Reflections
FROZEN AT THE FOOT OF EL CAPITAN
By Randy White
Towering above Yosemite Valley is a sheer face of granite called El Capitan. Every year, for reasons that fascinate me, it attracts people equipped with high-tech ropes and manic expressions who are intent on yanking themselves hand-over-hand up to the top. It’s a mountain that is definitely “there” which, according to the legendary mountain climbers code, is apparently the only quality needed to make it suitable for the trek. You have to admit, its an awesome sight to see bodies pasted to the rock hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Half way up they are like tiny red ants in their colorful gear, but they move much more slowly. Year after year they come; it seems like there are lots of people into climbing. But in reality, those who attempt it are few. Their numbers are dwarfed by the millions of people who flock there each summer to merely stand at the base and strain their necks to take it all in. For them, even the thought of such a challenge would leave them frozen at the foot.
For many of the seniors and grad students we are working with, there is often the same distinction with regard to moving thoughtfully and Christianly off-campus into the workforce. The challenge either invigorates or freezes. But for an increasing number, the question is not how to address the challenge of the climb, or hold onto the rope for that long. It’s how to hold onto their ticket for the tour bus, and where to get lunch along the way. Students are delighted to even get jobs, and are feeling less and less confident about the process of living their faith openly and effectively in the pluralistic world of employment.
The pluralism of the campus environment gave them permission to believe, but only as long as they didn’t take belief to the extreme of making absolute truth claims. They saw the ways that Christians were scorned and punished for adhering to positions which were not politically “correct.” Now, they fear the price tag in the workforce will be much higher than the embarrassment they felt in class or the lower grade they got on a paper. This leaves them frozen at the foot of what could be a great adventure. They teeter between “just getting a job and getting by” or allowing the values they’ve acquired in college ministry (e.g., servanthood, sacrifice, friendship, evangelism, mission, etc.) to be the ropes and cleats and pulleys and pylons to help them accomplish the goal of faithfulness to God in the marketplace and in life.
In 1995 the Marketplace Study Group at Fresno State considered faithfulness to Christ in a pluralistic world. We used the 2100 Production series called “Inside Genesis” to build a vision of our lives as people “signed by God, “ dependent on Him and confident of His purposes. We also studied the book of Acts to identify values and potential strategies to help us carry out our mission to be the people of God in a pluralistic culture. We think of these studies as pre-climb conditioning, developing bone and muscle and perspective.
At the foot of El Capitan, what is the essential difference between those who climb and those who watch? It may not be those things so often ascribed to the climbers, such as “courage” or “daring” or even “stupidity.” It may be something as simple as having the right tools, the right companions and the right opportunity to take a first step. For students, the right tools are all the things they learned and practiced on campus, modified to fit a new context. The right companions, once centered on campus ministry, now find new ways of challenging and supporting one another. And the right opportunities often come in the form of Christian mentors who will advocate and look out for them in their fields. Add a more compelling reason for the climb than “because its there” and you have students prepared for the challenges ahead of them. The more compelling reason? Because God is there. He’s at the beginning, middle, and end of the rope. He’s on the edges, in the crevices and fissures. He’s waiting at the top.■
Randy White is the National Coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Urban Projects and the Director of the Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership.
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