Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina
It was but two days ago I returned from a retreat for single Christian adults. The essential message was that it is more than OK to be a single adult in an obsessively couples oriented culture. We were encouraged to view singleness as a singularity, a very special state, even one with special privileges. In the sacramental Christian paradigm, both of the rather empowering speakers reminded us that birth, baptism, taking of the Holy Eucharist, and dying are landmark places on our journeys to be taken alone. This was how God designed our earthly journeys to be.
The mass culture, including the lyrics of nearly every love song, tells us that we are somehow incomplete until we find that perfect person capable of fulfilling our every dream. Alas, there is no such person, as so many tragically learn when their overburdened marriages collapse under the weight of these unrealistic expectations. Those of us who have known nothing but singleness, seek that special other as devoutly as those of centuries past sought the Holy Grail. Many of us travelling solo struggle to realize that we are complete individuals, as created by our Creator.
Paradoxically, both the Old and New Testaments contain profoundly compelling exhortations as to the necessity and beauty of community. Even when we are reminded that the major events of life must be experienced alone, God started out His message to us “It is not good that man be alone”. The wisdom writer of the ancient book of Ecclesiastes tells us that safety, warmth, pleasure, and even increased return on our labor derive from being with another. The great Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthian church that Christian community can only exist when we each recognize our own special personal gifts and freely share them with it. The implication is that being out of community will cause unnecessary losses and vulnerability and that being in community is a catalyst for abundant living. Some ten years later an uncertain author, perhaps the apostle Paul, wrote to the Hebrews an admonition to not forsake the fellowship of the saints. We are again reminded of this essential imperative for the need of community in our lives.
So it would seem that the challenge is seeing ourselves as complete whole individuals, coupled or not, yet in need of linkage to those about us, a difficult balance in an unbalanced culture. My experiences with facilitating depression support and therapy groups reveal that people suffer far more than they need to because they lack the safety and strength that derive from community in its many forms. As an active member of a sacramental church, participation in the community life of my church is an obvious form of community. Yet, it shows up often in some astounding ways that have little to do with the church structure.
I do show up nearly every time the door is open and even times when it is not, but I have found some other important forms of community to complement my sacramental center. For some fifteen years I have been involved in a local community playhouse and have delighted in the creation of oases of laughter and magic for people, many pressured by present-day complex lives that don’t get any easier.
It was in this small community theater about six years ago that I met one of our volunteers, MQ. Most people know her as Joanne; I call her MQ for Magic Queen. She is a full-time volunteer in an elementary school, coordinating a tutoring program for 769 young children trying to figure out how this world works. Some need a bit more help with this than others, and MQ knows how to do this very well. MQ paid the tuition for a special kind of learning nearly fifteen years ago when a brain stem tumor took away her ability to walk or work at her profession of teaching. She knows about special needs and how to relate to those with them.
Every child that enters her Magic Room for tutoring is awarded a paper heart in the color of his or her choice at the end of the lesson. They write their names on their hearts and can attach them to any surface in the room, except the big metallic red hearts hanging from the ceiling. Over the academic year, it is entrancing to watch this putty gray cinder block room in an ordinary school building transform into a spectral wonderland as these hearts accrete on every possible surface within reach of a young child. Some of these kids can reach pretty high, and that is the whole point of the Magic Room.
Having at one time been in a wheelchair myself I learned the hard way the realities of disability and accessibility. It is sometimes very hard to reach high. I have for several years now been quite functional and have resumed my habits of climbing on very high things including Mt Mitchell in North Carolina. This mountain is 6,684 feet high and the tallest thing in Eastern North America. For nearly a year I have been threatening Joanne that I was going to somehow get her to the top of that mountain. I did get her into a hot air balloon in May and she found it a transcendent experience. Being on top of Mt. Mitchell, despite being wheelchair bound, struck me as a powerful visual metaphor of one rising above her physical challenges and limits. I wanted to make this happen.
Well, today was the day to make good on my threat. As it turns out, Mt Mitchell is only five miles from the route I had selected to get us from South Carolina to Pennsylvania for one of those epic Italian Thanksgiving dinners that lasts for three days. I don’t select the shortest way to get to places, lest I miss something important. This late November day turned out to be extraordinarily clear and perfect for a major ascension of a very high place. And so it was that I was to gain an impromptu lesson in the importance of community, even a temporary community that lasts perhaps a mere hour. Much can be done in the space of an hour or the two days of a retreat community
I have a bad habit of over-estimating my abilities and I figured getting Joanne up the tallest thing on this part of the planet would be a piece of cake. Not! I have told her in the past she is probably too trusting. She might have found that out today the hard way, excepting for Divine intervention. Having previously been up this mountain myself on two good legs, I really had not paid attention to those hundreds of very irregular steps made of rocks and logs and tree roots or the loose soft gravel preceding the final ascension. I got her and the chair across that soft loose gravel at nearly 7,000 feet and immediately knew I was in trouble. There is noticeably less oxygen at this elevation for wannabee hulks like me who think they can do anything.
I managed to pop her chair up the first of several widely spaced stone ledges with her trusting me to not drop her into the abyss head first. I managed the first few steps but knew that what I thought was going to be a virtuous demonstration of my virile sympathetic concerns for her transcendent experience was going to be defeated by the realities of gravity and an infinite number of logs, roots and rocks. I was going to have to eventually concede defeat, which males can’t stand doing, especially in front of women. Our ego structures are dependent on being all-powerful facilitators of the impossible.
As I was nearing the realization of this transcendent metaphor crashing down on my wounded ego, two angels appeared to save me from a high-altitude humiliation and to teach me about the increased return on shared labors via shared community effort. Most angels are named Gabriel, Michael or the like. These two were Jason and Shane. They didn’t show up in the standard white robe garb and wings, rather green sweatshirts and camouflage pants. I think God wants to get us past some of this stereotypical stuff we fall into.
These two young healthy men/angels offered their services to make that, which I could not do alone, possible as a shared effort. That infinity of logs, rocks, and roots was reduced to a manageable obstacle. Joanne exercising major fortitude of trust allowed the three of us to lift her chair and carry it up to the highest place within thousands of miles. We arrived on top of this great mountain rather winded, but aware that a cord of three was not broken and we had ascended safely. Joanne ascended in her sedan chair with a smile, greeting a lot of bewildered hikers. I am certain most of these sane people wondered about the mental stability of one who would drag a wheelchair bound friend to the top of the planet.
Without these two angels showing up I would have had my ego destroyed and probably killed Joanne in the process and been committed to the nearest psychiatric unit for evaluation for anti-social behavior that endangered the life of a crippled person. I would have then probably gotten free room and board, courtesy of the Department of Corrections for voluntary manslaughter.
I was spared this dire scenario because a community of four formed for the space of an hour. I was able to get Joanne up the 80 stairs in the observation tower myself where she emerged on top to a view that took her breath away. She was basking in this vast vista of a thousand peaks while I was secretly wondering about a thousand stones, rocks, and logs I was going to have to get her back down. I figured our angels had gone on to other realms and were going to leave me to deal with gravity and the rough terrain on my own during the descent. I learned angels and those in community finish what they start. We returned to the bottom of the observation tower and those two camouflaged angels were waiting, knowing I wasn’t going to pull off the descent without killing MQ.
We safely traversed that infinity of rock and root and descended to level solid terrain. I would not be eating hospital food after all, by the grace of God.
As it happened, on the drive up to Mt Mitchell from the Blue Ridge Parkway, we were listening to a Barbara Streisand tape and the lyrics from the song “Higher Ground” caught our attention. “Hold me safe, take my heart to higher ground. I have walked too long in darkness. I have walked too long alone. I would trade the wealth of ages for a warm hand to hold.” These words resonated with us as we anticipated literally climbing to the highest ground around. What I had not quite caught yet was that it was only in community all things are possible. We reached higher ground because four of us shared the space of an hour. As it turns out angels have e-mail.
We stopped at the ranger station to use the facilities and while there fell into conversation with two older women who were out roaming around on this fine cerulean day in the mountains. They made it clear they had no intention of climbing up on top of that big rock we had just come down from.
These women told of us of an experience they had in the Grand Canyon with their husbands watching a sunset that left them absolutely stunned. The only problem was that normally it is dark when a sunset finishes its flamboyant outburst of color. The rim of the Grand Canyon is not a place one wants to be walking around at night in total darkness unless one is interested in a single last opportunity for free flight into a six thousand foot abyss. The freefall flight might be grand but the landing would ruin the overall experience.
As it turns out the group had not thought of the mundane things of life – like a flashlight. As it happened, four other nearby people were also gawking at this spectral outburst and as frequently occurs, God protected the foolish and ill prepared. One of the group of eight happened to have a tiny key chain penlight and with this tiny speck of illumination this small community was able to safely back away from the edge of the vast darkness and live to tell about it. For but a few minutes a tiny community of eight found life instead of death on the rocks because they shared what little they had and trusted and depended on each other.
As Barbara Streisand so aptly sings in the song “I believe” we heard going down the road from Mt Mitchell, “I believe some where in the darkest night a candle glows. I believe for every one who goes astray, someone will come to show the way.” And so it was with a community of eight in the Grand Canyon and a community of four on Mt Mitchell.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment