november 2008 newsletter...
greetings from india...
This month, I discovered that I didn't understand the term "pilgrim" when I decided to call my newsletter Pilgrim in Reverse. I had this great idea that, while most pilgrims go looking for Truth, Truth has found us. We move against the flow, sharing this wonderful Truth, this shockingly good news. I still frame my task in the same terms. Strangely, though, when I thought of being a pilgrim in reverse, I didn't imagine what the journey involved. I imagined the final destination of heaven and rest and intimacy with God that we're pointing towards. But as you know (all too well, I suspect), we're not there yet. In fact, we can't even imagine our destination accurately.
November began with the week-long hike I mentioned in my last newsletter. We spent the first three days hiking up to a small lake, Dodital, that lies at the bottom of a semi-circle of fiercely steep peaks. After resting on the fourth day, we sat around the fire discussing the early morning "hike to the ridge" planned for the next day. Only my father had been up to the top before, and he sat quietly listening. Some girls begged to be released from this torture. Others argued that the hike should be optional. Eventually, I snapped angrily that these mountains were beautiful, that they'd all have to hike to the top, and that they'd have to like it! I might also have added some other unkind words, for which I later apologized.
The next morning, we set out at dawn. The ridge looked immense and immensely steep. We stumbled along in the cold half-light, hopping from rock to rock criss-crossing a narrow mountain river. After about an hour and a half, we stepped out into a beautiful meadow glowing in the morning sun. The ridge looked so close, and a flock of snow-white pigeons flitted back and forth in front of us. I thought, "Why did Dad say this was difficult? It's less than we've done any other day!'
The meadow kept going for another half hour, then forty minutes, and I finally noted that the two leaders were tiny specks far above us. And they didn't actually look any closer to the ridge than I was. Oh. The meadow became a gravelly track winding upwards, and after another half hour, I found my legs turning to jelly, and breath a little harder to come by. I had caught up to my Dad and we moved together. It was the strangest sensation: You walk about five steps and literally feel you're about to collapse with exhaustion. You stop. In ten seconds, you're refreshed, but die again after only a few more steps.
So, we moved onward and upward slowly. It took yet another hour before my Dad said, "Oh look, Franklin made it to the pass and he went left instead of right! Everybody does that, because it looks so inviting." We yelled, gesturing wildly, and pointing towards what looked like a rock slide to me. Two hundred yards, and we stepped out into the pass ourselves. Directly in front of us towered an enormous snow peak...and my eyes gravitated immediately to the left, just as Franklin's had. After all the rocky, craggy paths we had walked up, here was, miraculously, a gentle pasture that cloaked the entire top half of the mountain. I wanted to lie down instantly and never get up. To my right-in the direction where my father indicated that we needed to walk-another gravelly path, this time dotted with snow, led into the shadow of an ominous looking black rock.
I took a deep breath and several pictures, and wearily nodded that I would follow him. I wondered what could possibly be better than that pasture. After walking in the shadow for a couple minutes, the rock slide came into view, complete with a foot-wide track across it. Dad was already on the other side. By this point, my legs were visibly shaky and refused to obey my mental instructions to walk out onto the path. Then I made the mistake of looking down at where I could potentially fall. The rock slide just kept going and going and going. Another deep breath and short pep talk with myself followed. I don't think I breathed again till I made it to the other side.
Beyond the rock slide waited the final half-hour scramble up a loose-rock trail. I almost sat down a few yards from the top, feeling that my body just couldn't go any further. But then when I first stepped out on the ridge, I felt some of the truest shock and awe I've ever experienced. The twin snow peaks of Banderpoonch loomed directly in front of me, and ranges and ranges of mountains cascaded out in every direction. Dodital, the little lake, gleamed like a fallen jewel in the valley below us. I never understood the power of the destination until I reached it.
The rest of the month, I've found myself returning gratefully to that morning, and wondering at the way God gives us such blessedly concrete images of what it means to live here on earth as a pilgrim, journeying to a destination of which we only have hints. I wanted to take the time to try and communicate the experience with you as best as I can, hoping you'll meet God through it the same way I did.
The rest of November has passed in a blur. I had the opportunity to share devotions in the High School Assembly one morning, so I talked about life as a path, trying to share a little of the same truth with the students as I am with you now. For Thanksgiving, about 15 students and 6 or 7 faculty came over for a potluck-style dinner. The menu included ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, apple pie, and beef jerky? Doritos? Tuna? Students proudly brought what they could, and it actually was beautiful.
I am thrilled to have finished writing four different exams. Now only two weeks of school remain: one of classes, the other of exams. I'm looking forward to some family visiting, and a break of about six weeks in Delhi, before the new semester starts up in early February.
In this season of Advent, may you find in Christ your Way, your Truth, and your Life.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Amy