About once a month, I submit a blog entry to an online publication called Creation Care, hosted by Sustain Lane. My most recent entry was a reflection from a significant lesson encountered while traveling on our most recent expedition , High Sierra’s and Beyond

Below is the article that I submitted:

The Lilies of the Field

The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys…. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104: 18, 27-30)

The pile of raw ingredients on the forest floor was met with wide eyes and pensive postures. The giant Sequoia’s looming above seemed small and irrelevant in comparison to the task at hand… Five high school aged participants ration planning, preparing and cooking meals for two weeks in the backcountry of Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park. The menu included bulk ingredients such as flour, rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, spices, cous cous, and quinoa. No freeze dried, instant, just add water, super-sized, fast food, instant gratification meals. The pile before us was the kind of food that mom, grandma, or that cable TV cooking show used…certainly not a high school student that lives on Chipotle, high fructose corn syrup energy drinks and any variety of gas station staples. The endless possibilities of creative menu masterpieces and gourmet meals did not seem to ease the anxieties of situation at hand.

“We are going to starve” was the consensus, which quickly led to an onslaught of questions and genuine concerns.

“How many calories will we burn a day?”

“Can’t we just bring power bars?”

“How many miles will we hike?”

“What can you make with this powder?”

“What if we don’t have enough food”

“What if I can’t make it?”

“How hard will it be?”

“Where’s the lunch food?”

“I can’t do it?”

“You mean we have to cook our own meals?”

In merely twenty-four hours after stepping off the plane at Los Angeles International Airport, five high school-aged students’ worlds turned upside down by simply stepping outside. The wilderness often has a way of revealing our comfort zones, quickly removing us from them. These students encountered the reality of feeling a lack of control, leading to anxiety and fear. These often blinded them from seeing the beauty of the mountains and the richness of relationships with group members. This worry created inner noise distracting from the valuable lessons about others, oneself and God.

Several days into the course we were in a high alpine meadow clothed in wildflowers only seen by the occasional hiker, marmot or mule deer. Here we responded to the group’s anxiety with this passage:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all His splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:25-34

Worry is not only found in the wilderness. It is all too common in our every day lives. It is a major ingredient used to push and sell products, programs and ideologies. We are consumed with the stuff that we have, the way that we look, what we drive, where we live, what we eat, who we impress, and how successful we are. It is too easy to bow down to the idol of worry by turning to products and most of all lies that temporarily relieve us from our worries but fall short of what only the creator can fulfill. We are told to not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, because God is with us. This does not imply that all is pleasant nor does it imply we must stop working and cultivating creation. Even the Psalmist says “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” We are able to walk in obedience to Christ’s call, “”Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” because we have a God that is with us. Imagine a life that is not consumed with worry, a life free to live as you were created to be, free from fear, free from anxiety and free from the lies “not enough.” It is in this freedom that we see clearly all that God has given us.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Meet Sam:

For the past decade, experiential educator, author and speaker Sam Van Eman has taught in barns and board rooms, forests and canyons , classrooms and auditoriums. ” Sam works as a Staff Resource Specialist with the Coalition for Christian Outreach and enjoys partnering with his wife to raise two daughters.

Why after 10 years of professional trip leading, do I continue packing my sleeping bag and lacing up my boots to lead students I have never met into places they may have never gone before?

Because in the Backcountry, a student is likely to…

Exhale to squeeze through tiny tight spaces, or gasp at the wonder of wide open places. Consider the past and the good way to healing, or lie on the bottom and wish he had feeling. Think about dinner in 12 cold degrees or ward off the bugs but dream of Febreze. Frolic with friends in marvelous roots, or wade through the muck with only half-decent boots. Experiment with make shifted Indian cuisine, or cause you to wonder, was this an accident scene? Search for Spiritual signposts of reference, or delight in uncanny places of reverence.

Leading Trips in every condition with every kind of student has not only been deeply wonderful, but it has also made me acutely aware of one thing:
Suspending the normal reality for students by transporting them away from their daily comforts opens the doors for transformative learning to occur.

Suspending normal is as simple as replacing self-serving cafeteria lines and big tables in a clean environment with a bag of ingredients, a four inch stove and the forest floor. Add in a cold layer of snowflakes and a pinch of darkness, and voila! Mealtime is brand new, requiring interdependence. Suspending the normal means replacing the i-pod with silence, homework with play, and wrist watches with listening to the natural cycles of hunger and sleep. Furthermore, it means removing the distractions that keep many of them from dealing with the essential questions about life and faith.
This is the heart of it for me. Students frequently say that God is more easily found in nature than other places (even if they aren’t sure there IS a GOD), as through being outdoors were his living room where they feel comfortable sitting. For so many, their internal questions converge with the activities and experience and conversations on a trip and they begin to respond to Christ’s invitation, “Come, all who are thirsty….” What a privilege it is to watch them grapple with this first-hand.