For the past four days, I have been on a backpacking trip in the wilderness of northern Alabama at Camp ToknowHim near Pisgah. The days were not very crowded, which was a surprising and generally welcome reprieve from the madness of the final weeks here at IMPACT, especially the return from spring break when we had the alumni service learning project weekend. We did a day hike back into the Penitentiary where we had our night hike long ago last September, rappelled on the side of the bluff that we were camped on for two days, and had quite a few sessions learning about various aspects of God, from fear of Him to His greatness (shown in His being constant, life, infinite, personal, and spirit) and goodness (in purity, integrity, and love).
For me, the most harrowing event of the entire four days took place on Tuesday afternoon. We finished setting up camp on the bluff by four and headed back up the trail to go into the Penitentiary. To give a little history, the Penitentiary is a deep ravine that cuts a labyrinth through the rock. Its sheer sides soar upward in some places as high as fifty feet, its paths sometimes as narrow as two or three feet wide. These characteristics made it ideal as a holding place for Indians on the Cherokee Trail of Tears, when they were herded into the labyrinth while soldiers patrolled from the top, effectively cutting off almost all possibility of escape.
My hard place was the second narrow cut that we traveled through. The other must be surpassed by crawling while lying on one's side and shimmying awkwardly through the dirt/mud and dead leaves in a space that gets significantly smaller mere inches overhead. The second though is probably a generous two feet at its narrowest, and the path itself is at an incline of about fifty or sixty degrees. The trick involves sucking in your gut, going in at a slant with your feet moving farther uphill than your torso, and finally, not panicking because panic does not help with the breathing thing.
Last September, I did not pass through, choosing instead to travel around the rock with a small group of other students who were equally disinclined to attempt it. But this time, I figured it couldn't hurt to try, so I lined up with everyone else and made Try Number One with Leah behind me to egg me on. But the mouth is the smallest part, and I could not shove my torso past the squeeze point, try though I might. Red-faced and frustrated, I pulled back, allowing a few more people to pass me by before stepping back into line and trying again, this time with a little more determination. I got a little bit further, especially when our guide J.T. told me to try the foot-angling thing, but I started to get panicky at the sense of falling over backward because of the incline and eventually had to step back again.
Finally, only Trent and David remained to go through, and I was more determined than ever to make it through. This time, I combined the tricks of what not to do from the last times with the angling technique (which worked a lot better when I did it from the start rather than halfway in), and after a lot of strain, pauses to breath, and shuffled feet, I got past the first tight spot. After that, it wasn't too bad except for another spot halfway through where the foot path abruptly stepped up about six inches, and the torso/foot transition was rather tricky. At that point, though, I didn't really have the option of turning back since I barely knew how I had slipped past the first one, so with trembling arms and screaming calves, I pushed past that obstacle too. This entire time, Mary Michael and Chelsea were cheering me on from above, and David and Trent were giving encouragement and tips behind me. I doubt I would have made it anywhere if not for Mary Michael's hand reaching from above to pull me along.
At last I was through, seated trembling on a rock while taking in furious gulps of air and sips of water. Chelsea said that my forehead was steaming and I think I was a lot more afraid than I was letting myself know. Somehow there is no sweet taste of triumph from that success. There is only a dull sense of "happened" about it, though Mary Michael said she thought I needed to go back through the Penitentiary just for that. I don't feel as if I learned anything significant about myself, just that I'm mildly claustrophobic and stubborn to the point of near physical injury when it suits me. But I suppose if there is anything I have learned this year at IMPACT, it's that I rarely know the full implications of an event until well after the fact of its occurrence.
Ah, but I have not fully explained the title of this post. Between my second and third tries, David somewhat jokingly told me I should write a poem in my head while going through, I guess to sort of keep calm. Later that evening, while we were eating dinner, he asked me if I'd come up with anything, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek I replied that someone had already written a perfectly good song and no more needed to be said on the subject. When asked what song that might be, I sang:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
Let the water and the blood
From Thy riven side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure
Save from wrath and make me pure
