When We Get Too High

I had been talking about different "scales" of evaluation for the world in a group project recently and found some of the group members becoming too academic. It seems they frequently fall into a mindset that to save the world they they must remove themselves from it while contrarily the gospel tells us to still be "in the world" while simultaneously "not of it".
So anyway, a good point I still see here is that God has left us on earth for a reason, not taken us at our moment of salvation and submission to Him as Lord, so let's be in the world. We've been up to the heights but just like Moses, we must come down....hopefully faces shining bearing words of the Lord. Here you'll see I say we can go too high, I know it won't directly apply to you readers, but maybe it will be interesting to you anyway...some insight to my life and the project either way.

So here begins my rant.

There is another type of scale I’ve not  yet mentioned, the type of “scale” you would use to climb a mountain. It is interesting because when I imagine one approaching an obstacle, be it wall, fence, or mountain, the first thing one does it “scale it up”, meaning, give it a good look and determine, is it feasible to mount and move up and over? Once the obstacle has been “scaled” by the eye, the actual movement must occur. Be aware, however, that in many cases, the object of focus is not actually an obstacle but instead a desired look-out place, a “high place” that carries a purpose to climb in its own.

So if in this case the object was an obstacle, once “scaled” one can continue upon their journey, see their environment from a higher perspective, reach the other side, and carry forth.
But in the case of the object being the goal, a mountain-top-moment can be had. The significance depends upon the individual, or though I’ve not yet mentioned it, the group of individuals, but the point being the view has been seen, the mountain crossed over, the caves and crevices explored, the hidden valleys played in, the silent deer observed, the fresher air breathed, and the heavens made that small bit closer as the grandeur, the “scale”, of it all is taken in.

But of course, can it all really be taken in? Or do the details and realities become a little more obscure, a little smaller, and a little easier to ignore? The ragged marks humanity tears into the world and each other become less terrifying when we travel high enough. Perhaps it the the purity of air we are simply unaccustomed to that lightens our heads, or perhaps it the fog and clouds of the mysteries we are not usually a part of that haze our view, but to take those “high” experiences and apply them to the place we know of need we must come down. If we do not, we shall soon forget the valleys and plains we left, the common places that are not the mountain, and need tending to.  To forget these worlds will mean also to forget the amazement at the mountain.

When tarrying too long on the mountain, surrounded in the beauty and wonder we lose touch with that world we’re from, instead of sojourning we become stagnant. At this point we are the decay of the mountain rather than the “salt” working as preservers to the earth.
There is one final thought to consider. To have climbed the mountain is an accomplishment. Rocks crags and inclines are not easy to traverse. It takes time and work, it means becoming covered in the makings of the mountain as you go and abandoning the structures of your ordinary abode to make bed in grasses beneath the stars…grasses you share with hundreds of other creatures, many of which you do not know. Climbing the mountain is not always comfortable, but it is good. And when the trek has been made it is an experience to tell and share. It is an impressive experience, one many choose not to endeavor for.

I ask now, what if one had taken a rocket? Journeyed to the moon, blitzing past the hills and mountains, piercing clouds, and splitting atmosphere to land on that pearly sphere that circuits us?

You would have an experience, that is certain. You would have been higher than any mountain climber had ever been before, and would have been chosen more selectively than the one that decided to climb the mountain. You would have been beyond the mountaineer, and in a faster more radical way. But should you sit down with one that had scaled a mountain and compared your journeys, I think you would find your experiences in lack.

Reading you may think I am comparing things that ought not to be compared, the man who climbed the mountain had an entirely separate venture than the one that shot to the moon, and to this I say, yes, precisely.

Their ventures were separate, and no astronaut should claim to know a mountain. He may have been beyond it and seen the peak where it lay in the collection of ranges and how it integrated to the landscape of that continent when compared in its stretch beyond nations and timezones and all the constructs of man…but the fact remains, he does not know the mountain. And he cannot until he has chosen to be humble, and take it on. To be humble is to have accurate picture of oneself in the scheme of what is bigger, that means an awareness of both the good and the bad. The failings and the victories, but all these from the sight of the Creator, who’s forces move make and maintain all that is with-in and with-out.

To make change upon our world we must be mountaineers not astronauts, and good mountaineers at that. The ones that go up, and observe and sign to memory the beauty and wonder of what is beyond but come back to share that, and guide others up the mountain as well. We must be good in that we do not hide in the hills and separate ourselves, only to let other qualified mountaineers get past our door, but rather go out, seek, knock for ourselves upon other doors and invite, teach, and guide and show the things that are bigger and that we in our words cannot possess.

We cannot be astronauts, because, let’s face it, not everyone can hop on a rocket. But the experience of the mountain can be had. It is not a matter of settling, but a matter of knowing what first we can do.