Spiritual Observations from 14,000 Feet

If you take a summer drive through Eagle County, Colorado and look to the south, Mount of the Holy Cross -- with its 14,005-foot peak -- reveals itself in full splendor. The mountaintop is famous for large summer snowfields, one of which forms a distinctive cross. In the late 1800’s, William Henry Jackson published a picture of this so-called “Holy Cross,” subsequently drawing thousands in pilgrimage to this site.

When I first saw Mount of the Holy Cross thirty years ago, something about its beauty beckoned me to the summit, and recently I decided to give it a try. I invited a friend to join me and along the way made some observations about risk, guidance, nourishment and reward.

Observation #1: Staying Alive Includes The Risk of Failure.
William Carey, the famous British missionary, once said, “Attempt great things for God: Expect Great things from God.” There is something refreshing and good about applying ourselves to endeavors that require God’s help to succeed, endeavors which attempted with only our own strength are sure to fail. The thrill of such a daunting summit attempt lay in very real possibility of failure. Approaching endeavors beyond our own capacity, ventures which rely on God’s help to succeed, injects an important dose of vitality into our lives.

Scripture is full of examples. When God appeared to Moses, God said, “Go down to Egypt and free my people from slavery!” Moses responded, “I can’t do that. I stutter. I’m not good at speaking. Besides, I murdered someone down there.” Yet God’s call remained. When God said to Jeremiah, “Go speak a word of truth to power. Remind them they are to worship me alone.” Jeremiah said, “You sure you want me? I’m just a boy.” Again, God’s call remained. When God commanded Amos to speak a strong word of justice, Amos was understandably nervous. “But God, I’m just a tender of sycamore trees.” Still God’s call remained. Max Dupree once said, “Never insult a leader with an easy job.” And God never does. When we accept the call to something bigger than ourselves, we are released from the false sense of self-sufficiency, led into a spirit of humility and trust, and emerge with a fuller measure of life.

Observation #2: Travel with an Experienced Guide

After numerous mishaps and near disasters in my outdoor adventures, I finally subsumed my pride to common sense and hired a guide. The guide granted my friend Stephen and me all kinds of freedom to hike according to our desires -- stopping when needed, pausing for pictures, answering questions – and he inserted himself only when necessary to save us from harsh consequences born of inexperience.

His value was evident from the outset. The temperature was 25 degrees colder than anticipated, and at the trailhead he opened his well-stocked trunk, inviting us to grab any extra equipment we needed. He also insisted on walking sticks, unnecessary on a 6,000-foot ascent, but essential aids on a descent navigated by fatigued minds and legs. He also insisted on sunscreen which we didn’t need at 15 degrees in the dark of morning, but was essential to our health a few hours later when we stood under a cloudless sky at 14,000 feet.

Perhaps most importantly our guide provided an intimate knowledge of the landscape. Much of the terrain lacked distinction, making it easy to drift a few degrees left or right, such that over time we would have been significantly off course. On this particular hike, just a few hundred yards of drift led to dangerous cliffs from which many previous hikers had required rescue. Thankfully, our guide had solid points of reference, made small corrections along the way, and got us to our destination safely.

The same is true for the spiritual journey. Wise spiritual guides can keep us from drifting according to the landscape. They can set points of reference, offer a seasoned read on the terrain, and share knowledge of the contours of the hills and valleys because they’ve been there before. If we walk with a trusted guide, we can receive small correctives for the journey and avoid a potentially harrowing and expensive rescue.

Observation #3: Start Early Because Storms Come at Mid-Day

We hit the trail at 5:00 am, the launch time for all guided hikes, because storms start to brew at the summit around mid-day. Even the most inexperienced hiker knows the worst place to be during a lightning storm is at the summit, only halfway through your hike. Safe refuge is hard to find, wind blows strongest, rain pelts hardest, and navigating the way home can become very difficult if not downright unpleasant.
The same can be said for our lives: Illness, teenagers, mortality, addiction, marital strife all the threatening storms of life start flashing their lightning about mid-way through. The wisdom of a challenging hike holds true in the spiritual life as well. Our ability to endure storms is largely dependent on how far we’ve traveled, our comfort level on the trail, and our knowledge of safe hiding places along the way. If we want to end our journey well, we must start early, because storms come at mid-day.

Observation #4: Hydrate or Die

When hiking at altitude, dehydration can sneak up on anyone, with devastating effect. Physical weakness, diminished cognitive ability, and even altitude sickness are more likely when a hiker is dehydrated. At altitude, hydration is more discipline than desire. Successful climbers drink before thirst and eat before hunger. On our climb, we carried as much water as possible (120 milliliters each), carefully measured our intake and stopped to compensate if we ever fell behind.

The parallels to the spiritual life are obvious. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says,

"But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." Jn. 6:35

Ministry leaves little appetite for personal spiritual hydration. We pray for others, study for presentation, and worship as a form of work, but that does little to hydrate our own spirits with living water. If we're not careful, we get behind, start to feel weak and experience diminished cognitive and emotional ability. Dehydration of our spirits quickly leads to a loop of spiritual/emotional doom from which it's very difficult to escape. Experienced hikers know you have to drink before being thirsty, to hydrate as practice instead of feel.

Observation #5 Stop and Enjoy the View

On the way up the mountain, Stephen and I were so invigorated by the challenge we fixed our sites on the summit and set out quickly. Our stated goal was simply to summit, but a secondary goal was to finish in less than seven hours, a feat accomplished by an elite few. We ascended at pace, took short breaks, and snacked as we walked. At the summit we celebrated briefly, ate lunch, took a few pictures, pulled out our walking sticks and headed down.

Nearly half way down, serious fatigue began to set in. Knees ached, calves burned, and Advil lost nearly all its magic. Our guide saw the staggering and again offered valuable input. “I need to pull over for a minute and change socks,’ he said. “I’m getting some blisters.”

We gladly obliged his need and sat down on a rock. He took his sweet time, slowly unlacing his boots, air drying his feet and scrounging around in his pack for a fresh pair of socks. “Look up at that mountain.” he said. “Can you believe you did that?” We glanced up at the gleaming summit and enjoyed a moment of accomplishment.

“Don’t you want to change your socks too?”

Come to think of it, we did. We sat a bit longer, changed, and got re-oriented to the remaining portion of the journey. We moved much more slowly now, down the mountain, out of the sun, into the wooded portion, and after only forty-five minutes came upon a stream. Once again our guide said, “I need some water. In fact, why don’t we all fill up?” Off came the packs, out came the water filtration system, and we sat by the stream as the fresh water supply slowly filtered into our packs.

Re-loaded, we trudged on even more slowly, and on the final leg climbed through a switchback to a clearing. “This is the last full view of the mountain,” our guide said. “Let’s just enjoy it for a while.” We stood in silence, admiring the majesty of creation.

When we are young and ambitious, it’s difficult to slow down and enjoy the journey. But, without proper pacing, we become fatigued, start aching, and begin to trip and fall, sometimes in a disastrous fashion. When we stop to appreciate the view, take in the beauty along the way, and pace ourselves appropriately, we not only enjoy the journey but invest in a more successful completion.

Growing Beyond Boundaries

One of the joyful surprises of aging is learning to relax into new forms of spirituality. It’s small consolation for knees that ache and hips in perpetual lockdown but the inward ease of spirituality in the second half of life calls to mind the “fountains of living water” Jesus describes. I’m not sure how it happens, maybe through the same processes that turn hair gray and injuries permanent, but after years of seeing a world of scarcity where only the strong survive, I find suddenly an intensified beauty to the journey, a delicacy to life, and a sacredness in sharing it with others.

We don’t start the journey that way. When initially making our way -- be it in faith, career, or relationship -- we mark our boundaries, establish evaluative measures, and carefully circumscribe everything about us. Earlier in my life I cared deeply about things like membership numbers, race times, and savings account balances. These days, my focus has subtly shifted toward quality conversation, experiences shared with loved ones, and the joy of a growing faith. This shift must be what Ken Wilber meant when suggesting that the spiritual journey always begins elitist and ends egalitarian.

The problem is that the boundaries needed to sustain the constructs of life’s first half often ignore the spiritual needs of the second half. At some point – especially in the realm of faith – we become less interested in whether something is practical, revenue generating or efficient and long for something to touch our souls, to feed our spirits, and allow spacious room to breathe.

That’s why Jesus found boundaries terribly uninteresting. They were too limiting, ultimately insufficient for the spiritual needs of God’s people. Instead, Jesus saw the larger whole, the both-and way of faith, and trusted in God’s goodness to work out the boundaries. So he said dangerous inclusionary things like, “My Father’s sun shines on the good and the bad, his rains fall on the just and the unjust.” Or, “Don’t pull out the weeds or you might pull out the wheat along with the harvest.”

Today we see a broad movement toward messy spirituality, boundary-less, undefined spirituality. This movement is manifesting itself largely as a rejection of ‘organized religion’ (whatever that is) and the Church that represents it. Some church leaders bemoan this movement, fight it at every turn, and even do things like embrace Latin liturgies and ancient creeds to plant a stake in the ground against it. I’m occasionally tempted to join the chorus that offers vigorous declarations demarcating our boundaries. How else can we be sure not to drown in a sea of competing ideologies? Besides, the sanctuary is the only realm where clergy still have a touch of control.

But I wonder if it would be wiser to listen to these spiritual but not religious, boundary-less anti-institutional people. I wonder if they’re rightly calling into question the focus of our faith and encouraging us to grow into more mature expressions of Christianity, faith that is less competition with those outside our tradition and more cooperation, less critique of those who think and act differently and more collaboration on our shared values, less attack on the perceived ‘other’ and more appreciation for the divine in us all. I wonder if the ‘spiritual but not religious’ movement isn’t a God-given catalyst to those of us affiliated with Christian faith to move beyond the boundaries of the first half of life that no longer serve us well and into the God-breathed beauty of the second half, even if we can’t control its outcome.