The Morning Of

“As a young climber it is undeniable that I have been manipulated by the media and popular culture and that some of my own climbs have been subconsciously shaped through what the world perceives to be important in terms of sport. Through time spent in the mountains, away from the crowds, away from the stopwatch and the grades and all the lists of records I’ve been slowly able to pick apart what is important to me and discard things that are not.”

―“A Visit with the Emperor, Mt Robson, Infinite Patience”, a blog entry by Marc-Andre Leclerc (1992-2018), the alpinist who scaled to heights where none had dared - his first winter solo ascent to Mount Robson’s Emperor Face, the highest point of the Canadian Rockies

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Dear Alex,

Today I and my daughter will embark on the same route of 3 hours, swerving through the same speed limits on mountainous terrain to come to the same college campus that housed our tracks two years past. Nothing feels quite the same on the second time.

The eve before her packing to prepare her first-time stay at the dormitory, we went to an old theatre where seats were empty if not for another pair of parent and daughter on the row in front of ours. She and I rarely agreed about what to watch but “The Alpinist” was an exception to our genre clash. She had chosen a documentary without our previewing its trailer. We knew not man nor mountain in film until the screen glimmered a narrative raw with the same genre of darkness that haunts every soul.

How exuberant of a life on this brief and bright path to death could you grasp with the same hands you’ve outgrown and scuffed?

On her baby hands I have smothered my face many times in dream, her fingers plump as promise. I shall hold her one last time this afternoon before Thanksgiving on unknown lot remote from our shared kitchen and home-baked cookies.

An unfinished entry I will ask you to post on a morning yet to drench in rain.

Yours, Kate

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Dear Kate,

Thank you for sharing with me, this morning of you driving your daughter to a freedom that feels like death.

And the death is not just yours, I am sure, but also your daughter's, dying to the security of home that once was and has hitherto ever been, and now facing a mountain that looks almost too safe for what it suggests.

"Almost too safe" because, I am sure (again, and always 😁) you have done your heavy share of procurement, for "stuffs" that she needs for school and life away from you, and--need I repeat the phrase?--you will continue to check on her, maybe daily at first, and always with and at your fingertips henceforth.  Oh, the false sense of security we can vouchsafe for ourselves!

To manage life with technology, control with evermore know-hows, and expect a sigh of relief at the end of our every crisis, is the trajectory of all "gospel narratives."  In our day, such "evangelists" are chiefly the marketers, politicians and priests, aiming to relieve our boredom and pain, anxiety and despondence, and eke an Amen out of our vulnerability and ambition, which are often embarrassingly naked.

Do not live for what doesn't worth you to die for, we heard said.  Do not live for what Jesus didn't die for, the Gospel announces.

Jesus didn't die for our American dream, or to be a poster boy for our cause, or so we wouldn't have to change, or to merely raise our moral standard.  Can you add to this list, what Jesus did not die for?

It's sad how it has come to this, that we need to affirm life by negation, by what we must die to.  But then again, that might just be what "resurrection" means.

Yours, Alex