The Great Outdoors

Well, it's been a while, but a good friend of mine just sent me an article he has just written on the value of outdoor education and wanted my thoughts. That inspired me to blog:
Thanks Alan!

Christmas Eve we again launched into a walk and found snow, snow and lots more snow on our very own Stiperstones. 27 came and we had a great time. So, why do we walk, climb, canoe, sail, run when the weather is not fit for men to be out (and very few women). :)
When taking part in outdoor pursuits, especially in the wild places, we have an increased chance of getting something we did not expect. Alan called these, the 'unplanned encounters'. I like that term! They are the perfect contradiction in outdoor pursuits. We plan so they hopefully will not happen, at the time we generally do not enjoy them but that is so often what makes the time so memorable over less eventful days. The edge along which we walk in these unplanned encounters is the very edge which sharpens and catapults learning and growth. Even if you don't get one, they are always lurking and just the knowledge that you are in a potentially unsafe environment can be enough to give you something you did not have yesterday.

That is what adventure is! Not the planned, safe routes but those things which we did not expect and cause us to dig a little deeper, draw on resources and find a new place within ourselves - It stretches our envelope of experience and enriches our life injecting some vitality and adrenaline along the way for good measure.

Adventure does not have to be a great expo'. It is absolutely geared to the individual and no one must ever pour cold water on what another might consider adventure because his own experience is greater. Adventure can meet you anywhere but outdoors is a great place to start looking.

As a man, I can feel tamed in so many areas of life and we need the wild places so that part of us does not die. I mean this with the greatest of respect and I don't wish to generalise but women can want to marry the dangerous man who has a wildness about him and yet, if allowed to, might spend the rest of her life domesticating and taming him until the danger and wildness is dead. Many men confess to having affairs, not for the sex but for the danger and adventure. All men must have a place where they can take adventure - If it is with his wife and family, all the better.

So, what is it about the outdoors itself which seems to flick a switch within us? - At least it does in me! It is about reconnecting! Modern life forces us and children out of the country into towns and the connection is lost. Everything in the world of the town is built, designed, driven and controlled by man and his convenience. In the wild, its wild! We become - and more specifically, young emerging men and women become intensely aware that there is something so much more powerful and great and incomprehensible (mountains, wind, rain, snow, heat, crag, sky, river, sea, coast) that forces the questions - "who am I in this vastness?" And we can face the fact that out here we are so insignificant. It is a sobering place - A good place.

I often look up at the stars and struggle taking in the size of creation and I confess, at times it has caused me a struggle in faith. Then I read somewhere "The expanse of the universe was never intended to make you think how small you are but how great God is!" And that settles it for me - He again is true to His word, He is unfathomable, indescribable, uncontrollable, inconceivable, uncontainable....... yet, He knows me. Deal with that with intellect!?

Psalm 8:3-4.
When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man that thou art mindful of him?

The reconnection runs deep and can be the catalyst for a new respect of the planet and an understanding of the rhythms of life which in towns and cities goes by unnoticed and sometimes ignored. In the town, it can be a major breakthrough to even get some darkness at night. I like it the rhythms! The tides, the weather, sunrise and sunset. In the wild places you can learn not to fight it. Moreover, something within even changes and there is no desire to fight it. Especially when camping, you certainly go with it and work around the more difficult aspects of it.

There most certainly are lessons to be learned on a climbing wall and in a gym but
"Some things cannot be learned," as Bagger Vance says, "they must be remembered".

These are my thoughts on this day. Waffle, maybe, but it's good to write.

Happy New Year to all.

Now, Get Out There!

God bless,

Steve.