Together Alone

Last weekend I sat down with Jon Krakauer's classic, "Into Thin Air". It is his personal story of a 1996 ascent to Mt. Everest, the highest point on the earth (29,028 ft). But the trip suddenly went all wrong and 9 people died near the peak, after being caught in a storm. Four of the five whom he reached the peak with were killed within hours.

It is a chilling tale of personalities, wills and egos that drive individuals to attempt such a feat. The closest I have been to a mountain is a few random days in an indoor rock gym. But even from that distance I get the idea that the world of climbing, while an individual endeavor, often requires a great deal of teamwork. That is why one particular passage on 213 jumped off the page when I read it.....

"There were more than 50 people camped on the Col (26,000 ft) that night, huddled in shelters side by side, yet an odd feeling of isolation hung in the air. The roar of the wind made it impossible to communicate from one tent to the next. In this godforsaken place, I felt disconnected from the climbers around me - emotionally, physically, spiritually - to a degree I hadn't experienced on any previous expedition. We were a team in name only, I'd sadly come to realize. Although in a few hours we would leave camp as a group, we would ascend as individuals, linked to one another by neither rope nor any deep sense of loyalty. Each client was in it for himself or herself, pretty much. And I was not different..."

How sad that a group of people who would have each benefited from a common sense of loyalty were simply alone together. As a pastor I dread the thought that people in my church are not tethered together as they climb the mountains of life. We too would benefit from being roped together by a deep sense of loyalty.