"At the Dark Moment..."

I’ve had some pretty bad habits over the years. One of the worst was an addiction to rock climbing. I’m not kidding. I was like a rock climbing crackhead. I couldn’t get enough. If I had to go more than a day or two without a fix, I would be twitching and tearing at the wall paper. Lucky for me, I got old and out of shape. After that, it quit being as much fun and I was able to recover.

At a certain point, when the addiction was at its worst, I started climbing some of the massive cliffs of Zion National Park. On one particularly memorable climb, I found myself dangling from a tiny metal hook, placed on a tiny sandstone edge, 800 feet up a huge cliff face. My partners and I were moving slower than anticipated and the sun had long since set. I had placed the hook by blindly groping around with my fingers in the deep shadows created by my headlamp until I found something that seemed like it might hold my body weight. Not the most intelligent thing to do, I know, but I was out of options. I remember easing my weight onto the hook a little at a time, first just the weight of one foot, then my leg, then ever so slowly, my whole body. Holy cow, it held. Obviously, I weighed less back then or it might have ended differently.

This is not me, but it is the exact same hook move. Photo: Mountain Project

It’s not that I would go plummeting to my death or anything if the hook blew. I would only drop five or ten feet before the rope caught me. But that’s scary! I would have needed a change of underwear by the time I got done falling. Besides, I was physically and mentally exhausted after 12 hours of non-stop effort. To tell the truth, I wasn’t having fun anymore. I just wanted to get off this stupid wall and remember what it’s like not to be scared. Then maybe I’d take up a new addiction like golf or something.

Using the hook, I moved up enough to find another gear placement. A much more secure one, thank goodness. I breathed for what felt like the first time since weighting the hook. Using this improved gear placement, I climbed up higher to find another one. Then another and another, slowly inching my way up the vertical ocean of rock.

This one actually is me. Before it got dark and I got tired, hungry, and scared. 

Climbers call the cliff face I was on "Prodigal Son". It tops out on Angel's Landing and offers one of the most spectacular views anywhere in the world. The funny thing was, I couldn’t see anything outside the reach of my pitiful headlamp. So even though I knew I was 800 feet off the ground, and that the immense beauty and open space of the canyon was at my back, I could only see the next few feet of rock right in front of my face. When I first made plans to climb this beast, I imagined that I would feel like a bird soaring over all of Zion when I reached this point. Instead, I felt more like I was crawling through a cave like a worm. This was not what I signed up for.

My good friend and climbing partner, Gregg Batt, early in the climb.

Finally, I reached a big sandy ledge. It was the first real ledge since I left the ground. I secured the rope for my climbing partners and collapsed onto the sandy ledge. I sprawled out on my back feeling tired, miserable, and mean. Why did I do this to myself? This wasn’t fun! This was nothing but hard work and fear. As I lay there feeling sorry for myself, it occurred to me that there was no reason to waste the batteries in my headlamp, so I clicked it off.

Pow!

In only a split second, the entire universe opened its arms and embraced me. The light of my headlamp had been like a visually impenetrable bubble preventing me from seeing anything outside of its pathetic reach. With a simple flip of a switch, the bubble burst and I could see the great dome of stars shining overhead. The massive spires of Zion jutted up into the sky all around. Far below, the Virgin River sparkled in the moonlight.

"Celestial Zion" by the immensely talented Jared Warren.
Check out his website, Facebook page, and blog for inspiring photos and insightful writing.

Joseph Campbell said, “The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the dark moment comes the light.” And that is exactly what happened. All at once, the 12 hours of hard work, fear, and exhaustion were worth it. Absolutely worth it.

At the time, there weren’t a lot of coherent thoughts making their way through my scrambled mind. Later, however, it made me think of Isaiah 50: 11 which reads, “Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.”

That perfectly described what I had been doing ever since the sun went down. I had trusted in “the light of [my own] fire”, my headlamp, and it had limited my perspective, left me feeling trapped and claustrophobic, and made me blind to the inspiring beauty that surrounded me. It made me literally “lie down in sorrow” as I collapsed on that sandy ledge.

On the other hand, Isaiah 50: 10 tells us, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” This was exactly what happened when I turned off my headlamp. Once I switched that light off, I was able to see truly. My perspective broadened immeasurably, and the beauty of Zion and the light of the moon and stars was finally able to reach me.

We all have moments in our writing, art, and other creative endeavors where we reach a dark moment. We are not having fun anymore. We are exhausted intellectually, emotionally, and even physically. We wonder why we are doing this at all. We are tempted to just give up.

When this happens, and it always does sooner or later, I suggest we need to turn off our light. That is, the part of us that thinks we know it all. Remember, “…cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 17: 5) We need to have the humility to remind ourselves that our perspective is narrow, but God’s is boundless. Our creativity is finite, God’s is infinite. Our abilities are limited, God’s are limitless. It’s hard to do, but we have to quit thinking that we know better and trust instead in the Spirit to guide us through these dark moments.

Once we turn out our own limiting light and experience that transformative moment, all the hard work and fear will be worth it. Absolutely worth it.

Gustave Dore's "White Rose"