Lyfting Me Up

The most destructive fire in America, on the eve of our nation’s 250th birthday, is the Aspen Acres Fire southwest of Pueblo. It has consumed more than 105 square miles and continues to grow. One of its first casualties was Horseshoe Lodge in Beulah.

Beulah Mountain Park was built in the early 1930s by the WPA. Its style and construction were classic, a lasting witness to how our government responded to the Great Depression. The lodge was aptly named. Each arm of the horseshoe held dozens of bunk beds with a large common bathroom. The basement housed the dining hall, while above it was a great room complete with a dozen full-length mirrors salvaged from a fun house. There were at least four ping-pong tables and a wide front porch that seemed designed simply for sitting, talking, and “chilling.”

My sister sent me a video taken by a couple who live in Beulah. It showed that the lodge is no more.

I went to my first church camp there in June of 1961. My parents made me go. I cried all the way there.

“It will just be a bunch of church kids, and it will be boring. There are no horses, no archery, no shooting range. Why are you doing this to me?”

Seven days later I was crying again because I didn’t want to go home.

There I found a connection that has sustained me ever since. I returned every June for the next six years. After my freshman year of college, I even served as a junior counselor.

The video was crude but powerful. There was nothing left but a shell. I cried.

Every couple of years I would drive to Beulah just to reminisce about this alpine oasis only twenty-six miles from home. Pueblo sits in the high desert. You can see the mountains from there, but the transformation that takes place when you crest the first hill of the Front Range and enter the Rockies has always felt like a gift.

As I write, this fire is at zero percent containment. It has now destroyed nearly 200 structures. I know two of the families who have lost everything. At this moment, it is the most destructive wildfire currently being fought in America. Thankfully, there has been no loss of human life, though the animals have not been so fortunate.

Every person interviewed who has lost a home has said essentially the same thing:

“We’re not sure what we’re going to do… I guess we’ll find out.”

The only constant is change.

I remember the philosopher Tom Boyd saying to a twenty-something Mark, “It is a thin thread that holds this all together.” Somewhere along my journey to age seventy-seven—yesterday, in fact—I realized that, in the end, the only two things we truly possess are experiences and relationships.

In 2009 our home was nearly destroyed because of a builder’s negligence and a faulty engineering decision. We literally had to run for our lives. For the next three years we lived like gypsies, waiting for resolution. We called four different places home while most of our belongings remained packed away.

During that season I learned an invaluable lesson about detachment from things and places. More importantly, I became the beneficiary of countless acts of kindness and generosity.

Sometime in the coming year, when the area is reopened, I will drive those familiar roads again. Yes, it will be part of my grief work. But it will also be wrapped in gratitude for the countless times I wandered the Greenhorn Mountains, gathered around campfires, and discovered that some of life’s most enduring treasures cannot be consumed by flames.

Fire can destroy buildings.

It cannot destroy memories.

Onward and Upward,

Mark