PRIDE: To be, or not to be...

One of my favorite things to do is to travel.  And I most especially love to travel with others who may not have done much traveling.  Some of my favorite moments in student ministry included taking kids places they had never been, giving them experiences they would not otherwise have.  Adventuring, together.

Today I had the opportunity to travel to a place that has been on my list for many years: Mount Saint Helens.  The volcano in southern Washington famously blew its top the year I was born and yet I was too young to remember the only time I visited a year or so after the eruption.  I am not the most knowledgeable person about the details of what happened in the region in May of 1980 but there is still some sort of strange "connection" I feel toward the mountain and the events that made it globally famous.

I was joined on today's adventure by three students, all of whom I serve in the ministry at Camp Arrah Wanna.  As we drove around the various roads around the mountain, trying to find viewpoints and information posts, we discussed what it must have looked like before the blast and shortly after.  At one point, as we wound around Swift Reservoir, the conversation turned to Harry R. Truman, the man whose fate will forever be linked to the history of Mount Saint Helens.

Harry R. Truman (not Harry S. Truman, the President) lived at, owned, and operated the Mount Saint Helens Lodge along Spirit Lake, right at the foot of the mountain.  As events unfolded in the months leading up to the eruption, 84-year-old Truman became famous for flippantly refusing to evacuate or even acknowledge that there was any danger of the mountain exploding.  "I don't have any idea whether it will blow... But I don't believe it to the point that I'm going to pack up."  Truman said; he was said to have scoffed at everyone's concern for his safety.  "If the mountain goes, I'm going with it.  This area is heavily timbered, Spirit Lake is in between me and the mountain, and the mountain is a mile away, the mountain ain't gonna hurt me."  Truman and his sixteen cats remained at their home, never to be seen or heard from since the day of the eruption, which destroyed his home, the lake, and everything around.

I am certain that Mr. Truman had many fine qualities and was a good man.  I suspect he was a very engaging and interesting guy to be around!  He probably had many stories to tell and many lessons to teach those around him.  And yet his legacy is one shrouded in the image of a man filled with pride, whose stubborness cost him his life.  Experts, scientists, officials all warned him that the mountain he was sitting on was ticking closer and closer to becoming a giant bomb.  And yet Truman refused to save himself, insisting instead to "go down with the ship".

In our conversation driving the backroads today, amongst trees that were all younger than me, we wondered aloud what life might have been like for Harry Truman had he evacuated and survived the 1980 blast.  Imagine the story he could tell later generations of the mountain and surrounding area he so loved and what it was like before May 1980.  Might he have rebuilt his beloved lodge?  Wrote a book?  How many more years of life might he have had?

What might we be missing out on because we have dug our heels in too deep?

How many lives or relationships might be changed simply because we admit we were wrong?

What burdens might be relieved from our shoulders if we just chose to let go and give a little.

Where do we have idols that feed our pride and stubborness, stealing joy or what might be best?

Be careful thinking too highly of yourself.

Cautiously test your humility, it easily becomes pride.

Like Truman, the prideful, stubborn ego can be here today, and easily cause us to not be here tomorrow.

Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."