Musings

Mere Mountains

"If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." -- Jesus (Matthew 17: 21)

I once stood at the rim of an open-pit copper mine in southern Arizona, and looked down at the dump trucks that carried the ore up from the bottom of the pit. These are trucks so big that they'd barely fit in two lanes of a highway. They were so far down in the pit that they looked like matchbox toys. That alone was an impressive sight, but more impressive was being told that at one time, this vast, deep pit had been a mountain. The spot where I was standing would have been at the base of that mountain, and I'd have been looking up, instead of down.

Orders were given by the mining company's executives, and orders were followed by the miners. The ore was dug, the mountain was flattened, and they kept digging and inverted it into a hole, and the remains of the mountain and the hole were piled up into a long, flat-topped mountain of tailings about a mile away. Somebody said to the mountain: 'Move from here to there," and it moved.

People had faith that they could make small machines that could make larger machines that could make even larger factories to make even larger machines. And they had faith that these really large machines could dig and haul away an entire mountain and move it someplace else. People started with faith on the order of mustard seeds and ended up with faith on the order of mountains.

But why stop with mountains? Why not start with the faith we have now, however weak, and take up challenges grander than copper mining? Impressive as those trucks appeared from the top of the open-pit mine, it is even more impressive when human beings have enough faith to follow Jesus in the supreme adventure of loving even our enemies, forgiving those who hurt us most. Awesome as was that hole in the ground, and the mountain of tailings near it, it is even more awesome, and difficult, to extend appropriate compassion and protection to the most vulnerable people in our midst. It is a marvel to move a mountain by faith, and even more of a marvel when we faithfully and bravely dig into the depths of our our souls to face the demons we find there, and take on the hard work of inner healing.

Faith goes beyond belief in religious doctrine. It's not so much about belief at all, as it is the active application of a hopeful attitude. We can take what little faith we have today and put it to work growing more faith within ourselves and our society, so that we can move more than mere mountains.

A Humbled God

God had it all,

He was on top of the world.

His acronym was listed on NASDAQ,

His identity was managed by a top PR firm,

His handlers kept him at more than arms-length

From everyone else.

But within God was a stirring,

An urge that he could not deny.

There was something he needed

That his money could not buy.

Against the advice

Of his masters of divinity

And his tax accountants

And his media consultants

And his personal trainers,

He concluded that his existential loneliness

Was more than he could bear.

The only thing missing from his omnipotence

Was the love of finitude herself.

His lawyers tried to hush her up,

His board of directors met in secret,

His spokespeople made no mention

Of his little indiscretion

With a certain Mary of

Nazareth

. 

But she was not embarrassed.

What others called a scandal,

She called a blessing.

She went public right away.

She sang, magnificat-ly, freely,

Turning down offers of cash from the tabloids.

Christmas is coming, she said, and soon,

God would have a face

Whether he liked it or not.

God, she said,

Was going to be outed,

And the whole embarrassing truth

About the incomplete creation,

The scandal of evil,

The rot in religion,

And the corruption of power

Would be revealed.

And, to add to the outrage,

This news would be delivered in a manger,

Wrapped in swaddling clothes, and

Would grow up to be a man

Who looked a lot like God.

Which would make it all the more surprising,

Since this man would be being kind and forgiving,

Just and faithful, caring and forbearing.

His divinity would embarrass his Father

Into behaving more humanely

Than anyone would have dreamed possible,

And inspire humans into behaving more divinely

Than they had ever imagined.

Three dark-suited agents

Descended on the manger

To buy her silence with gold and frankincense and myrrh,

And a corps of angels was sent

To sing loudly and drown out her every word.

A team of burly shepherds

Was hired to bounce the paparazzi and the press

Away from the manger door.

But Mary sang on, above it all:

Christmas is coming,

And heaven will come down to earth,

And there will be prophet-sharing,

And truth will begin to speak to power,

And justice will begin to prevail.

Christmas is coming,

And soon God’s little mistake,

His brief fling with mortal me,

Will save God from himself,

And us from him.

Christmas is coming, she said,

And soon God’s old idea of himself

And our old ideas about God

Will fly out the manger window

With the bathwater

And the baby Jesus will remain.

Christmas is coming, she sang,

And nobody and nothing can stop it!

Christmas is coming, and Mary still sings,

Sweeter now, and slow.

The three men have wisened,

And their faces have softened.

The angels merely hum,

And even the shepherds have come inside,

Preparing to meet their humbled God.

The Mossy Compass

Norman Spiker, the scoutmaster of my Boy Scout troop in

So often we reject or deny the usefulness of our shadow side.  We’d rather not even acknowledge our anger, pain, frustration, disappointment.  We don’t want to identify with our bad attitudes and potentially destructive inner tendencies.  Yet it is the shadow side that can guide us when we are lost.  The dark side of our lives can show us the way to go, show us the change of course that will take us in a better direction.  If I can step back and lovingly observe my anger, I can let it direct me to its source, and resolve it.  If I can step back and lovingly observe my pain, if I can calm down enough to let it inform me of its causes and the needs to which it can direct me, there is some chance I can find my way to relief.  Pain is a perfect compass, if I can take the time to watch where its needle aims.

So it is with Christmas.  At the darkest time of the year, when outer lights as well as inner lights are dimmest, we are best able to see the glimmer of the star that leads us to Bethlehem.  If we are able to embrace darkness itself, it can guide us to the wonder that awaits us in the manger.

So if you find yourself stumbling in circles, remember the lesson of Norman Spiker.  Look for the dark side, and let it lead you out of the woods, and into the presence of the Holy One.  Amen, and Merry Christmas!

Columbiana, Ohio, taught me many useful and enduring lessons about nature.  One comes back to me at this time of year. 

Norman would take us on winter hikes in the snow, and on one of them he taught us that if we ever got lost, we should look for lichen on a tree.  The side of the tree with lichen or moss on it faced north, because the north side of the tree got the least sun, allowing the lichen to flourish in the damp of the dark. Now this isn't always so -- there are plenty of trees with moss or lichen all around them, so you can't always count on it.  But in my experience, lichen on trees does provide some help in getting oriented.  This wisdom was much more useful in the flatlands of the Midwest than it is here in California, where we can reckon our location by mountaintops.  But I still smile when I look out my office window and see the moss on the cement wall in front of the neighboring buildings facing the church – moss that faces north, just as Norman told us.  As I write, the autumnal leaves of a Japanese maple glow in the sun behind that wall, while the moss grows in shadow.