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How Beautiful Upon The Mountains
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. " -Psalm 121:1-2.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! " -Isaiah 52:7.
GOING barefoot is a lasting temptation. In a child's hop-skip-and-jump world, even in an adult's, being out of shoe has its rewards. The freedom of removing the leather welcomes the pleasure of feeling the grass between the toes. Yet feet exposed to the elements are subject inevitably to the law of cuts and bruises. I remember on several occasions jubilantly chasing the sidewalk in front of my grandparents' house and stubbing my toes on the raised concrete.
Quite early in life, however, I discovered I did not necessarily stumble any less nor travel any truer for having worn out several pairs of shoes. At the somewhat vulnerable age of thirteen I was scurrying about at summer camp in sneakers one night, in a mighty rush to make it to a movie for which I was late, when in an effort to miss nothing, I took the shortcut behind the moviehouse. With my weight planted firmly upon one foot, I drove a rusty nail all the way through, from flesh to bone. Let's just say that the deeper wound was the eventual realization that it is possible in this life to step in the wrong place at the most hopeful of times. We are never so vulnerable as when we think we are not.
Is it not the other person who rivets flesh with the self's stupidity? The stranger who succumbs to cancer? The poor children of foreign lands
Charles N. Davidson, Jr., is the minister of the East Point Presbyterian Church, East Point, Georgia. During the summer of 1982, he was visiting in Montreat, North Carolina, the conference gathering place established by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.) many years ago, where the "autobiographical sermon," which we publish here, began to emerge. Many of those who write about narrative theology seem more interested in ideas and meanings than in telling a story, Although he says he was reluctant to share his personal reveries and make them public, we feet sure readers will be glad he did. The author wishes to dedicate this sermon-psalm to the memory of Robert Janney Lake, for reasons that become evident as the story unfolds.
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who, possessing no shoes, bloody their insides against disease and hunger? Or is there still another order of disease, another dimension of hunger?
I
It was near the end of a pleasant week's vacation in the mountains when our seven-month-old and I took a father-daughter stroll, she with her shoes off, I in tennis shoes laced up with frayed shoestrings. To leap over the image, I was momentarily conscious of being at the foot of the mountains, surrounded as it were by the glorious heights and comfort of seeming to be in the right place at the most hopeful of times. Even the temperature stood exactly where God willed it at 75º, and the sky Carolina blue.
For the previous six days and without volcanic eruption, those venerable hills had swelled with the song of nine hundred Presbyterians during the annual conference on worship and music. On the seventh day, a planetary silence fell upon Montreat and the handful of us who remained. To borrow a bird's-eye view of the exodus, it appeared as though suddenly an entire antworld, which does most things decently and in order, had retreated from the arched ridges of timber toward the centers of sprawling urban congestion, hairbrained and foolhardy, engines racing, tires spinning, with the zeal of the Lord of Hosts, all, to be sure, to the greater glory of Knox and Calvin, and to fulfill the ancient law of spiritual gravitation which is that all things that go up must come down.
I was fortunate to be among the remnant who were still "up" for at least one more day before having to come "down" to lining up in traffic jams through downtown Atlanta and competing for a mothball existence amid the city's Babylonian towers of glistening steel and glass. How marvelous "upon the foot of the mountains" to contemplate the peace and poetry of God's creation, I thought. If God had wished the mountains to look like Coca-Cola, Georgia Pacific, and the Peachtree Center, the Lord surely would have created them so on the third day.
I had promised myself all week long I would go hear so-and-so preach and congregate with the joyful noise of the nine hundred for upliftance, since seldom does one find in one place so many of the Presbyterian faithful doing quite so much in harmony and unison even if it be nothing more than restrained song. Yet I resisted and chose instead the relaxed conversations of friends, baiting fishing hooks for our little wiggle-worms, and quite simply, the mountains.
Katie, our seven-month-old who was entering the wonder-full rite of curiosity, and I, whose passages through this life had not yet, thank God, taken me beyond the need for curious wonder, circled together in the general direction of the general store which at Montreat is more or less at the center of things. I have not figured out precisely where that center is, though I suppose the economic center, at least, would not be far removed from the places in which good Calvinists can lay up their
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treasures on earth where neither moth nor rust can consume nor thieves break in.
In contrast to the usual twenty to thirty heirs-of-the-covenant lining up between workshops and loading up on sweets and reaching for copies of the Charlotte Observer so as not to be out of touch with the invested world of Israeli troops invading Lebanon and the Iron Lady of Britannia sounding like a third cousin to Winston Churchill four times removed, there we were, two or three of us at most, backsliders, milling about in what at Montreat is the closest thing to a sanctified 7-11.
I noticed one "poor" fellow shifting aimlessly from counter to counter as if looking for something that apparently didn't exist, then at last shrugging his shoulders and settling for something which obviously he didn't need. After all, would a conscientious Calvinist have wanted to Leave the impression that the "trickle-down" theory of economics did not apply equally to him as he bought a package of Doritos for two or three times what it was worth, "bagged" not in Mexico City but first in Dallas and second only in Montreat?
I asked myself, "What must I do to merit my existence in such a world as this?" With no sermon to preach, no pastoral calls to make, not even a copy of Karl Barth's Römerbrief to hold up in one hand with a newspaper in the other (of which there was none left since it, too, had been "sold out"), what was I to do? I swiftly purchased a carton of sweet chocolate milk with an expiration date of June twelfth. Does one need a newspaper to tell that the Twelfth Hour approacheth?
II
As I sipped, I tasted memories. First, the picture of school days. I recalled how in a state of gathered semi-innocence we coat-and-tie urchins, who never were gathered wholly in any sort of innocence, descended upon the green, nibbled away at cheesecrackers, and chased the peanut-butter from the roofs of our mouths with a swish and a gulp of, you guessed it, sweet chocolate milk. The milk was always far more delectable than Mr. M's math class or four-legged sprints during football practice.
So there I stood twenty some odd years later, sipping memories and wondering if I could justify my momentary existence any better by blending the purchase of cheesecrackers with the delightful nostalgia of sweet chocolate milk. Shouldn't some things remain always the same? Yet again, I resisted. It was not that I didn't want the cheesecrackers, or the preaching, or the congregating in song, but that I was on the verge of the rediscovery of that other order of dis-ease, that other dimension of hunger, for which the remembrance of things past, events and people, became the catalyst.
My daughter fell asleep in the stroller. My wife and son were off to the nearest village, shopping for Father's Day, and our good friends, as much I fear at risk to our friendship as for renewal of it for having spent the week with us under the same roof, were taking shelter in the
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laundromat and bemoaning, I'm sure, that the ritual of cleansing is never so much fun as the joy of getting things dirty.
III
Katie and I pressed on in our wayward journey behind the general store as years ago I had taken the wayward course through debris to the rear of a moviehouse, only this time seeking an undefined destination with much less haste than the sum total of destinations I was accustomed to pursuing, and perhaps therefore with considerably less waste-which may be the only way any of us step into the right place at the best, the worst, or the most ambiguous of times. There dawns upon us that all time is God's time long before it is ours, thus how we embrace it determines how we step into it.
We paused for a moment upon a bridge, one of those given moments that is both fleeting and eternal. A bridge can be a grace period. From its slight elevation we got a savoring of the rush and the rapture of a stream that gurgled beneath our feet. Or was it a salient view of ourselves? Are not we Presbyterians, though not uniquely, preoccupied more with the rush of life than with the rapture of life?
As one mental association invariably leads to another, I pictured there from the bridge a man who once had sat in my study and asked the timely question: "Have you ever experienced the Rapture?" Choking on my theology, I said, "Do you mean the rapture?" When emphatically he said "Yes," as though what else in holy creation could he have been talking about, I quickly answered "No." Then he proceeded to lecture me on the subject, not so much about the rapture as of it, as though somehow he himself were in it at the time of his telling. I distinctly remember trying not to let go of my critical disbelief; in vain, however. For the only way I could listen to his story was to peel off my shoes, if you know what I mean. Amid all his craziness (and it was!) as he related the deep hurt of his life (the nails!), growing out of years of growing up, or down, during endless nights spent on abandoned street corners and far too many days lost pointlessly taking aim with the barrel of a gun as his only defense against a violent world (a gun which at last be discarded), who the beck was I in all my sanity (and it was!) to deny myself the courtesy of participating with him in the rapture?
IV
It was then alongside the stream I noticed Katie awakening to a sound and a sight that in some measure would remain the enduring measure of her days upon the earth through all her growing up and growing down: the flow of a stream. She was transfixed! And so was I by her transfixion. She leaned forward as far as the worldly restraint of her seatbelt would allow, inquiring insistently into the first of many overtures of the onsetting events of her life: the rapture of a mountain creek, pristine, crystal clear, unspoiled; that is, almost.
With the constant rippling of those cool waters heating up my
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imagination, I posed it this way: "When you, Katie, pass through these rapids, as do we all, with the downward movement of the current sometimes pulling you faster than you can possibly keep up, then again holding you back when your own sense of timing is delightfully out of sync with the way things are running around you, will it not be the flow of your life that matters? Among the rocks ,dinosaur, minuscule, slick, jagged rocks which compose the bed upon which a stream must lie-can you not imagine the rudeness of your awakening one day utterly, consciously barefoot in such a world? Or is it the tender joy?"
The sum, the measure, the flow of one's life, from whatever vantage point we stand in space and time upon the stream (or sidewalk for urbanites), is that the rush and the rapture are inseparable. Nor do we see for sure from whence they come and whither they go, except when occasionally "to see" from such bridges is to meet the Impenetrable Mystery, the Unfathomable Depth, that, like lofty mountains and great oceans, awaits every pitter-patter, every teardrop, every sound of the rush and the fury which induce troubled breasts to the knowledge that, though we pass this way but once, the Stream is passing forever before us, beyond us, unspeakably beckoning us to take the plunge.
V
I just happened to be standing with half a chocolate milk in hand upon soil where Presbyterians had stood "through the ages," seeking refuge in these hills, looking for visions from these hills, Two collie dogs frolicked in the stream more carefree than the day they were born. I thought to myself, "How lucky it is they, not I, who twist ankles in these icy springs, over stones, upon events and circumstances in which animals are made mere participants in the game with such small say as to the inherent dangers and unexpected surprises that await their adventure." They, and not I?
At all points we must choose. For the brook settles and branches in several directions slightly below the bridge. Its friendly passages penetrate a modest park laden with limbs and sliding-boards and swings and other such climbing things which give pleasure to the hearts of children, even children who think they are too old to go barefoot in open spaces, yet nonetheless appreciate the ultimate meaning of shoes dropped beneath shade trees on blustery warm afternoons, and the pleasure mixed with pain of sliding down the very things one must climb up again.
A watchful grandfather sits upon a bench in an obscure corner of the park, glancing widely over his flock of grandchildren who are skipping stones across the surface of things to the splash of laughter, the two collie dogs continuing their sunlit dance, one of them submerging its bead beneath a shallow pond and rising again with a pink rubber ball in mouth as though it bad at long last retrieved the pearl of great price. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings."
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VI
The entire episode, to be sure, from beginning to end was but an interlude, a short glimpse, a reminder forthcoming of the treasure buried in all events. If a treasure, then one which is unearthed at considerable cost, and once gained, easily lost again in the forgetting' in the seasonal sowings of the soul, which, without replenishment, reap scarce harvest. "I lift up mine eyes unto the hills. From whence cometh my help?" What if, in being cast down, there is a persistent failure to look up? Would one then be fortunate to stumble upon the feet?
It is at the foot of the mountains that the Psalmist's words cling to the ears and lift the eyes in upward glance: "My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth." Is the eternal secret of the mountains that they tilt the head and turn the heart toward Another?
Pilgrims, such as I, are fortunate to make our pilgrimages with extended, even though seemingly endless, excursions through the city. We have a lover's quarrel with the city. At once we love it and hate it. For the city lacks sufficient good tidings to make for the same peace that these mountains do. Thus I wonder at that grandfather sitting over there benched to his years like Wisdom itself pausing to reflect upon vast experience and vaster need. Maybe he lives in these mountains all the time. Maybe he has his origins at this creek, and the living water is the faithsong for quenching his thirst, and the gurgling brook his exceeding joy at returning thanks for the transcendent glory of the creation in spite of what is written, no, in the midst of what is written in the Charlotte Observer.
Grandfather casts his eye upon the grandchildren because he knows. He knows the risk of skipping stones and stubbing toes. He knows that slime upon the rocks spells slippage with shoes or without. He knows the rush all right. But he knows something else. You can tell by the way he sits reposed in the quiet confidence of one who is assured that regardless of where one lives or what one has done or not done, it is possible in this life to drink deeply of the divine parable of ordinary events and people.
VII
Downing the last of the chocolate milk, I consider it is time now to go. In the general direction toward which all flesh must go, savoring last moments before we nurse them as memories, my eye catches sight beside the still waters of an object I had not seen before. Exactly two years ago in this same park, standing virtually in this same place, I had watched venturesome youth, barefoot youth, making preparations for something immeasurably beautiful upon the foot of the mountains, lifting rocks, smoothing out mortar, reconstructing the flow of the stream as artisans at work on something immeasurably important: generations hosting generations to follow. I had witnessed people of the in-between years making ready for things visible, things tangible, which is what a park is. But they were also making way for something intangible, something invisible, something about which they could not have known, nor did I,
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nor did anyone else at the time except the Lord God of Hosts and a small circle of family and friends who surely must have had the hunch that what was about to happen was happening in all too untimely a fashion.
At my feet was planted a stone. It had not been there before. And it could have been a stone easily overlooked except for the fact that upon it in bronze was a name inscribed. I had visited many public places and seen many names etched in remembrance of persons I had not known, but here was one I knew. And it was as though the very Unnamable One itself suddenly had stood straight up in front of the rest of my life.
Robert Janney Lake was a classmate in seminary. More than that, a friend, a fellow journeyman in the calling. And I shall never forget that beneath his name were but two simple words, "Beloved Minister," which if I translate correctly mean "Beloved Servant." And beneath the tribute, a verse from the sacred page which read, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings." Some words say it all.
He for whom this beautiful park is fittingly named in fulfillment of what it was so unceremoniously prepared for, died of cancer before his feet ever had the chance to wear out his shoes. No need for shoes now. As it were, the stone itself had become the beautiful feet, and the bronze plaque the beautiful message of the prophet of the Lord who stands eternally upon the foot of the mountains and preaches, in the midst of the hills, beside the ever-rolling streams, down the time-eroded valleys, into the crime-ridden cities, across the warring continents, in quest of the final horizon. It was as though the eye were upon the foot and the foot were upon the eye, announcing good tidings, proclaiming peace, speaking the tender mercies of the Lord. Can one for certain stub one's toe, one's life, upon that?
VIII
I was sorely tempted to take off my shoes in the Presence. To my embarrassment, it was the adult in me which prevented me from doing so within the child's shadow of that grandfather who, I'm sure, must have noticed anyway, and with whom, as I passed, I exchanged tidings. I wept privately.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him"-of anyone-"who brings good tidings, who publishes peace... who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.'"
I made a covenant that day before the Lord. Is it not the same Lord who unto That Day, without ceasing, makes covenant with us? "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
Thoughts come home, as meditations, to a nail upon which I stepped as youth, to the nurse who bound up the wound, to the flow of my life which increasingly becomes more vulnerable to the rush and the rapture, to the people I cherish for having cherished me before I knew what it was to love, and to events which like this one, when I least expect them, draw me closer to the Feet of the One from whom all things come, and to whom all things go.