Wisdom Chaser: Finding My Father at 14,000 Feet

by Nathan Foster

Publisher:

IVP Formatio

, 2010

Overview

It began with a simple question:”One day I found myself asking my father, across the chasm between us, ‘Hey Dad, you want to climb the highest mountain in Colorado?’“And for Nathan Foster and his father, Richard, that simple question changed everything. With no hiking experience to draw on, they embarked on a journey of physical challenge, discovering just how far they could push themselves. For Nathan a parallel journey took him inside himself.Having grown up in the shadow of a famous father, Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline, Nathan had a lot of questions about who his father really was. Would hiking open the door for him to get to know this distant figure?As the one-time experiment evolved into a decade of challenging hikes up Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks, the Fourteeners, Nathan navigated his twenties—finishing college, choosing a career, a possible cross-country move, the early years of marriage and a major personal crisis. Along the way he would discover exactly what his father could offer him.This book also includes an afterword by Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline and coauthor of Longing for God.

Contents

1 It Never Hurts to Ask
2 The Beating on Mount Ebert
3 The Quandary of Dreaming
4 Finding My Pace on Mount Quandary
5 Time: Love’s Allegory
6 Freedom to Fail
7 A Much-Loved Nothing
8 Humility Is For Losers
9 On False Summits
10 Freedom to Question
11 How Do You Celebrate Discipline?
12 Living in the Moment on Long?s Peak
13 Sometimes the Dragons Win
14 Accepting Things I Cannot Change
15 Rising and Falling to Assumptions
16 What’s in a Name (The Tale of Skippy and Pete)
17 Choices on the Continental Divide
18 Electric Air on Holy Cross
19 Beauty Beyond Imagination
20 Walking Each Other Home
Afterword: Lessons from the Final Fourteener
Acknowledgments

Praise for Wisdom Chaser

"This superb relational story takes readers of all ages through the grandeur of the Colorado Rockies and the peaks and valleys of the son of a famous Christian author who didn’t know or like his father. As they strive for mountain summits, they learn about one another on the trail.This is a true-life adventure of physical and emotional risks, touching topics of familial love, pride, failure, and conquering life’s obstacles. Foster reveals his personal struggle with alcohol, drugs, and marriage. Church life is discussed at lenth: ‘What people so despreately need today is space, stillness and attentiveness. What so many churches major in are busyness, hurry and noise.’"

"Deeply engaging . . . unsparing . . . gem of a book . . . readers . . . will be grateful for its insights, humility, and tenderness."

"Son and father, Nathan and Richard Foster, set out to climb Colorado’s ‘fourteeners’ together. Wisdom Chaser is poignant and winsome as successive mountains deepen for each, the son and the father, what it means to be a son, to be a father. Add mountain climbing to your list of spiritual disciplines."

Product Details

• Title : Wisdom Chaser: Finding My Father at 14,000 Feet
• Author: Foster, Nathan
• Publisher: IVP Books
• Publication Date: 2010
• ISBN: 9780830879496

About Nathan Foster

Nathan Foster is Assistant Professor of Social Work at Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan where he's surrounded by a mess of really rich, insightful people. He's also been a counselor and served as director of Door of Hope Counseling and Consulting (Arvada, Colorado). Through his counseling work Foster has realized that one of the gifts we get from walking with people through their suffering is a vision for common themes in the human experience. The honest and authentic tone of his writing draws from this place, and he hopes readers will find pieces of their own story embedded in his. With much of his life filled with an ache and longing for deeper connections to others, yet paradoxically shrouded with a fear of being known, Foster aims to connect with people who've had that same struggle in this book. In his down time, Foster enjoys chasing silence and quiet reflection, usually by riding 60 to 100 miles a week on his bike. He sees his primary ministry with his wife and kids, so he works hard to show up and be present to them. A big fan of stories, he's found that relationships (and what we can learn from others) inform as much of his thoughts as anything, so works to carry the stories of others with him.