the avalanche

It wasn’t too long ago, during a Sunday School class, that I was asked to meditate, to reflect upon times in which I had felt closest to God, a time or times in which the presence of God was undeniable, that God’s influence was unmistakable, obvious, and over-powering. We spent several minutes in quiet meditation in an overly warm room, trying to ignore the slight noises made by our annoyed bellies or the random sounds coming from the parking lots and concrete roadways that surrounded our building. I assumed that the others in the room were drifting off to a place that they remembered vividly, that struck them in such a way that they could instantaneously revert back to a time and a place, a day and an age, a feeling, a solid moment, a warm memory that was not bound by time, but that lived quite fervently within their heart and soul.

I imagined that, and had the time to do so, because I would not imagine anything for myself. My mind, though not empty, was not being filled with such moments or memories. I tried with great might to remember such a time and to meditate on it, but the reality was, as a computer searching for information that is not there, my mind churned, lights blinked, and I came up empty handed, or more truly, empty minded.

So I thought about other things: I should have eaten more this morning
I should have made more coffee
I don’t remember anything about the book
Does my breath stink?
Oregon sounds nice right now
Don’t fall asleep…don’t fall asleep

And so on and so forth.

So after several minutes of failing to achieve the goal that was set before me, I began to think of how my mind could not settle down and how I needed more time to meditate. I clearly needed at least 30 minutes to relax, after good coffee and with a bathroom break, to clear my mind of family, work, books, sports, and a variety of other things that clouded my meditation period. I anticipated being done soon and felt somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I had thought of exactly nothing in regard to the subject.

And then it hit me.

The fleeting, dream-like sequence, visions that I had, without a definitive memory or reflection upon which to rest was for reasons beyond my inability to concentrate completely at any given time. The fast-forward, reverse, stop-motion pictures that I saw as I searched were the manifestations of my final vision: God is like an avalanche.

So in the moment in which the facilitator of our class called us out of our meditative state, I finally and clearly saw that the blur of memories and moments that failed to settle were the direct result of being caught up in God as the avalanche.

God is like an avalanche in such a way that there is absolutely unmistakable power within the avalanche. I remember many times in which there were short instances of clarity, of revelations that were much larger than books and sermons and even the Bible in itself. I remember moments of intense blindness, too, carried under powerful waves of snow, blankets that smothered and crushed, as I would try to fight against such power, with little success. I know I tried to gain my footing time and time again, grasping for control in the midst of something that engulfed my total being, that carried me far from where I was when our paths “coincided” to a place that was barely recognizable to myself.

The avalanche comes, all power, and we are caught up, with no control of destiny, with no control of ourselves, as we desperately grasp for those things that we hold dear, only to find that we are not in control of those, either. We try to dictate where we are going, but we only realize that we rarely know where we are even in a present tense to decide where it is that we will go. We see glimpses of our trail, as we are toppled and tossed over and over, periodically catching sight of our path as the avalanche brings us to the surface to see the mountains and trees as they disappear as rapidly as they appeared in the first place. But just as soon as we catch ourselves in a position to state with confidence where we are, who we are, and our present purpose, we find ourselves in the midst of being forced under again, gasping for air, wondering how we have traveled from memory to memory, from clarity to blur to clarity, from revelation to revelation. What we realize is that we have not seen the path, we have not seen our repeated dying to ourselves, being forced under, crushed by the power of the ultimate. We have not seen the turns and the change of topography, the distance traveled that has brought us to a place that we briefly encounter, only to be carried off again. And each time we crest, we are far removed from the last place, over and over again. And each time we are carried under, smothered, crushed, bruised, we are changed, formed into an image that is our new self, far removed from our old self, a new birth, a baptism, in the purity of God as an avalanche.

God as avalanche, carries us in such a way that we are never the same, that it is impossible to be left unchanged, impossible to not be taken up in the might of the avalanche, reformed through the molding of the avalanche. We have no idea where it will take us, how it will form us, and we are powerless against it. When we are hit by the avalanche that is God, there is no mistake. And we have no idea what is happening as we are carried, as we are baptized; we only catch glimpses of our journey in moments, in visions of clarity, in revelation.

And I say, “But God, I wanted to be over on that peak.”

“No, my child, you are in this valley.”

“Tomorrow can we go to that peak?”

“You will go where I take you.”

And just like that the avalanche begins again, with a roar of powder and powerful thrusts of snow and ice, and we ride, knowing, understanding that what we are caught up in is not safe, not very comfortable, not catering to our desires, but that it will take us where it wants us.

The avalanche is absolutely beautiful. And it is absolutely dangerous. I only hope that I find myself in the midst of it, letting go of all thought of control, and resting in its immensity.