Yesterday I found myself talking to rocks.

They did not answer, which was probably best. They had already made their position clear.

My friends Terry and Nancy joined me for a trip into the Beartooth Mountains. We drove through Red Lodge and began climbing the Beartooth Highway, a road that seems determined to demonstrate just how quickly the ordinary world can fall away.

They had never been over Beartooth Pass before.

The highway rose through a series of sweeping switchbacks, each turn revealing more of the country below us. Red Lodge grew smaller. The tree line thinned. Mountain lakes appeared in bowls of stone, and patches of snow remained tucked against the slopes even in summer.

Near the summit, at nearly eleven thousand feet, the landscape became broad and spare. Rock, sky and distance seemed to be the only things left.

Terry and Nancy were in awe.

I understood why. The Beartooth does not simply give you something beautiful to look at. It alters your sense of scale. The mountains make our concerns seem smaller without making them unimportant.

Eventually, we turned onto the Morrison Jeep Trail.

The pavement disappeared, and the mountain began asking different questions.

The trail narrowed. Rocks appeared in the road, then larger rocks, then collections of rocks that seemed to have gathered specifically to discuss whether the Bronco should be allowed to pass.

The Bronco performed beautifully. Its G.O.A.T. modes adjusted the vehicle to the terrain, but no setting could choose the line for me. That still required judgment.

At the more difficult places, Terry would get out and walk ahead. From outside the vehicle, he could see what I could not: the position of the tires, the height of an obstacle and the distance between a rock and the fender.

I would ease forward while watching him and listening to his directions.

At one point, we came to a steep descent. I was confident the Bronco could make it down. I was far less confident it could make it back up.

That difference settled the question.

Because we had Sadie and Chewy (Terry and Nancy’s dog) with us, I did not have all of my recovery gear with me. A blowout or mechanical failure could leave the three of us stranded without reliable cell service and roughly forty miles of mountain road from dependable help. This was also grizzly country, which made the prospect of an unplanned night in the wilderness considerably less appealing.

None of that meant something would go wrong. It changed what going wrong could cost.

So we turned around.

There are places where courage means proceeding. There are others where wisdom means refusing to let confidence make a promise preparation cannot keep.

Later, while easing past another obstacle with my head out the window, I heard myself addressing it directly.

“You’re a very bad rock. You’re bad, bad, bad. Stay away from my fenders.”

It was ridiculous.

It also helped.

We often speak directly to the adversaries in our lives. Perhaps we are trying to keep them at bay. Perhaps we need to hear ourselves say that they are not as large as they first appeared.

Naming an obstacle changes our relationship with it. What had been an undefined threat becomes something specific—something that can be examined, approached and perhaps crossed.

My voice was not the only one I needed that day. Mine supplied courage; Terry’s supplied perspective.

I needed both.

Some difficulties require us to answer the fear within us. Others require us to listen to someone standing where we cannot. Often, the same difficulty requires both.

Terry did not move the rocks. He simply helped me see the next wheel placement.

Perhaps faith works much the same way.

Faith does not deny the obstruction, confuse confidence with preparation or mistake uninterrupted forward motion for courage. It looks honestly at the terrain, listens to voices beyond its own and chooses the next wise movement.

Sometimes that movement is forward. Sometimes it leads back the way we came.

Faithfulness is not measured by direction. It is found in the willingness to trust wisdom, wherever it points.

That day, wisdom pointed forward more than once.

Once, it pointed home.

Until next time,

George

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