Mt. Sinai

Mt. Sinai. Gabel Moosa (Moses' mountain). This is supposedly the mountain that Moses climbed to get the commandments. The mountain covered in cloud where God stayed and talked to Moses, told him what to write. Its in a beautiful red mountain range. Usually people climb it at sunrise or sunset. At the top sits a mosque and a church next to each other. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe that Moses was a prophet. This mountain is one of the top religious tourism destinations in the world. The bedouins in the area have set up quite a business with hotels, guides, selling overpriced chocolate bars, camel rides, charging for tiny huts to go to the bathroom in on the mountain face, books and souvenirs.

I've climbed this mountain three times. It has meaning, that is sure for anyone who climbs it. The meaning can be so many different things. The first time I climbed it was two and a half years ago as a study abroad student. Like everything the whole semester I was thinking to myself, "This is so freakin cool! I'm walking where Moses walked maybe! I have to tell my friends, my family, random strangers about this!" As I walked through several switchbacks I started to mellow and truly tried to feel what Moses felt as he climbed. How scared did he feel? How special did he feel? How excited? Did he ever succumb to pride that he was the one hanging out with God? Or is that why he was chosen, because he was entirely humble?

The second time I climbed was a couple months ago with my family. This time the meaning faded into the sociologist, academic part of me. I was thinking, all the way up and all the way down, about how this felt to religious tourists. Interesting I don't consider myself one of them although I probably am. I started trying to empathize with the hymn singing, horn blowing crowd, started thinking how they would remember this place when they went back home. What will it mean to them?

This third time, this weekend, I was used to this mountain. I know how long it takes, how hard it is, how dark it is, generally how to avoid getting run over by a camel, and I just wanted to climb the mountain. I started thinking, the beauty, the meaning of this mountain is that its a metaphor. The endlessly climbing up to meet God, the knowledge that God is there to meet us. The call to "rejoice my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance and perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything," has an experience to match it when you think of this mountain as life. We are always climbing, climbing, but why? Because we meet God at the top, and because we are on holy ground. We know that climbing the mountain is tough, but somehow enjoyable. We know, without seeing, that what we see at the top will be more beautiful than we can imagine. And then, we get there, and it is.

Here I am reminded of a conversation I had with two good friends the other day in which we discussed miracles. Miracles, what are they? Why do they seem not to really happen for us anymore? At least us Western Christians seem to have accepted that the age of miracles is over. We say that this saddens us, we say that if we just all saw miracles all the time we would be so much more able to believe, like during the early days. But what's to say we aren't all seeing miracles? What's to say just because something is common in our lives, something is ordinary in that it happens all the time to all kinds of people, that it isn't a miracle. Birth, sunrises, singing, flowers, acts of mercy, floating on water, mountains. And what's to say that seeing God makes life easier? The burning bush ruined Moses' life. But he ended up on top of Mt. Sinai, where his life no longer mattered.