Renegades

“Go forth and have no fear.”
X Ambassadors (Song lyrics from “Renegades”)

        The wind was blowing today; strong wind.  Perhaps I read more into the wind than what it is, but I love it and feel close to it.  Here at home I like it because it helps drown out the constant hum of the nearby highway; all I can hear is the wind through the spruce boughs and feel the shake of the house when an extra strong gust hits.  It’s strangely comforting.  I say strange because it’s a sign of moving and changing air masses; air moving on currents from high to low pressure seeking some unknown destination.  At the same time I like to picture and sense God’s movement in the wind; movement as the Spirit. Wind is the confirmation of that presence for me.

        The group Kansas sang a song entitled, “Dust in the Wind.”  It’s a classic song played on an acoustic guitar.  While it is a good song, it is admittedly a melancholic view of life as if nothing matters.  Although it could be argued that the song is simply stating that when all else fails or expires, life will somehow prevail and carry on despite loss - so I guess that means we are to make the most of it.  Regardless, life matters, people matter, and what we do matters.  We are part of a bigger story.  We play a role and live out our purpose or niche as an integral part of that story.  “Every story, great and small, shares the same essential structure because every story we tell borrows its power from a Larger Story, a Story woven into the fabric of our being...” (Epic - Eldredge)

        In other words, this is it!  We can live a life with meaning, a life with purpose, and learn from both the highs and lows along the way.  Because like it or not, those extremes are part of our story - as well as everything else in between.  How do we begin living when life is full of pain, regrets, and indecision?  Each of us walks in our own pair of shoes, and so who are we to judge when that time begins?  I'd like to think that at some point we can live with a sense of freedom like the wind itself - moving in any desired direction; like a renegade.  Perhaps the fact that time marches on creates a basic and guiding structure for us to live. Although strangely ironic, that structure could provide freedom.

        Speaking of renegades, the unofficial/official Gulo Adventure Clan gathered this morning after an evening of parent/teacher/student conferences.  It was a repeat performance of last year (See Past Entry "Un-Common Core") but at fifty something degrees outside, it was almost sixty-five degrees warmer this year.  We gathered early and drove out to one of my favorite areas.  It’s open and vast and wild in some areas, and yet thick and close and embracing in others.  It is flat and it is hilly.  It has prairies and it has forests; both highlands with hardwoods and bottomlands with softwoods.  Today we walked through all of those environs, including a wide marsh.  We had to; there was so much ice on the trails that we chose a course where we could walk with some sort of footing.  It was the result of the remnant snow and warm weather.

        It was a long walk in, but it was perfect in that it allowed us to talk and dialogue and enjoy both the effort and beauty of it all.  Along the route we crossed several creeks and made our way to the bank of a large river.  I quickly made a fire while the others put up a tarp to block the wind - or looked for firewood.  The wind was blowing hard from the West by Southwest at 30 to 40 miles per hour, with gusts up to 60; although the woods helped to block some of that.  

   

        Conversations covered school, sports (heroes and underdogs, both legitimate and fallen), and a host of other side topics on the heels of the wind.  Our prayer was to be a constant within the winds of change that happen throughout our lives.  We ate and then ate some more.  We needed to with all of the food we had cooked.  With eight guys and two dogs our skillet included 18 potatoes, 20 eggs, a dozen stadium brats and 20 ounces of Colby Jack cheese.  I forgot to add the salt and pepper, and a few of the potatoes got a little dark, but ask any of them whether they cared or not.  The cocoa was only slightly warmer than lukewarm (wrong side of the windblown flames), and the orange juice was sitting comfortably back in our refrigerator at home, but ask any of them whether they cared or not.

      Trust has come to this bunch of renegades by spending time together over the last few years; time hiking and paddling a river in addition to working and teaching at school.  Because of that trust, you feel as though you can pretty much be yourself, and that alone is comforting.  After packing up we began our hike back.  We stopped once for a group picture and then emerged from the woods - where we suddenly realized how much windier it actually was - and then came again to a little creek. 

Scott, Joe, Justin
Merel, Ted, Wes
The Pups, Louie & Mike

The creek really wasn’t much of an obstacle, and luckily the temperatures were moderate in case someone slipped in.  It did provide, however, the opportunity to act as pioneers.  Through the use of ingenuity and perseverance we were able to forge ahead.  It also provided us the chance to act as boys; both running and jumping and acting free, if only for a moment.

Video:

        Walking the rest of the way back in wet boots was at a minimum.  The “who, what and where” stays with the wind in the woods.  Like most good stories, it’s with friends where those stories happen and with friends where those stories remain.

        That same wind that carries our stories in fact is our story; or at least a part of it.  I like that this group of men all come from different places, with different backgrounds, and different up-bringing.  When I consider those things - our difference in ages, our different world views, and the way we band together and appreciate each other’s company - I can’t help but smile.

Video:

        We drove back and then said our goodbyes.  I unpacked a little, picked up my daughter from a friend’s house, and then fell asleep for a solid hour or more.  I only awoke when a blast of wind slammed against the front of the house.  The wind, like my morning with the Gulo Adventure Clan, was strangely comforting.

        See you along The Way…

“Life, you’ll notice, is a story.  Life doesn’t come to us like a math problem.  It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene.  You wake up.  What will happen next?  You don’t get to know – you have to enter in, take the journey as it comes.”

(Epic by John Eldredge-Nelson Books, Nashville-2004)

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Epilogue:

I like the X Ambassadors song entitled Renegades; it's been used before in an advertisement for the Jeep Renegade vehicle. While I do drive an old Jeep - with two years of dust caked on it from the dirt trail roads of Northern Michigan - I like the song for its acoustic guitar, lyrics, and how the it's video portrays achieved dreams and challenges - Blind people lifting weights, skate boarding, and riding bikes...a one armed boxer...the wrestler and rock climber with no limbs...not to mention the very end of the video where it shows the band members of X Ambassadors getting out of their Jeep Renegade (not covered in Michigan dirt) and walking through an alley to where they are playing in a concert. The lead singer/guitar player (Sam Harris) is helping to guide his older brother Casey - who is the keyboard player and who happens to be blind - into the concert venue...

CLICK ON THE VIDEO & CRANK IT UP!

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And if you like the song, here is the hour long version.  I often times put it on at school when I’m working, and listen to it over and over…

X Ambassadors - Renegades {hour version}