The Yellow Tent

If you look closely at the middle of the this photo you'll see a dark spot. And if you look a little below and right of the dark spot you'll see a yellow spot. The yellow spot is a 4-man tent parked among the boulders beneath the summit of Longs Peak. The next photo shows where the first photo belongs in it's larger context. The yellow tent isn't even discernible among the sofa-sized boulders. I had never been to the top of the mountain that keeps watch over our church. It looks big enough as I travel up and down Hwy 287 each day. And yet the view from that strip of asphalt never reduced me the way the view from the yellow tent did this past Sunday. As I stood 1,000 feet below the summit of Long's Peak among the debris of rock that has weathered away for centuries I was put in my place. I was humbled before my God. The God who made mountains like this to humble men like me.

I wondered as I looked down on the yellow tent if this wasn't how our little church appears to the people that live on the front range. And I wondered how much “yellower” this picture would look if you put 72 other yellow tents of various sizes around it. That’s how many other churches there are in Loveland that we serve alongside. I wondered if all of us have the stamina to keep our tent pitched in the middle of a rock-hard boulder field and find joy in loving and serving the wanderers who trickle past us on their journey through life.

It really would have been noble of me to be thinking deep thoughts like this while I was on the top of Long's Peak. But to be honest the lack of oxygen had severely reduced my brain's capacity to think of more than just surviving. I was actually wondering how in the world I was going to get down the mountain that had taken everything in me to get up it. I was wondering if my lungs were going to be able to extract enough oxygen from the air I was breathing to stay conscious. I was wondering if my 16-year old son was resourceful enough to get my body off the mountain after I had passed out. Those are the only kind of thoughts that crossed my mind at 14,000 feet.

Somehow, I managed to get down. I think mostly because I didn't want my son to have to figure out how to get my unconscious body back to Loveland. Or maybe it was because I knew I had to be at church this coming Saturday and the Rice’s wedding on Sunday and I didn't want to let anyone down. So if you can, join us this Saturday night at 7:30 pm at our building. There is lot's of oxygen there and we can wonder about all kinds of things together.