Sticks & Stones Revisited

I ran into an old email with a comment my Aunt Darlene had posted regarding the original post on Observations of an Oblivious Woman. It sparked my desire to start writing again. Enjoy!

The Parable of the 5 Liters

I heard a news story on CBS that said 

1 in 4 Americans is traveling and/or vacationing alone. Roughly 25% of the American adult population is out there enjoying their lives solo. I am one of the 25%. Not necessarily because I want to be but, simply stated, I am alone. For the most part I enjoy it and it seems to be much easier to be alone away from home.

On Thursday, 17 August 2017, I ran away from Houston for a week. I had determined I would be in the path of totality to experience the solar eclipse and, since I was ultimately headed to Beatrice, Nebraska, I would also check off some state highpoints on my list and visit other places of interest along the way. I have completed 17 out of the 50 state highpoints and 14 have been solo. I picked my points of interest in the 10 states I would visit, grabbed an atlas, and drove away.

I left my home in Houston and drove to Palo Duro Canyon State Park to spend the night and, maybe, get in a bit of hiking early Friday. My ultimate destination for the weekend was Black Mesa State Park in Oklahoma. Black Mesa is the high point summit in the state of Oklahoma and would be number 10 out of 50 on my quest. I had researched; I had mapped; I had plotted, shopped, and planned. I was ready. I also had an opportunity to put some stamps in my National Parks Passport so that was also ticking some boxes.

Everything cooperated except Mama Nature. She threw a spectacular hailstorm tantrum and then cried about it all night long. I slept comfortably in my car, affectionately called Sonny. Sonny and I have been on many wonderful adventures together. I woke up to some amazing fog overlooking the canyon and some dark clouds sitting up on the north rim. I decided that after a shower I would head back up the south rim foregoing an early morning hike on the Sunflower Trail. I was only about 3 hours from Black Mesa State Park so I took the scenic route to get there.

After choosing to sleep in the car again that night, I almost chickened out on hiking Black Mesa. I hadn't slept well at all the night before due to some very loud drunk people in the RV parked next to my campsite. I laid there trying to rationalize that I had paid for a 2 night stay and could honestly get up and do it Sunday morning. But that would have put me a day behind schedule so I got up and got dressed for the day.

The basic rule of thumb when hiking is to carry at least 1 liter of water for every hour spent hiking. I follow this rule like my life depends on it, because it does. I am a slow hiker. When doing my research into the average time it had taken others to make the 8.2 mile round trip hike, I noticed it took anywhere from 3-7 hours. To be safe, I allotted myself 5.5 hours and carried 6 liters of water with me in my back pack. Three states converge into a tri-point near Black Mesa. These three states make up some of the most arid conditions in the Mid-Western United States. I knew there was no natural spot for water anywhere and very little shade. Actually, there is no shade unless you lay down underneath a cedar bush. The temperature on the hike would go from a nice, comfortable 65 degrees F to roughly 100 degrees F between 7AM and noon. I also knew that no one is permitted to hike in the park between sunset and sunrise because of mountain lions.

 

Around 7:30 AM, I parked my car, double checked my pack, wrote my name in the registry, and I walked through the ranch gates at the trailhead for Black Mesa, OK. The hike is roughly 8.5 miles roundtrip.. The first 2 miles you're not quite sure you are on the right trail. There are cows everywhere and they are very curious about you but thankfully give you space. You can see a couple of houses in the distance and I really wondered, "Who lives there?" I never saw a grocery store so where do they get groceries? Where do kids go to school?

Like I said earlier, I am a slow hiker. There are points when hiking where my brain says to my legs, "Haven't we done enough? I mean who does she think we are?" To which the legs respond, "gasp, make it stop, gasp." This is where the heart starts to negotiate with the rest of the body. We all know as a collective sum of the parts of me that we all want to make it to the summit; it is our goal. But negotiations were always going to happen. So heart said to everyone, "Do you see that rock right there? Yes, that one. We are going to go just to that rock and see what happens." We get to the rock and heart says the exact same thing: "Do you see that rock right there?" This is how I climbed to the mesa rim. I was met there by a sea of sunflowers and an antelope. As I finished climbing the last steep stretch and topped the mesa, I saw that were the trail not clearly marked, there would be absolutely no way to find the summit marker without a compass and a topographical map. The trail was very narrow and if you left it for even a few feet, you could not see it and would become lost easily and quickly. 

The sunflowers covered the trail. They were as tall as me and I had to walk through this sunflower forest the majority of the last mile. The antelope walked parallel to me. She would run ahead, stop, wait for me to catch up, and then run ahead. She was my guide to the summit marker. I'm glad she was there because the mesa is a barren place. I've never been somewhere so flat that there was not one landmark within my sight to tell me where I was and how to orient myself should I step off the trail. The summit marker is a giant obelisk that provided the only shade I had seen the entire 4.1 miles I had just traveled. But that is only half the journey. You still have to make it back to the trailhead and home.

When I arrived at the granite summit marker, I sat down in the shade provided by the obelisk and rested while I ate my lunch. The stone was cool against my back and I enjoyed the moment with no sound other than the wind blowing.

About 20 minutes later, a couple and their golden retriever arrived at the marker. We talked for a few minutes and then the man asked me how much water I had brought with me. I replied that I had started with 6L and had roughly 3.5L left to get back to my car. He stared at me and then stated, “We only brought 5L for all 3 of us.” He and his wife continued to stare at me; I became a bit uncomfortable because I knew that I could not share with them. When I began my hike it was roughly 65°F and I knew that by the time I reached my car around 1PM it would be in the high 90’s with the sun directly overhead. I could not risk the possibility of heat stroke, potential death in a remote location, and would not share something so essential to my personal survival. The couple then told me they were going to walk a bit further to the edge of the mesa to look out over the point where Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma meet.

As they left, I had a sudden thought that this situation was what the Savior was trying to convey in the Parable of the Ten Virgins.  

“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.” (KJV Matt 25:5-7)

Why didn’t they just blow out the lamps to conserve the oil in them? They were asleep anyway and who wants to accidentally set themselves on fire. I grew up with hurricane lamps in our home because it’s Houston and, well, hurricanes, and we didn’t keep them constantly burning just in case even though there was always oil in the lamp. (Hurricane Harvey hit the day after I returned to Houston.)

It wasn’t until I was on that flat mesa with the opportunity to lose the trail if I should wander a few feet that I finally understood what was stated in Matt 25:4 at the beginning of the parable: “But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” The lamps weren’t just filled with oil, trimmed, and lit until after the cry went out that the *bridegroom was coming. The 5 who brought oil with them were able to put more oil into the lamp as needed, allow the wick to draw the oil up, trim the wick as it burned so as to make it burn brighter, and continuously keep it lit. They didn’t need their lamps to burn just at the moment that the bridegroom arrived; they needed enough to keep the lamps burning as they waited and then walked with him through the village to the his home.

I did not have water to give to this man and woman and their dog. They had brought the same amount of water as I did but, this couple had not properly prepared. The water they had brought was not adequate to be shareable between the three of them in the barren, high desert environment under the seasonal weather conditions.

I was not selfish or lacking in compassion for them, even though I desperately wanted to offer as they stared wordlessly at me. The one thing everyone who hikes understands is that the summit of a mountain is only half of the journey; you still have to get home. 

 

In “Faith Precedes the Miracle,” Spencer W Kimball writes,

“The foolish asked the others to share their oil, but spiritual preparedness cannot be shared in an instant. The wise had to go, else the bridegroom would have gone unwelcomed. They needed all their oil for themselves; they could not save the foolish. The responsibility was each for the [one’s self]. This was not selfishness or unkindness. The kind of oil that is needed to illuminate the way and light up the darkness is not shareable. How can one share obedience…? How can one share faith or testimony?” (p.255)

. 

In his talk “Converted Unto the Lord” Elder David A Bednar points out another possible interpretation. He states that the oil is a representation of our conversion to the gospel and the lamps, our testimony.  

“As the wise virgins emphasized properly, each of us must “buy for ourselves.” These inspired women were not describing a business transaction; rather, they were emphasizing our individual responsibility to keep our lamp of testimony burning and to obtain an ample supply of the oil of conversion. This precious oil is acquired one drop at a time—“line upon line [and] precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30), patiently and persistently. No shortcut is available; no last-minute flurry of preparation is possible.”

As I was sitting on that mesa, alone, pondering the insights I had just received, I was also given answers to a question I had been struggling with since I chose to leave the singles ward in 2010, having graduated without honors. I realized that salvation is selfish in the way that not sharing their oil was selfish. Meaning, I can’t share it with someone else; it is for me alone just as it is for each individual. You cannot drag a sibling with you to the Savior and say, “I was obedient and she’s with me so we both get in.” It’s the same with families. You can’t say, “I have faith and a testimony and my wife is with me so she can get in, too.” 

President Nelson stated in the April 2008 General Conference that “Salvation is for the individual and Exaltation is for the family. … Individual progression is fostered in the family, which is “central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” 

We make covenants with Heavenly Father on an individual basis, forming a new and deeper relationship with Him as we progress down what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints call "The Covenant Path." Even the sealing covenant (marriage) is made individually with Heavenly Father, each one kneeling at the altar and answering the question asked by the representative of Heavenly Father; they do not ask or answer to one another. Then they are sealed together based upon their own agreements to the individual covenants they have made with Heavenly Father. Through that sealing a family may then begin on the path of exaltation by keeping the individual covenants they have made. 

We are converted to the gospel individually; our testimonies are uniquely our individual testimonies; we can share them by example and through talking about them but I cannot give you my testimony to co-share in my individual salvation. I can direct you to the Savior who offers each of us the opportunity to partake of everlasting water but that is all I can do. It is your choice to then fill your personal vessel and then continuously replenish it “drop by drop, line upon line, precept upon precept.”

I could not give away the extra water I had brought with me and that I needed for my personal survival to make it back through those gates at the trailhead and, eventually, home. 

As with the 5 wise virgins who had prepared, so it is with us. As we maintain our lamps of testimony, never letting them burn out, and keep our oil of conversion continuously filled, we each choose for ourselves to have enough to individually walk the path of covenants, constantly renewing them through partaking of the sacrament. We will each eventually make it home again, where we will be greeted by the Savior. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that the veil is very thin if we allow it to be. I know that death is not the end and I know with absolute certainty that there is great rejoicing when we are released from this life, pass through the veil, completing our mortal journey, and are brought one more step closer to our exalted home.

*Further study:

For a brief synopsis of ancient Jewish wedding traditions and why the bride kept her lamp lit, see Messianic Jew website.

Also, interesting interpretation and explanation of the Bridegroom on Judeo-Christian Clarion.