Sacred Crossroads

Ugh y’all the tension of being in between the current state of affairs and a new promise. Living with expectation yet still stewarding your life as is until that expectation comes to fruition. I find it so challenging.

I’m writing this in a bathing suit, sitting on my towel and eating guacamole. I have truly nothing profound to say or a deeper meaning to share. This is probably where I feel the most vulnerable. When I'm just a human. Not articulate and smart and deep but a little hungry and writing from a place of “I guess this’ll do.”

I just read an article (linked here) about a woman stuck at 22,000 ft with a broken leg and nearly no hope of survival. Someone has already died attempting a rescue and the world is watching as her resources dwindle. If you read the comments, every other one is condemning this woman’s choice to attempt the climb. “Maybe this is a sign humans aren’t made to mountaineer” and “why risk your life when it isn’t necessary” and “this is her bed, now she lies in it” essentially. I find the lack of empathy and never ending opinions that add nothing to the conversation annoying. People sitting in their AC, eating a bag of chips and judging others (just as I’m doing now, the Holy Spirit is quick to point out.)

When Alex Honnold attempted his famous free solo, there were a lot of similar comments. People voicing their distaste at his own selfishness in risking his life, especially when there was family and a girlfriend to consider. His friend, and another prolific climber, Tommy Caldwell, wrote an article on the climb in Outside Magazine. There’s a quote there that has always stuck with me:

“I don't claim to understand the inner workings of Alex's mind, but I know one thing for certain: Alex climbs to live, not to cheat death”

To live. To be in line with calling and purpose and live for something beyond our doubts and fears. Most of us don’t know what that’s like. Our lives are dictated by our conditioning. Hold the spoon of oil at all costs, haul the bucket and tend the resources and guards ourselves against the unknown. Be in control.

It makes me think of this time in college when I was far more fearless than I am now. I was climbing nonstop and doing a number on my body. My coach mandated a rest day for me so naturally I picked up trail running. It started with 6 miles, then 10, then 12. I see now my inability to be still as a need to escape myself. To outrun the fear. The past. Insert something deep and insightful here, I just don’t have it in me right now.

The point is there was a cliff I would always pass on one of my favorite routes. I remember eyeing it and thinking “I could solo that.” I started mapping the route as I ran by, something more out of amusement than an actual plan. It was roughly 100ft. Had good holds and two ledges you could stand on. Easy.

The more I ran by it, the more I felt drawn to it. Until one day I stopped. Just ten feet up, I told myself. Let’s test the holds, see what the rock is like. It was sandstone, not my favorite, but the pockets were deep. Before I knew it, I was halfway up at the first ledge. The distance down was the same as the distance up, might as well climb the ledge. Mantling without a rope or spotters was exhilarating. I stood on the ledge and admired the view. Then realized my mistake. I couldn’t climb down the ledge, the choss and angle made it impossible. F***************. The only way out is through. Adrenaline pumping. Hands shaky. I climbed the last 50 feet including a mantle at 90 ft up. “If I’m on the news tonight, I’m gonna be so pissed.”

When I reached the top, the adrenaline dissipated. The shaking stopped. I felt exhilarated but it was quiet. grounded. present.

I reached something I had been running towards without realizing it. Full embodiment. Conquering fear and realizing something I wasn't sure I was capable of. The power of being out of control and making it to the other side.

I don’t recommend you free solo and for most people, climbing 22,000ft into the air is not feasible. But I get it. We test fate not to cheat death but to live without the fear of it. To acknowledge it as we march past, undeterred. To live free of our conditioning, to overcome our basal instincts. To embody something higher than sheer survival.

I am at a crossroads right now. Though I’m not interested in the physical challenges that push us towards a higher presence, I do feel a hunger to live in the way I felt at the top of that cliff. To conceptualize something great and bring it to life, the Facebook commenters be damned.

I am also seeing how it is something out of my control. I have to abide daily and trust the path laid before me by someone greater than I. Master the tension of uncertainty. Of presence when the present circumstance is far from the promise. I have to call into my life the embodiment of faith and live by it, not in theory but in practice. Live the dance.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9

I feel there’s more to say but I’m late picking up my little guy. More soon. x

Continued —>

A couple weeks ago a friend dropped off a gift his mother had made me for Roman’s first birthday. We sat and chatted about life and faith (and planes) and mysticism. We also talked about free choice. Hearing God’s voice. What the narrow path really means.

And I told him what I genuinely believe.

I believe we have free choice. We can choose the direct route or the scenic route. The direct route may get you there quicker but the scenic route is a bit more beautiful. We can choose the rocky path where it hurts and we stumble but you learn a heck of a lot more. We can choose the river, give up all control and float forth in serendipity.

Visualize a bunch of different parallel paths, none of them the “correct” path, spanning before you where your daily choices and values determine your way. Then imagine all of them converging at a single place. This place is where you will come to no matter which path you choose, it is something meant for you. An inevitability.

I’ve been praying over my own fear a lot this year and lately I keep hearing the same line:

“You cannot mess up or miss what is meant for you.”

I think this is true for many things. For love. Vocation. Faith in many ways.

But what about the people who never see their dreams come to fruition you ask? What about the people who live lives completely separate from this fate of sorts?

Great questions.

I think some people sit down. The fear and uncertainty and need for control over takes them. I think the only way to miss the map of your own soul is to stop moving forward. Some people are so overcome with the need for certainty, they go backwards. Out of survival, they build a makeshift home in a cave along the way and sputter at the cold and the uncomfortable daily familiarity and never follow the true journey back home.

And more so now, we have billboards along the path advertising different caves. Big caves. Oceanfront caves. Beautiful caves. But gilded cages nonetheless.

Beyond the fear of uncertainty and desire for control, we have been conditioned to crave the cave. (t-shirt design idea? We’ll put a pin in that for now)

The way I choose the images for these journal entries is entirely based on gut. Sometimes they’re my own photos but most of the time I scroll through stock images until I get a gut feeling that I’ve landed on the right one. For this entry, I expected to pick one of my old climbing photos or a stock image of someone on a ledge.

I was a little surprised to pick the person walking through the desert. Footprints behind and no discernible path ahead. But maybe that is closer to what this life is like. It may start with paths but then they slowly fade. The closer in intimacy to God you become, the farther into the wilderness you get. And there are no paths. And even if now you would like an oceanfront cave along a well-worn path, there is no going back. You’ve climbed the ledge. The only way out is through.

So terrifyingly and with a touch of exhilaration, you tread forward. You become thirsty and unexpectedly stumble upon a spring. You become lonely and randomly meet another wilderness explorer. Someone who mercifully gets it. Every need is met through no grand effort of your own. And you begin to trust. To enact faith in a different kind of way. A soft way. A way that doesn't perform but embodies the scripture as a living breathing mechanism. You become something unrecognizable to the cave dweller within you. The one within all of us.

All this to say, I think this sacred tension I’m feeling is because I am just below that ledge. I see it, I can touch it. But I’m not quite at the point of follow through. I just know that I will, sometime soon, tread forward where there is no turning back. That this little life will change.

I am holding on to the wall with every bit of strength and with every expectation of the view above. And you, good friend, have everything within you to change your circumstances too. There is nothing within another that is not also within you as well. If you want to live differently, you can. Just move forward. And more than anything, trust that still small voice.

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.” - Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux