Canoeing the Mountains
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”—John 12:24.
The Alban Weekly from Duke Divinity School interviewed Tod Bolsinger, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, about the meaning of his recent book, Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory (IVP Books, 2018).
Bolsinger provides a surprising metaphor for so many of our transition experiences in life. He tells the story of the journey of the explorers Lewis and Clark, who anticipated they would find a navigable river leading to the Pacific Ocean when they reached the Continental Divide. Instead, they met the Rocky Mountains.
They didn’t survive by attempting to canoe the mountain. However, the explorers didn’t let this obstacle destroy their objective. They had to adapt, and their key to survival came from a source of wisdom that was not part of their hierarchy or privilege.
I think what Bolsinger is trying to tell our churches can apply to aspects of our lives. We have much to learn from people who know what it is like to reach the top of a mountain with a now useless canoe in hand and still accomplish the insurmountable journey.
Survivors of previous calamities have a sense of a GPS calling them back home. Immigrants, people of color, and women especially have had to adapt to overwhelming situations. Their experiences have much to teach us. More and more, we are called to listen to their stories.
Lewis and Clark encountered the needed wisdom from a teenager, a nursing mother, a Native American kidnapped as a child. “She wasn’t in unfamiliar terrain; she was going home.”
Bolsinger reminds us that transformation often comes from loss, and those who do not have power may be the true experts in overcoming precarious situations. They may be the best trained in survival and wilderness experiences. Just as Lewis and Clark had to take direction from a young Indian mother, Bolsinger reminds us of the wisdom of giving up power so that something much greater can be birthed. This is also a basic premise in recovery programs.
The canoe metaphor is an apt one for our individual life transitions. What mountains on our journey have we encountered, equipped with only a “canoe”: a valuable energy at one time in our life, but not the expertise we need now? What does it mean to listen more carefully to survivors—survivors in our own world and the survivor parts of our inner world that can guide us along the next pathway?
This is why we continue attending recovery meetings to hear stories from other survivors. This is why we meet with spiritual directors or share our dreams with others who have traveled paths that are less traveled to us. This is why we learn that the skills we know in our work are not the same ones we will need at home with our children or spouses.
I remember stories I read that were helpful at that time, but were much more meaningful in the future.
Oh my, this story is appropriate for us today during and after the pandemic.
We had to adapt to new survival techniques that we had never used before: wearing a mask, being socially distanced, constant hand washing, and getting vaccinated. These are simple tasks that saved our lives. We must admit that people who are much more intelligent than ourselves know about survival along this path, and some have even been part of other pandemics and know a thing or two.
I am thinking of our enormous party when we reach our equivalent of the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark only lost one person in their expedition, probably from a ruptured appendix. But we have left behind so many lives as we have traveled through this pandemic. Today, we immensely miss them.
“Tod Bolsinger: What Does It Mean to Stop Canoeing the Mountains?” Faith and Leadership, Alban at Duke Divinity School, alban@div.duke.edu, 8/13/2018.
