AUTHOR: John Gillespie TITLE: Can you believe... DATE: 1/26/2006 02:49:00 PM ----- BODY:

...its already halfway through February, and I haven't blogged a single post this year yet! As usual, feeling bad about it - but not bad enough to make me want to post any more than I do! Since the last post I was away for 10 stunning days in the resort of Tignes Val Claret in the French Alps learning to snowboard. All I can say is I'm hooked! It was totally awesome - snowboarding aside, the mountains are simply insane. I've never seen mountains that big before (even though I know the alps aren't so big considering) and there was something awesome and wild about being on top of them in the sunshine, even if I had the luxury of ski lifts and good coffee and nice resaurants. I think it's said of mountains that the higher you go the more you leave behind - and for me that was true! I found that as I spent time up there, above the treeline, breathing thin air, my heart was taking huge fresh gulps of God. I came back from my time there blown away, praising God for his goodness. It felt like a cold drink on a hot, dry day to my heart - totally refreshing! I think there's a certain transcendance in mountains, something mythical and awesome about them, which can cut straight through everything else, and speak straight to your heart. Something about the way their peaks soar straight up into the deep blue sky, something about their complete barren wildness - it strips everything bare and enables your heart to hear clearly - to hear God clearly - to hear itself clearly. In the business and constant drive of western life, that's something which is really ahrd to find - a place where you're stripped bare of distraction and engagement, and left with an engagement with heaven. That aside, the snowboarding was so crazy! I've never picked up a sport so quickly or loved it so much. There's something awesomely freeing about screaming down an icy run on the edge of control, carving round sweeping corners with ice-cold wind in your face and the mountains as a backdrop.... I loved it! Since then I've even dreamt about it I loved it so much! I can feel it now.... I hear the boarding in Scotland can be good but there hasn't been any snow yet - roll on a cold front!

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