Foggy Summit

I drove in my car with peppermint tea and my favorite songs playing. The sky was grayish blue. It was cool for the season and it had been raining for a few days. Honestly, I love weather like this. I don’t know why I love the rain so much. My guess is that it matches the inner disposition of my soul and so I feel at home in a gloomy landscape. But have you ever noticed the quiet in the chilly rain? The wild animals stay in their dens and the birds hardly sing. The volume in my mind and world is so loud that I crave the stillness provided by precipitation. Perhaps that’s why I love the rain. Whatever the reason, I love it and I was excited to hike up to the summit.

Dogs blocked the road at the entrance. They wouldn’t get out from the front of my car and I mildly panicked as I moved forward slowly and honked my horn. As soon as they realized that Charlie was in the car with me, their barking got more ferocious and then sidled up to my car as I backed up to turn around and get on the right road. Eventually, they gave up and we made it to the trailhead. Through the mud and goassamered, glittering spider webs, we climbed. As I set foot on the trail, I noticed an orange lizard. I think he was a salamander, thinking the whole world a stream what with the fog and the wet. No bears, no more dogs, not even a deer met us on the way up. The only sound was the dripping of the trees in the fog. Not even the birds were stirring much. I’ve hiked many mountains and this one more than once. So has Charlie, my faithful buddy on tramps through the woods and runs by the river. Most of the time, the view is spectacular and always worth the effort. At times, however, the mountains are shrouded in mist.

There was Laconte that took almost an entire day and is the longest hike I’ve ever attempted. All we got at the top was sub-par hot chocolate, an obscured view, and, I guess, bragging rights that we had indeed made it. That was before Charlie- my husband alone was with me then. Another trek with my husband took me to my favorite spot in all of Appalachia- Charlie’s Bunion. I’ve seen it in sunshine, but even under a heavy cloak of clouds it was spectacular. Today, the dog and I tackled Buffalo Mountain. We’ve been here before in Summer, Fall, Spring, and Winter. Now, on the fringes of Autumn, clouds race by in curtains now thin and transparent, now thick and opaque. It’s like the movement of breath or the unfolding of steam out of your coffee cup in the morning. Beautiful, unique, and often unexpected. I felt as if I could stretch out my hands to touch the almost living things. I felt the tiny droplets tingle on my shoulder in the breeze.

As we climbed, it became more and more apparent that the summit wouldn’t be clear. A shame, for the view atop Buffalo Mountain is spectacular, given what little effort is required to get to the top. And so, a thought occurred to me: all summits require work to reach. No mountain is an easy climb. Some are a difficult slough and some are a mere stroll, but they all have a summit with a view. Whether that view is just trees, a valley, more mountains, a waterfall, or a fog, there is something to see at the top of each mountain that you climb.

In this particular case, my Tuesday traipse with Charlie, there was just fog, as I had suspected. The difference for me and a first-time climber, though, is that I’ve been up to the top of this mountain before. I know what lies beyond the clouds. A beautiful valley pans out and you can see other mountains in the distance. On the clearest days, your eyes can stretch all the way to North Carolina. But not today. Today, it’s mist so thick that I can’t see back to the trailhead where I emerged from the woods. Some would say that the climb wasn’t worth it. I’d disagree. 

You see, just because I can’t see the view, doesn’t mean that it isn’t spectacular. My practical blindness doesn’t rob the vista of its beauty. Glory is, whether I’ll see it or no.

Practical blindness. How many things are in the world that you simply can’t see? Is everyone blind to them, or just some of us? Are there even things that you can’t see? Children know the answer best: of course! Just yesterday there was a dragon in my backyard and the entire Red Sox roster has hit home runs from the tee placed carefully under the apple tree. Children have an imagination, yes, but there’s more to it than that. While my daughter knows the difference between pretending, a good story, and reality, she uses her wildly creative and willful imagination to help her understand that while her pretend dragons are pretty cool, there are things more real and better than dragons. And she can’t see any of them.

Glory is, whether I’ll see it or no. Even in the fog, the climb is worth it. Why? Because the vista is there, just beyond my view. There is glory under my feet and out in the wide world even when I cannot see it.

For many years, I’ve been a people developer. I get to know people, pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses, and help them grow into who they were made to be. This sounds like really fulfilling work until you realize that you can’t control people. And you don’t always see the outcome of your work. I’ve spent months or years investing in someone and then they just disappear and won’t talk to me ever again. Sometimes it’s my fault because I said something unhelpful or pushed too hard, but more often it isn’t. More often, they just aren’t interested in learning and living the truth anymore. People want to define the truth for themselves. That’s not a new postmodern way of thinking. It’s as old as humanity- we don’t want anyone to tell us what to do.

But I digress. My point is that the work is worth it, whether I see the outcome or no. The good and the glory are far beyond me anyway. I’m grateful to find beauty where it may be found, be that a spectacular view or a foggy forest. For most of my life, I feel like I’ve been walking in a dark, drippy forest hoping to find glory when I emerge from it. And over and over again, I’ve emerged to find a foggy summit. I’ve emerged from darkness, toil, and confusion not into the glorious light of understanding, but to a bafflement of a different kind. (All the while, I was missing the glory of the forest, but that’s for another day.)

And yet. It’s been here on the foggy summit that I’ve found the most rest. It’s been here that I’ve been confronted with my mortality and seemingly devastating limitedness. On the foggy summit, I’ve been given eyes to see. Now, this doesn’t work if there’s never a sunny, glorious summit above or free from the fog. There have been those, for sure. Even Buffalo Mountain has been crowned with sunshine and I’ve photographed to my heart’s content. But the two go together. If it’s always sunshine, I might think too highly of myself. If it’s always foggy, I’ll dive into despair. We need both, the sunshine and the fog, to grow into the people we were made to be.

So, go easy on the foggy summit. Don’t walk away from painful or difficult seasons. Don’t give up on your work because you can’t see the glory- it’s there, just beyond the veil. Don’t reject the foggy summit (or drippy forest) for it is only there that we can learn humility and realize how very little is in our control anyway. The outcome of my labors is not up to me and, honestly, I have far less to do with the glory of it than I know.

Long live the foggy summits. May they teach our eyes to truly see.