Our family chose the North Carolina side of the Smoky Mountains as our vacation destination during the summer of 2007. I welcomed the break from the routine of job and chores. The younger two of our children were going to college in a few weeks and I knew that this trip might be the last one my wife and I shared with them for some time.
Our first campsite was at 5,300 feet with no facilities except for flush toilets and cold water. Our last campsite was alongside a beautiful stream with blessed hot showers. We hiked trails through four kinds of forest environments and waded up to beautiful waterfalls. Through drama re-enactments, we came to appreciate the culture of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee People that dates back to pre-history in North America.
As we passed along one of the hiking trails, a mountain rose up to our right and a stream rolled by to our left. I heard another hiker behind us. “It all makes you feel kinda small.”
I appreciate what that person meant, but in that moment another awareness came to me. “It makes me feel kinda young,” I said to my wife.
“Small” can feel like helpless or insignificant or unimportant. In comparison to the huge universe, what is the earth or me for that matter? Compared to a river that can cut a Grand Canyon out of ancient rock, what can I do to make a difference? “Feeling small” can incapacitate me. It can steal opportunity from my life and tempt me to escape my responsibility.
On the other hand, “feeling young” means that compared to the rocks and trees and seas, I’m just getting started and I don’t have a lot to protect or preserve. Long before the Great Smokies became a national park, settlers built the cabins that now sit on display. The Europeans arrived to find the Cherokee already there.
Thousands of years before that were the deer, the wolf, and the bear. I was only the most recent in a long line of travelers. Who am I to think that I am further along or more important than any of them? Why do I think I have to be? If I am “young” maybe the pressure is off and I don’t have to know all the answers or have it all together. If I am “young” maybe I can still take risks with new ways of thinking and acting.
Long ago in a faraway land, a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi revealed that it takes a youthful heart to thrive through this life and into the next: “Unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” He knew what He was talking about because He had stepped out of eternity into our time frame for a little while. He brought the perspective we needed.
God help me to stay “young:” wise enough to realize that the goal of life is to receive it as the gift it is -- especially when I’m not on vacation.
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