JANUARY 2004
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IN THIS ISSUE
From The Editor_________________Page 2
Friends Along The Trail___________Page 3
Trail Tales_____________________Page 4
Encouraging Gods Children________Page 5
Newsletters____________________Archives
Home Page___________________Trailheads
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Hiking the Trail of Truth, PO Box 492, Windsor, CA, 95492-0492
Roving Trail Office 707-477-2460 or e-mail mstaylor@sonic.net
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From The Editor... |  |
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS! Hello, indeed Happy New Year, and Welcome to the January 2004 Newsletter! I sincerely hope this day you have allowed the Spirit of God to be active within your heart, and that you are able to perhaps get out for a hike and consider many of the wonders He has made. January is another fine month for getting out and seeing the beauty of created things, though it may be a bit cold in your area! Then again, there's nothing like a brisk morning trek to arouse your senses. Part of knowing God is understanding and appreciating, through your senses, those wonders He has made and the talents He has given you, and that's what Hiking the Trail of Truth is all about... There are many journeys into understanding here. If you are unable to get out for a physical hike, just visit our websites' feature trail for this month; the High Sierra Trail. Your mental trek there can take you where you may be unable to journey physically. The enlightenment, inspiration and encouragement found along the 7 hikes there will be well worth your time...
WEBSITE NEWS:
It's once again time for those new years' resolutions!
And since it is a new year, choosing to hike the Mountain and Valley
Trail would be a great resolution for you! The Mountain and Valley
Trail at this website is a daily devotional trail, taken entirely from the
Scriptures, and arranged for you to gain wisdom and understanding through daily
Bible reading. The calendar for January, with all of its references and
inspiring photography, is now complete at that trailhead, and work is
progressing on the remaining months, so that you can read the dailies for an
entire year! You can make copies of them as you read (perhaps two sided copies;
one day on each side), and when a year is complete, you can have the entire
calendar bound for you at Kinko's Copy Center, for about $4.50. You can print
the top portion of the Mountain & Valley Trailhead page as a cover
for your book. Each day of the calendar, including the daily photograph, is
only one page or less in length. You will then have a perpetual calendar, all
your own, that will give you daily inspiration year round, entirely from varied
Scripture, for as long as you choose to seek it! Please visit the Mountain
and Valley Trail, be sure to read its preface, and have yourself a
promising year with a daily Bible reading new years' resolution! I am
planning a 2004 Hiking the Trail of Truth field trip this year. You will
be able to visit Arches National Park, Monument Valley, and the Grand Canyon
while on this approximate 7-8 day trip. There are no fees charged by HTTOT for
this spiritual experience, however, the trip requires that you have a vehicle,
a camper trailer or motorhome, and a tent. You will provide your own camping
equipment, food and travel expenses. This journey will allow you to experience
some of Gods' greatest wonders, as well as give you increased knowledge and
understanding for your spiritual journey through life. The trip will begin
around May 15th. The starting point will be Las Vegas, Nevada, or I can pick
you up in Lone Pine, California, if you would like an extended (10 day) trip.
The California route includes Death Valley. If you have an interest in
accompanying me on this journey, please write, e-mail, or call me. Contact
information is available on the front page of this newsletter. Right now there
are one or two spaces available in my own vehicle. If you choose one of these
spaces, you need only pay your own expenses. All other equipment will be
provided.HTTOTs' Desert Trail musical CD, is still available for you to enjoy. I have a copy just for you. Simply drop me a note in the mail to request the CD, and I will most gladly mail it to you. There is no charge... Send your request to: HTTOT, Mark S Taylor, PO box 492, Windsor, CA 95492-0492... A description of this Native American CD is available in the August 2003 Newsletter, which you can find in Newsletter Archives. It is quite an inspiring array of music. Hope to hear from you!...
Don't forget that HTTOT offers FREE COUNSELING to anyone who wants it (Lord knows we all need it). Your varied questions are also important, and are given the utmost consideration in answering them. Just write, e-mail, or phone any time. Contact information is listed at the bottom of the cover page of this Newsletter, or you can visit Questions and Answers Trail Camp at the website, where a ''submit a question' link is provided...
If you do not have a computer or Internet access, you may be interested in a printed copy of Hiking the Trail of Truth (the website, volume IV). If so, please write and let me know. I will make one just for you should you request it. This volume is a printing of the November 2003 website edition. Note: It will not contain the Mountain and Valley Trail; 366 daily devotionals, which will make up a separate printed edition, Lord willing, in 2004. It will also not contain the Monthly Newsletter, save one sample copy (Nov 2003)...
Next months' Letter from the Editor; Walking on Sacred Ground
THIS MONTH: Small Miracles, Part 2:
The small miracles in your life are indeed many, even though some people believe that coincidences happen to some people but not to others. Yet, I believe that if you look for coincidences (small miracles) and have faith, you will find them. But if you remain rooted within your intellect only, and disregard the spiritual aspects of life, you won't have them. If you learn to become more fully aware and stop and listen to the universe, to perhaps keep journals and, again, believe in coincidences, they will happen. This is a part of your absolute need for spiritual development. Here now is some food for thought on recognizing small miracles...
Being on the right side of the road at the right time. Receiving something in the mail when you needed it. Walking out of the twin towers on 9/11 because you left your wallet in the breakfast bar. The traffic accident that forced you into the hospital, where the doctor found that you had cancer, but that the early discovery would save you. At the funeral of a loved one, you started to think about God. Your lost dog found its way home. Your child was expelled from school for promoting prayer, the day before some students gunned down their classmates. Your adulterous mate confessed and asked your forgiveness. You gave some money to a transient, and the next month a dying stranger donated you a lifesaving kidney. When you watered the worst looking plant in your garden, it greened up; The very same day you got a call from your most wayward child, who told you he/she had landed a very good job. — Need I go on? Miracles occur in our lives on a daily basis. It's time to recognize the very smallest of them and to thank God for it!
Next month, we will take a look at Walking on Sacred Ground. Until then, I thank you for and am honored by your time spent with, Letter from the Editor.
Sincerely, Mark S Taylor, HTTOT
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| Friends Along The Trail |  |
We began this new series in June of 2002 and, thanks to positive subscriber responses, we've been able to continue it, thank the Lord, in subsequent issues. Within this particular series I have been reflecting on how certain friends, relatives and strangers have influenced me over the years of my own life and times. As Christians we are instructed to encourage one another daily. Lord knows that I have been encouraged many times over the years through the words, actions, and associations of others. It is indeed then time to honor them. I have honored some of them before, yet, honoring others is something we really can't overdo for those truly deserving of it. Sometimes it takes considerable journeying through life before we learn the value of honoring others. I sincerely hope that my reflections on these "special characters" of my lifetime will cause you yourself to consider the God given blessings that special characters have had upon your own life...
His name was Howard Piland. He was the police sergeant who first hired me in 1968, as a recruit for the Arcadia California police department. He was a man whose friendship I later "betrayed" when I left the department the first time in 1971. He was a man of kindness and wisdom, a devoted husband and father to his family. He was a model of honesty and patience, whose admirable qualities I failed to truly notice, due to the ignorance of my self-willed youth. He encouraged me greatly and, in spite of my pride, arrogance and by-the-seat-of-the-pants living, made every effort to be a good friend to me. He was a man who saw my good qualities and endeavored to work with them. He and his wife, Roberta, were both an unprecedented influence in helping my family to cope with the trials of living with a young police officer in the wilds of southern California. They were forever kind and encouraging. But, somehow I didn't make it. I allowed lust and personal gain to crowd God into the corner of my heart. To my great loss, in the brief time that I knew Howard and his family, my spirit did not hear what they were trying to say.
In 1986, 15 years after I had left and moved east, I returned to California once again to work at the Arcadia police department. I was 40 years old. Howard was then a lieutenant, nearing retirement. He was very glad to see me and to have me back, but things were never the same. I was divorced and alone, a single man on the prowl. The intervening years had been hard, but being back in Arcadia was indeed a fresh start for me—like the spring buds on a tree that had just come out of a long winter. Howard's face was a welcome sight, but my heart was broken in that I was so ashamed of my failures that I could never get close to him again. I could never tell him about my waywardness of life back in Ohio, nor talk about my divorce and separation from my family. He had been so good to me and my family when we were whole—I just couldn't face him. And so, we never talked about it. After he retired, I went to look him up once in the Apple Valley, where he and his wife had moved. They were not at home, and I never returned again. Howard passed away about a year and a half ago.
Like my Native American friends; as I get older, I look back at the footsteps I have taken along the journey of this life; to see where I went wrong. I miss Howard, but I am now very thankful for what I have learned from him. Though I spent many years away from him, and though he has gone on to be with the Lord, he still speaks to my heart—and I now listen. King David once said, "I use to wander off, Lord, until You disciplined me, but now I closely follow Your word." (Psalm 119:67)
Thank you, Lord, for this renowned friend along the trail of life. Thank you for the discipline of Your correction in my life, which has allowed these thoughts of him to surface within my heart. Please protect his family and continue to bless them in this life. Next month we'll ride once again with some Friends Along the Trail. Any subscribers or viewers who wish to honor their friends, you're welcome to write in to: Hiking the Trail of Truth, PO Box 492, Windsor, CA 95492-0492, or e-mail mstaylor@sonic.net.
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Trail Tales |  |
* This month we begin a new series of tales... Previous episodes of Trail Tales can be located in Newsletter Archives
The Incredible Story of HIGH SIERRA ED
Episode One
Howdy. Name's Ed Ostashay. High Sierra Ed's what they call me. My first summer in the Sierra and John Muir's were not that different. A century apart, the "gentle wilderness" around timberline caught both our fancies. We reveled in the wildness of flowered meadows and indigo lakes, camped beneath quilted mountains of snow, ice and granite slabs, thought some of the same thoughts and had some of the same feelings. Yep, as my tale unfolds to you, those of you who have hiked the High Sierra country will share my uncanny feeling that I have walked with John Muir's ghost, rejoicing at pristine streams cascading down from the snowy peaks, learning the names of flowers and trees, and feeling the same emotions about wildness that he expressed so well so long ago.
Yep, John Muir's wild Sierra was still there at my feet in 1998, when I repeated his solo climb of Cathedral Peak without encountering another human being. It was Indian summer that year when I wandered up the Yosemite Creek basin to climb the peak. Of course, I am anxious to see as much of the wilderness as possible in the few years left in me, and I say—May the good time come when I can stay as long as I like, with plenty of food. Now that year I had me a guide named Pinnacle Petty. He was a sheep herder and a good climbin' guide—that's how he got the name; Pinnacle, but he always kept up with solemn talk about the need of getting away from the high mountains, telling sad stories of flocks that perished in storms that broke suddenly in the midst of fine innocent weather. But way up there a man never knows where to go or what kind of guide he's gonna' get—men, storms, guardian angels, or sheep. Perhaps almost everybody in the least natural is guarded more than he is aware of; All the wilderness seems to be full of tricks and plans to drive and draw us up into God's light. This was sure one of those times for me, so I warn't gonna complain 'bout no sheep herder.
It was slow movin' behind those sheep, but it did teach me to relax on the trail. After all, there's no reason to be in a hurry in life. A man could die at any given moment. Since I learned that I have also learned how to make the most of each moment. I swear, life is always teachin' a man something. Anyway, I left ol' Petty in the camp at daybreak and made direct for Cathedral Peak, intending to strike eastward among the peaks and ridges at the heads of the Tuolumne, Merced and San Joaquin Rivers. Down through the pine woods I made my way, across the Tuolumne River and meadows, and up the heavily timbered slope forming the south boundary, along the east side of the peak itself. I climbed up to its topmost spire, which I reached at noon, having loitered by the way to study the fine trees—two leaved pine, mountain pine, albicaulis pine, silver fir, and the most charming, most graceful of all the evergreens, the mountain hemlock. High, cool, late-flowering meadows also detained me, as well as lakelets and avalanche tracks and huge quarries of moraine rocks above the forests. It was all quite inspirin'. Cathedral Peak itself, some 10, 991 feet above Tuolumne Medows, is one of the most singularly dramatic features in Yosemite National Park...
To Be Continued
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Encouraging Gods' Children |  |
Here is this months' list of those who need encouragement through your prayers and letters. I hope you will take the time to encourage them... Some of their problems are personal and we will respect their privacy, leaving it up to those individuals to share at their discretion. Please pray for them and write to them (I can provide addresses for you. Please call, E-mail or write to me for that information). Encouragement is a noble thing and a profound way to honor God through lifting up His children... Please inform me if you would like to add anyone to our prayer list.
Let us this month encourage and pray for...
Those less fortunate than us. Those with no work or no income. Those who don't have 75 cents to enjoy the taste of refrigerated milk, a Coca-Cola, or a bottle of cold water. Those who sit alone, without the encouragement of friends. And, those who don't share the benefits of peace, who can't go out in the night without getting shot, robbed or molested. Our world is indeed full of wickedness—there is indeed darkness under the sun. Pray earnestly for the safety of Gods' children until our Lords' return.
Storm Yetter, Kalispell, Montana... Storm is experiencing some very trying difficulties at this time. Please pray that she will continue to seek the guidance of the Lord, and lean not on her own understanding. Pray that she will be strong and patient as He works in her life.
The family of Russell E Greathouse, of Akron, Ohio... Russ passed away on October 19th. Russ was a fine family man, and the best friend of my early youth. Please pray for his family and friends in this time of their deep loss and sorrow.
The family of Aiden Craig Cieszkowski... Aiden is a premature infant, born November 3rd to Frank and Christina Cieszkowski. This child is in the company of many other premature children. He is on a respirator and having complications. Please pray for him, his family, and his many little friends. UPDATE 4/Jan/04: Your prayers are being answered as we speak. Though still on a ventilator, his lungs not fully developed, I just heard that the boy is doing much better, and some of his friends are as well! Please continue your prayers for these children. Here is a January 23rd UPDATE from Aiden's grandma...
* Hi Everyone, I know it's been a while since I filled you in but I've been spending a lot of time at the hospital. The news for the most part is good. Aiden is off the ventilator and breathing with just a little help from oxygen in his nose. He is 4 lbs 6 1/2 ounces. On Friday he had surgery on his eyes. He has retinopathy and they were concerned about his right eye. The surgery went well and they will test his sight again next week to see if it has improved. We are praying that he will not be blind and ask that you pray for him also. He has been breast feeding and taking a bottle with no problems. For this we are very thankful. I was able to hold him for the first time on Tuesday, January 20. What a wonderful feeling that was. One very sad note...one of the babies in Aiden's area died this week. I'm also asking for prayers for his family that they may be able to cope with this loss. Thank you again for all your prayers...I'll keep you posted. Love, Grandma
Please remember the homeless and the poor of the world again this month. Try to locate a homeless person and help them in any way that you can... Continue to pray for all of those in need of daily bread, and please pray earnestly for all the people of the world in which we live, in every country, that men and women will desire to find wisdom, that they will turn and seek God's face in this world full of spiritual blindness, rebellion and increasing depravity. The Lord's coming will not be delayed much longer. Endeavor to encourage others to seek Him, in truth, while there is still time.
Father, grant us the humility to seek Your face for the well being of others. Help us to reach out to them, with kindness, in word and in deed. We are, each one of us, in need of Your guidance in the use of possessions, our prosperity, our tongues and our talents. Though we are quite unworthy, we ask you to bless our efforts... In the name of your glorious Son, Jesus, we pray.
Thank you so much for hiking with us through the January issue of the Hiking the Trail of Truth Newsletter. Until February then, may the grace of our Lord Jesus be upon you...
Sincerely, Mark S Taylor
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HIKING THE TRAIL OF TRUTH
Mark S. Taylor
(707) 477-2460