In an episode of Everest: Beyond the Limit, we see two climbers come down with what is known as Summit Fever. They are a mere three hundred feet or so from the summit, but they are running low on oxygen. There is no way that they can get to the summit and return without running out of oxygen. Their leader orders them to turn back. He pleads with them. He points out the dead body of a climber who also tried to push himself too hard and is now laying frozen dead in the snow just off of the path.
But the climbers ignore him. They can see the summit. A view from the cameraman gives us their view up the mountain and the summit does look like just a quick hop away, but the view is a lie. It will still take them another two hours to summit and they do not have the oxygen to get them there and back.
Still the men climb.
Watching the episode, I wanted to scream at the men, “Turn back!” How could they be so stupid? But even on bottled oxygen, the -40 degree temps and thin air have turned their brains to mush. They can't make complicated decisions. They can only see the summit.
It is a fascinating lesson on recognizing our own limitations.
When I was a teenager, I taught myself to juggle one day. My mom was at work. I was bored, so I started juggling first two tennis balls and then three and then two in one hand. I was pretty good at it, but I never did master anything more than three balls at a time. Add a fourth into the mix and everything would go horribly wrong, tennis balls slamming into each other like asteroids out of control leading to a cataclysmic end of the universe scenario.
I exaggerate. Still it wasn't pretty
Lately, I've made no secret of the fact that I am finding it impossible to juggle work, seminary and church, each of the three requiring not just time, but dedication, wholehearted dedication. Each thing requiring that I give not just time, not just energy, but my heart and my soul. And I can't get away with only giving a part. Each demands a whole.
It has left me with a mess, with nothing in my life flowing in a way that seems beautiful and perfect and right.
And so I turn to Thomas Merton's prayer. I think we should call it Thomas Merton's gift. He begins the prayer with this: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going.”
I thought I knew, but like the men trying to summit Everest I may have woefully overestimated my abilities to get there and what looked like the end was much, much further away than I had guessed and the road there far more treacherous than I had realized.
Merton continues, “The fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so … but I believe the desire to please you does, in fact, please you … therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.”
We have to trust. We have to trust God. We have to trust the people he sends to us, even when they say things like “slow down” or “turn back.” Because trusting God when He holds us back means that when He sends us forth, we will move, knowing without a doubt that the very breath of God is at our back.
I have no idea what to do next. I have no idea how to make order out of my life.
So all I can do is pray.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I’m going.
