CYBERCOLUMN:
Lessons from the side of a mountain
___By Berry D. Simpson
___In life, and as it turns out, in mountain races, what I see in the middle of pain and effort is never a complete picture. Faith in God means to know that sooner or later I will reach the end of a difficult situation. Phillip Yancey wrote, "Climbing mountains presents a constantly shifting point of view," which reminded me of a tough situation that my wife, Cyndi, and I actually volunteered to do several summers ago.

BERRY D. SIMPSON

___ We were in Tijeras, N.M. (near Albuquerque), attending Cyndi's tri-annual family reunion. While we were there, we ran the Run For the Mountain, a 10-kilometer race on Sandia Mountain in the Cibola National Forest.
___When we discovered the race was the same weekend as the reunion, we knew we couldn't pass it up. According to the flyer, the course started just below the Sandia Peak Ski Area lodge and parking lot, at 8,680 feet elevation, and climbed 600 feet (net elevation gain) to a turnaround point near Sandia Crest, and then returned back down to the ski area. The flyer said, "Air is thin--be careful." Even though it was a high-altitude mountain race and we were both low-altitude flatland runners, we had to run. It sounded too cool to miss.
___ The first part of the race, actually downhill along Highway 536 (The Sandia Crest Scenic Highway), was deceptively easy. In fact it was a trap; at the exact moment when I decided mountain running was easier than everyone said it was, we made a right-hand turn off the highway onto a narrow backpacking trail that crossed the Capulin Springs Picnic Area.
___It actually was more of a rocky creek bed than a trail--or better, a shallow ravine cut straight up the side of the mountain. It would have been impossible running except for the asymmetrical staircase made by advantageously arranged bowling ball-sized rocks. Without those rocks to step on, we'd have slid back down the mountain in the slick mud. It was hard to think of those boulders as blessings, though; I was too worried about the sound my knee would make if I slipped and crashed down into one.
___After running about a mile or so up the ravine, we reached a cutoff where the five-kilometer runners turned right, and we 10K runners (and I am using the term "runner" in the broadest definition) continued up the mountain. I was proud of myself for running the manly-10K instead of the girly-5K, but it was unsettling to hear all those high-altitude-sounding New Mexico-accented 5Kers talk like they knew this mountain trail way better than I did, better enough to know to turn back. It also bothered me a little to discover that I was now running entirely by myself. Every single person around me had turned off to do the 5K.
___ I briefly flirted with the thought that I might be in the lead and I could actually win this race, but that was too much to hope for. My view was only about 50 yards up the trail. Apparently, the other 10K runners were so far ahead I couldn't see them. "Oh well, I've always been a solitary runner," I thought.
___For the next two miles, I ran alone up a tortuous path among tall pinon and fir trees and dense brush through what the map politely called "Capulin Snow Play Area" (secret code designation for Rainbow Six Special Forces Training Camp). Whenever I turned around to take in the "exciting vistas" advertised in the race flyer, all I could see was forest and trail. My entire world had shrunk to an uphill dirt path through the woods.
___ And then without warning, the trail burst into the open and rejoined the paved highway. Now I could see lots of runners ahead of me, and I was consoled to know I wasn't alone, even if it dashed my hopes of being the race leader.
___After the turnaround, I followed this highway all the way back down the mountain to the ski lodge. It was magnificent. It was all downhill. And because the trees were cleared for the highway, I could now see out across the valley and take in the wonderful Sandia Mountains. It was beautiful, and it made me almost forget the pain of getting to the top.
___ The thing is, I kept running up the side of this mountain in pain because I knew sooner or later I'd get to the top and turn around. I had to accept that all would be better at the top and keep that in mind as I fought my way up. I didn't know exactly how beautiful it would be, but I had faith that I'd love it. I was right.
___Yancey wrote, "Faith means developing an ability to accept that point of view, which I will never fully grasp until I reach the summit, no matter how things look along the trail."
___ The difference between mountain running and real life is that in real life I never know when the turnaround will come. I might have three miles of hard climbing ahead of me before turning back down, or I might have 30 miles. The essence of faith in God is to trust that his view of life is perfect, and to keep moving uphill.


___ Berry Simpson is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland.









Baptist Standard