Human Endurance

Come on, Terry . . . join us for the Grouse Grind!

Dear Friends,

This invitation was not one to try a new blend of Seattle coffee. Rather, it was my two traveling companions, Denis and Jay, casually asking me to accompany them on a not-so-casual hike on one of our last days in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The hike up the 3,700-foot Grouse Mountain is called the “Grouse Grind” for a reason. It’s a 1.8 mile trek up 2,830 steps and boulders for a total elevation gain of 2,800 feet. Developed by Canadian mountaineers looking for a challenging and convenient workout to condition them for their longer hikes, the course is also referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.”

Well, I didn’t know any of this when I agreed to join my fit friends (my partner Gail wisely stayed back at our hotel with the morning paper and coffee). As we got out of the car in the parking lot and I looked up towards the summit, which was shrouded in a pillow of white mist, Jay finally put my challenge into perspective. “You might want to lower your expectations on how well you’ll do,” he said. “It’s pretty hard.”

Okay . . . at that point, my goal was simply to finish.

An hour and 40 minutes later, I reached the top, feeling like I couldn’t walk another step . . . and feeling grateful that my legs, lungs and heart were able to rise to the occasion. I don’t normally seek out opportunities to prove my human endurance. This one, it seems, found me.

While I voluntarily submitted myself to this endeavor, the experience got me thinking about the non-voluntary ways human beings are called on their ability to endure. My thoughts this week have been with the Yazidi, a religious minority group in Northern Iraq who practice a syncretic faith that combines Shia and Sufi Islam with indigenous regional folk traditions.[1] Thousands of Yazidi men, women and children are now trapped on another mountaintop – Mt. Sinjar – in an attempt to escape religious persecution and death at the hands of extremists.

They are encamped on a hot, treeless, and jagged ridge with no shelter, food or water. They live in fear of the violence that awaits them in the valley below. Humanitarian efforts to help them survive have been only moderately successful, as nearly half of the water bottles dropped from the skies above have smashed on the hard ground below.[2]

The Yazidi are exhausted, hungry and desperate. They are clearly being stretched to the snapping point of their human ability to endure such harsh conditions. They are the victims of intolerance and other human failings that involve acts of power and fear.

What are we to do about this? Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls on us to work for justice for all people. And I believe all of our efforts – locally, nationally and internationally – have the potential of creating a ripple effect.

Our global humanitarian service organization, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (www.uusc.org), is one that we can support with our dollars and volunteerism. We can look for guidance from UUA’s “Standing on the Side of Love” initiative to see how we might add our voices, energy and resources to national justice issues. And, we can continue to act for justice locally by getting involved in the Georgia Moral Mondaycoalition.

It seems fitting that, as we approach our Water Communion Ceremony this Sunday, we reflect on how we can be that drop of water in the world . . . drops that help create great ripples of hope and change.

Let’s join together in this new program year at Northwest so that we can help make acts of human endurance a choice rather than a harsh given.

See you Sunday.

Warmly,

Terry