IrishOboe

I will post about the Mt. Fuji climb later, but felt my need to write this override my need to go to bed.

I have been blessed with many healthy loved ones and have only had to say goodbye to a few, so maybe that is why this weekend was the first time that I felt very close to someone I hadn’t been near in a long time. This weekend I climbed Mt. Fuji with my mother’s father, my grandpa. Even by the time I came along he was still traveling the world and climbing mountains, though he often pushed himself beyond what his aging body could handle. As I started the climb up Mt. Fuji’s forested slope I thought of the task ahead of me and how my grandpa would be so proud and excited for me. I felt him looking down on me and cheering me on. I thought of him many times while going up and coming down that majestic mountain.

I never did any serious hiking with my grandfather, so even though I know he loved hiking that is not how I remember him. I don’t remember him well enough. I have forgotten what made him so special for the very reason that he was so special. I do not run into people with his special qualities very often so I have forgotten how it felt to be in his presence. I remember his face and his words and even that he had a special way of being so kind and generous and patient and humble and selfless, but to know those things is as far from feeling them as looking at a feast is to eating it.

Each of my grandpa’s children has a number of his qualities and each reflects them in different ways like light through different prisms. All the adjectives I used to describe Grandpa can be used to describe my aunts and uncles, but the words will change their flavor. This weekend patience and kindness and selflessness tasted like Grandpa. I spent 22 intense hours with four companions. We relied on each other and encouraged each other and worked together in a beautiful way. Take five very different people from all over the states, throw them together for a long hike in the middle of Japan, sprinkle in lack of sleep and freezing weather, blisters and injuries and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. Tension, short tempers and complaints could abound, but there was never a harsh word uttered among the five of us. (Well, we might not have always had kind words for the mountain.) I will tell the story of our incredible journey later. Now I’m trying to express my encounter with my grandfather.

One person in particular had Grandpa’s flavor of patience and a servant’s heart. He never complained. Never. He had a spring in his step and a smile on his face to the very end. I was convinced that he was in no pain and that he was so fit that climbing 3,000 meters was nothing more than a hard workout. It turns out that he’d broken his toe. That’s Grandpa. He’s so good that you can’t tell. Growing up I always wondered how he did it and wished that I could do the same. I can’t. I love attention. I want people to know how wonderfully I’m bearing the pain. It’s been an obsession since childhood and everything reinforced it: I was the model child for the dentist; I amazed the nurses when I didn’t so much as twitch during a shot, and the list goes on into adult life. “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” and “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” are two verses that have always burned in my heart. I was burning myself. I could not imagine giving up my pain since it meant giving up the attention.

This climb taught me about pain. It taught me how to push my body and even more how to push my mind. My companions taught me that having patience for pain is not about suffering in silence, it is about transcending the suffering. I was so focused on bearing the pain of the hike that I could not imagine it possible for someone with no sign of suffering to have any pain at all. Yesterday I sang songs to distract me from the pain. Today I was in less physical pain but could have been in much greater mental pain. The taste of Grandpa’s flavor of patience still lingering in my mouth gave me the courage to try to let it go. I let my troubles roll away and turned my very impressive heavy load into a helium balloon. It worked. I left work bitter and tired and spiraling downward and I arrived home joyful and excited and determined. It wasn’t getting soaked to my underwear during the ride that put me in a good mood. It amazes me how much we can control our circumstances by choosing to not let them control us.

I understand now. Grandpa shared his secret with me through a friend. I must make the journey, but I have seen the goal. I pray I won’t forget how laying down my burden is a thousand times better than man’s empty praise. God’s word isn’t meant to burn, it is meant to refresh and equip us. We only burn when we refused to taste his life-giving water.