I just returned in time to write this (a little late, my apologies) from a weekend trip with my two sons that Marti describes as “nothing more than an excuse for men in the wilderness to do a lot of peeing, pooping, and burping.” I take offense with that. She left out farting, probably the most important bodily function in such company. We may have driven farther than appropriate for just a two-night stay (five and a half hours), but I wanted Chandler to experience fishing in a High Sierra lake.

Christopher and I were careful to point out to Chandler that this wasn’t THE trip, a 5-day backpacking trip into an isolated wilderness lake that has become a Fischer family legend, but only a 3-day version to a lake we could drive to. It occurred to me later that all our talk about THE trip, and our tendency to compare this trip to that trip was completely useless to Chandler. He knows nothing about THE trip, he only knows THIS trip, and this trip is now complete with memories and stories of its own.

I wonder how often we do the same thing in relation to spiritual experiences. We gauge one person’s spiritual experience by another’s, or, worse yet, we gauge everyone else’s by our own.

What I missed was the opportunity to put myself into Chandler’s shoes and do whatever I could to make this THE trip for him, because that’s exactly what it was. Putting ourselves in other people’s shoes is one of the most important ways we can care for them. It’s hard to care for someone when you are always working from yourself and your own perspective. For instance, we found out that Chandler doesn’t like trout. That may just rule out THE trip entirely for him. Maybe we have to come up with a new trip. Chandler’s trip.

For now, and for Chandler, this was THE trip with his big brother and his dad, and that is all it needs to be.