January
Friends, it was a busy yuletide--a flurry of finals, grad school papers, travel, combat and of course the holidays. In order for us to have a Christmas ourselves, we had to bite the bullet and forgo a January issue BUT we will see you with a new issue in February! Meanwhile, we offer up some favorites from 2014.
Between Quincy and Wenatchee, my climbing partner Matt and I followed the promise of a hand-painted billboard off the interstate towards Templin’s Gas. With its blue roof, it looked like one of those highway establishments built with blithe indifference to the passing of the 1950’s. The kind of place that has a hand-painted sign and a cafe and seems to believe people go out for pleasure drives or talk to one another at gas stations. Jonathan Kent would be at home inside. We pulled up, jumped out, and walked in...
Yes, it had been raining, but we didn’t know about the hail.
It was a freak of nature. One of those random cloudbursts dumped a thousand frozen golf balls along a stretch of Highway 395 ten miles ahead, in preparation for our arrival. We were blasting south from Bridgeport, making time in Frank’s ‘81 Ford Econoline—one of those big old vans preferred by churches and kidnappers...
Several years ago the four of us who build this magazine and a handful of friends went on a multi-night sea kayaking adventure down in Baja, off Isla del Tiburon—Shark Island. We paddled by day and made camp at dusk along utterly remote coastline, digging clams and spear fishing for dinner. The rays we caught turned into those memorable fish burritos our last night together...
Last winter I was blasting across Utah, speeding through those epic terracotta mesas, plateaus, and deeply cut river canyons—formations that foster visions of castles, mighty ships and fortresses—at 85 mph with Tom Petty, the Stones, Jimi, and the Out of Africa soundtrack cranked. Surrounded by drop-to-your-knees beauty, I pulled off the road again and again, arrested by God...
Understanding Your Story - An Interview With Dan Allender
We were written not only to hear and tell stories, but we are a story. Our lives are composed of millions of stories, but most have been forgotten or simply don’t register as important enough to remember. When I say that we are a story I’m saying that we’re more than the sum of our stories. We are, in fact, a unique, once-on-the-earth life that reveals the story of Jesus in a fashion that no one else will ever do in the way we are written to reveal. If we fail to know the themes of our unique story, we are less likely to live that story well or play our role...
Sitting across from Morgan, I saw the bright Colorado light on the trees outside his office window. The barren branches hardly moved in the wind now that their leaves were gone. It was late in the fall, and I was getting married in just over a month. We had gotten together to talk all things relationship and marriage in order to further the preparation that the experienced try to bestow on the greenhorns.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Sam, it’s this,” Morgan said, “When it comes to a woman, sex is never about sex, and money is never about money...
