After several days of cloudy skies, the evening sun returned to suggest a spectacular view. So we drove to the car park and walked up to Latrigg View — to be greeted by this vista of Keswick, Derwentwater and the mountains beyond…
With this post already taking shape in my mind, I just had to return to this same view, but at the other end of the day. So, leaving the house well before 5am, with Google Maps and some instructions from local expert, Ruth — and I do mean expert, as she has climbed every mountain, or Wainwright, in the entire Lake District — I strided off. At this stage I didn’t realise there was a distinction between Latrigg and Latrigg View. By the time I realised I was not approaching a ‘View’, but a farm, I was beyond any signs (to be fair, there weren’t any signs to begin with!) and confronted with a maze of tracks and trails.
What I would have given for a blessed British queue about then! Put simply, this Himalayan lad was lost in some gently rolling hills on a fine, sunny and cloudless morn. I walked through a mature pine forest, climbed a landslide through a future pine forest, slipping and sliding past tender seedlings — and this was the best vista I could manage (and, as the eagle eye will notice, the two photos are taken from different elevations):
But aren’t the mountains gorgeous?! What I find captivating is that they look so different at these contrasting times of the day — and yet the mountains in both pictures are exactly the same.
This failure reminded me of another failure — of the ‘heart failure’ kind (almost). Some years ago we were camping near Te Aroha, snuggled there into the Kaimai ranges in the eastern part of the North Island. We climbed Mt Te Aroha, keeping watch as it does over the town that shares its name, thinking it would be a bit of a gently-inclining afternoon stroll. Let’s just say “it wasn’t” and leave it there…
From our little camping spot in the back garden of Mike & Elspeth’s home, we’d watch the early morning sun come up behind Mt Te Aroha. The mountain sat there like an indefinable blob. Flat and bland, with this single, dark, bushy colour.
Then the sun would begin to move across the sky, splashing itself on the mountain from different angles and mesmerising me with each perspective. Is this the same mountain? The flat became little bumps and tiny valleys, mini peaks and micro ranges. The single dark bushy green became every shade of green imaginable, tinged into life by the sun. A vista that looked so two-dimensional had become three-dimensional. Far from being bland, Mt Te Aroha became entrancing in front my eyes – simply because the sun had shifted to another place in the sky.
One of the challenges that faces students with the Bible is that serious study can mess with those Sunday School understandings from childhood. It did for me. I could handle the Spirit inspiring human authors to create the books of the Bible, but the process by which those books came together to form the Bible, or what is called the canon? Yikes, that did not sound nearly so Spirit-ual. What about the phrase ‘biblical criticism’, or textual criticism? More yikes. The challenges to my convictions about the Word of God kept coming and the same thing happens to others, sometimes leading to a crisis of faith.
In time I began to see that the truth which is the Word of God is a bit like Mt Te Aroha, or the mountains on the other side of Derwentwater. It is stable and secure and solid. But, as with the sun, I journey across the sky, in the company of others, and see different truths at different times in that same mountain.
I couldn’t number how many times I’ve reached for this image with students…
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
Just when I thought that it could not be possible to have another first-hand account of the impact of John Stott’s life (d. 2011), along comes this book by his close friend, John Wyatt. I am always ready to learn more about John Stott, but also about friendship. It fascinates me. It keeps coming up…
Reading stories to grandchildren over Christmas reminded me again of how powerful they can be. They are so compact and simple in presentation, and yet so clever in construction. There are just so many features at work in an effective story. It is some years since I taught narrative preaching, but when I did I’d…
Apart from the eight years in which we were based overseas, Barby has been working at the Refugee Resettlement Center in Auckland since 2002. This year she is a ‘release teacher’, spending one day each week in three different classrooms, with three different age groups. Impressive—and demanding. One day is spent with 11-13 year olds—from…
Interesting insights! Wonderful light on to the story of journey to Emmaus!!
A beautiful meditation Paul – I'll carry it with me for some time… One of the things in teaching art is to help students "learn to see". Look and see, not just the two dimensional image before you, but the rich three dimensional image that emerges in spending time with/at the scene. (And to push the analogy a bit, how the scence continuously changes!). I'm going off on a tangent, but something I've been thinking about lately is the picture of a jig-saw puzzel. More and more I'm reading scripture as a partially (very partially) started puzzel. What's before me is real, true, reliable, (Schaeffer would add, sufficient!!!). But it's incomplete. In fact there are billions of pieces needed to fill the puzzel and in this life time I have no hope. In the tradition I've come into we call it a "mystery". Not as a fudge. But as part of a bigger, yet to be reveiled picture.
The top pic reminds me of a NZ scene (Akaroa) I painted recently – But Ill need to send it to you on fb as this is a non-visual medium. Blessings.
Thank-you, Arun — may the Lord keep you on that Emmause Road!
Beautiful, Fred —
I did get the painting with the similarities between Derwentwater and Akaroa clearly seen!
Your other comments reminded me of a seminar we did together in Waikanae a few decades ago. Was it a Vision Network event? I can't remember. But we played around with the biblical story, using the four chairs and lingering in NT Wright's Five Act play. Your interesting comments about the jigsaw puzzle took me back to Tom Wrght's imagery.
Blessings