Much Further to Go

In finding, reading and considering the mystical quotes posted last week, an experience from long ago came to mind. Being a flat-lander, I am naturally in awe and intimidated by great heights. While visiting Chamonix, Switzerland my husband, who was an excellent and fearless skier of mountains, insisted we take the cable car to the top of the Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain peak. It took a week of relentless nagging and insisting, but eventually, though shaking with fright, I gave in. 

We climbed into the cable car, and began the climb to the distant peak before us. The very idea of being in a small glass car suspended from a thin metal cable and rising as high as if we were in an airplane, was terrifying. But I kept breathing, and calmed down, telling myself that all I really had to do was hang on for a while, get to the top, take a little look around, then ride back down to the ground, and it would all be over.  As I looked over the brochure I had picked up at the cable station, I noticed that it kept mentioning something called the Aiguille du Midi. Not knowing the language, I thought perhaps that was the name of the visitors’ station at the top of the mountain. But no, it turned out that was wrong. "Aiguille du Midi" translates as Needle in the Middle. As we climbed higher and higher, suddenly, looming far beyond where I thought we were headed was our 'real' destination, the Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe. The Aiguille du Midi is a smaller peak with a rest station, on the way to our much higher final destination at the top of the Mont Blanc. My stomach dropped to the floor as the top of Mont Blanc rose to my vision, we sailed past the 'Aiguille' and I realized where we were ultimately going.

Our experiences and images of God, however holy-seeming, are like that 'Needle in the Middle' - with the higher Truth God – in Itself – lying breathtakingly beyond it. Don't get off too soon.

Patricia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twFdF5vNeJU

[Amusingly, my fear was somewhat vindicated when the cable snapped
the very next day after we rode it.
Thank God, no one was hurt.]