Lake Superior Reflections

Jim Berge

My job took me to the northland for a few weeks last fall, where one weekend I decided to stick around and visit my family. When I found out that my Mom had made other plans, I decided to enjoy some of my favorite haunts alone. I ended up heading toward the North Shore of Lake Superior, a favorite spot that holds many fond memories.
     I had many questions I needed answers to. I felt drawn to this place where God’s hand is so evident, this place where - like a few others I fondly hold in the private places of my mind - I can hear God’s voice more distinctly, see his face a little more clearly, understand his will a little more thoroughly. I had a certain anticipation in my heart that I hadn’t put there - it had come from beyond me.
     From the road, I began calling hotels in Duluth on the cell phone, which faded in and out of the sparse coverage zones in the wilderness of Northern Minnesota. Sorry, we’re booked. Sorry, we’re booked. Sorry, we’re booked. 20 times in a row, Sorry, we’re booked. “Leaf peepers,” one receptionist explained. “The leaf peepers are watching the fall colors. Every hotel in town is booked.”
     Not every one. I found an expensive room at Fitgers in historic downtown Duluth, the last room available in the entire city (to my knowledge). Only one caveat; this last room had a jacuzzi. I had to make a sacrifice. Since I was planning on camping out the following night with my borrowed tent and sleeping bag, I figured the average of two nights of lodging would be reasonable after all, so I read my credit card number to the receptionist, holding the phone in my other hand and steering the car with my knee and looking forward to soothing bubbles caressing my tired body.
     I was enamoured when I arrived. The Fitgers is an historic, squeaky-floored building full of charm and character, with its own pub, restaurant, shops and views of Lake Superior. The rooms were quaint, with tall ceilings, antique furnishings, and heavy terry bath robes to luxuriate in after soaking in the jacuzzi which, after a delicious veggie burrito, I felt obligated to utilize.
     Saturday morning, with poppy-seed muffin and cappuccino in hand, I drove away from town along the scenic North Shore Drive. My first stop was Gooseberry Falls State Park, one of many jewels in the crown of Superior’s dramatic coastline. Upon arriving at the ranger’s station, I found that campgrounds were filling up fast. I made my reservation, and continued north.
     Twenty years earlier, my cousin and I had embarked on a winter hike up the frozen Baptism River to High Falls. The falls then were frozen from top to bottom, with only a tiny window in the middle left open, making visible the falling water behind the ice. Today the falls were framed with the lovely reds and yellows of autumn maples and aspen, and the deep green of red cedar and brooding spruce. The sky was cloudy, saturating the colors and creating an atmosphere of serenity and calm, amid the roar of the falls. Hiking back to the car, the roar faded until it was overcome by the twittering of birds and rustle of cool breezes through the pines.
     Farther north I pressed, enjoying other byways and reveling in God’s creativity. I made it as far as the ski resort of Lutsen, a place I always wanted to ski but never had. Another hike on one of the many bicycle trails took me deep into the woods, where for two hours I saw only one loner on a mountain bike, the mud from the wet trail splattered in a neat row up his back. The soothing calm and overcast skies calmed my tattered soul, and I talked to God for a long time - about what, I don’t remember. My siesta on the back porch of the ski lodge, overlooking the distant hilltop stained blood-red by maples gasping the season’s last breath, chilled me, reminding me of the necessary drive back to camp.
     I set up the tent just as darkness was falling, laid out the sleeping bag, and started a fire with wood I had pilfered from a brushpile I found in the woods a few miles up the road. The crackling pine lulled me into a soporific trance of sorts, as I tried to sort out the questions; Why did my wife leave me? Is there any hope of reconciliation? If not, how do I get on with my life? Why did God allow me to go through all this? What are the lessons he hopes I will learn? When I learn them, will he allow my life to get back to normal? What is normal?
     Beyond the glow cast by the fire, I noticed a light flickering on the horizon. The questions continued, unabated;
     Is my understanding of God and his will even remotely close to the truth? Or am I only skimming the surface, learning the most basic of many more in-depth and perhaps more painful lessons (hard to imagine) that are required for me to become truly Christ-like? Should I have prayed that prayer a while back, the one where I gave up everything to God and asked him to work in me however he chose? After all, that’s when all the trouble began. Maybe I should have held my tongue, maintained the status quo. Is walking by faith always synonymous with having no clue about life, or is this only true during certain periods, during the walk “through the valley of the shadow of death” as it were?
     The lights on the horizon grew brighter, though I didn’t think much of it.
     Does God even care about certain choices I make? He is God, after all, so is he not powerful enough to work in and through me regardless of what job I have, whether I am married or divorced, whether I constantly travel or enjoy a home-based routine?
     What if my former wife can be truly, sincerely happy married to another man, one who won’t be gone all the time, one who has more in common with her, one whose love for her will equal even a fraction of the love I had for her? Should I not be happy for her, even rejoice with her? Is not marriage only one part of life on this earth, one part in many, all of which we are to submit to the same resignation Job felt in his heart when he said “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; May the name of the Lord be praised”?
     Now the flickering light betrayed itself as lightning. The sound of thunder had not yet reached the camp, but I knew something was brewing. I threw more wood on the fire, stoked it up so I could feel the heat from the picnic table bench where I had parked my confused carcass. I had nothing to eat, but my bottled water satisfied me completely. I was very mellow.
     How can I make a decision about anything when I don’t even know which questions to ask? How can I weigh the possible solutions when I don’t even understand the series of events that brought me here? How can I possibly know how to respond to these stimuli when I don’t even understand these new and disquieting emotions?
     I remembered exploring the Ape Cave near Mt. St. Helens in Washington state. The Ape Cave is a lava tube, formed when flowing lava cools on the outside, forming a shell, while the molten lava continues to flow through the core. Eventually, the lava flow ceases, leaving a hollow tube of solid rock which, over the years, has been covered with topsoil, douglas fir, deer and Stellarís Jays. Deep in the lava tube, itís pitch black, and daylight is nowhere to be found. When one cannot see the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” then what? How can I know which direction to take my life? How can I even know which way is up?
     Now the lightning was approaching fast, and the first hesitant raindrops fell hissing into the coals. I knew it would soon be time to climb into the tent. I put extra things back into the car, moved the extra firewood away from the fire pit (which turned out to be a completely unnecessary precaution) and retired. The exact moment I zipped the tent door shut, the downpour began, accompanied by one of the most violent lightning storms I had seen in a long while. One particular bolt of lightning struck in camp, scaring the Evian out of me.
     When the adrenaline subsided, I lay in camp that night not at all vexed, as one might think, by the inferno that raged in my soul, but with a supernatural calm that had dominated the whole day. The questions were tough, and I had virtually no answers to any of them, but somehow that didn’t matter. I had asked God about his intentions, and he gave me peace, exactly as he promised: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
     I got very little sleep that night, as the storm brewed at length overhead. Sunday morning dawned cloudy and drizzly, but I went for a hike anyway along Gooseberry Falls. Wood staircases and walkways escort the wanderer to the most breathtaking views of pounding waterfalls and cliffs carved from the ancient Canadian Shield. Flecked with the brilliant colors of tired leaves, put through the wringer as I had, but still able to show God’s creative beauty, clung to the wet rocks and floated down the river. Leading toward Lake Superior a mile away, the trail beckoned me with its wet smells, its fallen pine needles, its dripping branches.
     The lake was every bit faithful to its moody, changeable reputation. The lake that unmercifully snapped the Edmund Fitzgerald in half like a twig, killing all its crew; the lake that pelts its own winter coast with icy water and eighty-below wind chills; the lake that I photographed one hot summer morning a couple years earlier when it was still as glass, enshrouded by fog, entertaining a lone pair of loons; the lake that epitomizes God’s own character as the holy, omnipotent God who is at once full of compassion, of discipline, of anger, but always of love and mercy and grace. A lake of esotericism; a God of mystery.
     What, then, is faith if not the ability to know and accept God for who he is, merely by virtue of who he is? What is love if not to give, regardless of whether one has been given to? What is grace if not to forgive, regardless of whether one has been forgiven? Maybe these are the answers I was searching for that weekend - it doesn’t matter whether I understand the curves and surprises this life throws my way. What matters is Love. Forgiveness. Grace. Mercy. Faith.
     After a short hike along a favorite pebble-strewn beach, I packed up my camera and turned the rental car south toward Duluth. A few hours later, I was back in Fargo, ready for another week on the job, but refreshed. Answers? None. Questions? Still plenty. Anxiety? Not in the least. It is often in the very midst of troubles that God is seen and heard most clearly. If I don't find answers today, I may find them tomorrow, another reason to enjoy life and continue in faith.
     “I am still confident of this; I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be strong, and take heart, and wait on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14)

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