Backpacker Magazine

One of my favorite hobbies (and really I'm below novice level here) is backpacking. After reading the book Younger Next Year for Women I was inspired to do something . . . whatever was available right in my own backyard. I had always fantasized about what it would be like to sleep outside in the winter - when the cold air is so pure, and you are surrounded by the quiet hush of fallen snow - blue in the moon light. And so I did. I walked right out my back door and into the woods. In preparation for my first winter camping trip I subscribed to Backpacker Magazine (http://www.backpacker.com/). An article I read today is actually the topic of today's blog. I have lots of thoughts and ideas I will share in the future about Younger next year, hiking, winter camping etc. But for today I am going to reflect on this fact:

In 7 - 10 years, the glaciers at Glacier National Park and the Glacier at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa will be gone. Not diminished, not smaller -- GONE. They have existed for 10,000 years and in my lifetime they will just . . . melt away. I can't lie. Sometimes the fear of change of this magnitude churns my stomach and scares me to death. But then I remember . . . this is God's world, not ours. BUT . . . like he gives us children to raise and nurture, so too, he has given us this earth. And it is our responsibility to nurture it. When I think about the power lines and NYRI and see the new gas pipeline going right past my house . . . I wonder. I wonder lots of things --- but mostly I am sad. Sad because so many people don't understand that the earth is a living thing and NEEDS us to take care of it. To nurture and respect this awesome thing that God has made available to us.

TREES
by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.