Ketetahi Springs on the northern slope of Mt Tongariro is often used as the gateway to walk the saddle between Mt. Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro. It’s very do-able and has gorgeous views. I began this walk with an intrepid friend who changed the route on the first day. Rather than walk between the mountains he suggest we go straight over the top of Tongariro and down the other side. “It will be easy” are the words that ring in my memory. It wasn’t.
As I staggered down into the saddle and collapsed from exhaustion, he then suggested that seeing it was only 2pm. we should climb to the top of Ngauruhoe while we were there. We did. I died several times in the process.
I loved and hated that experience, yet it remains one of my most memorable.
Difficult journeys don’t always start out that way. One simple decision can turn a pleasant excursion into a dark pilgrimage. No matter how deep our regret, the darkness and difficulty remain - the journey must be seen through to the end.
What we do in these times is of tremendous importance. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed with fear, despair, exhaustion and sometimes deep bitterness and anger. What we want to do is crawl into a small safe hole where we can avoid the weariness and pain of the place we find ourselves in.
However such luxuries are seldom permitted in life and we find ourselves plodding along day after weary day wondering when it will all end.
It’s in times like this that God speaks. You only have to listen to the testimonies of life’s great adventurers to know it’s true. Even the intrepid and irreligious Richard Branson had such experiences. Hopeful words erupted in his heart as a contradiction to his circumstances: “My presences is enough. There is a way out. There are no dead ends. Nothing is wasted. There is peace. You are further along than you think.”
Life’s shadow-filled experiences underline the fact that our control over our destiny is more limited than we thought. Our freedom to choose is hedged by more restrictions than we had believed. However it is true that we retain the freedom to choose our basic mind-set. To believe of not, to choose life or death, to open our minds to the transforming power of Christ who promises resurrection, or remain buried in our disaster. These things we may decide.
New life always requires a bit of death. Often they are small deaths, but deaths just the same. Letting go, relinquishing and trusting again. When we do, we come out from the shadows into the light of new day.
Jesus died to be raised again. That’s the Christian way. Old ways of seeing and believing are relinquished so new and better ways of living unfold before us. If we choose the new, what what could have been a bad experience might just become one of the most memorable.
Digby Wilkinson 2009