Skiing. Resurrection.

Erik and I returned Tuesday from a four-day trip skiing the Resurrection Pass, a 39-mile trek through a mountain pass between Hope and Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula. The Resurrection Pass was my first big Alaska hike; I did the traverse in 2004 when I was an intern at Amazing Grace Lutheran but hadn't skied it. Erik had run and skied parts of the trail but had never skied or hiked all the way through. So it was a first for both of us and something we wanted to do together.

We booked cabins for four nights but planned to stay only three if the conditions were good. They were perfect. Temperatures were in the 20s-30s during the days and colder at night. We've had so much snow this season that the trail had a great base but not much snow in the last few days, so there was a good snowmachine/ski trail.

We skied 7-11 miles each day. Erik pulled a sled of gear and food, God bless him. I tried pulling it for awhile and it was difficult. I have no idea how he lugged it up the hills.

We saw very few people on the trail. It was mostly just us, brilliant blue skies, endless fields of snow, a few startled ptarmigan and a bunch of tracks. We saw moose, lynx, wolf and hare tracks. including what seemed to be tracks of a lynx chasing a hare. We wondered if he got his prey.

It's hard to have a conversation when you're skiing single file, so I had a lot of time to think, to enjoy the scenery and to notice God's presence. I love that the trail begins in a place called Hope and then you follow the Resurrection Pass. So I thought about resurrection.

I thought about how poet/farmer Wendell Berry tells us to practice resurrection. I thought about what that means, especially as we wait in the season of Lent and Easter is still a few weeks away. What does it mean to practice resurrection? It's hard to describe, but it feels like something Potter Steward, a supreme court justice, once said, "I know it when I see it." (I don't think he was talking about resurrection, though!)

The thing about resurrection is that even if I can't describe it, I do know when it's happened. Looking back I remember several times in my life when I thought something was the end of the world. Someone I loved died. I failed at something I desperately wanted. A friend betrayed me. A boyfriend left without warning. Somehow, life goes on. People cared for me. I felt God's presence and there was resurrection. I thought about some of those times as I skied on the resurrection trail.

I've said it in a sermon before (maybe on this blog) but that's why I can believe in the resurrection, because I've already experienced it in small ways in my life.

The problem with resurrection though, is that something has to die. I thought about that as I skied. What has to die? What do I have to let go? What do I have to relinquish in order for new life to begin? It's a question for relationships, for work, for the inner life.

Practice resurrection.