Here I am Lord

"Here I am Lord. Just as I am. " What a simple response to God's telling us that He is always with us, for us, always present. I do not need to find a so called "sacred place" to worship, to pray, to contemplate. Whether at home, on the road, on the trail, where I am here, God is too.

Hoffer Lake Oregon,  Anthony Lake

Mt Rainier,  William O Douglas Wilderness,  PCT

With the Scouts at Hoffer Lake and Anthony Lake

Last Saturday, I joined the Scouts for the annual rock climbing event at Hoffer Lake basin above Anthony Lake, about an hour from La Grande, Union County. We ultimately got rained and snowed out on Sunday, but the sunset Saturday night was SPECTACULAR!  Bur for the Scout outing, I would have been home on Saturday, enjoying college football and reading.  I am grateful I had the motivation to be up in this alpine setting with some great scouts!!

Hoffer Lake above Anthony Lake Oregon

Hoffer Lake above Anthony Lake, Union County Oregon

Hoffer Lake above Anthony Lake Oregon

Where does our identity lie?

Really, when all is said and done, when the eulogies are given and the will probated and the estate closed, out identity is the same as it always has been and will continue to be--in God alone and in his living Word/Son, Jesus Christ. In this life, we do not attain some sort of "moral worthiness" in God's eyes. Rather it is relationship, absorbing and sharing His love and justice, in a way that does not "earn" but rather "returns" what we have received.

Spray Park WA, Mt Rainier

Cape Blanco

Pendleton Round Up, the Native Americans

From the Pendleton Round Up website:

Native Americans have been an integral component of the Pendleton Round-Up since its inception. Members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation – the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla Indians who live on a reservation eight miles east ofPendleton -host a grand tribal village that annually includes more than 300 teepees. Indians from around the Northwest travel to Pendleton where they gather in the village to visit with friends and relatives, take part in the Happy Canyon Pageant and dance in the arena during rodeo matinees. Additionally, the Round-Up serves as the forum for two Indian beauty contests – the American Indian Beauty Contest, which is held Friday morning prior to the Westward Ho! parade on Main Street in Pendleton, and the Junior Indian Beauty Contest, held Thursday morning at the Roy Raley Park adjacent to the Round-Up grounds. Another key event during the week is a Round-Up Pow Wow dance competition, which occurs at 9 a. m. on Saturday in the Round-Up arena

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

The Pendleton Round Up -- Roping

The roping events at the Pendleton Round Up--calf, steer, team--demonstrate  intense concentration, incredible skill of rider and horse. The calf or steer bursts out swiftly with the rider in pursuit.  Swinging his lasso, the rider uses exquisite timing to rope the animal, bring it down, and then either tie its legs, or keep it on the ground, all in less than ten seconds.  These events is not a pursuit for the faint of heart.

From Wikipedia: Team roping also known as heading and heeling is a rodeo event that features a steer and two mounted riders. The first roper is referred to as the "header," the person who ropes the front of the steer, usually around the horns, but it is also legal for the rope to go around the neck, or go around one horn and the nose resulting in what they call a "half head," the second is the "heeler," who ropes the steer by its hind feet, with a five second penalty assessed to the end time if only one leg is caught. Team roping is the only rodeo event where men and women compete equally together in professionally sanctioned competition, in both single-gender or mixed-gender teams

Pendleton Round Up  Steer wrestling

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up Team Roping

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up Team Roping

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up Steer wrestling

Pendleton Round Up Team Roping

Pendleton Round Up Team Roping

Pendleton Round Up 

The Pendleton Round Up. Let'er Buck. Bronco riding

Every year, during the second full week of September, the people of Pendleton and surrounding areas of eastern Oregon, give the world the Pendleton Round Up, one the major rodeos in the United States. Started in 1910, the Pendleton Round Up draws roughly 50,000 spectators each year. Run by well organized, dedicated volunteers, the planning for each each year begins as soon as the rodeo is complete. The entire Pendleton community closes down for Round Up week so that hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers of all ages can make this fantastic event happen. The Pendleton Round-Up is, naturally, a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and attracts the best of the best competitors who come to this "let'er buck" challenge. 

I very much enjoyed shooting this event.  The action is faster than the eye can follow, and each picture represents a milli second of frozen action.

From Wikipedia:  Each competitor climbs onto a horse, which is held in a small pipe or wooden enclosure called a bucking chute. When the rider is ready, the gate of the bucking chute is opened and the horse bursts out and begins to buck. The rider attempts to stay on the horse for eight seconds without touching the horse with his free hand. On the first jump out of the chute, the rider must "mark the horse out." This means he must have the heels of his boots in contact with the horse above the point of the shoulders before the horse's front legs hit the ground. A rider that manages to complete a ride is scored on a scale of 0-50 and the horse is also scored on a scale of 0-50. Scores in the 80s are very good, and in the 90s, are exceptional. A horse who bucks in a spectacular and effective manner will score more points than a horse who bucks in a straight line with no significant changes of direction.

Pendleton Round Up

Let'er buck

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Let'er buck

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Pendleton Round Up

Healing from the roots up

This Fr Keating statement needs to be read a couple times slowly to truly absorb. Simply put, regardless of our chronological age, emotionally we are still healing, growing up, and learning to see the world as God sees, not as we define it.

"Until basic childhood programs for happiness are repented of, or that is to say changed, we're engaged, all of us, in an addictive process which will show up if you live long enough in a specific addiction unless you take the spiritual journey to heart and practice to heal that situation. The Gospel is about the healing of our conscious and unconscious wounds.  

It is into this melodrama of everyday life that Jesus has come with the Kingdom, and that's where it works. That's where it's powerful; that's where it's found on an everyday basis. Right where you feel it and experience it. And it's the gift of Jesus. And this is the full meaning of redemption--to heal you from the roots up.

So that instead of self centered motivation and a world in which you see everything from the perspective of the big "I am" of your ego, you see it from the big I AM of God's selfless-self. That is the true view of reality." Father Thomas Keating

Cedar waxwings

Joseph Canyon, Rimrock Inn

Awareness

In the everyday busyness of my life, I think of what "I" need to accomplish.  I am thankful that it is not my agenda but God's that counts--and that all I really need to do each day is to breathe an awareness of His surrounding me. I do not need to go to so called "sacred" or special places to be with Him.  He is with me in my life's ordinary events and encounters--I just have to be open to this awareness.

Mt Rainier, William O Douglas Wilderness

Spray Park, Mt Rainier

Joseph Canyon and the Rimrock Inn

Meg and I enjoyed our 46th wedding anniversary by spending the night in a hand painted teepee above Joseph Canyon, twenty five miles north of Enterprise  in Wallowa County. It was furnished with a queen sized futon covered by Pendleton Woolen Mills bedding. 

Rimrock Inn

Rimrock Inn, Joseph Canyon

The views of Joseph Canyon were serene and uplifting, an ideal place to sit, read, drink wine, and simply enjoy.  The teepees are one of the lodging options at the Rimrock Inn, a most excellent bed and breakfast, with an excellent dinner menu. 

Joseph Canyon

Joseph Canyon