Standing in the Gap for Oregon

Mt. Jefferson Confess  your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.  James 5:16   As a young adult I traveled with my family in the spring of 1974 to the mining claim of family friends somewhere up the Santiam. To this day I’m not quite sure where we were, or how we got there. After a picnic, their teen children invited me and my brother to take a hike, leaving the elders at the tiny cabin. At first it seemed a normal mountain hike up a ridge, but when we reached the top I realized we were climbing a rock dike or sill, very steep on both sides and so narrow at the top we could straddle it to look at the view. And what a view! Across a small valley was Mt. Jefferson, so close it seemed you could touch it, but distance is deceiving when looking at a 10,000-foot mountain, and it was miles away. That night the snowcapped mountain was all I could see when I close...