Our first Hill Walk

Being the mountain snobs that we are from Colorado, we didn't think much of the feats of the "hill walking" group at Holyrood Abbey when they invited us to join them for their next walk. Even when a fellow American clarified that "hill walking" means actual hiking, we didn't feel too intimidated by the proposed climb. We were glad to join them and looked forward to getting out of the city, getting some outdoor exercise, and exploring some of the Scottish Highlands.
It turns out that the excursion was much more than a walk up a hill after all! It was a decent climb - we ascended about 3,000 ft. to reach the summit. The scenery was very much what I pictured for the highlands - smooth, green hills with sheep scattered all over the the land. When we met up with the group for our early (meaning 8:45am) drive up to the hill, I felt very confident that we were going to be fine when I saw what the group was wearing - sweats, tennis shoes, and rain coats. What we didn't know was that they all had a change of clothes in the car that they donned before we started climbing - 100% waterproof gear from head to toe! They even had gaiters to wrap their ankles and calves in to keep water from getting into their shoes. We had our rain coats with us, and I had work out pants and waterproof hiking boots, but Tony had khakis and a pair of day hiking shoes (not waterproof). Worse yet, our friend Ryan was in shorts and a pair of tennis shoes that had holes in the soles!

We soon came to realize that the waterproof gear was not just necessary due to rain during our "walk". The highlands receive so much rain that, even though the hill is relatively steep, the entire surface is pretty much a bog and is holding tons of water in the plant life that covers it. Each step causes water to squish out and go over, then into your shoe, unless of course you have gaiters covering your shoes! All of this water made for a very slippery and muddy climb, and an even more slippery and more muddy descent. Tony took several big slides on the way down and managed to cover his shoe completely with mud! (It's still sitting out on our balcony, waiting to be dealt with.)
The closer we got to the top, the colder and windier it became. I nearly blew over several times, and I couldn't imagine how cold our friend Ryan must have been in his shorts if my legs and fingers felt like ice inside my pants and mittens! We were delighted to find a stone shelter at the top that was the most inviting haven I've seen in a while. We ate our lunches in the shelter from the wind and occasionally stood up to enjoy the view before the berating wind forced us back down. We were supposed to get up on top of the cement post in the middle to have our picture taken as a first-timer, but I'm certain I would've blown off so we settled for pictures next to it.
We took one group shot up at the top before I was too cold to stay around any longer:
As we descended, the weather cleared up quite a bit and it turned out to be a nice afternoon. The scenery was gorgeous, the sheep were adorable and when we reached the bottom we turned to see this rainbow behind us - the perfect finish to the hike.
As I was climbing up the hill and it was getting colder and windier, I tucked myself further and further into my raincoat. I eventually had my hood on, zipped over my chin, with the sides fastened down so tightly that my face was barely showing. I was so desperate to get to the top that I kept looking up to check my progress, and I was advancing at about the same rate that time passes during a particularly long speech at a particularly long program in a hot school auditorium in Peru. I finally quit looking up and just focused on each step that I was taking, trying to fill my mind with other things than the distance between me and the peak.

As I was going up, I started reflecting on our current situation here in Scotland and the many questions we're throwing around about what the future holds for us. Lately we've been so overwhelmed with the possibilities and unknowns of the next 5 years that it's been a bit hard to focus on what we're here to do. I tend to learn well through narrative and metaphors, so naturally I started to reflect on some similarities between my current state of anxiety and my present climb to the peak in front of me. I have been spending a lot of time praying that I would be able to trust God with our future plans and all of the risks, implications and uncertainties that go with it. I've been trying to develop a discipline in turning my anxieties about the future into prayer and a new focus on the present moment we've been given. So as I realized the need to quit looking at the top of the hill and focusing on the fact that I was going nowhere quickly, I was again reminded of the importance of taking my focus off the next one, two...five years, and instead focusing on what's been placed before me. I'm sure some motivational speaker could have gone through that same experience and developed an inspiring talk about the importance of keeping your eye on the goal and not losing sight of the top of the mountain, but for me the lesson was in focusing on the here and now, not fretting about what lies ahead or how quickly we can get there.