By For me the thought of climbing a mountain in Asia had many interesting imaginations attached to it.
Having now climbed Mt. Trus Madi, I feel like I have some interesting reflections to mention. As the blog’s title says, I had thorns in my hands. The thorns were embedded in my hand as a result of touching particular plants along the trail.
The trail up the the summit of Trus Madi was treacherous. Endless tree roots made our path a jungle gym. At times we would have to duck under trees to keep moving, at others climb over top trees. Sometimes the trail was very steep and beside dangerous sheer drops on a cliff face. The trail also had some pretty invasive wildlife too! In the lowlands there were leeches on the tall grasses. These would crawl on you until they found a patch of skin to suck blood from. The trail’s regular sleeping accommodations housed a family of hungry rats, who came out at night to eat what food was left on the floor inches away from our beds. The beds themselves were only plywood and sheet metal and were hardly anything more than a way to keep dry. It was a bitter-sweet arrangement. It was cold and raining and we could be dry by sleeping in the shack on these beds, but the shack was very cold. Out of all the negative things about our climb up Mt. Trus Madi, the worst was that there was no view except fog when we reached it’s summit. It was just cold and wet.
Now I it might sound like I had a terrible time, and the truth is I did have a terrible time. But I would do it again if given the chance. Why? Looking at the thorns in my hand after the climb I thought “why would people put themselves through such terrible things so willingly as I had?” The reason why anyone chooses to do anything is because they figure it’s worth it one way or another. What is worth climbing a treacherous path is the redeeming qualities along the way. Such as the spectacular views, the exhilarating challenges, and the incredible wildlife.
Mt. Trus Madi did have spectacular views (when the clouds did part if only for a moment), it had plenty of exhilarating challenges and it had incredible wildlife (I should mention we saw a wild boar sprint across the road on our way down).
What is significant about any of this? In this kind of reflection there are parallels that could be drawn. One has to do with God and the problem of evil. The problem of evil is a philosophical issue that deals with how an all powerful and all good God could exist while evil also exists in the world. What can be drawn from climbing Mt. Trus Madi and be applied to the problem of evil is how humans themselves will willingly take part in horrendous challenges because somewhere along the way they expect a few redeeming qualities will make it worth it. Perhaps that is a way to look at how God created a world with horrendous suffering. Perhaps God feels for a few things that it is all worth it even though His creation destroys itself and gets destroyed constantly. Of course that is speaking of God in a human frame of understanding, it just might be something we would do too.