Not a Mountaintop High

 

Not a Mountaintop High

In January of this year, I had the privilege of traveling to Ghost Ranch outside of Abiquiu, New Mexico for my Doctor of Ministry travel seminar. Before class began, a few of us stopped in Santa Fe first to experience the beauty, culture, and food in this part of the country. Luckily for us, we were guided by locals who knew the greatest and best Santa Fe had to offer. We had piñon pancakes, spicy hot chocolate at Kakawa Chocolate House, margarita flights, and everything else covered in hatch chilies. We walked around the art galleries of downtown, talked to artisans as they showed us their handcrafted jewelry, and rejuvenated our bodies in the legendary healing hot springs of Ojo Santa Fe. Those few days were truly awe-inspiring and the snow on the ground made it even more magical for a Texan who rarely sees the snow. It energized me and made me expectant of something truly life changing to happen when I got to Ghost Ranch.

Ghost Ranch is an education and retreat center 65 miles northwest of Santa Fe, but it has an interesting history. In the 1880s, the land was owned by the cattle rustling Archuleta brothers who got into an argument about buried gold.  After a fight that ended in the death of one of the brothers, the local townsmen sough revenge and murdered the remaining brother. A descendent of the brothers obtained the deed in 1918 and it was sold off a few more times. Then, in 1928, a former park ranger won the deed to the ranch in a poker game.  His wife named the property “Ghost Ranch” after the legends of the evil Archuleta brother’s spirits haunting the property. (Some visitors to the property have said they have heard voices of men fighting. We listened for the voices, but heard nothing.) Then again, the property was sold to another family, the Arthur Pack family, who developed the ranch into a dude ranch for wealthy tourists during the Great Depression. It was later given to the Presbyterian Church in 1955, to be used as a education center.

Ghost Ranch is most known for it’s famous resident, painter Georgia O’Keeffe, who was greatly inspired by the culture and the landscape of New Mexico. She spent 40 years drawing inspiration from the land. When you step foot in the box canyon of Ghost Ranch, you immediately know why. The box canyon confronts you with it’s grandeur, towering high above the relatively flat desert terrain. It almost feels out of place with it’s stratified vertical walls. The yellows and reds and oranges of the sun’s rays reflect off the cliffs, illuminating the rock like it’s a giant projection screen, begging you to watch the show. Each evening, a group of us would sit in anticipation for the sun to move west, light disappearing off the walls as if turning off a light switch. A truly unique and breathtaking experience you can’t quite get in central Texas. I felt God’s majestic creativity in the inhospitable terrain of Ghost Ranch. 

Many of you have had similar experiences when traveling to Ghost Ranch.  You expressed excitement and anticipation for me because your experience was so life changing. I thought this place would be special for me too; magical, even. I began to expect God to show up… no, DEMAND God to show up and speak to me. I craved some new inspiration and insight into my own life. I wanted to leave changed and transformed. I had high hopes for this week in the desert. 

I remember those spiritual highs from my past. You know, that “mountaintop high” you get at the end of a long week of emotional worship music and drawn out small group sessions at youth camp. You remember those. I expected THAT feeling. I wanted to leave exhausted from crying from feeling overwhelmed by God’s new charge for my life. I wanted to leave a transformed woman, eyes opened to a new reality for my future. 

But I didn’t…

My high expectations for a dramatic encounter with God in that dramatic terrain left me oblivious when God actually showed up. I was too busy waiting for that one big moment that I could clearly point to God with excitement and say, “you’re here!” I left with my suitcase filled with souvenirs and very little spiritual kindling. 

A month later, I poured out my longings and disappointments about the trip to my spiritual director.  He had been on this same Ghost Ranch trip three years prior and he told me of his life changing experience there too. I was jealous and lamented that I didn’t experience the same. He gently redirected me to reframe my experience. Encounters with God don’t have to send chills down our spines. They don’t have to give a lasting “mountaintop high” for them to still be deeply spiritual and life changing moments. While at Ghost Ranch, I was gently nudged with creative inspiration, blessed with connection to other pastors over shared meals, encountered beauty in the barren terrain of a desert hike, and left refreshed after a week of uninterrupted sleep with no alarm clock.

I learned that the test of a spiritual event isn’t that we leave emotionally drained, but that we experience fruits from what we encountered.  For me, the fruits included being accepted into a community of like minded ministers doing the thoughtful and difficult work of pastoring. The fruits included a renewed desire to tap into my own creativity by writing and reading more poetry, creating art, and experimenting with photography.  The fruits included a desire to share my gifts with you-my congregation and community. 

Turns out, I did have an encounter with God- a really powerful and transformative encounter at that.