A review by liralen
Blind Courage by Bill Irwin
3.0
When Bill Irwin set out to hike the Appalachian Trail, few people expected him to complete it: missing one eye and completely blind in the other, he was reliant on (well-honed) instinct and his guide dog to navigate more than 2,000 miles through the wilderness.
Now...what the book description doesn't tell you is that Irwin isn't actually all too interested in discussing his experience of hiking blind. He's much more interested in the fact that he'd found religion at some point before he set out on this hike, and he's very very very keen on introducing you the reader to the idea that Jesus Christ looked after him on his hike, and if you just hand your life over to (Irwin's version of) God, etc. etc. etc. It's...not what I'm interested in in terms of reading about a thru-hike, but if it worked for him, sure! Fine. But I'm a little sorry to see what reads to me as a limited interpretation of 'good':
A couple of years before, I would have agreed with all the folks who saw something like that as a wonderful coincidence. A lot of thru-hikers call it "trail magic."
But I had come to believe that there was no such thing as coincidence. I liked the definition of coincidence as "God performing a miracle while maintaining His anonymity." (loc. 642)
It had to be more than coincidence that these people had been there, so gracious and willing to help, right when I needed them so much. (loc. 693)
I knew the Lord was in charge of this situation, but it didn't make any sense. Why was I stranded in a cabin on top of a mountain when I could have been making good time on a trail just a few thousand feet lower? (loc. 2610)
To each his or her own. But, augh, I want to unpack these ideas that 1) if people are kind, it must be God's intervention (how sad to think that people can't just be good people!) and 2) if God is in charge, that should mean that things go to plan...I'm thinking of that story (parable? whatever) about the man whose house is flooded—a boat goes by, and he rejects the help, saying that God will provide; a helicopter goes by, and he rejects help again; etc. And then he dies and goes to Heaven and asks God why he died, and God is like, dude, I sent a flipping helicopter. So—shouldn't it be intervention enough that just when the weather is terrible and unhikable, lo and behold, there's a weathertight cabin right there? (Sigh.)
And in other news, some quick notes:
Warren Doyle's A.T. weather prediction for a thru-hike was: 80% of the time it's either too wet, too dry, too hot, or too cold; 20% of the time it's just right. He said the sooner we got used to the fact that only one day out of five would be good weather, the happier we'd be. (loc. 1850)
Best typo/error I've seen in a while: Hikers kidded a lot about the weather, but it was no joke. A plague in the summit house on Mt. Washington recorded the names of 115 people who had died while hiking in the area. (loc. 2252)
I got the biggest kick from the little girl [in a class that wrote him letters] who wrote: "I'm glad that you're almost done with that trail. It would not be fun to walk 20,000 miles."
She was the first person who knew how long the trail felt to me. (loc. 2995)
Now...what the book description doesn't tell you is that Irwin isn't actually all too interested in discussing his experience of hiking blind. He's much more interested in the fact that he'd found religion at some point before he set out on this hike, and he's very very very keen on introducing you the reader to the idea that Jesus Christ looked after him on his hike, and if you just hand your life over to (Irwin's version of) God, etc. etc. etc. It's...not what I'm interested in in terms of reading about a thru-hike, but if it worked for him, sure! Fine. But I'm a little sorry to see what reads to me as a limited interpretation of 'good':
A couple of years before, I would have agreed with all the folks who saw something like that as a wonderful coincidence. A lot of thru-hikers call it "trail magic."
But I had come to believe that there was no such thing as coincidence. I liked the definition of coincidence as "God performing a miracle while maintaining His anonymity." (loc. 642)
It had to be more than coincidence that these people had been there, so gracious and willing to help, right when I needed them so much. (loc. 693)
I knew the Lord was in charge of this situation, but it didn't make any sense. Why was I stranded in a cabin on top of a mountain when I could have been making good time on a trail just a few thousand feet lower? (loc. 2610)
To each his or her own. But, augh, I want to unpack these ideas that 1) if people are kind, it must be God's intervention (how sad to think that people can't just be good people!) and 2) if God is in charge, that should mean that things go to plan...I'm thinking of that story (parable? whatever) about the man whose house is flooded—a boat goes by, and he rejects the help, saying that God will provide; a helicopter goes by, and he rejects help again; etc. And then he dies and goes to Heaven and asks God why he died, and God is like, dude, I sent a flipping helicopter. So—shouldn't it be intervention enough that just when the weather is terrible and unhikable, lo and behold, there's a weathertight cabin right there? (Sigh.)
And in other news, some quick notes:
Warren Doyle's A.T. weather prediction for a thru-hike was: 80% of the time it's either too wet, too dry, too hot, or too cold; 20% of the time it's just right. He said the sooner we got used to the fact that only one day out of five would be good weather, the happier we'd be. (loc. 1850)
Best typo/error I've seen in a while: Hikers kidded a lot about the weather, but it was no joke. A plague in the summit house on Mt. Washington recorded the names of 115 people who had died while hiking in the area. (loc. 2252)
I got the biggest kick from the little girl [in a class that wrote him letters] who wrote: "I'm glad that you're almost done with that trail. It would not be fun to walk 20,000 miles."
She was the first person who knew how long the trail felt to me. (loc. 2995)