It has been eighteen years since July, 2006, when we had a three month sabbatical funded by the Lily Endowment. The program that benefitted us and the congregation we were serving, was designed in part to strengthen relationships between pastors and congregations. Research shows that long term relationships between pastors and congregations lead to healthy congregations. With the intensity of the pastoral vocation an extended break from day to day ministry combined with study and travel can provide renewal and increased energy for the calling. Lily also supports congregations. In the absence of their regular pastor, outside leadership that can focus on specific ideas and projects can give the congregation an emotional boost. New ideas and new programs often grow from ideas developed by the congregation with outside leadership. In the case of our 2006 sabbatical three different scholars each participated in a one month residency. An historian, a biblical scholar, and a writer helped the congregation explore hidden histories, fresh perspectives from the New Testament, and creative writing and storytelling skills.

Meanwhile, we focused our attention on sacred spaces. We sought out rural and remote places where there were congregations serving semi-isolated populations. The first month of our sabbatical focused on Lakota sacred places where we lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The second month we traveled across Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia seeking out communities that shared qualities with the place where we lived including beautiful scenery, significant tourist visitations, and places where congregations were far apart from other congregations of their denomination. Our family visited sacred sites in Australia including Uluru and Tasmania during our third month.

In July of 2006, as our congregation was being led by a visiting scholar we drove from my cousin’s river ranch, a place that is sacred in the story of my mother’s family, north into Glacier National Park, across the border to Watertown National Park, and continued north through Banff and Jasper Parks. In mid July, we camped in a large park on the outskirts of Jasper. Among other activities we drove up to Maligne Lake where we parked near Maligne Lodge and I paddled my kayak in the lake. I took pictures from my boat of Spirit Island as the tourist boats circled it heading back towards the lodge. It was a gray day with a bit of wind and I had fun surfing the small waves that formed as I paddled toward the glacier at the head of the lake. We also took a hike around the edge of the lake. Later that same day we hiked down Malign canyon and marveled at the steep gorge that water had carved through the mountains. I remember falling asleep in the camper listening to the rush of water in the river. Although it was mid-July, it was spring in the Mountains and the river was near flood stage with ice-cold snow melt. It was rushing so rapidly that we could hear the boulders rolling in the river bed.

I was just a tourist at Jasper and Mailgne Lake. We knew that we would never live in that place. But we were drawn by the same beauty that has drawn millions of tourists for a long time. We were touched by the same sense of awe that led indigenous people to see that area as sacred since time immemorial. Just down the Maligne River we paused at Medicine Lake, a relatively shallow lake surrounded by high mountains. Bathing in the icy colder glacial waters of the lake was believed to have healing properties. My body was not in need of special healing that summer, but our spirits were restored by the beauty of the place.

Looking back through the photographs I took at the time I am a bit surprised that I didn’t take more. I was relatively new to digital photography at the time and my camera was a bit limited, but the images from that sabbatical summer are precious to me. They remind me not only of what we saw, but of how we felt and of the importance of taking time to visit “thin places” where the glory of the Creator is evident and our spirits are lifted by the beauty of space.

Our thoughts about sacred spaces expanded over the years with a subsequent sabbatical invested in the study of sacred times.

Now, I look with sadness and horror at the devastating destruction of the fires that have burned through that sacred space. Malign Lodge is no more, destroyed by raging fire. It is estimated that half of the buildings in the town of Jasper have been destroyed. When the fire raced out of the Malign canyon the fire was so large and so intense that it was making its own weather. The rush of the fiery wind down the canyon propelled a wall of flames over 300 feet high. The most skilled and best equipped firefighters in the world were helpless to slow the onslaught. They fought valiantly to protect the hospital and schools, but private residences were reduced to ash and rubble in a matter of minutes.

Fortunately officials were successful in evacuating 20,000 tourists and 5,000 residents from the mountainous area without any loss of life.

Across the prairies and mountains of the United States and Canada there are many features that were identified by indigenous people as sacred. When settlers arrived they recognized the beauty and power of those places. Often, however, the settler’s language shifted the meaning of those places. Because the indigenous people were considered to be heathen and their religion was not understood, when they spoke of the presence of the Creator in particular places, the settlers thought that they were referring to false gods. Places with holy names were re-named “Devil’s” in the language of the settlers. My father grew up on the shores of Spirit Lake in North Dakota, which is called Devil’s Lake in English. Similarly, Mato Tipi, place of the Bear, in Wyoming, is called Devil’s Tower.

The raging fires that have swept through sacred places in British Columbia and Alberta this summer seem to deserve such dramatic language. The walls of flames that cannot be resisted are the stuff of descriptions of hell. While fire can kill trees and destroy buildings, it is powerless to change the dramatic geology of the mountains. The land continues to be sacred even in its fire-scarred state. I hope that one day I will be able to return and witness the beauty that remains. I pray for those who live in that place. May their resolve to rebuild be strengthened by the support of neighbors and governments as they seek new ways to live in a world that is so dramatically changed.

As the news stories continue from last weeks widespread failed IT upgrade that caused computers to go down in a number of critical industries and forced airlines to ground their fleets temporarily, we are learning that our family was very fortunate in the midst of the mess. Our daughter and grandson were scheduled to fly home from here to South Carolina on the night that the computers crashed. As a result of the CrowStrike/Microsoft computer outage, the airplane scheduled to transport them was grounded. At first airline employees had no idea how long the delays would last, so notices were sent that the flight would be delayed. When the delay stretched past midnight, our daughter was able to call and re-book her flight to the next night. She was able to re-book because the computer outage was caused by an automatic software update set to take place in the middle of the night. Because the middle of the night comes earlier in time zones to the east, the computers here on the west coast had not yet crashed when she re-booked her flight. The result for us was simple. Our daughter and grandson stayed with us for an extra 24 hours and were able to travel home without delay the next day.

We have since heard of friends who were stranded for many hours in airports, unable to make connections. With all of the flights that were grounded and IT problems making it difficult for passengers to rebook missed flights there was a lot of chaos and a lot of people faced major disruptions.

We don’t fly on the airlines very much these days. I have had a couple of trips related to my involvement in Faith Formation Ministries in the past year and we continue to plan trips to South Carolina to visit our daughter each year. In fact, we will be booking tickets soon. It isn’t however, the way I imagined my life might be when I was younger. I grew up in Montana. Both of my parents were pilots and I assumed that I would be able to fly as much or more than they had. Anticipated flying cars, however, have not materialized. And although I pursued aviation as a hobby and we had partial ownership in an airplane at one stage of our life, it was never practical for us to use general aviation as a primary means of travel. For a while I was flying fairly regularly for church meetings and activities, serving as an educational consultant in our church’s national setting. Those days have passed, however, and we have fewer reasons to travel by air than I once thought.

There are many things about my life that I did not imagine when I was younger. I assumed that I would always live in the Intermountain west. It was where I was born and I love the mountains and the people who live there. I expanded my vision to include the Dakotas early in our career and we enjoyed living and serving congregations there. We raised our children with a sense of adventure and encouraged them to follow their dreams and so far that has meant that they have lived quite far from where they graduated from high school. Our daughter has lived overseas for seven years of her life and she and her husband continue to anticipate moves as his career progresses. Our son, however, seems settled in the Pacific Northwest and so we moved near him when we retired. With four grandchildren just down the road, our travel desires have, for the most part, focused on our daughter and her family who live 3,000 miles away on the opposite coast of the country.

Here on the coast of Washington, I am learning about a form of travel that has not previously been something to which I’ve paid attention. Our county and a neighboring county have islands and islands mean passenger ferries. Sometimes we lead worship at an island congregation near our home. The ferry to Lummi Island runs from the nearby reservation to the island. It is a simple thing for us to drive to the ferry terminal and make our way to the Island. Recently we served the congregation for a couple of weeks while their pastor was on vacation and the auto ferry was in dry dock so passenger only travel was what was available. It was a simple matter for us to ride the ferry and hop onto a bus to get to the church. We had to allow for a bit of extra time for parking and walking to the ferry, but it all worked out.

Having the ferry in dry dock, however, made me aware of how complex the process of traveling among the islands is. Ferries are related to road systems. That means out here that just as we have roads that are built and maintained by different governmental jurisdictions, we have a Washington State ferry system and we also have county ferries. The Lummi Island ferry is operated by our county. Like roads, ferries are expensive to build and operate. In 2021, shortly before we moved to our current home it was announced that the county had secured $35 million in state and federal grants to purchase a 34-car electric ferry to replace the current 20-car Whatcom Chief, a diesel-craft that has been serving since 1962. However, since the grants were announced, the cost of the electric ferry has skyrocketed. It is now estimated that the replacement ferry and the needed upgrades to the ferry terminal will cost and estimated $90 million. The county does not have a funding source to make up the difference. Delaying likely involves even more increases in cost.

Electric ferries, however, are not the only option. Just south of us, in Bellingham, All American Marine is a company that builds commercial boats including passenger ferries. They launched “Sea Change” a 75-passenger ferry in August of 2021. That boat just went into service in San Francisco Bay after almost three years of sea trials and regulatory red tape. It is the first zero emissions hydrogen-powered ferry to be certified by the Coast Guard and that process took time.

It is hard to predict how we may travel in the future. I’m now expecting self-driving cars and other new technologies. Flying cars, however, don’t seem to be making their way to our garage anytime soon.

I know a little bit about tourist towns. When I was growing up, my father’s parents lived in Red Lodge, one of the communities that is near an entrance to Yellowstone National Park. My grandfather owned a service station that sold gas to car after car of tourists during the summer. The tourists were heading through town up the Beartooth Highway, sometimes called the Highway to the Sky. Highway 212 zigzags across the Montana-Wyoming border through the high country. It takes over an hour to get to the Northeast Entrance of Yellowstone Park near Cook City, where the price of gas is even higher. Sensible drivers leave Red Lodge with a full tank of gas. Service stations are few and far between, the road is steep and people want to stop often to look at the scenery. The highway closes in the winter due to heavy snow and when it does the ski season opens on Red Lodge Mountain. In the summer there are days when there are more tourists in town than permanent residents.

We lived for 25 years in Rapid City, South Dakota, which has a lot of different elements to its economy, but tourists are definitely part of the picture. People come to Rapid City to see Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore National Monument, the Crazy Horse mountain carving, Custer State Park, Wind Cave, Jewell Cave, and a host of other attractions. The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally brings more visitors to the region than permanent residents.

And now we live in Birch Bay, Washington, where approximately 40 percent of the houses are offered as short term rentals to guests who come to the beach, many from the nearby busy city of Vancouver. Some of the businesses along the beach operate in the summer only. We play host to guests throughout the summer, and our little area is fairly quiet and calm during the winter months.

I have also visited a number of tourist towns as one who travels and enjoys seeing new places. Among the places we have visited that I would love to return to one day is Jasper, Alberta. We traveled there with our pickup camper coming up highway 99 through Banff National Park past the ice fields into Jasper National Park. The scenery is gorgeous and camping next to roaring mountain streams and putting our canoe into remote mountain lakes was delightful. The historic town of Jasper features a beautiful train station where tourists come and go. Jasper is a town like Red Lodge, where you want to make sure to fill up your gas tank. Just three roads come into the town and it is a fair distance on any of them to the next town. The remoteness of the location is part of its appeal in my mind.

I can imagine the chaos when wild fires forced the evacuation of both the town and the National Park earlier this week. Wildfire had already cut off the road south towards Banff, the quickest way to the major city of Calgary. There were also fires burning to the northeast closing Highway 16 to Edmonton. The only way out of town was to travel west through the mountains toward Kamloops and even farther to Kelowna. As tourists and residents lined up at the gas stations to prepare for the journey the electricity was cut off. Some didn’t get their cars filled up. Then they had to drive through smoke and ash in a line of cars heading out of the town. The town of Jasper has about 10,000 residents. It is estimated that there was an additional 15,000 visitors in the national park who were asked to flee late Monday. Over 2,000 campsites were closed and reservations cancelled.

And when people arrived in Kamloops, that town was overwhelmed with people fleeing wildfire. Kamloops had already opened itself as a shelter for residents of Williams Lake, in British Columbia, which also had to evacuate due to wildfire. Evacuees are now being instructed to circle back to Calgary by a southern route through the mountains.

It remains to be seen what will remain when people are allowed to return. There are multiple fires threatening the town and burning through the National Park. Some fire predictions say that flames could reach the town this week. The fire is within 5 miles of town and conditions are very challenging for firefighters who are making preparations to protect residences and businesses.

What I know about tourist towns is that being forced to close in the summer can be devastating for local businesses. Hotels, restaurants, ice cream parlors and liquor stores all depend on summer traffic to earn their profit. Evacuating summer vacationers from the park means removing customers from businesses. Although some businesses will be able to maintain limited services for firefighters in the area, most have simply had to be closed without any certainty when or if they will be able to return to serving people. And if they are able to re open this summer there may not be any customers. It simply is not a good year to visit Jasper National Park. Consequently, it simply is not a good year to be in business in Jasper.

All of Alberta is under weather warnings with unseasonably hot temperatures and hundreds of wildfires Similar conditions exist in British Columbia to the West, Northwest Territories and the Yukon to the north and Manitoba to the east.

Wildfire has now become an important part of planning travel in the north. We had planned to do quite a bit of camping and exploring in the western provinces when we retired. So far we haven’t camped in Canada a single night since retiring, however. Fires are only part of the picture for us, but we know that we will have to pay attention and have contingency plans when we are able to camp and explore. A satellite phone is now an essential piece of equipment for those who explore the back country.

Right now our little community has a bit of space for guests who choose the seaside over the mountains this summer. We’re open for business. We may have to learn to welcome and provide services to an increasing number of climate refugees going forward.

As our children approached their teens, one of the things I was doing was leading experiences for teens that we called “Exodus Water Sports.” The week-long camps were held at our church’s beautiful Pilgrim Cove Camp, located on Payette Lake near McCall, Idaho. Over the years, I expanded the camp’s fleet of boats from four fiberglass canoes and one very used Hobie Cat sailboat to include a half dozen wind surf boards, a fleet of newer and lightweight canoes, and a fleet of four small sailboats that included two monohull and two catamaran boats. The camp featured Emergency Medical Technicians who taught as each camper earned their CPR certification. We also had an ACA certified canoe instructor, a qualified sailing instructor, and certified lifeguards. We ended each week with a half-day whitewater rafting experience that was subcontracted to a professional river guide service.

In that process, I did a lot of “horse trading” to obtain equipment for the camp. I was used to raising funds, but I developed skills in encouraging in kind donations and discounts that I used throughout my career as a pastor. I also gained a modest level of skill at repairing various boats. I learned to work fiberglass and epoxy to make repairs. I learned a bit about carving and shaping wooden parts for boats.

I also fell in love with paddling. Before long, I developed the desire to have my own canoe that I could use for vacations and family adventures. Lacking the funds to purchase a canoe, I read up on the process of building a strip plank canoe. I purchased a set of plans and began cutting inexpensive cedar from the lumberyard into strips. That first canoe was a bit rough, but it was balanced and water tight. We paddled it in lakes and rivers, including a trip down part of the Yellowstone River in Montana. I obtained a mast and sail from a family member who had once started to built a sailboat but abandoned the project. I built a set of lee boards and a rudder for the canoe, installed a mast step and had a serviceable, though slightly tippy sailboat.

The canoe bug stuck with me and over the next few years, I built two more canoes, refining my technique and learning more about how to take the lines from another boat. One of those canoes is a copy of a “Wee Lassie,” an historic design about which much has been written. The other is the design of a Chestnut Prospector, perhaps the most iconic canoe of 20th Century Canadian canoeing. One summer, while on vacation, I partially swamped the Wee Lassie paddling it in the Puget Sound off of Whitby Island and developed a desire for a kayak. Two kayaks followed. One was strip planked like the canoes. The other was built skin on frame to a Greenland design. The skin on frame kayak was covered with aircraft Dacron and designed to handle fairly substantial waves. I learned to paddle with a Greenland style paddle.

I have continued to build, making a row boat and currently am nearing completion of an expedition kayak. I continue to love paddling open canoes, but see the advantage of a kayak in the waters of the Salish Sea.

Much of the design of the canoes and kayaks I paddle is based on traditional indigenous canoe making. Now that I am retired, we have moved to a place where people have made and paddled canoes since time immemorial. Part of the preservation of the culture of the Coast Salish tribes is the making and paddling of canoes.

Yesterday we had the privilege of going down to the bay not far from our home and witnessing the arrival of the canoes of the Paddle to Puyallup Youth Canoe Journey. In recent years there has been an annual canoe journey with several traditional boats representing different tribal nations paddling together significant distances across the Salish Sea. Each evening the canoes come to shore and are formally welcomed according to the traditions of the local tribe. There is a public dinner, story telling, singing, and dancing. Earlier this year we witnessed the landing of canoes welcomed by Lummi people. Yesterday the welcoming tribe was Nooksack.

When the indigenous people of the region speak of the craft they paddle in English, they are careful to use the term “Canoe.” They joke that anyone who calls the vessel a boat will be thrown into the sea to swim. The canoes are works of art. The tradition was to carve canoes out of a single cedar log and I have seen some canoes built the traditional way. Other canoes have been built using the strip plank method incorporating modern epoxy and fiberglass. One canoe that I have seen is made entirely out of modern composites. I have also seen a skin on frame canoe. The canoes are large, accommodating a dozen or more paddlers and the teams of paddlers are coached and guided by a captain at the stern of the boat who steers with draw strokes from that position.

Canoe culture is just one of the many lessons that our indigenous neighbors have to teach and I am grateful for the experiences to witness and learn.

I, however, am not indigenous. I am a transplant. I have moved around during my life, living in six different states from Illinois to Washington. I have made some friendships with indigenous people, but I also have many friends who, like me are descendants of settlers.

The honey bees I tend are not indigenous. They are descendants of bees bred in Europe and imported to this region to produce honey and help pollinate commercial agricultural crops. Our colonies live at our son’s farm and pollinate fruit trees, berry bushes, field crops, flowers and vegetables. They also produce abundant honey. They have been especially productive this year and we will be able to harvest honey at least twice. The first honey harvest is now in progress with two heavy supers with ten frames each completely filled with honey. The first jar extracted seemed worthy of ceremony. Like the canoes it was the object of my photographs yesterday.

Life continues to have many adventures. I am learning much from our new neighbors and also learning much from the bees. There are teachers everywhere I turn and I am grateful for their lessons.

Although I have tried to be fair, I confess that I do hold some biases. One of the strongest of my biases might be described as educational elitism. I am a product of a traditional academic education. I was good at learning in the way colleges and universities teach. I have earned degrees from a college and an accredited graduate school. I have realized privilege from the fact that I have an education. I don’t go so far as to think that I am somehow better than those who do not have the same level of education, but I am aware of my bias. I have been vocal in my criticism of changes in the church over the course of my career that have resulted in fewer clergy with graduate degrees.

Part of my experience is that during my years as a student, I was selective in my reading. I focused on history, theology, philosophy, and academic subjects. I didn’t read much fiction. For several years the only novels I read were assignments for classes I took. I continued to read short stories, but I made a distinction between recreational reading and the reading I was doing as part of my formal education.

As a preacher, however, I have been deeply aware of the power of story. I worked hard to hone my skills as a storyteller. I participated in the Network of Biblical Storytellers International. I carefully studied the distinction between written and oral language and worked hard to improve my skills in using both languages. My journal writing has been an attempt to continue to improve my skills both as a writer and as a teller of stories.

I have come to understand that stories have the potential for conveying the truth. In the introduction to one of his novels, holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote of a conversation he had with a rabbi who asked him directly about his use of fiction to write about his experiences in concentration camps. The rabbit asked him if he was writing the truth. His response to the rabbi was, “Sometimes you have to tell a story in order to tell the truth.” That idea has stuck with me. It sparked a new opening to reading fiction for me that started with my reading nearly every book that Elie Wiesel wrote.

It is important to understand that truth and fiction are not diametrically opposed. It is not a dichotomy. There are stories that convey the truth. Jesus employed storytelling effectively in his teaching. Take the story of the Good Samaritan as an example. The truth conveyed in the story is not dependent upon whether or not there was an actual person who fell among robbers, others who passed by without rendering aid and a Samaritan who helped the man and paid for his care. The story is about the obligation to care for neighbors and the expansive definition of who our neighbors are. There is great truth beyond a list of historical facts.

The relationship between truth and fiction has been an important part of my struggle to understand the current status of American politics. I struggle to understand the popularity of former President Trump and those who are so loyal to him despite what seems to me to be a campaign based on lies and obvious distortions of the truth. Speaker after speaker at the recent Republican Convention spoke of the previous Trump administration in terms that were simply not accurate. The economy was not stronger four years ago than it is today. Unemployment was higher. Immigration issues have been handled far better under the Biden administration than was the case with the Trump administration. Furthermore landmark legislation that would have overhauled the immigration system was blocked by Republicans in lock step with Trump.

I don’t understand how so many people can ignore felony convictions, jury awards for victims of sexual abuse, and the obvious riot and attempt to subvert constitutional processes in the January 6 assault on the halls of congress.

The answer in part lies in the power of story. What the Trump campaign has been successful in doing is selling a powerful fictional narrative. The appeal is in a fantasy that somehow the flow of history could be reversed. The campaign strives to promote a narrative that there was a time in the past that was better and the promise to return to those former times. Even though it is obvious that the image of that “better” past is not accurate. The narrative does not include the problems and injustices of the past. It is not accurate about easily verifiable facts of the recent past such as employment, stock market values, border crossings, and crime rates.

It is, however, a strong story that inspires a lot of people and has the power to upend constitutional democracy. The history of the rise of autocrats in other countries demonstrates the vulnerability of our nation. The blind loyalty to a single flawed human being poses direct risks to the freedoms we now enjoy.

Our faith, however, reminds us that in the long run the truth will prevail. John’s Gospel reports that Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Despite the fact that the lies and the people telling the lies seem to be prevailing, they are not the whole story. There is an objective truth that overrides the narratives of power and privilege. Abraham Lincoln said in a speech, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

As an observer of politics and one who seeks to understand, I am interested in the sudden change in the narrative brought about by the withdrawal of President Biden from the 2024 presidential election. The story took a dramatic change yesterday. It will be interesting to see how the shift in the Democratic party affects the narrative from the Republicans.

As a student of story, the events have captured my interest. As a seeker of truth, I am grateful for the critical thinking skills I honed in my academic career.