Hiking toward Heaven: An uplifting story of hope on earth with hints of heaven

by Ian Palmer Ph. D.

Overview

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An adventurous series of hikes in the mountains and canyons of the Southwest United States… An encounter with a mysterious stranger who makes an intriguing proposition … An exploration into the powerful Christian themes of love, grace, and forgiveness … A new formula for dealing with obstacles that life puts in our way … Glimpses of heaven we can identify with … Altogether, an uplifting reminder of that key Christian attitude --hope --with practical encouragement for tough economic times … Packed with wisdom and spiced with intrigue, this book views all these aspects through the wide-open eyes of children and the experienced eyes of a scientist. It is an enchanting story that rocks along from one hiking episode to the next, all on the edge of God’s interaction with humankind. The mystery is engaging, and the emotions are stirring enough to bring a tear to the eye.

“The book Hiking Toward Heaven is full of life experiences I can relate to. Ian lets us know there are angels leading us all through our lives. I did not want to put the book down, and I wanted more.”
-- Dewey Flock, Home Improvement Contractor, Houston, Texas

“Amidst the joys and diffi culties of each exciting hike, the Christian message comes through loud and clear. I have never seen anything quite like it, and as you describe the fl ora, the geology, and the food of various places, it has the ring of truth.”
--Julian Pfi tzner, High school teacher and administrator (retired), Adelaide, Australia.

“The book takes the reader on a fascinating jaunt of geographical discovery, and sparkles with the quoted jewels of wise men. The wonderful surprises that are portrayed when life gets tough give me renewed hope.”
--Bob Moulton, Melrose, Australia

“Ian has combined his passion for hiking in the Southwest USAwith his immense love of God in a tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The people who share the trails experience God’s message of love, grace, and hope which culminates in the challenge Seeing is believing, but you will also learn that believing is seeing.”
-- Ginny Itz, Director of Singles at Chapelwood United Methodist Church, Houston, Texas

“I plan to integrate this book into our curriculum for youth in detention. I strongly believe these at-risk youth will receive and welcome this novel presentation of Biblical truths.”
--I Don Compton, Founder/Director Shalom Ministries, Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452079820
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	12/09/2010
Pages:	116
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.28(d)

Read an Excerpt

Hiking toward Heaven

An uplifting story of hope on earth with hints of heaven

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By Ian Palmer

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Ian Palmer, Ph. D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7982-0

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Chapter One

In the Arroyo

When I commit to You my life and each of the challenges I face, I am not only released from the tension of living on my own resources, but also a mysterious movement of Your providence begins. The company of heaven, plus people and circumstances, begin to rally to my aid. Unexpected resources are released; unexplainable good things start happening. —Lloyd Ogilvie, from Quiet Moments with God

My grandchildren came to visit me in Albuquerque. I live on the west side, meaning west of the Rio Grande, the great divide. The Rio bisects New Mexico - starting from the top, it slices straight south to the border with Mexico, where it turns eastward and eventually becomes the border between Texas and Mexico. The word slice creates a pretty good image, because in the far north of New Mexico, the Rio Grande has cut a steep gorge into the plain not far from Taos. You can see this prominent slice from an overlook just outside of the town. You can drive over the slice at the Taos Bridge, a single-span structure hundreds of feet above the water. You can even hike down the sides to the river, but it's awfully steep. You can also hike down to the river via a well-made trail further north, at a location called Wild Rivers Recreation Area. We did that once a few years back, in June when it was very hot. My two young grandsons, Bryan and Darby, took a little swim in their underpants in the cool green water, and they thought it was lovely.

By the time the Rio Grande reaches Albuquerque, it has flattened out. So when I drive home from I-25 to the west side of the river, the Rio is just a sedate meander. On this particular day, it was in the cool of the evening when I asked Kara and Jaden if they wanted to come look at the arroyo, which eventually joins the Rio Grande. Kara was twelve and already looked like she would someday join the Miss America Pageant with her turned-up nose, and gorgeous gray eyes. Jaden was eight, a rough-and-tumble little guy unafraid of anything—all energy and force.

"What's an arroyo?" Kara asked.

"It's a dry riverbed," I replied, "one that flows only after a local rainstorm."

We had to walk only a few hundred yards from my home to the arroyo. It is several houses wide and about one house deep and filled with nothing except sand, gravel, bluebush, rabbitbrush, and other flowers and weeds. There are no trees at all. They might have called it the Nullarbor Arroyo, after the famous plain in Southern Australia, which is as flat as a pancake until it drops off via sheer vertical cliffs into the Great Australian Bight. There are no trees on the Nullarbor Plain either, which is what makes the drop-off even more impressive as you stand there watching the great whales dive and surface. The famous country-and-western singer Casey Chambers spent growing-up time with her father on the Nullarbor Plain, when he was a fox hunter sleeping in his car.

We traipsed around the sand and bushes for a while looking for tracks from small critters. The kids had not studied these before, so we learned which way the critter was moving and something about his size from the length of his stride. Suddenly, a roadrunner scampered out of the bushes.

"What's that?" yelled Jaden.

"It's a roadrunner," I said. "He usually doesn't fly but just runs."

They are indeed sprinters. After stopping to look at us for a moment, this one zoomed away like a rocket, beak and back and tail in a single streamline, with not one feather out of place.

It was a pretty evening, the clouds turning pink as the sun lowered itself to the horizon. I let the two kids play, sliding down the steep, sandy side of the arroyo, while I gazed at the sunset from the rim. Suddenly, I heard a scream, and my heart thumped as I followed the sound toward the kids. Kara was being held by a man, while another stood by, and Jaden was scrambling up the side of the arroyo toward me. I ran to Jaden, grabbed his hand, and hustled toward Kara. One man, who was holding a knife, had a snake tattoo, matted hair, and a ring through his nose. He was thin and looked mean. The other man, who was pinning Kara's arms, was a little obese, and sweating profusely. Kara was crying softly.

Through my shock I blurted out, "What do you want?"

The knife man answered with a sneer, "Money."

I replied, "I don't have any money with me."

He said, "Well, you better go find some quick, because this little doll is gonna cost you five hundred dollars."

I wasn't sure I had five hundred dollars in the house, but I figured I could go to an ATM. He said he would be on the other side of the arroyo and pointed to where a road came down and a beat-up red car was parked.

I recalled hearing that if you were accosted in a parking lot by someone with a knife or gun, you should never get in a car with the guy, because that greatly limited your chances of surviving. So I was reluctant to let them take Kara and do what the knife man ordered—we might never see Kara again. I was responsible for these kids. I was a take-charge type and could usually think up some options in any given situation, but here I was stuck. I was not a fighter - the most physical thing I had ever done was play Australian rules football forty years earlier. I wasn't in any condition to fight, even if I had known how to. I whispered a silent prayer.

The knife man hissed at me as he pointed the knife menacingly at Kara, "You better get movin', because if you aren't at the car in thirty minutes, you won't be seein' the girl again." My heart sank at this threat.

I said to Kara, "I'll be right back, sweetheart. I promise." I was trying to encourage her. Still holding Jaden's hand, I turned to go up the arroyo.

Suddenly, a strong voice came from the left. "Hold on!"

I turned my head. Out from the rabbitbrush strode a woman dressed in khaki pants—the ones with pockets up and down the sides. As she came out from the direction of the setting sun, I could see that she had black, wavy hair, which fell to her shoulders. She also wore sunglasses.

As she came up, she said coolly to the two guys, "I saw what happened. I called nine-one-one, and the police are on their way. You have two choices: release the girl and run for it or stay with the girl and be apprehended."

Now the two men had to consider their options, but not for long. The knife man grabbed Kara from the other man and turned to run, keeping the knife in his right hand. Kara screamed again, as she was dragged stumbling through the underbrush.

Before I could think of what to do, the woman had picked up a sizeable stone and thrown it hard at the fleeing men. Unbelievably, the stone hit the knife man in his right leg, behind the knee, and over he went with a howl of pain, releasing Kara as he fell. While he was trying to get up, the woman was on him, pushing his face into the sand and twisting the knife out of his hand. His buddy took one look at the situation and took off running up the arroyo.

The sirens and the police arrived shortly afterward, and they cuffed the knife man. After we relayed the story to the police, they took the sullen man away, requesting that we come to the station later to file charges.

The woman knelt down and gave Kara a warm hug.

"How are you feeling, princess?"

"Okay," she replied timidly.

"Will you be all right?"

"Suuure." Kara extended the word in a cute and natural way.

Although I was still shaking, she seemed to be fine except for a badly scuffed knee.

The lady, who was attractive and looked to be about fifty, introduced herself as Michelle.

I could not see her eyes because of the sunglasses. I noted she had no rings on her hands.

"You must be Grandpa." She smiled as she shook my hand.

"Popper," said Jaden. "He's Popper."

"Okay, Popper. You have good-looking grandkids." She winked, and Kara grinned shyly.

I thanked her profusely and asked her where on earth she had learned to throw like that. She said she had played softball, and I had an instant recall: Morgan, an older granddaughter, could throw a softball at tremendous speed from third base to first base with pinpoint accuracy and with her right arm essentially vertical. Michelle's throwing action was the same.

Michelle said she lived in Santa Fe. Since it was almost dark by then, I gave her my card and suggested that she call me sometime, knowing that a single lady almost never calls a single guy back. I walked home smartly with the kids. As we entered the house, I felt like a punctured balloon. Although I was emotionally drained, the kids seemed okay and we all took turns telling the story.

Chapter Two

Santa Fe

Then I was beside him, like a master worker; And I was daily his delight, Rejoicing before him always, Rejoicing in his inhabited world And delighting in the human race. —Holy Bible, Proverbs 8:30–31 The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. —Albert Einstein, from Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Michelle did call back. She wondered if I'd like to have lunch at the Shed, a popular restaurant in a clutch of old buildings dating back a hundred and fifty years. It's near the original Plaza in Santa Fe, where the Native American vendors sell their silver and turquoise jewelry on the sidewalk. It was summertime, and the flowers set off a brilliant display for all the Texans who come to town. The decor of the Shed is bright and colorful, like the flowers, and the food is colorful too. I ordered white posole made with green chiles and blue-corn enchiladas sauced with red chiles. Posole is a thickened corn, like hominy, made in a kind of soup or stew, along with bits of pork. It is sumptuous. We were seated next to a window, where we could watch the Texans lounging in the courtyard waiting for their tables.

"How is Kara?" Michelle asked.

"She is getting As in school and playing softball," I replied, "and she is the pitcher."

We asked about each other's backgrounds. Michelle said she was a freelance writer, who had moved to Santa Fe recently. She wasn't married and had no kids.

"Brothers and sisters?" I asked.

"Yes, many," she replied but went on quickly. She said she had inherited money from her parents and that she had always wanted to live in the Southwest.

"Why Santa Fe?" I inquired.

She replied that she loved the slogan "Land of Enchantment" that was stamped on every New Mexico license plate.

I asked what she meant.

"The desert and the mountains have a spirituality about them. When the sun is setting and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains are tinged with pink, it's easy to appreciate God's creation."

So she believes in God ... That is a common interest between us, I thought.

I asked if she knew that the same pink glow shrouded Sandia Peak in Albuquerque from time to time, and that was why the pueblo people gave it that name: the word sandia means watermelon.

"What a neat story," she replied.

Without the sunglasses her eyes were captivating, and radiated an enthusiasm and eager desire to experience life.

Michelle asked me what I did.

"I'm a scientist disguised as a petroleum engineer. I was trained as a physicist. My PhD at the University of Adelaide was on how cosmic rays travel between the sun and the earth."

"You're kidding." Michelle smiled. "How do cosmic rays travel from the sun to the earth?"

"The sun has a magnetic field around it, and the lines of force are stretched out like the spirals of a rotating garden sprinkler because the sun rotates on its axis. The cosmic rays, which are tiny energetic protons and electrons, travel along these spirals on their way to earth. I did some fundamental work on calculating how long they take to get to earth."

"Wow. That is interesting. I love hearing about things related to the cosmos."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I took a sip of coffee.

"How did you get into petroleum?" Michelle inquired.

"I came to the USA to work and ended up in Tulsa, where some large oil companies had their research centers. After several years, I switched horses and went to work for one of those companies."

"What did you work on there?"

"The company was a leader in drilling into coal seams and extracting natural gas from the coal. This was a new resource called coalbed methane. I studied how to get the gas out faster."

"How did you get the gas out faster?" she asked.

"Believe it or not, one way was by using a well blowout, where you open a valve at the surface and the gas comes rushing out, but in a controlled manner. It's called a cavity completion, because a cavern is left behind in the coal."

"I've heard of well blowouts," Michelle replied. "Aren't they dangerous?"

"Not if they're controlled."

I smiled as I recalled a memory. "My first time on a cavity well, I was poised with my camera to snap the burst of gas that came shooting out. It came with a jolt and such a loud noise that my finger refused to press the shutter, and I missed it."

Michelle's eyes glittered. "Ooh, that sounds exciting! I love mysterious things like that."

I continued on, trying to impress her.

"It was exciting, because nobody understood what was happening to the coal as a result of the outburst, and I got to study that. All we knew was that the well produced a lot more gas after a cavity completion."

After lunch, we wandered outside. I asked Michelle if she was datable. I've always been proactive, and I didn't want to take the chance of not seeing her again. I had been divorced for almost ten years.

"Not really," she smiled, and then hesitated like she wanted to say more but was unsure. Although disappointed, I had been single long enough to respect that, so I was prepared to leave it there. The silence was awkward for a moment, as we just stood in an ancient courtyard listening to a bubbling fountain surrounded by tall, colorful hollyhocks.

What Michelle said next blew me away.

"I'd like to explain something ... I am a coangel," she said out of the blue.

I just stared at her, surprised and a bit confused and wondering what to say.

"Okay, I can guess what the name means, but please tell me more."

"One reason I'm here is to understand better what it's like to be human."

I stroked my beard as I digested this, and she continued, "I will be teaching a class in heaven called Human Dynamics. The Lord suggested that I spend some time down here to broaden my knowledge. So that's what I am doing."

We strolled through the garden for a few moments, in silence except for the chatter of sparrows.

"I have a proposition for you. If you agree, we shall take several hikes, and on each hike, we will share experiences. You are intelligent and thoughtful, with an appreciation of nature as well as the accomplishments of science."

I could easily spend more time with this smart, intriguing woman and unwrap some of the mystery ...

"I am flattered to be invited," I replied honestly. "But what is Human Dynamics all about?"

"It means the study of humanness, or what it is like to be human."

"Wait a minute, I'm missing something here. Why do you need to teach a class in heaven about humanness?"

"Well, there is a push to send more coangels to earth to assist humans, because it's the end times and serious things will be happening."

"But don't you know all about humanness? After all, Jesus spent thirty-three years down here."

"Yes, but coangels are not omniscient ... we don't know everything ... so we have to learn about humanity."

When we left the garden Michelle asked, "Do you have time to visit the Loretto Chapel?"

"Of course. I have seen it several times but never tire of the story."

It was only about a ten-minute walk. We entered the church and joined other tourists marveling at the miraculous staircase. It's a spiral staircase that rises about twenty-five feet to the balcony at the rear of the church. It isn't wide, not much more than one person in width, but it is architecturally beautiful.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Hiking toward Heaven by Ian Palmer Copyright © 2010 by Ian Palmer, Ph. D.. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Chapter 1. In the Arroyo....................1
Chapter 2. Santa Fe....................9
Chapter 3. In the Jemez Mountains....................19
Chapter 4. In the Superstition Mountains....................32
Chapter 5. Down the La Luz Trail....................47
Chapter 6. The TWA Crash Site in the Sandias....................61
Chapter 7. Canyon del Oro....................72
Chapter 8. Up on the Mawson Plateau....................87