Sustained by Dialogue

If I am lead to hard places, a low valley of a job I hate, or something of the sort, I will dialogue with God about this.

 

If I live out my dreams, and life blossoms in my favor, I will thank God profusely.  

 

If my wife gets sick, and it pains me, I will cry out to God.  

 

If I fall and fail at what I strive for in life, I will tell the Lord of mercy about my shortcomings.  

 

I think it it is less about what I do in life, and more about the dialogues God and I will have.  

In this way, my circumstances are not to be prized, For God is my prize and my portion forever.

“Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
"My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. “

Paslm 73:25-26

In the Morning of Spring

Awaken, awaken, oh my soul

To the morning light

With chickadee’s whistling high over head

and Robins harvesting the earth

Awaken, awaken, to the dew

Rising up from winter’s last sleep

Onto a new day

of Spring and foliage

Bursting with young buds

Blossoming and sprouting

Green and grandiose

Until summer meets us

Banjo

This article is meant to be read while listening to Sally Goodin by Pharis & Jason Romero

There is a time and a place to busy and bustle. To get things done in all order and fashion. But, there is also a most wonderful time to play the banjo.

Some will prickle and pine their fingers around the drum of a most crude instrument. Others will hear its spirit play through their soul. A child- like joy, hiding, and whispering, “Go seek!” A surprising sense of wonder, and curiosity that emerges from the obscure parts of both the young and old.

It’s hardly worth saying the banjo is a notable instrument. It may pluck and twang in a bothersome way, but don’t we all? Whose to critique that giddiness that buzzes inside you and me? If you find yourself humming along to that little noise inside, take heart and don’t think yourself so strange.

The banjo embodies those silly, but oh so beautiful things that excite us all. Whether it be stacking rocks into little fixtures for gnome peoples. Or, drying flowers in old books for your neighbor. Perhaps, even collecting bugs in a jar and calling it art. We are all so strange and magnificent in these odd interests of ours.

For some, it’s is shaking their butts in the moonlight to 80’s music. For another, it’s chewing tobacco with their Labrador at their feet. A most popular oddity, is to garden for little potatoes, scattered years ago. Yet another strangeness, is to hide away for many days, creating odd contraptions throughout the night.

Whose to say and whose to judge? The banjo plays on.

GOOD BYE COLORADO

We leave Colorado this Friday, April 5th! It feels like something in me is starting to breathe again. Slowly but surely Tressa and I are unthawing from a very full Winter. The first sight of adventure exiting Winter Park and life at Snow Mountain Ranch is visible, and we are packing our car to leave. It has been an incredible winter, isolating us in a wonderland of big peaks, new friends, figuring out how to be married, and housekeeping. Yet the temperatures are rising, the snow is melting into muddy puddles of slush and the foliage is about to burst into life. It’s time to go.

Our Stead of a Subaru named “Moonlight” is being mounted with a 52 liter cooler and food storage box on top. Our clothes bins are squeezed under a fold out bed platform. A giant pull-out drawer extends out behind the hatch-back to provide a quality camper-cooking experience, and our hiking backpacks are stowed behind our seats for adventure. We will be on the road for a month and a half making our way back to Washington state. I’m so excited that I am scared to feel it!… We will sneak through slot canyons in Utah, visit our boi West in LA, settle in Yosemite for 2 weeks, relax in Santa Cruz redwoods with Michelle, explore the Shasta area, and surf between sea stacks in Northern Oregon. Tressa and I are beaming at the idea of chasing spring all the way back to our home state.

As hasty as we are to fly North into summertime, Colorado deserves a proper goodbye. We have lived a full life within 5 months of a snow-packed winter. This is the point in which I wish I had a video montage with a sappy song to wrap it all up…

We arrived in November in Colorado anticipating whatever the unknown should become. We had no real clue what we were getting ourselves into… The first month we looked outside at unfamiliar mountains, looming over Frasier valley waiting for our souls to settle into familiarity. We cleaned toilets, post-holed our way to the cafeteria 3 times a day for meals, met friends from every part of the country, and scratched our heads wondering “Who am I really married to? and “How do I be married?” It was not all a headache. Those jagged Northern Rockies created a playground of snowboarding adventures, and cleaning toilets was a simple task after a crazy year of dating, planning a wedding, and moving, the new friends we made were interesting, and we were really in love in the midst of figuring out marriage.

Teaching Tressa to snowboarding felt like someone pooped allover my party. My hunger to shred was fed only with a need for patience, as she spent weeks learning to link her topside and heel side turns. Man… All I wanted to do was shred.. I’m pretty sure I got frustrated and made her cry multiple times. Shame on you Matthew! But now the Chica shreds like she’s been riding for years and black diamonds look like a good time to her. We had a blast shredding together about 3 months into me making her ride twice a week. She’s totally 100% shred-worthy. And sometimes she will even go up to the resort with out me! … I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t “HOT!”

Our first months of marriage in Colorado were similar to teaching Tressa to snowboard. Me with a lack of patience and Tressa learning how to turn and maneuver in marriage. It didn’t really help that we cleaned toilets and vacuumed for 10 hours a day and then had to figure out how to have quality time after that. But as the season went on our level of grace for one another has advanced to ride out most conflicting terrain. And Tressa has become a pro at being the most consistently loving woman I have ever met. I’d like to think I’ve become more patient and a little less self-centered. It feels like were on the tail end of first year marriage struggles and we are able to cruise through life hand in hand laughing the whole way. I’m proud of us and I know that every time I think of our time in Colorado, that we went through the initial climb of learning how to be married well, understand each other deeply, and enjoy each other. I’d like to say from here on out its all pow turns in the backcountry but we will have more peaks to ascend.



Housekeeping… Good Lord… God is good let me start with that. Two highly relational creative minds solemnly cleaned cabins and lodge rooms for 5 months... To be honest housekeeping was not our happy place. But we will admit to the world that it was really good for us. The routine and simplicity of the job gave me time to process through junk in my life that I had not smoothed out yet. That’s a major plus, Free therapy! The people we worked with made the job amazing. There is hardly a time when co-workers weren’t saying something hilarious that made you bust up smiling. I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun at a place where I worked. The college age staff we worked with are exactly what you would imagine, funny, full of stoke for life, and charged with humorous sarcasm.

Halfway through our time in CO, Tressa and I got promoted to supervisors which meant we got paid more and got to save more. The money helps a lot. Furthermore, our boss was like some kind of saint and visionary that made you marvel at how somebody could be that cool…
As thankful as I am for our experience… I don’t think I could do it for another week… We are eternally thankful for the work ethic this job developed as well as the relationships built with our amazing co-workers and bosses, but please no more scrubbing bubbles…



Our main tie to living in Colorado was A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. ACMNP is an organization that places Christians in National Parks to minister to staff and guests as well as run a ministry program. Tressa and I got our winter placement at YMCA of the ROCKIES- Snow Mountain Ranch. That’s why we’ve been here working as housekeepers and snowboarding a bunch. The intention of our team was to minister to co-workers at work and then run a Saturday Night worship service. ACMNP was challenging to do while learning how to be married, work a bunch, and make time for one another. Tressa and I are glad we did ACMNP. Our teammates Toni and Alex were super encouraging and loving through our time here. I believe we saw God work within our ministry and ACMNP in general pushed Tressa and I to be an example of Jesus’s love to our co-workers at work. We have had beautiful conversations of faith with so many of our friends in Colorado. Lastly, Tressa and I have been majorly stoked to grow in our faith and understand the bible more. We see a greater need for a life with God heavily involved, especially in our marriage where the difference of loving your spouse with God’s love and then just doing marriage, is like the difference between night and day.

ONWARD!!!

I have to blab about split boarding real quick. In January I bought a splitboard and some skins. I spent like a gazillion dollars on it. All honor goes to my wife for giving me the green light to venture into the backcountry and zoom down open pow runs in solitude. Backcountry snowboarding has been a dream of mine since high school. Berthoud Pass, a 20 minute drive from the YMCA is some of the most premier paradise of backcountry terrain in North America. I spent days upon days this winter listening to stevie ray vaughn guitar solos while steadily climbing up above tree line to find fresh lines. Backcountry boarding is pure zen. It’s so quiet you can hear the snow fall through the winter forest. It’s meditative skinning up the mountain, your pace takes a natural rhythm, and your thoughts become so clear you begin to feel a prayer forming in you. Talking to God in the backcountry just sort of happens naturally. Once you get to the top of your destination you can swivel your head at see panorama for miles upon miles of mountain range. Then you go DOWN…. The hour you spent climbing to the top of your run, takes about 2 minutes of surfy pow turns to get down. You scream at the bottom because you earned every single one of those blissful turns..
Okay.. no more blabbing. Backcountry snowboarding has my heart….

My final GOOD BYE COLORADO
I believe God so perfectly placed us here with intentionality and wisdom. Our prayers for an adventurous first year of marriage were answered with new friends, a full season of snowboarding, and new territory of mountains and Colorado wonders to explore.
The initial learning curve of being married has been challenging, working housekeeping has been challenging, being isolated in white winter has been a stretch. Yet, these months have produced a steadiness with Tressa and I, we are way more in love for it. We have grown closer to God and are more willing to live like God is good and worthy of our devotion. We have met friends who will stay with us for a lifetime.

Colorado has been so meaningful. We are thankful beyond measure for this Winter. As we drive away in our Gyspy caravan of a 1998 Subaru Outback, I’m not going to look back. Because I know everything that we have learned, and all the people we have met, and all the beautiful places we have beheld carry on with us.
-Matthew Wick