“We do not want merely to see beauty though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it…At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door.”
–C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Eleven high school boys and their Young Life leader, all from Houston, TX, blindly follow my guide partner and I as we trudge across Microwave Bowl, a mile or two of flat glacier at the base of Mt. Albert before the summit push goes slightly more vertical. Divided into three rope teams, we navigate through a whiteout. We have enough visibility to see about the distance of a rope length. When we stop for a drink of water, the boys’ leader looks around, and proclaims (with a charming Texan lilt), “Ok. This is the most surreal thing I have ever done.”
These guys come from a wealthy neighborhood in Texas. None of them have ever done anything like this before, and it is likely they never will again. Life is rarely like this–tied into rope teams, navigating around gaping crevasses, practicing how to stop yourself with an ice axe as you slide backwards headfirst down a snow slope, walking faithfully behind a couple of dudes you just met who promise you they know what they’re doing as you march your way through the white fog.
Rarely is the sense of life’s risk so palpable, the trust so blind, and the goal (and it’s reward) so voluminous and obvious as summiting a mountain. Just a few days and about 8,300 ft prior, these guys were stepping off a boat at sea level.
All week, we have been sharing life stories and looking at what life and community might look like with Jesus at the helm. These guys are pretty aware of the pressures being put on them back home, but the time up here makes it vivid and obvious. There’s a phrase that gets used among students at their school: “The Stratford Cookie Cutter,” named after the cultural mold of school and community that divides their future into specific shapes to be baked into place like doughy cookies in an oven.
On this trip, for the first time in many of their lives, perhaps, they are experiencing real connection and community. They wonder aloud to each other why they treat each other so poorly, speak so unencouragingly to one another. They are weary of partying, of only being known on the surface, of flimsy relationships with girls, of being pushed from behind to become the next purveyors of successful lives defined by “good” jobs and material success. And they are so ensnared–their personal brokenness, the brokenness of their friends, the brokenness of their greater community back in Texas.
With all distractions stripped away and the real-time adventure of the mountains, it’s easier to see life, God, and ourselves in better light. We see this in Matthew 17, when Jesus leads Peter, James, and John “up a high mountain” and before them is transfigured–his face shining like the sun and his clothes a dazzling white. Up on the mountain, the disciples are getting a glimpse of who Jesus really is, without distraction, in fuller glory. Peter declares, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” He suggests setting up some dwellings to stay even longer.
But we cannot live on the mountain top. As mountain guides at Beyond, we try to help our groups think about the tough transition back to the valley. We process what it means to take the clarity of the “mountain top experience,” the shining face of Jesus, back into the chaos of normal life. As Jesus and the disciples descend the mountain, he orders them to “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” The mountain top experience is not the permanent manifestation of new life, but simply a glimpse of the beginning of its glory. Now, with the summer over, it’s time for us guides and basecamp to practice what we preach.
Separated from the palpable, physical adventure, it’s difficult to know what this looks like. At the dock, I’m greeted by my car which has a flat tire and no discernible trace of oil on the dipstick. Later, when I get wifi on the ferry, my phone blows up with texts and I make the horrible mistake of looking at my email inbox. In Spokane, I’m greeted by ideas, habits, obligations, and relationships, which I’ve left piled up like my things in my friend’s garage for the summer, collecting sawdust, and it’s time to dust them off and get things back into their right place again.
It’s hard to know if the experiences that my groups and I had are “real” and if we can trust that they will have any real bearing on our lives. Surely they will. But things are not so clear down here. I’m imagining my Texas boys back home, almost halfway through their senior year already, hoping that their experience this summer was true but unsure how to keep it going. I picture this, because this is what I’m questioning in my own life.
And I was the GUIDE!
In my own brokenness, I confess my doubt that anything in their lives will really change, or that anything in my life will really change.
In this tension lies the Christian life. We are promised glory, to be welcomed into the heart of things. And indeed, through Jesus, it is already given to us. And yet, we wait for its completion. We see in Romans 8:
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
So here we are, back in the valley, visions of glory burned into the memory of the heart. I’m unsure of what comes next, but I trust God’s imagination for the future much more than my own. I do not hope for what I see in front of me, but for what I do not see. And I wait for it with patience
