2020: Things Are Looking Up

Happy New Year 2020!

Photo from our 5th annual New Year's Day hike on Saddle Mountain, for NW Wilderness

I'm starting Garth's Blog clean this year, moving all the 2019 posts to my private blog*. Even my 2019 adventure and travel blog posts and unfiltered late-night tweets are hitting the cutting room floor.

Things are looking up. I'm healing, getting stronger, breaking the chains, leaning on my faith in Jesus, practicing self-care, and moving forward to a brighter future. When you see me on a mountain or on the trail looking happy, I'm (usually) not faking it. It's genuine.

I've been learning and experimenting with tools that have been enormously helpful in dealing with depression and insomnia. Examples: Meditation (shout out to my two favorite apps, the Calm meditation app and the Christ-centered Abide meditation and prayer app) and keeping an ultra-minimalist Bullet Journal are now daily habits. Weightlifting and the outdoor events I organize for NW Wilderness also help clear my mind… As do my visits with naturopathic therapist Dr. Carol Zamarra… As well as love from family, friends, and church family… And many more good things I could enthusiastically list.

Hit me up publicly or privately if you’d like to hear more in a future blog post. It could cover additional things that have helped me, as well as offer a look at what a journey towards wellness might look like. I'm still learning, as we all are. Otherwise, it's back to blogging book reviews and travel adventures.

Though if you are hurting, just know that there is hope. I'm with you, and I'm on your side. The 2020s have the potential to be your best decade yet.

Next on Garth’s Blog:
My Top 10 Favorite Books of 2019!

*I wanted to end that on a positive note, so I buried this footnote way down here. Many of those raw “in the moment” blog posts from 2019 gave non-constructive language to my struggles with depression, insomnia, and hurt… Primarily triggered (but not caused) by two specific failures: One in a friendship, and the other regarding state-related ministry. Trying to live with being unforgiven for both of these failures is still a struggle for which I ask prayer and support. I am still prayerfully and mindfully working though these two issues. Things will continue to get better. I believe it. 🌞

Off the grid

No April Fools.  Life is getting busy.... Family, ministry, travel, and all those wilderness/mountain outings I lead.  I'm gonna take a break from Garth's Blog (but not from my other blogs, nor Twitter) so I can focus on writing the remaining credentialing reports for my ministerial licensing process.

Garth's Blog will return.

Here is a re-post from one of my other blogs about my anxiety of being phoneless, originally posted last month:

March 4, 2017

Day 3 of no cell phone.  Cancelling my Mount Hood climb up/ ski down event that I was leading for NW Wilderness yesterday was a bit of a relief.  It's a challenge to coordinate these outings without a phone.  Though I was bummed that the mountain weather was too extreme for my friends and I to play on the slopes... What could beat sitting inside a Sprint repair store for 3+ hours on a sunny Saturday instead?  Blah.

Grumbling aside, being phone-free has ultimately been a calming experience for me.  But first, I had to overcome the expected anxieties:

• My friends are gonna think I'm either a flake or a jerk for not texting them back (some of them apparently followed up on Facebook, which I also can't check when I'm away from WiFi).
• How will my loved ones get ahold of me in an emergency, or if they need me for something?
• I have plans with my surfing buddy and also hiking/climbing friends this upcoming week... How will any of them let me know if something comes up?
• I already miss my Twitter friends.
• How many Instagram friends will I lose from not posting my daily Instagram Story pics?
• When I'm away from WiFi, how will I even message my overseas friends to plan our international trip for next weekend?

Looking back at this list, it's embarassing to see how overly social I am.  It's silly.  And it's sobering to realize how much I kill myself to stay in touch with the people I love.

Everything will be alright.  I'll see my friends when I see them.  In the meantime, I'm gonna enjoy being offline.

From my Instagram Story:  The latest winter adventure I led for NW Wilderness was, ahem, eventful.

Survey SAYS.... (Pew Research study on American religion)

Until the next travel/ outdoor adventure post drops next week, I'm sharing the front page article that I contributed to our June newsletter for Aloha Church of God.  My original piece was much longer.

Last month, I also shared the condensed version of my similarly-themed book review of The None Zone: Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest.  But normally, personal and faith-oriented posts like this week's would be featured on my other blog.

This past month, a Pew Research Center study found that the number of Americans who identified themselves as Christians declined by 8% from 2007-2014. Non-Christian religious groups saw a decline as well.  The only group who saw a significant increase was the nones, those who checked “none of the above” on the survey.

Some are rushing to defend the church from potentially misleading survey results, especially from the Evangelical camp.  After all, among the respondents who claimed to be Christians, the group who labeled themselves as Evangelicals actually saw an increase from 59.8 million to 62.2 million.  Though we as the Church of God (Anderson, IN) are not Evangelical, it is admittedly encouraging to read that any segment of the Christian church is experiencing an increase in numbers.  However, it’s still difficult to ignore the overall drop in respondents affiliated with Christianity.

Many people interpret these results as a clarification, rather than a decline, of Christian identity in America.  In this interpretation, “nominals” who have in the past been Christians “in name only” are finally being upfront and honest about their lack of Christian affiliation.  In other words, the number of Christians who are genuine and committed to following Christ has more or less remained steady.

However one reads these results, our mission as Aloha Church of God remains the same.  We are called to love, serve, and be a light in our local community.   We do not exist as the church to defend the institution of religion.  We do not exist to keep our numbers up, or to put a spin on the statistics.  And we certainly don’t exist to classify spiritual seekers with convenient labels such as “nominals” and “nones.”

We simply exist to love people, just as Christ loves us.

Posts about last month's Mount Hood climbs, recent hikes, overseas trips, and family happenings are all on the way!

On the summit of Mount Hood last month