The Wise Old Mountain Man (Or Dan tells the immigrant story)

 

The wise old mountain man

Far away on a lonely mountain in some distant country lives a wise old man. He never leaves his shack, he never comes down from the mountain, and he never invites anyone over to hang out. 

But… if you should ever want to visit this man, he will welcome you into his home. And the legend goes that if you do find yourself a guest of this man, you can ask him anything about life, and he will give you the answer, because according to legend this lonely, wise, old man knows the secret of the meaning of life. 

If you ever were to make this trip, you will have to take an airplane to this distant, exotic country. You will have to locate this mountain. You will have to learn how to mountain climb. You will have to spend a lot of money on climbing gear, food, a tent, really warm clothing, maybe like an ice pick or two. You will have to climb, and climb, and climb, until you don’t want to climb anymore, until you don’t have an ounce of strength left in your body. There are no stairs up the mountain, no elevator or that cool tram that you can take when you go to Scenic world in Katoomba. You will have to do it all yourself, climb until your body feels like giving up, and then keep going. You might not make it. You might get badly hurt. You could die. A rock could fall on you. Or you might fall off a rock to your death.

There are many ways to fail. You might decide that it’s not worth it and turn around and give up. You might get lost. You might get lonely. You might start doubting the legend. What if this guy’s a fraud and it’s all a waste of time? This is what you have to do if you want to meet him.

Does this sound like a good deal to you? If you want to know how to live a happy life, you have to work hard, climb this mountain, risk everything, you have to sacrifice yourself in order to get what you most want out of life.  Is it worth it? Is this a good deal? 

I don’t know if this is a good deal, but I’ll tell you what I do know. It’s a fair deal. 

In this life, you have to work hard to be saved. 

The trope of the wise old hermit guru is so common in storytelling that it has its own page on TV tropes. Is the way that I presented it an accurate analogy for life? In the church that I work for, many of my people would find the beats of the story emotionally resonant to the narrative of their life. 

In a Chinese church, you can expect that many parents tell their children that they have to work hard in order to get what they want out of life. There’s no shortcut or magic grift that will teleport you to prosperity. The only surefire, not to mention honest and rewarding, way to the good life is to work hard for it. Our parents tell us that we have to work hard in order to get prosperity and prestige.

But if you’re reading this and nodding along because that is ALL that your parents have told you growing up, then I’m afraid to tell you that your parents have been lying to you. They have only been telling you one part of the truth that they inhabit. 

(If you think this is the point where I tell you that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life or something, come on. Give me more credit than that.)

The whole truth that is that your parents don’t want you to work hard just to achieve prosperity and prestige, they want you to work hard to avoid poverty, shame, failure, and disaster. You think you work hard because you’re chasing something great. You work hard because you’re running from something terrible. We don’t risk death on that mountain for a chance to seize the best. We do it desperately to save ourselves from the worst. A wasted life.

Some of your parents were honest with you from the start about this, and if they were then I apologize for my presumptiveness. Some parents steer their children not down the path of aiming high, but down the path of aiming stable. Don’t be a doctor or a lawyer, in case you can’t cut it. A physiotherapist or a schoolteacher will do. Reasonable income, good pension, hard to get fired once you’re in as long as you’re not completely incompetent. You’re not cut out for living lavishly, but if you apply all of yourself then you can still yet live comfortably.

The immigrant story arc is a fascinating mix of high hopes and desperate fears. Whichever end of the pole you dwell though, the common thread is self-reliance. Climb that mountain, man. Because that’s the promise of the New World. In the Old World, if a man was born to a butcher, he would be a butcher. If he were son of a blacksmith, he’d be a blacksmith. But here, anyone who applies themselves can earn their way out of their lot. 

A bad best deal

Is that a fair deal? It’s hard not to be down with meritocracy. But is it a good deal? I don’t know. So many things can go wrong on the climb. You can roll with the wrong crowd, make bad friends, meet bad influences and fall off the mountain. You can get sick on a day with clear weather and when you finally get better a snowstorm blows in. 

(A person I knew of in high school got mono, aka glandular fever, in our senior year and missed an entire semester, and ended up getting held back another year). 

You might find yourself stuck on the same ledge partway up, unable to get any further, and come to the rude realization that the mountain itself wasn’t neutral. That the mountain never wanted you to get to the top. That the structure was rigged and you were doomed from the start. 

All this for prosperity and prestige. Or maybe all this to avoid a pointless existence. Or perhaps all this to avoid a life of backbreaking labor. Or perhaps all this to make sure you do better than your parents. That your family didn’t go backwards for a generation. 

Reader, I dearly hope that life for you isn’t about working hard to avoid failure. It’s not a fair deal. It’s a burden you can’t bear. The conditions on this mountain are harsh enough without you having to carry this weight on your shoulders. 

(NOW is where the Jesus part comes in). 

Jesus once said to a crowd: 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11.28-29)

You are meant to carry many burdens in life. But the weight of having to save yourself isn’t one of them. It’s too heavy. It will crush you. It weighs as much as a Roman cross. Under it you will either despair and give up, or you will grow as hard and cold and unyielding as the mountain itself. You will harden yourself to survive bearing that weight, but in the process you will lose yourself. And you will be stuck in place, unwilling to die but unable to go any further under the cross. You will never reach that mountain top. You will never see the mountain man. With your own hands and feet, you will fail. 

The Christian message is this: The mountain man came down to you. He knows, if you don’t, that you will never attain salvation on your own. So he came to save. He descended so that you might ascend. His message you can trust. He is one you can trust.