There is a myriad of choices of marked trails up Mount Washington. One of
the most popular for youngsters is really a jeep road most of the way, that services
a ski-hut in winter. It’s easy, predictable and boring. Another trail goes
through the woods often following mountain streams, gradually breaking though
several climate zones, until at last you are on an alpine meadow. There at the
junction where trails to other peaks in the Presidential range meet, is a heated
bunkhouse and a small pond entitled Lake of the Clouds. Every spring, sophomores
from Dartmouth plant a “no fishing” sign on its banks and dump in a
couple dozen goldfish, but certainly no one who ever lived by Cayuga’s waters
would ever be fooled.
However, it is on the
smaller, less popular spur trails that have no huts or amusing signs that provide
the most satisfying climb. In good weather, the summit of Mount Washington can
be clearly seen in the calm of early morning or at dusk, but during the day, the
wind soon kicks up and the summit is usually obscured by clouds, broken by momentary
panoramic views illuminated in bright sunlight. On the less traveled paths often
you begin walking in the deep shade of canyon walls, and as you ascend, fog and
clouds begin to swirl around your feet and your face feels sprays of cold mist.
The pines begin to look like ghosts, whose trunks slowly reveal the trail markers
only one at a time. When you get above the tree line, stone cairns mark the trail,
appearing as silent chimneys rising over ancient ruins. You have no idea how high
you have climbed or how far you have come, but then a bank of clouds clear, and
for a few minutes you see the green valley of North Conway below, or an abyss
of wilderness, or even the summit in full sun. Again the clouds sweep in and you
go on, trusting that if you follow the trail it will lead you to an even grander,
more spectacular view.
I don’t know why
the world seems so divided or our society’s members seem to be so intensely
in each other’s face. You would think that plane travel, cell phones and
the Internet, all wonders of technology that have linked us so closely, would
have led us by now to a deeper understanding of each other rather than a more
deadly confrontation. Perhaps our insistence on speed, on instantaneous results
and definitive/decisive action has something to do with it. We all are so powerful
and we don’t know what to do with it. We in our culture, extensively plan
and look forward to Super Bowls to decide, once and for all, a true champion.
A tie would never be permitted. It would be considered unthinkable and the greatest
of betrayals.
What strikes me, as the church
prepares for Lent and wraps up the celebration of the wonderful disclosure of
God’s love for humanity, is that the lessons for this Sunday tell us that
God doesn’t provide us with an easy path that confirms what we already think
we know. The revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai did not clear up or definitively
settle disputes among the people. The transfiguration of Jesus to three close
disciples on the top of Mount Tabor opened up more questions than answers. After
the experience of Mount Tabor, the disciples more than ever were not sure where
Jesus was taking them. They began arguing and fighting among themselves. Jesus
never was a decisive leader in the sense the disciples’ hoped for or people
clamored for.
In one sense what Sinai and Tabor
revealed was how much more people of faith need to learn, and how much farther
they need to go. To be sure, God’s revelations are not meant to build suspicion
and confusion, but they do serve in invite us to earnestly search and dig deeper,
not to be satisfied with our own preconceptions of this moment. God intends us
to grow. God invites people to think rather than lulling them to sleep. The way
of discipleship is not a broad, steadily rising jeep road to a broad sunlit meadow
where a warm hut will be waiting. When our path of discipleship has become boring,
we need to take a different trail!
Millions
around the world will be waiting to see who wins tonight. We might ask ourselves
how much difference will it make three months from now. The same question could
be asked of so much of what we claim to be important in the world. Yet once again,
as the people of faith enter the season of Lent, God invites us to take trails
the world would spurn. True, they are smaller, more difficult, and we might have
to go slower, rest more, and not get to the summit as fast, but in choosing them,
their overall effect persists in our memory, and strengthens our real self in
a way no easy path can. Ah yes, I’m sure it was on such a trail up Mount
Washington that, for a brief moment, I had a glimpse of the ocean, shining off
the coast of Maine. I never knew I could climb that high. At least that is a vision
that continues to affect me, as some thirty-eight Super Bowls have come and gone.
