Climbing out of Hell(-Roaring Canyon)

If you had asked her at the time, our daughter Julia would have said that she was the one to suffer. She would have been right, up to a point, but the rest of us had it hard as well. It was my fault, really. But the guide to hikes in Yellowstone National Park had made it all sound so inviting, even if the name of the hike, “Hell-roaring Canyon”, should have given us pause.

            And yes, maybe it was a mistake to start after a big lunch; maybe it was a mistake to set off in the heat of a late-summer’s afternoon. And maybe we should have noted more carefully that the initial leg of the hike was all downhill, meaning that the return hike was going to be a lot more difficult.

            The hike was as beautiful as advertised on the way into the canyon. Down we ambled through a Douglas fir forest, the pine needles cushioning our footfalls, the chipmunks scurrying onto the path in the hope of a handout, the rays of the sun scattering through the branches overhead. Soon we emerged onto a steeper section, too steep for trees, and down a series of switchbacks we went, sagebrush high all around, the vista opening up wide before us. The trail descended sharply until it reached the canyon floor and once again disappeared into the forest. Across the valley rose a series of mountains; the river, which we could hear but not see, obviously lay somewhere in the trees at the base of those mountains.

            The first sign of trouble came when we arrived at the valley floor. Julia, who at the time was six years old, had been lagging behind, and now came to a stop. “I’m hot. I’m tired. I want to go back.” I gave her a swig of water, cheerfully pointed out that the river was probably just ahead through the trees, and off we went. The roar of the river grew louder and louder, and then suddenly there we saw a steel suspension bridge; below it, a hundred or more feet straight down, the river, suddenly constricted by sheer canyon walls, rushed in a whirl of white water over and around boulders the size of small trucks. The noise it made was deafening – Hell-roaring Canyon was aptly named.

            It was a fine place to stop for a snack and some more water, and so we found a place in the shade to sit and gird ourselves for the trek back.

            It did not take long for trouble to rear its head on the way back up. Julia was hot; her feet hurt; she was tired; she couldn’t go a step further. We tried reasoning with her; we tried cajoling her; we tried threats (“We’ll leave you here for the coyotes to eat!”). Nothing was working, and so finally I sent Katie and Christie, with Camden in a backpack, on ahead. I would work on getting Julia up.

            It was work. Hard work. I tried everything to get that girl up the trail. Like, “Okay, let’s take it in small bites – can we make it to that next piece of shade twenty-five yards up ahead?” That worked for a while. And then, when we reached the section of switchbacks, and we could see the rest of the family ahead, I tried playing on Julia’s competitive nature: “Heh, if Katie can do it, you can, too.” But after a time the heat and the exhaustion were getting to my little six-year old; she was running out of gas. So I went to the bottom of my bag of tricks.

            “If you could have anything to drink or eat, or you could do anything once you got to the top, what would it be?” I asked. Without hesitation she replied over her shoulder, “I would dive into a swimming pool filled with a root beer float!” “That sounds great,” I answered, continuing the slog up the trail behind her, “But I think I would drink an ice-cold lemonade the size of a water tank before diving into the ocean.” And back and forth we went, trading visions of what awaited us at the top of the climb, putting one foot in front of the other, clawing our way out of Hell-roaring Canyon, until suddenly there we were, at the top.

            How often is it that we find ourselves, either through our own doing or simply by chance, at the bottom of our own personal Hell-roaring Canyon? When we find ourselves trapped in a destructive pattern of behavior that takes us round and round, an addiction, a cycle of blame and recrimination, a morass of self-pity, an eddy of aimlessness. Or a tragedy strikes out of the blue – a child dies, cancer strikes, the company folds, the hoped-for deal falls through, the word “divorce” is first spoken.

How often is it that our world, never mind our personal lives, seems closer to hell than to heaven – as poverty continues its grip on so much of the world, as we continue to be mired in two foreign wars, as our communities continue to struggle with issues of crime and homelessness, as schools become increasingly run down, and the list goes on and on.

We wake up one day and see that things look a lot more like hell that like the good life, and while we want to get back home, the way there is long and hard and all uphill, and we are not sure how to make it out. And we find that we can be paralyzed by despair, frozen by fear, disarmed by the apparent insignificance of  our puny abilities to cope or to make a difference.

And yet, if we raise our eyes and look up ahead, we can see that we are not in this alone – we can see that others struggle on up ahead, that the ascent can be made, is being made, by others like us. We can see that a friend has found a way to cope with the loss of a spouse, that an acquaintance has learned to find life worth living even with the limitations of a disability or chronic illness, that a co-worker had been able to move out of apathetic indifference to engage life in new ways. And this gives us hope.

And maybe we can see also that there are not only those who walk the same road up ahead of us, but also those who walk at our side, encouraging us onwards, telling us that we can do it, that we need but put one foot in front of the other. That what is important is this one day, and that we can leave tomorrow to God. And this give us hope.

And then maybe if we venture that one step, and then another, we might soon find the welcome shade of a sheltering tree, or the refreshing waters that might slake our thirst at least for a bit, refueling us for the trail and the trials ahead. And this also gives us hope.

But in the end, what gives us the ability to see the journey out of Hell-roaring Canyon through, that allows us to persevere even when the shade trees are few, the companionship scarce, and those who have gone before hard to see, is the vision of what awaits us at the end of the trail. And this gives us a hope beyond all other hope.

Psychologists tell us that hope is fundamental to human life. We hope for a good grade, for praise, for an upturn in the stock market, that our children will be safe, that the cancer will be cured, that love will last.

But there is another hope as well,  transfinite hope, the hope that goes beyond the tangible, hope that is placed in subjects that go beyond our physiological sensing and the material world. Transfinite hope extends the horizons of our vision beyond what we might see.

This is the hope that Paul is talking about in his Letter to the Romans. “Now the hope that is seen is not hope . . .  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” The hope that he is talking about is the hope we have which is grounded in the character of God. We have hope not just in things, but in a relationship. We have hope based upon a relationship with a good shepherd who promises to lead us beside the still waters, to feed us even in the presence of those we believe to be enemies, to restore our souls, and to dwell with us forever.

Today Alana Bell will be confirmed. One can be tempted to view confirmation as a sort of graduation, and indeed if one were to take that view, one might look at this sermon as a sort of graduation address. If so, I suspect you would find it sadly lacking, seeing how most graduation addresses seem to be centered around two topics: first, how wonderful the graduates are, how mighty in deeds and accomplishments and character; and, second, some advice on how those same remarkable people might go out into the world and succeed.

But this is not, Alana, a graduation, for the life of faith is a journey, a life-long project, and not a destination. And my message is not about you and how wonderful you are (although you are all of that, and more), and it is not about your future successes (although I am certain there will be many for you).

It is, instead, about those times in life when it all looks like failure, when it seems you have come to the end of your rope, when you are parched and exhausted and wonder how you can keep on keeping on, how you might ever climb out of your own Hell-roaring Canyon. It is, thanks be to God, about hope, a hope that comes to you as a gift and a promise.

A hope, and a promise, that with the one in whose name you were baptized standing right beside you all the way, all will be well, and all will be well. Amen.