The Mountain

"Silence requires the discipline to recognize the urge to get up and go again as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is close at hand. It offers the freedom to stroll in your own inner yard, and to rake up the leaves there and clear the paths so you can easily find the way to your heart. Perhaps there will be much fear and uncertainty when you first come upon the "unfamiliar terrain", but slowly and surely you will discover an order and familiarity which deepens your longing to stay home....... Whenever you come upon this silence, it seems as though you have received a gift, one which is "promising" in the true sense of the word. It promises new life. It is the silence of peace and prayer, because it brings you back to the One who is leading you." . . . . . . . . . Henri Nouwen

I know that quote is a bit to get one's head around. Each time I come back to this quote I still have to read it more than once to fully grasp what it is saying. Silence, and solitude. Spending time alone with oneself and with God. This weekend I entered this (for me) relatively “unfamiliar terrain”.

Shortly after arriving in Lesotho I was reading a book about a Zulu pastor, William Duma. Each year this man would spend three weeks in prayer and fasting. It was about that time that we had also went out to Thaba Bosiu, the mountain where the nation of Lesotho was born. I felt challenged. If Pastor Duma could spend three straight weeks alone with God, could I spend part of just one day each month? And the location would be Thaba Bosiu. Where better to wait upon God for the country of Lesotho, and to seek to better understand His purpose for me here, than where the country had it’s birth. So, September 01 was my first foray to the mountain alone.

Silence and solitude are often referred to as disciplines, and for a reason, I learned. What does one do, for eight hours, alone, on a flat topped mountain? It was a difficult day, made more so because I was struggling with a nasty respiratory virus Wendy had graciously shared with me. I admit it; I whiled away parts of the time dozing, most often on rocks, but once, luxuriously, on a shaded patch of grass. And, there was one somewhat humorous and ironic hiatus.

A source of tourist revenue in Lesotho is cross-country motor races. So, one of my dozing interludes was interrupted by the staccato whine of motor cross bikes. One leg of some cross-country race was passing by in the valley below me, and I was being treated to sounds more than a little incongruent with silence and solitude.

Now, did I have any deep and mysterious revelations on the mountain? No. Did I experience God is some more profound manner? No. In fact, is was tough just hanging in there (out there) for the time I had committed myself to. And yet … And yet, there were moments that I could not have experienced had I not taken this time to be apart. In those moments, maybe, just maybe, I had racked up a few leaves or cleared a bit of some path that will bring me closer “to the One who is leading [me]”.

Next month I fully intend to be back on the mountain.

~ Benno ~