Recently Jessica and I were walking through a wintery grassland forest preserve in the Chicago suburbs. It was 20 degrees (farenheit!) and windy. The ground was frozen, and even the lakes seemed like solid ice. As we walked, with icy snow crackling beneath us, Jessica recalled something I also remembered about my time in another place - Yellowstone - where careless hikes can change when the ground beneath you is often anything but solid.
In fact, anyone who's ever been to Yellowstone National Park will tell you that firmness of ground is not to be taken for granted. Over half of Yellowstone is on a caldera, or concave super volcano, and many places have a ground surface so thin that a person wandering off the prescribed trails can inadvertently fall through its thin crust into scalding water below. Such a fall could be fatal, if not life-changing.
So, back in December on the Chicagoland prairie, I remember walking out onto a frozen pond, testing every step. I listened to the ground and did my best to mind my surroundings, and the hike was different because of it. Even in the frozen areas where we knew were completely safe to walk upon, the crackle of ice above the ground was enough to give us pause for just a second: is there water below? Did I misjudge the contour of the ground beneath?
As I think of that hike, and the way we walked along unfamiliar paths, it seems to beg the question: What changes for us all when we must search for solid footing? How does faithfully trudging out into the unknown in our lives change when we mind our surroundings?
In fact, anyone who's ever been to Yellowstone National Park will tell you that firmness of ground is not to be taken for granted. Over half of Yellowstone is on a caldera, or concave super volcano, and many places have a ground surface so thin that a person wandering off the prescribed trails can inadvertently fall through its thin crust into scalding water below. Such a fall could be fatal, if not life-changing.
So, back in December on the Chicagoland prairie, I remember walking out onto a frozen pond, testing every step. I listened to the ground and did my best to mind my surroundings, and the hike was different because of it. Even in the frozen areas where we knew were completely safe to walk upon, the crackle of ice above the ground was enough to give us pause for just a second: is there water below? Did I misjudge the contour of the ground beneath?
As I think of that hike, and the way we walked along unfamiliar paths, it seems to beg the question: What changes for us all when we must search for solid footing? How does faithfully trudging out into the unknown in our lives change when we mind our surroundings?
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