King's Canyon, August 19-21

It was a merry band of 11 that boarded a 13-passenger van headed for King's Canyon on Friday noon. The goal? To build a sense of community and belonging among the young adult group at Alhambra SDA Church. In short, for us to bond as a group.

And bond we did! We were not even past Six Flags when we realized that the air conditioner on the van was broken. We called the rental company about it, stopped at a garage, and decided that we would rather press on than leave it be. This had the potential to be a really nasty situation, but everyone was so positive despite the horrendous heat that it just gave us one more thing to laugh about together.

Thanks to the delays, we set up camp in King's Canyon in the dark. This, too, was an unexpectedly good team-building activity. We talked into the night, then rose early in the morning.

After chatting around the camp fire, we all made beautiful sandwiches and then set out on a hike to a waterfall. It affectionately reminded me of some of the hikes I'd been on with my aunt and uncle in Yosemite. There were lush forests, stark granite, and creeks to traverse. It felt so good just to be walking in the open air again. When we arrived at the waterfall, we ate our sandwiches and refilled our bottles with fresh water from the river.

On our way back, I enjoyed talking with one girl who, like me, enjoys stopping every now and then to take in the scenery. There was some wonderful scenery to take in. After the hike, some of us went back to the river where we submerged ourselves in its freezing depths. Even though there was a good rock to jump off of and I enjoy cliff diving, I'm glad I didn't. Just getting into the water the normal way, I thought I'd forgotten how to swim, it was so incredibly cold. My new friend, though, wholeheartedly dove off the rock twice without showing the slightest sign of being bothered by the cold. We all admired this before we took a group picture and got out of the water. Sometimes, the body gets used to cold water; this cold water stayed cold no matter how long I was in there, though the sting in my joints wore off after a while.

Back at camp, we all dried off in the sun and closed the Sabbath with haystacks for dinner and a very loose-form worship by yours truly. Then, we made smores. For the first time, one of the people along actually inspired me to try to cook the marshmallow for real instead of just torching it. This was. . . oddly rewarding. I'd never tasted such a good smore before. But I still like charred marshmallow, if only for all the Pleasant Hill Pathfinder memories.

Fully satisfied, we settled in to playing games around the fire. We played a good round of zip-bong, a word game, and several rounds of Psychology. Just as we had called back the "psychologist" for the fifth or sixth round, suddenly an uproar came from a neighboring camp.

"BEAR IN THE CAMP!!! THERE'S A BEAR!"

Suddenly, the mood around the fire shifted. In a matter of minutes, toiletries were shut away in the bear box. The dying embers of the campfire were being revived. Then, all of us crowded into the van, some of us more tense than others. In the darkness, we waited. Some of the girls panicked. Some of the guys joked about how there was no bear. Inside my head, I was thinking, "Couldn't my outdoors-y relatives and friends have mentioned just once what to do if you meet a bear at night?" What I actually said was, "Why don't we pray about this?"

So we prayed for the bear (because, after all, they get shot if they get too close to the camps too many times) and we prayed for the general level of panic to go down. Eventually, it did. We left the van, tended the fire, and actually went to bed. We never found out if the bear was real.

The trip back out of there was fortunately not quite so thrilling--just gorgeous vistas of the canyon on our way out. We stopped for lunch in the town of Kingsburg, where my new friend and I discovered THE BEST small-town ice cream place (no offense, Big Dipper). It's called Jeb's Swedish Creamery, and it is in a different league from almost anything I've ever tasted. If you ever visit the small town of Kingsburg, GO THERE. It's AMAZING. Someone needs to tell the Food Network they exist; they deserve the recognition.

We made it back to the church all in one piece without leaving anyone melted in the van or eaten by a bear or drowned in a river. I was quite happy about all of that. Furthermore, the group really did grow closer from the experience. It seems like everyone made at least one new friend (including myself), so I consider that a successful trip. It was good to get back out into the wild and clear my thoughts, too; I would have gladly stayed longer, even if I was exhausted afterwards as it was. I promised you all a sunnier letter this time, and I'm so glad I could deliver on that. I hope that you find sunny things to think about, too.

Summer 2011 in Review

Every summer seems to have a song that reflects its special character in time. This summer, that song was Toby Mac's "Hold On," which is cheerful enough to be a song of celebration, yet acknowledges the difficulties of life.

It has been a difficult summer.

After the cruise, my parents and I started on the difficult task of packing up the home we've lived in for twelve years.

We did take some time one weekend to visit our friends, the McMillans, in Los Alamos. They've been like a part of our family for the last ten years or so, and we've really started to miss each other since some of them moved out to Los Alamos. We walked the streets of Santa Fe together, looking at one of the most incredible photo galleries I've ever seen--a photographic history of the United States. Our time together ended with a wonderful opera, Gounod's Faust. More wonderful than the opera, though, was just chatting with my friend Caroline. I'm looking forward to living a little closer to her this year.

I also took some time to drive down to Yosemite to visit my aunt and uncle who live right outside its southern border. That visit fed my soul, too, with a good hike up Sentinel Dome and long, deep discussions about life and philosophy with my aunt. She and my uncle sent me off with a handsome graduation gift: the first full-size print of her impressionistic Yosemite Falls painting.

When I got home, we turned right around to do the impossible: find a place to live in just two days. Originally, we only allotted one day, but that proved to be completely impossible. We actually managed to find a house to rent that was not surrounded by concrete. It is a welcome retreat from the hustle and bustle of life in Los Angeles.

Driving away from the house wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I had one last errand to run at Pleasant Hill Adventist Academy, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes dry while I talked to the office staff there for the last time. As I walked back to the car, I looked over at the black granite bench that sits there in memory of my departed brother, over at the playground where I fell in love for the first time, over at the classroom where I'd spent so many evenings hanging decorations for my mother. As I got in the car, I looked over at the church where Pastor Torkelson had baptized me, where I had been inspired to my life's calling, and it was too much. I cried.

The day after we arrived at our new home in Sunland, we drove out to the desert. My grandfather was in the hospital, dying. He had cheated death many times, but we could all tell somehow that this was the end. The last thing I said to him was, "Good night. I love you. Happy Sabbath." And what was death to this man other than a much-needed Sabbath rest after a very long week of a life?

It is hard to describe what it's like to start a new job just two days after that. I'm sure that all college graduates feel overwhelmed their first day on the job, and I was no exception. Work is for the living, and my mind was on the dead. I pulled myself together enough to tell stories at a Vacation Bible School, attend a board meeting, and introduce myself to the church. In a way, it felt like telling stories to children was a way of honoring my grandfather, who loved to tell stories.

I read the 23rd psalm for the cryptside service at beautiful Montecito. I've never struggled so much to read such a short text before. His crypt overlooks the hills of Loma Linda, where every day people are healed through the diligent work of doctors and nurses. He, too, was diligent as a teacher. A week and a half later, there was a service at the Desert Hot Springs church. There were things about him even his family didn't know about him, like how he'd done the grunt-work for a medical research project that saved thousands of lives in Vietnam. The sermon wisely acknowledged the pain we all feel at his loss, and did not try to belittle it by saying, "There, there, it'll be all right. . . whenever Jesus comes." Instead, it said, "We miss Dean. There is pain. It takes time to work through pain."

Time moves on, and the living are still around to feel its relentless progress. School starts this week for my parents at historic San Fernando Valley Academy, and this weekend I'm headed to beautiful Kings Canyon with my church's young adult group. It has been a difficult summer in many ways, but as that Toby Mac song so wisely says, "Hold on just another day or two; I can see the clouds are moving faster and the sun is breaking through."

No storm can last forever, and neither will this one. Thank you, everyone who has sent our family notes of sympathy or come to the funeral. You are the rays of light that are breaking through the clouds. My next letter will be much sunnier, I assure you.