Exercise...
Today is the last day of the first month of 2011. I looked at my calendar on the wall and noted that I have exercised for at least an hour on 16 of the 31 days, which is not bad. Unfortunately it was mostly low key exercise and the majority of it concentrated in the last couple of weeks. But it is better than nothing. I think my knee is improving.
On Saturday I walked the organ pipe track up Mount Cargill. I was faster to the top by three minutes than I had been earlier in the week. I got there and moved down to sit among some rocks and go over my Sunday sermon in my mind. Pretty soon I was verbalising the sermon, but felt quite safe because I was quite a distance from the main car park/mast area. At one point I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see a young woman, who must have thought she had encountered a mad man. She went scuttling back over the rocks toward her car. That convinced me not to go out the way I came in. I looked down the steep ridge of rocks that eventually ended near the track. Years ago when I was a plumber I went walking with an older guy who was a keen mountaineer. (I was 20, he in his 30's) He was training for mountain trips and we would go very early in the morning, so I could get back to work for an eight o'clock start. On one of these trips I recall, just to make it interesting he branched off the normal track and we clambered up this rocky ridge to the top of Mount Cargill. If we could get up it, surely, I thought, I could get down it. So I did. I clambered down the rocks and did some bush bashing to end up back on the track. I nearly got blown off at one stage. A little later I slipped in mud and came down with a thud on a sharp rock on the right cheek of my posterior. (I am sure it is badly bruised but I cant see it.) I really enjoyed my time though. I felt like a ten year old boy again. As a ten year old I used to disappear on family picnics and climb the nearest hill. I got lost in bush. I once got stuck on a gravel slide on the side of a cliff. But as a kid I loved these lone adventures. On Saturday I was that kid again, a little boy adventuring in the wild, pushing the limits.
Winds of life...
Tonight I went up there again. It was a nice walk but as I got close to the top I could hear the wind screaming through the framework of the radio communication mast. When I arrived at the top I could not believe the strength of the wind. It was difficult walking into it. I took my glasses off because I imagined them getting blown off my face. I was afraid to go toward the edge of the bank in case I tumbled down the hill. The other thing about the wind was that it sucked the heat out of your body. I was only in it a few minutes, but I very quickly got cold. I could not help thinking that sometimes the events and people in your life suck the heat and energy out of your living. Another experience of the moods of my mountain.
Sunday sermon...
The reading for Sunday was Micah 6:1 - 8. Verse 8 is one of the well known verses in the Bible. "He has showed you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." But the first part of the reading intrigued me. Micah paints a picture of a court case - God verses the people of Israel. God outlines his complaint and the people respond. But the interesting thing for me is the judge who hears the case. The first verse says, "Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice." The judge is the "mountains and the hills"! They have been there looking at the journey and history of the people of Israel for generations. They are a reminder of long term consequences. They watch the interactions, wheeling and dealing of people. They see the changing fads of society. They are the judge in this imaginary court case. I like this picture. The mountains and hills by their permanence ask questions of us. What is their perspective on the things I think are important? What do they think of my small minded arguments? How do they perceive my short sighted reactions to issues? Mt Cargill has been looking down on Dunedin for years. She was there long before Dunedin was. She was there before I was, she looked down and saw my childhood. She will be there long after I have gone. It's permanence (the Bible says "the foundations of the earth") challenges me to have long term thinking. It's reality asks of my life, "What am I doing to leave Dunedin a better place?" Its a reminder to recognise long term consequences in the way I live. The "mountains and the hills" take me out of my own little circle of concern and have me looking at the wider picture. It does us good to look up to the mountains and ask ourselves in our imaginations, "From their years of watching human behaviour, from their years of just being, what is their perspective on our living?" "Plead your case before the mountains."
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