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But, hey.... Research has shown that creative visualization can be used to alter conditions in the body. Maybe, if we all think really hard about snow and cold, we can use our collective energy to lower the temperature in here. (Try it with me: "There's no place like Vail...there's no place like Vail.")
Now I must admit that I have never actually skied myself. My one effort to stand up on snow skies long enough to have my picture taken did not end well. But I have done some reading about it. And, frankly, if there is any sport filled with more contrariness than skiing, I don't know what it is.
First, you spend hours driving up treacherously icy, slick, snowy mountain roads to "get away from it all" -- only to join thousands of others involved in the same great quest.
Then, instead of standing in line for a movie at the cineplex, you are standing in line at the chair lift.
Finally, after driving up the mountain, then being chair-lifted up to the top of your chosen trail, you finally reach your goal -- getting down the mountain as fast as you possibly can.
While trail groomers smooth out the slopes and everyone prays for the softest, fluffiest powder, you nevertheless spend half your time heading for the artificially constructed moguls -- these glorified speed bumps you are not supposed to hit too fast.
Finally, there is the whole issue of this being an outside winter sport. In order to properly enjoy the bracing chill of the frosty air and freezing snow, you spend gargantuan amounts of money on high-tech, lightweight, waterproof, wind proof, glow-in-the-dark clothing. As far as your skin is concerned, while you're schussing down the slopes you might as well be sitting in your living room.
But these are just the beginning of "against-the-grain" givens that are integral to the sport of skiing. On top of these logic-busting exercises are four more rules that take all your life-learned intuitions and throw them to the wind.
1. When you ski, you must be "prepared" for the unexpected.
2. When you ski, you must go fast.
3. When you ski, you must face...and fall...forward. And...
4. When you ski, you must always keep your weight on the downhill ski.
All of these are basically counter-intuitive actions. Following them requires going against other rules already established by your common sense.
Based on the counter-intuitive nature of these four rules, there was an ancient Hebrew patriarch who would have made a terrific skier. Despite his age, despite his desert location, and despite the fact that the only fields of white he ever saw on mountainsides were flocks of sheep, Abram (who would come to be known as Abraham) had everything going for him to take off down the slopes. Abram's overwhelming trust in God's Word, his faith in God's dream, and his conviction in God's divinely established covenant allowed him to disregard what his common sense told him. Thus, we are told, he "believed the Lord".
Common sense told Abram that he and Sarah were not going to have any children. But God's promise said something else. Common sense told Abram that he was a desert herdsman, not the father of a nation. But God's promise said something else. Common sense told Abram that the divine God of the universe couldn't be held accountable. But God's promise said something else.
How many of us today could make the same leap of faith that Abram took? How many of us today could disregard our own voice of reason and listen to God's astounding voice of promise? When God confronts us with the incredible rather than the predictable, what is our first reaction? Can we "hit the slopes" with Abram? Or are we content to stay inside, next to the fire, wondering about the sanity of all those red-cheeked, runny-nosed, windblown skiers who stagger in at the end of a long, exhilarating day of lunatic behavior?
We're obviously in the wrong time and place to test how our bodies would respond to those four rules of snow skiing. So let's test our spirits' reaction to these "four rules of soul skiing." Here's the question for each of us this morning: is your soul crawling through life or skiing through life?
Rule #1. When you ski, you must expect the unexpected and be prepared for the unknown. Preparing for the unknown sounds like a rule with the roots of an oxymoron. Doesn't the mere fact that something comes out of nowhere mean that we have no way of preparing for it?
Yet we can "prepare" by always keeping our eyes, our minds and our hearts open to the surprises of the Spirit. For the shepherd, Abram, the unexpected came to him first as visions and conversations with God. God further stunned childless Abram with a night-sky dream and star vision of his uncountable offspring. Abram's spirit was "prepared" for the unexpected and he "believed the Lord."
"Soul skiing" requires us to stay conscious and attuned to what's happening around us and within us...NOW. Not looking over our shoulder at things that have already passed us by or constantly wishing and wanting for things to be different or farther along than they really are. It's all about living in the moment...to savor what is and to adjust to things as they come our way. God's name is "I Am," not "I Was" or "I Will Be."
Rule #2. When you ski, you must go fast. If you want to be out of control when you're skiing, try inching down the slope at a snail's pace. Without speed, you lose your ability to maneuver, you have no agility, you can't negotiate a curve or cut away from running over another skier. Speed on the slopes is safe, as long as you don't panic and as long as you keep doing all the things you know are right.
When God said to Abram, in chapter 12 of Genesis, "Leave your country, your people and your parents' household and go to the land I will show you," that quiet, unassuming shepherd took off . Without questioning why his move was necessary, without agonizing over all its implications, Abram simply responded to God's command to "move it."
Although common sense tries to insist that we slow down, stay at home, play it safe, and keep in control, crazy intuitive skiing sense gets its wisdom from a Lewis Carroll perspective ; as he wrote in "Through the Looking Glass": "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to go somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast."
The very nature of life is change. I keep this quote on one of the filing cabinets in my office: "To exist is to change...to change is to mature...to mature is to go on creating oneself, endlessly." When you're "done," you're dead! Maybe still breathing and moving around but dead all the same. "Soul skiing" requires a willingness to keep moving. Never panic...keep doing all the things you know are right...and keep moving.
Rule #3. When you ski, you must face and fall forward. If you must fall, of course, you always try to do so with as much grace as possible. Obviously, this means not landing flat on your face if you can help it. But all your instinctual ego demands will do you a disservice if you try NOT to fall on your face when taking a spill while skiing. If you fall backward, you risk jamming a pole or a ski into the snow and flipping yourself into some bone-snapping position. If you fall sideways, you risk unhappy relationships with your knee cartilage and ligaments. But if you fall reaching forward, fall right on your face, you simply snowplow safely to a stop. Falling forward makes it possible to get up and get going again in as brief a time as possible.
Abram fell forward onto his face often, and with real flair. After receiving no less than a divine promise and witnessing the symbols of God's creating a covenant with him, Abram later listens to Sarah and, despite God's promise, fathers his son Ishmael by Hagar, the slave-woman, in an attempt to assure himself progeny. Abram came to doubt the promise of God. But Abram followed up this "face-first flop in the snow" by entering another covenant with God and renewing his faith in both the covenant process and God's promise. Abram learned that, if he fell, and fell forward, he would fall into the arms of God.
That's true for us, too. We can learn to "fail forward;" to recognize the mistakes we make...and, yes, even the sins we commit...as opportunities to learn and grow and become better, smarter, more compassionate people.
Besides...what we perceive as "failures" along the way may actually be the moments that save our lives. Since we're thinking about skiing this morning...do you remember the T.V. show "The Wide World of Sports"? The opening of that program always illustrated "the agony of defeat" with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure.
What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, he realized that if he completed the jump, he would land on level ground, beyond the safe sloping landing area, which could have been fatal.
As it was, the jumper suffered no more than a headache from the fall.
Sometimes what appears to the world as a failure may simple be a case of willingly changing our course in order to avoid a greater kind of failure. Either way...purposeful or accidental...when we face and fall forward, God will be there.
Rule #4. When you ski, you must always keep your weight on the downhill ski. Leaning back into the mountain just isn't a good idea. The surly slope-side will be all too happy to trip you up, slow you down, and keep you fighting to maintain your balance. But keep your weight downhill -- the place you're trying to go -- and you will find yourself free-flowing down the mountainside, with the force of gravity suddenly on your side.
Abram learned to shift his weight and realign his priorities, according to divine directions. Despite the confusing plethora of kings and city-rulers that populated the territory Abram moved to, he never got entangled in petty border skirmishes but became a respected figure among the residents. He was always the "resident alien"-- the outsider continually present but removed from political snafus. Abram remained tied to his covenant with God amid diverse political and economic relationships he established with Canaan's inhabitants.
"Soul skiing" requires constant adjustments as we shift and rebalance ourselves continually in the light of new information, new circumstances, new challenges, new directions from God. Gee, that sounds, once more, like willingness to change, doesn't it? Holding back, trying desperately to control life, never works. We'll never make a successful run down the mountain that way. We have to lean into life and go with it...shifting and constantly adjusting our balance along the way.
Oh...and one more thing about Abram. Abram did not merely know the rules of soul-skiing; he put them into practice. I can read all about the sport of skiing, but I'll never know if those four rules really work unless I actually snow ski. Likewise, our souls will only discover if these rules work if we do it...if we "soul ski." After a while, when we've taken enough classes and gone on enough retreats and read as many self-help books as we can stand, there comes a point when there isn't any way to get more out of the adventure of life than to give soul-skiing a try. Amen.
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