For Now, There is a Mountain

Prologue: I have been writing this blog post since July (no pressure, reader.) I even posted it a month ago and then deleted it in a fit of self-doubt, because it felt unfinished. The piece feels unfinished because it is unfinished; I shall keep musing on mountains and journeys and struggle and valleys until I die. However, there may still be something to say in the meantime, and since a friend graciously preserved two wee lines from the hastily-deleted post on his facebook wall, I have the opportunity to rebuild around what may have been the only two lines worth remembering anyway.

Here goes.

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An unexpected thing happened during the Presbyterian church service I attended last Sunday. As we concluded the congregational prayer, rounded the corner of the final hymn and looked down the home stretch into what would surely be the benediction (given the fact that we were Presbyterians), the pastor paused in a moment of genuine, extemporaneous, Spirit-led reflection and said, "If anyone has a word or song to give the congregation from the Spirit, please feel free to share now."

And lo, a woman in the balcony uttered in a resonant voice that carried from narthex to nave:

"The Lord says: you were on a mountain and now you are in a valley, and I have put you there. You will be on the top once again, but for now, there is a mountain to climb."

The words transported me to the top of Twisp Pass in the North Cascades, where I sat this summer and watched the day light empty from the pale, overturned bowl of the sky. In the twilight the mountain peaks were turned to black knife edges, and the starkness of their jagged form was at once desolate and lovely. I thought of the trek my friend and I had completed that day, of a long slog through the forest, of mosquitoes clinging to the backs of our legs, of a heavy pack and an empty stomach and swtichback after switchback after switchback, and it seemed to me that it was all worth it. To be in the high country, to be washed clean by alpine air, to contemplate the agelessness of granite-- this was true delight.

It made me wonder if the best things in this life are the hardest to get to. Perhaps the greatest exaltation results from the most struggle. What if the richest relationships, the deepest joys, and the most contentment arises amidst perseverance through weariness, heartbreak, uncertainty, pain and disillusion? I am not certain that the converse is true, and that something by virtue of being difficult will be good. Some valleys are just valleys. Or are they? If God is going about His business of redeeming the whole sorry lot of us, maybe every drop of blood and every tear is fashioning a new earth so indescribably glorious that we would crumble to dust if we saw it now. Maybe.

What I am trying to elucidate is the different between seeing oneself on a hamster wheel, and seeing oneself on a journey to a summit. For the person in the latter circumstance, there is the hope that sometimes we may find ourselves on a way that is steep and winding, yet leading to something beautiful. One day we shall be on the top again, but for now, there is a mountain to climb.