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Originally Posted by CaramonLS
Please, do tell.
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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO TEXTCRITIC
~ 16th Revised Edition; Translated from the Original by a Divinely Selected Group of 70 Spiritually Endowed Experts ~
In Summer 2001 I was backpacking with 5 friends in the Big Elbow region—at least, I think it was in the Big Elbow region. While there for several days, my party set out to explore Burns Lake; which is situated atop a waterfall, and surrounded on three sides by sheer faces of stone and steep slopes of skree. There is only one way in and out of Burn's Lake: following a loose path of small boulders up the precipitate face to the right of the waterfall.
We reached the lake in the late afternoon, and were pleased to find a group of campers relaxing on the lakeshore and fishing. They were four in all; an anonymous and friendly group of adventurers from Calgary, who had come to the lake for a weekend of bad fishing, good camping, and a liberal supplement of alcohol. My companions and I explored the high valley for a brief period of time, and then converged on the shores of the lake where the others were fishing for some good conversation. We chatted for several minutes; all quite oblivious to the time and our surroundings, when I distinctly heard one from out of the group say: "Look over there." We all at once noticed a very large male grizzly bear approaching from the only point of entry to the valley.
All of us, to a man responded in the highly rational fashion by turning quickly and running as fast as each of us could for the saftey of the inhospitable skree. As we clambored up the boulders, the bear encroached upon the abandoned fishing gear, and consumed the meagre and boney Rocky Mountain prizes on the shore. He lunged towards the boulders where we perched apprehensively, but determined shortly that we were not worth the trouble, and ventured towards the tents of our nameless cohorts. He stayed there.
After nearly an hour of gathering our wits and attempting to determine an appropriuate course of action, one of my friends suggested to the other party that they leave their gear and head for home. the bear had made the unpopular decision to spend the night, and none of the others were much in the mood for a battle over sleeping arrangements with a grizzly. Two from the group bravely returned to the shore of the lake (which was close but quite out of site from the grizzly's new found abode), and returned with a set of keys, which they determined would be necessary for the drive home.
We managed to blaze a new, and much more hazardous avenue for descent from the valley, on the other side of the waterfall.
It was once upon the trail leading home, that our discussion surrounding the events of the past hour, or two, or four became animated and charged with adrenaline. What was particualrly frightnening of the experience, was that none of us had noticed the approach of the giant bear; he seemed to float noiselessly but with confindence into our vicinity. No one noticed, that is, not until our attention was drawn by the disembodied voice of the man behind us; he who beckoned us to see..."Look over there..." He who spoke so clearly and with such composure, but whose presence none of us could account for. We—ten in all—heard the voice; we all responded, and yet we all remain at a loss to explain its origin.
I am a firm believer that our experiences with God will occur in the obscure, the unexpected, the unspectacular moments of our lives. But that amid those subtleties, when the finger of God touches us in a fashion that defies explanation, it is the scourge that drives our faith. I have little doubt that another man could find a way to reduce my experience to something which might conform to a rational explanation; but I doubt very highly that I could accept it or find it to be more plausible than this: That I was amid a collection of friends and strangers who ALL quite perspicuously heard the audible voice of the Divine.