Several years ago on a family vacation, we stopped at Crater Lake in Oregon and saw this awe-inspiring view of Wizard Island.  Actually, “we” didn’t see this view — “I” was alone in seeing it quite this way.  From the guard rail, I could see just a hint of the turquoise coloring in the water on the near side of the island.  Driven by an intense desire to see more of that unique coloring and the hope of creating a beautiful picture, and armed with a youthfully foolish sense of invulnerability, I proceeded in slick tennis shoes, beyond the guard rail and across the sloping and ice-glazed snow field.  I felt a false confidence from not having slipped even once, and thus turned a deaf ear to my father’s impassioned pleas for me to stop going forward.

 

The resulting image was pretty nice, but not worth risking my life.  Of course, at the time, I didn’t recognize the real risk in what I did; it would have taken only one slip on the ice and there would have been nothing to stop me from meeting my end at the bottom of the slope.  My father surely recognized the danger, and he later described experiencing a jolt of electricity coursing through his body.  Now that I am a father, my perspective has changed, and I can easily imagine having similar physical and emotional feelings upon seeing any of my children do what I did.

 

Crater Lake and Wizard Island are a beautiful site, and I’m glad to have photographs of it.  But the joy of having this photograph has always been tainted by the guilt of what I put my father through and, in recent years, that guilt has been compounded by a more keen awareness of how dangerous (reckless) that was.  I took a serious risk and my “punishment” was gaining a nice photograph.  Certainly, that wasn’t a fair outcome and it isn’t the kind of punishment that brings about attitude-changing remorse.  In this case, a fall would likely have resulted in my death, and there would have been no opportunity for me to apply the learning from my mistake.  I cling to the hope that my children will do better in following their father’s counsel better than I did in following my father’s counsel.

 

Through great mercy, I managed to survive my youth, and I’ve come to realize that sometimes parents really do have the better perspective.