The Saturday Stoke #52
Transcript
For 36 hours I stared at the mist gathering in the valley from my cabin perch and discussed the world and heaven with two close friends.
It was mid-summer in the Black Mountains. The Black Mountains of western North Carolina rise to the clouds. A spur of the Appalachian Range, they contain six of the east’s highest peaks. Mt. Mitchell gathers its summit at 6,684 feet—the highest of all. The Blacks range 15 miles in length and get their name from the dark fir and spruce that coats their heights. The boreal evergreens look black in winter as they contrast with the deciduous hardwoods upon the slopes.
Our cabin sat at 3,100 feet and jutted out, like a manmade promontory into the steep river valley south of the spur. The first night, thunderstorms raged through the mountain basin and we watched the ominous clouds gather overhead. They unleashed. The sounds of the storm took over. Lightning and rain and claps of thunder pelted and shook the cabin. Then as quickly as it gathered the storm dispersed, vanishing over the ridge.
A cluster of stars peeked from behind the indigo veil and dripped their light into the misty valley that was so recently ravished with the torrential beauty of the summer storm. With the heat from the day vanished, we lit the fire and laughed beneath the stars and wrote haikus about the storm and trees and the smell of pine and whatever caught our fancy.
The next morning, we departed; filled up with camaraderie and joy. I let the joy guide me to a more circuitous route home. Instead of barreling back to Charlotte on the highway, I wound my way to the Blue Ridge Parkway and drove toward the summit of Mt. Mitchell. With the windows down, and Gipsy Kings blaring in my speakers, I let my hand hang in the mountain air as the temperature cooled.
A thousand feet, then a thousand more; 85 degrees, then 75, now 65. The mountain air poured into my truck, sweet with mint and bergamot and pine and fir.
Wild beebalm lined the Parkway with a crimson thread; their joyous red heads stood tall and confident, showing off their stunning glory. Beside them, the spindly Rudbeckia beamed their yellow petals in a parade of color.
I drove with a permanent grin as if I’d happened upon a secret meeting of angels who’d left a trail of heaven in their wake. I could almost smell the celestial goodness in the air. The summit waited for me, with its height and range and glory. Perhaps I’d find the angels and listen in on their meeting. When I turned up the steep road, I heard distant thunder and found that for which my heart yearned; thunder-filled storm clouds marching toward the peak, while a great blue expanse spread out to the south; the meeting of the heavens.
I took in the view and thought how God greeted me with a billion joys, for that is all can fit into the Black Mountains: countless trees, branches, leaves, flowers, clouds, deer, bear, bobcat, mist and storm, sky and sunshine, and the constituent parts of it all. And yet my eyes can only drink in so much, leaving me wanting more.
“But Tim,” you say, “why didn’t you invite me on your mountain escapade. For I too long to see the joys of God on the mountaintops. This world of ours makes me want to stop everything and return to the remote places if only to restore my sanity.”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “I do apologize for the oversight. I only share this story to inspire you to head out on your own mountain escapade. And when you do ascend to the places of wonder, keep it in your mind to let go of the world’s pace. And if you’re really daring, sit and stare at a view for an uncomfortable amount of time. Let the sights and sounds bend in on you. I’m sure you, too, will find an angel’s meeting of your own.”
When the Apostle Paul stood before the Stoics at the Areopagus, he invited the philosophers to see the billions upon billions of joys. For the seeker, the one groping for God, he says, these joys reveal the invisible qualities of his eternal power and divinity. And yet, the beauty of natural wonder is not sufficient for spiritual salvation.
Beauty unconnected to the Divine leads humans into pagan idolatry. For the disciple of Jesus, the one groping for deeper intimacy with God, the revelation of these joys—of God’s power and divine nature—remind of his unlimited grace and care. But even more than that; they remind one of the lover who leaves flowers on his beloved’s doorstep. The flowers signal his loyalty and tenderness. But they also impart something of his heart concerning his beloved. The flowers say, “You remind me of this bouquet—full of life, bursting with color, alive with fragrance, a bounty snatched from the mountains.” The bouquet is a symbol of love.
In the half-light of heaven, blowing through the incandescent clouds descending upon Mt. Mitchell, I discovered the meeting of angels. They told me the story of the light that came so long ago before humans walked the earth, and how it filled the cosmos with wisdom. The angels reminded me of the ancient philosophy that used to rule the earth; the one that predated our modern materialism. It was basic and true, but not because it was simple. But because it was so deep, full of paradox and the spectacle of wonder. It was a knowledge—a Word—bound up in the Artist’s mind behind the flower that blows in the mountain air, whose bend and bob can give “thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” As I pondered this ancient philosophy, I remembered that we journey through this world stumbling upon the deep words of God at every turn, if only we have the ears to hear them. Such a glorious paradox, then, to hear the deep words of heaven with my eyes and tastes their fragrance with my nose, and they smell like bergamot and behold, they are good.
Stay stoked my friends.
