THE ROPE [Chapter Two]
The story I am rewriting is my own. Not as a revisionist sitting behind the keyboard who disagrees with previous beliefs. More, as a woman who is in a season of reinterpretation of her experiences, allowing a fresh perspective to bathe her in new light. _________________________________
There was something about this that felt familiar. Like I had experienced or written about it before. But then I gave myself rare permission to write about it again, trusting that my words would be received not as repetitive or redundant but confirmation of the power of recurring themes in our lives…
One of these is my obsession with mountain climbing.
Not because of some longing to do something unreasonably unsafe.
But because of a fascination with the superhuman power of the will.
Although this is NOT a story about mountain climbing, it can be said that it is a tale of clinging to something as if one’s life depended on it. In this case, it did.
I came to this title upon hearing about a rescued mountain climber, his brutal situation seemingly beyond all hope. And the title reawakened a tiny spark, like someone switching the light on in a familiar room.—
“I have written about ropes before,” I remembered. I shared the original story to underscore a difficult season in my own treacherous journey many months ago. Yet, there is a profound and obvious difference in perspectives, then and now—
The original story advocated letting go.
This one endorses hanging on with the tenacity of rabid faith.
The account begins with a climber who had fallen nearly 1,000 feet into a frozen Annapurna crevasse. Though few on the surface of the mountain believed the climber had survived the tumble, the rescue effort was vast. What caught my attention in all the commotion of his predicament was a seemingly small detail that made me gasp—
The rope used for his rescue was exactly and precisely 70 meters long.
Of all the commotion—the ice, the rescue parties, even the belief that he was mostly assuredly already dead, it was the rope that transcended every other detail.
Here is the part of the story that you won’t forget—had the rope been the standard climbing length of 68 meters, the climber of Annapurna would have been left to perish in the frozen bowels of one of the tallest peaks in the world.
My emotions surrounding this rescue are intense, leading me back to another story with the same title I had written when I was first diagnosed with this disease. There I discovered a Janene who always had an affinity to ropes—
One who learned to be daring on childhood rope swings, and swing-outs over shallow creeks and too-wide ravines.
In the midst of the early stages of my diagnosis I wrote:
I believe this rope dangling before me is symbolic not of the struggle to cling to something, but of the art of letting go.“What are you holding on to?” the rope whispers.
At the time I was facing a hard decision, one that challenged tightly held beliefs.
In this frame of mind I advocated the necessity of release.
But I have entered a new season, one in which holding on is essential—
that is, a clinging to of faith.
He is not only our rescuer, He is the rope.
I wonder, do you know that you are never out of his reach?
When we lose faith that there’s a solution to our mess, the answer is always him.
This lifeline. The One who is intimately involved. As I dangle between what is and what next, He asks me to simply hang on.
“Let me pull you up and out,” I hear him whisper. “I will not leave you alone.”
Of all that has transpired in and through this journey, what I am grateful for the most is the shifting that has taken place in me:
The rope is no longer representative of old, destructive habits and beliefs,
but of an intimate relationship with the one who saves,
the necessary safety feature for a life lived on the edge.
My Creator lingers in the places I most fear and He waits. And waits. He is in this vast territory of “least visited”— In the places unfamiliar and unknown. His arms are outstretched, “Let me pull you out.” His fingertips closer than I can comprehend.
NOTES:
If you are wondering, the original “The Rope” was written nearly two years ago. There are so many things said and explored that I believe the climber of Annapura would agree with, mainly the idea of facing what you fear most.
The climber, Anurag Maloo was rescued after falling into a crevasse on Annapurna in April 2023. He was trapped for three days at an altitude of around 6,000m (19,600ft) between Camp III and Camp II. He was found alive and later transferred to a hospital in Pokhara.
[a prayer]
I will cling to you and you will rescue me from the darkness, you will pull me out of the pit that I have stumbled into. And you will be my safe place, both the path and the guide. You will hoist me up to greatness and steady me when I falter. In my ascending and in my return, you will be by my side. Even when my steps are sturdy, I will not let go. And when I feel as if I’ve lost my way, I need only tighten my grip. You are the length between my what was and my what next. You are my what is, the I AM of my days.
IMAGE: [excerpt from The Rope, written two years ago]—
It’s twenty-seven degrees on the dirt path that leads to the place along the lake’s edge where the largest and most beautiful of seven Danes used to run to with abandon. But I am alone today…without the insistent pull of my eager company, without his breathtaking, distracting gaze.
I notice, for the first time, something dangling along the shoreline that taunts so many buried memories to come out to play. This frayed and knotted rope, tied to a towering pine at least twenty feet from shoreline, hangs over what was once water now receded, at present, a beach of pebbles instead. This rope. Made more mysterious, more interesting, with its evidence of use and decay.