May 5, 2009

Tomorrow is my last exam: the final obstacle to my graduation goal.

Saturday, right after I graduate I head to Amicolala Falls State Park. Sunday morning I begin my hike. I float between excitement and anticipation and fear and worry. What if I get on that trail and can't do it? What if I can't do twenty-mile days?

I would probably cry.

But I think I will do well. These fears are like any other before a big event. It's completely normal to worry about things going wrong with something you've poured your heart into.

I think I'll do well and have a great time. There will be challenges: physical exertion, ankles, loneliness, weather, animals, blisters, and a dozen other unforeseen snags. But that is part of the adventure. Not knowing is part of it. Anything else is called a vacation and those are usually at the beach.

I HATE the beach.

By the end of this trip, I will know myself in ways college can't accomplish. There is no classroom for this. A short quote from Whitman's Song of the Open Road says it best:

"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."

Whatever happens on this trip, God is with me and so are the prayers of people who remember me. Walt Whitman, in I Sing the Body Electric says that man "brings every thing to the test of himself...he strikes soundings at last only here." I will strike my soul against God's earth and hear what echoes back. What good, what false. What true, what flawed. What beautiful, what weak. And God will strike the soundings of his soul into my flesh. His echoes will ring in my body and I will hear the call to the character of Christ.