Amy Scheuring

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Ok, this may not be the greatest week to begin your challenge to hike 52 weekends in a row. It’s cold outside. But we went anyway and it was beautiful. The first hike of 2014 was the “Nature Trail” at North Park. That’s seriously the name of the trail. It really captures the essence of the whole nature and trail thing all in one catchy name. Much like calling a restaurant, “The Place You Eat Restaurant.” The “Nature Trail” is gorgeous in the snow. The stream was frozen and so was my backside.

Don’t be a baby. Put on some boots and at least hike out to the mailbox together…

Becoming One

01 Jan

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24

See also Matthew 19:4-6, Mark 10:8 and Ephesians 5:31. Maybe the Message Bible says it best as it translates 1 Corinthians 6:16-20 “There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.”

Becoming “one flesh” is more than skin on skin. It takes an intentional ongoing commitment. We must spend time and energy becoming one emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. At Heritage Point, the two trees grew on the rock ledge, and as they grew they became one. Different, yet knitted together, they could face the wind, snow, and the challenges of the elements. As two trees standing as one, they were stronger than as one lone tree.

This business of becoming one is of great importance to God. His message is in the design. We are made for intimacy.

Heritage Point

01 Jan

Tom and I barely knew one another when we got married. Well, at least it seems that way when I look back on things. Engaged only 3 months, we were still getting to know one another on our honeymoon. It was our first time. Hiking.

Pipestem State Park in West Virginia has some beautiful hiking trails. And since that’s where we went for our 4 day honeymoon, we hiked. We did other stuff too (coming soon: Golf vs Hike) but it was our first hike together.

Just a slip of a girl along side the man of her dreams, we headed to Heritage Point, an outcropping of rocks that overlooks the Blue River gorge and our little hotel located on it’s banks. (Cool fact: The only way to get down to our hotel was by cable car. Inconvenient but very romantic.) The “point” at Heritage Point looks as if a pile of huge grey boulders were about to go over a cliff and were suddenly stopped by the hand of God. The windswept pile literally hangs over a sheer drop that eventually ends in the river. Between the two most prominent rocks there is a tree. It appears to be growing right out of the rocks. Short, scrappy and stunted by wind and snow, its roots reach down around the boulders into pockets of soil beneath the point. But when an observer looks more closely, it is not one but two trees, a pine and a cedar, so intertwined at their base that the needles and branches seem like they come from the same trunk.

I hope I don’t need to unpack that obvious metaphor for marriage. Two become one. Different, yet the same. Reaching deep for nourishment. Standing on the Rock. You get it.

Who do you wrap your life around? Who grows along side you steep cliffs of life? We’ve returned to Heritage Point many times, with our kids and by ourselves, and have seen 27 years of growth in the two trees. They seem stronger each year. And together they are certainly stronger than either of them would be alone on the edge of a cliff.

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Posted by Amy Scheuring on January 1, 2014 in The Hikes

Your Weekly Quote

01 Jan

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages” –Friedrich Nietzsche (See, even Nietzshe knew the secret of a great marriage!)

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Posted by Amy Scheuring on January 1, 2014 in Quotable

Let’s Start with Some Definintions

01 Jan

Tom and I try to do some kind of hike every weekend. Rain, snow, heat, stomach flu, whatever, we try to get out there.
So technically, what is an actual “hike”? What’s the difference between hiking and walking? If we commit to “hiking” every weekend, what will “qualify”?
You can’t believe how often I have been asked this question. These were the same people who asked the teacher, “What’s the minimum length of the essay? Can it be double spaced? Do I have to use a pen? Are you taking off for spelling?”
Geez. Ok, sometimes it’s a walk around the neighborhood and sometimes we drive to a cool State Park and do a three hour strenuous trail hike. We’ve found that getting out of the routine, away from the kids (and the phone and the computer and the TV) is good for our relationship. We’re outside, looking around at what walks, crawls, flies, or grows. We see things together. We can talk, or not talk. We can walk quickly or slowly like a slug. We can relax and breathe and reconnect. So whatever your definition, make it happen. Plan on it and don’t be a baby. Some of our best times were in the worst conditions. Sometimes when life is at its busiest is when you need your time together the most. (And yes, take the kids with you once in a while…it’s really good for them. But make sure to save your best times for just the two of you.)
And some weekends you just embrace what life brings you. Like the time a walk through the LLBean Store was considered the “hike” for the weekend. (But we did park a long way from the store…) The key thing of course is that you are doing this together as a couple. It’s something that is getting you out of the house and out of the routine. It’s outdoors and uses energy and you have to wear shoes (unless you are at the beach). There, that’s the definition: Be together, outdoors, moving, with your shoes on.

yourweeklyhike

Author Archives: Amy Scheuring

Baby It’s Cold Outside

Becoming One

Heritage Point

Your Weekly Quote

Let’s Start with Some Definintions

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