QUOTE : I read recently about a man who had breathed the summit air. His trips up the trail began early in his life and sustained him to the end. A few days before he died, a priest went to visit him in the hospital. As the priest entered the room, he noticed an empty chair beside the man’s bed. The priest asked him if someone had been by to visit. The old man smiled, “I place Jesus on that chair, and I talk to him.” The priest was puzzled, so the man explained. “Years ago a friend told me that prayer was as simple as talking to a good friend. So every day I pull up a chair, invite Jesus to sit, and we have a good talk.” Some days later, the daughter of this man came to the parish house to inform the priest that her father had just died. “Because he seemed so content,” she said, “I left him in his room alone for a couple of hours. When I got back to the room, I found him dead. I noticed a strange thing, though: his head was resting, not on the pillow, but on an empty chair that was beside his bed.”3 Learn a lesson from the man with the chair. Make note of the music teacher and the rest. Take a trip with the King to the mountain peak. It’s pristine, uncrowded, and on top of the world. Stubborn joy begins by breathing deep up there before you go crazy down here.