For Chris Orwig, it happened in a tent, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in California. A bachelor party; and he was camping with a group of friends. When first invited, Chris said no. He relented when told that the first night would be "car camping." "I can do that," Chris told himself.

You see, through his entire his body, Chris experienced consistent pain. Walking was never easy. Climbing a mountain, impossible.

When his physical limitations (the debilitating pain) began in his early 20s, various medical experts had no answers.

"I couldn't do most of the things I enjoyed doing." With that realization, Chris hit bottom. "I was completely broken. I was cracked. I was undone. Because I defined myself by what I could and couldn't do." 

His first reaction when invited to climb a mountain? "Here's another thing I can't do."

And life to Chris was impassable. Have you ever felt that way? I can tell you that I have.

Here's the good news; you never know where you will find or receive or take hold of hope.

"My Father gave me a camera," Chris tells the story. (Okay--his father was saying--so you can't surf anymore, but you can still take pictures of something you love.)

And the camera becomes Chris' passport to explore. "It did something to me." Meaning that instead of more pain focusing on the pain, the camera transports him into the larger world.

He recalls a day when he saw a palm tree, an ordinary California palm tree. Except that this palm tree was growing from a street gutter, against all odds, stretching for the light. That, he tells himself, is what I want to be... in a world no longer defined by the label of what I can't or shouldn't be.

With camera in hand, Chris says, "my healing began."  Because there is beauty to behold, and all art requires a fight.

Back in the tent on that first morning, Chris wakes in the dark and alone. He thinks, "They will climb the mountain today, I will be left behind." There is a gap in the tent. He can see the stars, and watches as the dawn delivers daylight, and soon, the vista of mountains.

What he hears from his friends he does not expect, "Let's go Chris. You're coming with us." They have fashioned a contraption with a lawn chair on poles using duct tape. On the way up the mountain, they would pass by other hikers, and he would wave, referring to himself as the Pharaoh of the John Muir Trail. It takes courage to pray for a miracle. It takes more courage to receive that miracle in the form of a lawn chair.

Life can be too big sometimes. And we all have been broken. Cracked. Undone. When the label--of what we can't do or be--feels bigger than life.

I'll be honest, with any limitation--or disease--I'm hoping there is a lesson to be learned to ease the pain. And if I'm lucky, a miracle to right the wrong. But what if having the answer is not the point?

In the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters a man who has been lying on a mat for 38 years--with a physical disability--waiting to be healed. Jesus asks him a simple question, "Do you want to get well?"

There is a big difference between what we call disease and what we call illness. A disease is a pathological entity; an illness is the effect of the disease on the patients' entire way of life. (Dr.  Sherwin Nuland)

A disease may tell us about our limitations.   

But the illness tells us what we can or cannot do.

In Chris' case, "Will you choose to see life through the lens of a camera?"

Here's the deal: Hope sees the sacred in the ordinary moments of every day... even in those moments that may break our hearts.

Awareness leads us to embrace life as it is, with all of its challenges and risks, to see beauty and wonder regardless of the vessel.

In the words of Gerard May, "the courage and fundamental human competence to taste the full flower of every particle of life, and to respond with absolutely fierce risking-trust to what is needed to every moment."  

Summer is still here. I smile, because I sit on my patio thinking that winter is just around the corner, reminding me of another thing in the garden I can't do. The outer beds are filled with Rudbeckia (Black eyed Susan), blithe and jubilant. I like late summer and autumn gardens. They feel relaxed, unceremonious and contented. The perennials sprawl without any need to impress or be tidy. Today my eyes and mind are the camera, and with the lifting of my spirit, the healing has begun. 

Walk out of your house like a shepherd. Rumi

 Stay connected: