask?  Because it showed me how night and day the difference is.  It’s amazing.  Being off in the weeds made me really appreciate how it feels to be on the road and the void in the weeds.  See…  celebration time.  My religious philosophy, “Celebrate everything”.  Good or bad.

Now that your back on the road, you know what it feels like.  Isn’t it worth investing the work and time into the relationship to stay there?  For me the answer is yes.

Remember, when you left, I mentioned the similarities in our walks?  Coincidence?  I think not.  Alpha taught me that there are no such things as coincidence or luck.

Now……..  walk on brother.  Remember, just follow the light.

Your brother in Christ,

Carl

I don’t think I needed any outside validation in writing these posts, since I am so certain that I am being guided by God’s hand in all that I write. But still, these comments and the positive use of my writing has further encouraged me to write even more. Or to say it better, I am further encouraged to spend more time thinking, listening and working for God. I am not a natural or gifted writer by any means. So, for me this is work. But I can tell when it flows through my hands, whether I write it in long hand or enter it in with my computer, the work is its own reward. And that God finds a use for it, as he has for these past months, is wonderful beyond my ability to understand.

So I will keep writing and use the encouragement you give me along with the certainty of God’s will in what I am creating to continue to write these humble words to encourage you and lead you closer to Him.

This is a talk I did at the Sunday Bible School class Suzy and I attend. As we are moving soon I was “moved” to offer up my spiritual journey in advance of my physical journey. Dean Brown the outstanding teacher of the class obliged and what follows is what I said that day. Most of the writing has appeared in parts in the Rocky Mountain Climbing Diary in prior versions and compiled and edited for the Trinity audience of friends and Disciples.

I want to apologize for not being able to attend class for the last 5-6 months. Many of you know that Suzy and I are moving to Colorado soon after my daughter graduates from high school. Over the last 18 months we bought, fixed up and moved in renters into a condo in Avon, Colorado. Started building a house in Eagle, Colorado. Went on numerous business trips from Atlanta to Santa Barbara. Had a couple of school visits. First my daughter Sarah was going to be a Missouri Tiger. She ended up an Aggie. Moved tenants out of the condo, fixed it up again, moved furniture into the condo to make it more saleable, sold it, moved furniture out, closed the sale. Put our house in Dallas on the market… and on and on. Oh yeah, Suzy just got a great job with a company based in New York.

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Jiri lives in Prague Czechoslovakia. I met him as an assistant table leader at Emmaus Walk 184 where we sat at the table of James. I had not heard from him in a year or so, so I was very pleased to see his comment from my journal entry #23. This is a really tough letter because of what he is going through right now. But in the letter is hope and the new beginning of an Emmaus Walk in his home country- the first one ever.

So I would ask prayers for Jiri and his family and for the Emmaus Walk occurring May 24-27.
“Durk,

thank you so much for the letter. I reply only now as I am currently hard pressed for time, and not just time …

All that started when my Mom was rushed to hospital with stroke last year, December 18. The doctors gave no chance as the haemorrage was massive, nearly one third of her right hemisphere was affected, with the lesion going as deep as the brain stem. They were probably right. But strangely enough, somebody decided, in two days, to open her anyway and remove the clot. The result was she started breathing herself but, expectedly, not much more. Now, over three months following the stroke, she is in a condition diagnosed as a locked-in syndrome: the brain stem locks all the supratentorial (i.e. higher cerebral) functions from expressing themselves through the body. Her condition then looks pretty much like a coma, and in all practical respects it is. Her pseudo-comatose condition allows her only blinking, limited side to side eye movements, a tension in her right hand and occasional movements of leg digits.
My Dad went to hospital a month ago in an urgent need to have a multiple by-pass. However, he could not find motivation enough to overcome postoperative complications and died last week. He had an excellent care as Czech kardiosurgery ranks among world top class and, actually, he was recovering. The root problem seemed the lack of will to go on. Tomorrow I am going to have his funeral. I did not tell my Mom yet what happened to Daddy. Still, strangely enough, she seems to be losing motivation to try to show her achievements. She could move even her knees and almost move her right thumb and the little finger separately when she was at her peak. The last few days, however, she seems to show (almost) nothing and keeps just looking away. Given her age, she’s battling against time. Permanent lying can devastate much younger bodies and her neurological progress seems too slow or perhaps none at all.

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I have been doing a lot of reading the last few years. William Barclay’s Commentaries of the New Testament, C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and now his sermons compiled under the title The Weight of Glory, John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul and many more.

But I note The Weight of Glory and Wild at Heart in particular which will lead me through the rest of this writing.

I picked up The Weight of Glory at the last Walk to Emmaus where I was blessed to coach. Close beside it on the table was Wild at Heart which I had already read. These are two very different books but they collided in my head today and caused this writing.

I began reading the Lewis sermon upon returning from the Walk. As usual Lewis took a little time to warm up to his task, but when he got going what I read had to be one of the most beautiful statements about God ever produced outside of the Bible.

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Rocky Mountain Climbing #22: I’ve Seen a Glimpse of Heaven

I served at an Emmaus Walk last weekend. A talk delivered by reverend Mel Caraway discussed his conversion that led to his commitment to the clergy. He said he was watching the movie: The Field of Dreams. In the movie the Kevin Costner character gets to play catch with his father who had died early in his adulthood. Mel said this was to him a “view of Heaven”.

I agree.

I love that movie. Even though my Dad was alive when the movie first came out, seeing the scene immediately catapulted me back to the simple days of playing catch with my Dad. Dad was a good all around athlete and played basketball, baseball, golf and was a legendary pool shooter (if you call pool a sport… which he did). I inherited my love of sports and basic abilities playing these sports from him. I never acquired any ability pool sharking though.

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Every Tuesday morning I roll out of bed about 5:15 AM to head out to my Emmaus Reunion Group meeting, which starts at 6:15 AM. This is a tradition of the Walk to Emmaus, a way of adding a long-term accountability factor for each participant’s Emmaus experience.

I tried out several groups to find this one. Anchored by Andy Stern, it currently includes Kevin, Hollis, Carl, Ed and I. We have guys come and go- one just moved, one had too many work commitments, and another had a spiritual awakening that led him to write a book and head in a another direction.

We meet for breakfast and a program of sorts. Each person upon completing the Walk to Emmaus is given a card that provides an outline for the Reunion Group. It includes a list with: daily devotionals, prayers, readings, spiritual retreat, communion and more. We more or less use this list as guideline for our conversations and discussions. Last week as I was going through my account of my previous week I told the guys I was going to be at Choices the rest of the week and that I considered this event to be a spiritual retreat for me. I was going on to the next item and stopped and told the group that I really felt that this Reunion group was a spiritual retreat.

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