Ponder: "he that hath not suffered, what doth he know?"

“One of the early Fathers said, ‘He that hath not suffered, what doth he know?’   There is a lack even of knowledge in the one who has not dealt rightly with some kind of suffering.  Some people are never themselves till they have had great sorrow.  Sorrow must enter in.  It is not the final thing.  But something has happened to human beings, so that now it is an absolute necessity.  Some impurities have to be washed away by suffering.”

Vincent McNabb, OP, The Craft of Suffering (1936), 37-8.

Risk and Character Along the Billy Goat Trail

In the Sound of the Bells column, from the Potomac Almanac, 26 Jan., 2017.

New Year’s Day was bright and sunny, and my sons and I decided to start things off right with a hike along the C & O Canal towpath.  We weren’t the only ones with the idea, and after finally finding a place to park, we ambled down a hill to find the towpath packed with bikers and dogs.  After about a quarter mile of steering my five-year old out of the way of potential collisions, we were pleased to see a dirt path leading into the woods toward the river.

A few paces in we discovered ourselves on the Billy Goat Trail.  I’d been told about this trail before, the haunt of thrill-seeking ramblers for over a century.  But this was our first encounter, and after about an hour’s journey, my sons and I are definite fans. 

We loved the views of the river, of course, and climbing and descending the hills.  The boys are still talking about walking along the face of the cliff, and climbing from rock to rock (the spaces between much better suited for a goat’s hoof or a kid’s shoe than my floppy boots).  They clambered over some rock outcroppings, shimmied up a log, found a rock slide, even dipped their toes in the river.  Such a trail demands a walking stick, my seven-year-old insisted.  His brother claimed to spot a short cut, which landed us, laughing, in a clump of briers.