Climb every mountain

I’ve a friend called Hugh who climbs mountains.

Not quite for a living, though I think that was once a possibility: but very much as an integral part of his living. Wherever it may be, from the Himalayas to the Appalachians, show him a mountain and he has to get to the top.

In Scotland they’re called Munros. Mountains over 3,000 feet. Hardly big, on a global scale – I mean, that barely gets above the ankles of Mount Everest or K2: but big enough to represent a challenge of a sort.

There are about 285 of them in all and ‘bagging’ these Munros has grown to be, if not a craze, at least a sort of ‘fad’. The ‘holy grail’ for all such folk is ‘bagging’ every one of these Munros. There must be now some thousands who have bagged the lot – and, with some justification, tend to turn their bagging into bragging and recount the wild adventures that they’ve had in getting all the set.

Hugh doesn’t really ‘bag’ Munros. He devours them.

He was barely out of his teens when he first had bagged the lot. The third youngest person ever at the time, I think he said, to have been to the top of each of these peaks.

That was twenty five years ago (though he still looks not that much beyond those teenage years – there must be something healthy in a life that’s lived like that!). And now these twenty five years on he’s done it all again, a month or so ago. ‘Bagged’ the lot a second time.

Cause for celebration.

And where else to have that celebration than atop the final peak – Stob na Broige (don’t even try to pronounce it – just accept that’s what it’s called!). Stob na Broige is one of four Munros on an impressive ridge they call the Buachaille Etive Mor (no, that’s not an anagram, it’s the ridge’s name: it means, I think, ‘big herdsman of the Etive’ – which sounds a bit weak really, so I guess that’s why they go for the far more striking Gaelic name!).

This ridge stands guard at the eastern approach to the Pass of Glencoe: a part of the world that's simply dripping in some pretty vivid history – but as often as not is shrouded in mist and clouds and rain.

Well, not averse to celebrate, I said that I would meet him there and join the little party on the top. 2pm, Hugh said.

I left a little later than I’d planned and, never having climbed this ridge before, I figured I would try the route the handbooks recommended.

I went up the Coire na Tulaich – easier to say (by far) than it is to climb. It starts steep, gets steeper and by the end it feels like it’s almost vertical! But hey, I made it!

The clock was ticking down, though, and that climbing up the Coire was nothing more than access to the actual ridge itself. And the celebration peak that Hugh had chosen for the day was right out at the furthest end, a mere three peaks away! I mean, why could he not have gone for something closer for the celebration drinks?

Undaunted, though, I headed off along the ridge, an eerie sense of growing isolation as I didn’t see another soul. By 2pm I was still a good two peaks away and didn’t have a clue about how far I had to go. The rain was coming down, the mist was moving in, the forecast was for worse.

And here I was, alone. Alone, atop a ridge I’d never climbed before, soaked right through to well beneath my skin and unable now to see beyond perhaps a scary 30 feet, if that.

I had a choice. Press on and hope to find the designated peak and join the party late - and run the risk, of course, of maybe getting well and truly lost (a dodgy line to take when up on these impressive and most unforgiving mountains).

Or celebrate alone.

I opted for the latter course. I remembered what my Dad had from my youth been quick to stress – always give the mountains the respect that they deserve. I did.

I swallowed my pride - instead of my celebration dram. Discretion being the better part of valour and all that.

(That's Hugh and his son, by the way!)

Folly isn't faith. And though it's to the mountain peaks I'm called in following Christ, caution is as much a Christian grace as courage always is. Risk is always relative, I've learned: and it's not to be confused with any brazen recklessness.

Like Hugh, I'm a man who climbs mountains. Except, for me, it is in truth my life: it's what I'm called and paid to do. It's a long, hard slog to the top of the ridge and a long, hard slog to the peaks. I'm not allowed to settle for the low lands of the laissez-faire. I'm called to climb up high.

There are mountains to be climbed these days for those of us who follow Jesus Christ. And what I'm trying to do these days is struggle up these high, imposing corridors of change which take us to the ridges of renewal in the church's life.

It's way up there the action's taking place. It's wet, it's wild, it's dangerous. It's there the rains come down which feed the mighty rivers of the Holy Spirit's power. It's there the mists of God's mysterious glory start to swirl around our spirits 'til we almost lose our bearings in the grandeur of his majesty. It's way up there, I say, the action's taking place.

It's there we've got to be. And that means change. We've got to climb those Coires if we're going to hit the heights.

And I'm learning as the days go by it isn't simply courage that I need, but caution too. Courage in those steps of faith by which the choice is made to go for it, to countenance a way of being the church of Christ which seems to some too dangerous and hard: but caution in discerning that there comes a point where pressing proudly on may slowly, subtly change from being a faith that honours God to being a folly he disowns.

Respect, as my Dad (and some others!) would say.

Respect. But not fear. There's far too much at stake today to let ourselves be paralysed by fear. It's way up there the action's taking place and the parties on those high up peaks are more than worth the effort that's involved!

Even if I sometimes have to celebrate alone!