Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
What Goes Down . . . Must Come Back Up

What Goes Down . . . Must Come Back Up

Last updated on: March 28, 2019 at 6:16 am by Vance Morgan

What Goes Down . . . Must Come Back Up 2019-03-28T06:16:24-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today’s Psalm invited us to go to the mountain of the Lord–which reminded me of a hill-climbing event that I wrote about when on retreat not that long ago . . .

PREPARATION

“Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord,” asked Psalm 24 at Vigils this morning. Psalm 24 is a “Psalm of Ascent,” one of a group of songs scattered throughout the Psalms that scholars tell us were sung by pilgrims as they ascended the hill to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. “Who shall stand in God’s holy place?” “Those with clean hands and pure heart,” continues the Psalmist, answering his own questions as usual. “Those who desire not worthless things.” Clean hands, pure heart, and not desiring worthless things are pretty demanding qualifications for ascending the mountain of the Lord, I thought, except that I’m already on the mountain of the Lord.

I ascended an eighteen-hundred foot steep incline from US 1 to the New Camoldoli Hermitage in my rented Toyota Yaris thirty-six hours ago, cautiously climbing the two-mile long, one lane switchback drive, hoping that no one was descending the mountain of the Lord at the same time. So I’m up here already, with relatively clean hands, probably not a completely pure heart and wishing occasionally for something worthless like wireless service so I could check my blog or cell phone coverage so I could call Jeanne.

A few hours later at ten o’clock, having just finished a new essay and feeling very centered, focused, productive, and smug, I was poking around the hermitage bookstore thinking that I should get some exercise if the fog lifts, since I am missing a week of regular torture at the gym. Good idea. At the front of the bookstore, chatting with the register-tending monk, was a woman named Aelish (a retreat-going name, if I ever heard one). “I think I’ll walk to the bottom and back later,” said Aelish. “That’s an excellent suggestion,” thought I. “I think I’ll do that this afternoon as well. Who shall descend the mountain of the Lord? Me!” Bad idea.

“Well duhhh!” I hear you saying. “Didn’t you just say that the road to the top of the mountain is two miles of switchback road climbing eighteen-hundred feet up a very steep incline? Don’t you know that what goes down must come up?” Yes, despite my college degrees I do know that, but I’m in reasonably good aerobic shape for my age, am just about at target weight, thanks to losing a few pounds due to an eating regimen my wife put me on, and if Aelish, who is undoubtedly older than I am, can do it so can I. (Note to self: stop assuming that people with white hair are older than you are. You have white hair and undoubtedly have more wrinkles on your face than Aelish).

By early afternoon the fog had lifted, but it was still cloudy and cool—perfect weather for descending the mountain. What to wear? It had been so cool in the morning that I had put my one sweater over the one other long-sleeved garment that made it into my suitcase. This was my long-sleeved t-shirt, a Christmas present from my son. On the front and back it says “Sons of Belicheck” and “Foxboro,” these texts framing a picture of the Grim Reaper on the back with his sickle dripping blood held in one skeletal hand and a football in the other. Down the left sleeve it says “Men of Mayhem.” Really. You have to be both a New England Patriots fan and a lover of “Sons of Anarchy” to get it. These items, along with black denim pants and my “Woof” baseball cap, and I was set. I stuffed my digital camera into my pocket and off I went.

DESCENT

The trip down was beautiful, the mountain rising steeply on one side with strange trees and flowering plants hanging on for dear life and the vast Pacific on the other, with spectacular rocky coast stretching in both directions. I stopped every fifty steps or so to take a picture; during one of these stops Aelish went rolling on by, throwing a nod in my direction. As I walked I wrote the last paragraph in my head of the deep and profound essay I had started last evening after Vespers, hummed the catchy tune of the “Te Deum” that concluded this morning’s Vigils, and was generally thankful for and pleased with my place in the universe. The muscles in the back of my calves tightened up a bit as I neared the bottom of the decline and Route 1; “I’ve heard that going downhill is harder on the legs than going up,” I thought, “so if that’s all the pain I feel, I’m in good shape.” About one hundred yards from the end of the road, I met Aelish beginning her walk back up, breathing slightly harder than when she passed me earlier. “I’ll bet I pass her on the way back up,” I thought as we nodded once again.

ASCENT

After a brief breather at the bottom of the hill, I turned to ascend the mountain of the Lord, first taking a picture of the hermitage greeting sign on US 1 and the cross behind it (I’ve seen larger crosses on the front lawns of some of the Baptists I grew up with), as well as the sign twenty feet up the drive pleasantly announcing “Chapel . . . Gifts . . . 2 Scenic Miles,” with an arrow pointing straight up between “Chapel” and “Gifts.” In retrospect, it would have been more accurate to copy the saying over the gates to Hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Have you ever noticed that the return half of a round trip to an unfamiliar destination and back always seems shorter than the first half? Not this time. Five minutes into the ascent, the bratty little kid who lives in my brain was asking “Are we there yet?” After the first switchback curve, I tried to convince myself that there were only two more of them, although I knew for sure there were four. My shins started wondering what the hell is going on, while several thousand black flies and gnats in the area got the word that copious human sweat was available and decided to check it out. The ocean vista on one side might as well have been a landfill, as my awareness of scenery narrowed to the apparently endless incline in front of me.

The sun, which had been taking the day off, decided that now was a good time to make its triumphant return. “Jesus Christ,” I muttered with anything but reverent intent, as I tied my sweater around my waist and rolled my “Men of Mayhem” sleeve up along with its mate on my right arm. Is that a blister forming on the end of my fourth toe on my right foot? Shit! “I can’t even call anyone if I have a heart attack,” I thought, “since I didn’t bring my phone along.” Oh wait—it wouldn’t matter, since there’s no freaking cell phone service around here. Four very large birds starting circling high overhead—probably vultures waiting for the inevitable.

“I don’t even have my wallet with me. I can see it now. They’ll find me dead in the middle of the road without identification. Someone will say ‘I think I saw him at noonday mass,’ and they’ll wonder if I left a contact number with the hermitage office for my father Belicheck, since he will probably want to know that his son croaked ascending the mountain of the Lord.”

As I rounded the last switchback and the hermitage was finally in sight, I heard a car poking up behind me, the first vehicle ascending the mountain since I began my return trip. “Want a lift?” the habit-less jeans-wearing monk driving the car asked. “No thanks—I can use the exercise,” I said pleasantly with a holy retreatant smile. “Go to hell,” I thought. “Where were you forty minutes ago?” Within one hundred yards of the finish line, I passed a roadside bench on which the guy who was in back of me at noon mass was sitting. “Turned out to be a beautiful day, didn’t it?” he asked. “Sure did!” I responded cheerily. “Go f–k yourself,” I thought. “You wouldn’t be so pleasant if you had just ascended the mountain of the Lord.”

As I passed the chapel on the way to my room, Aelish emerged and smiled at me. I’m sure she had received spiritual direction, said special intentions for someone, written five letters, an essay, and done fifty pushups in the time between her return and mine. I smiled back, and thought “Go . . .” Well, you know what I was thinking. I understand now why so many of the Psalms are crabby and negative—it’s tough work ascending the mountain of the Lord. But at least I got an essay out of it.

Previous Post

March 26, 2019

Complicated Truths and the Challenge of Being Good

Next Post

March 30, 2019 Sports Fanaticism as Spiritual Practice

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz