The boulder stood strong and firm, cutting through the blue sky. Solid and impenetrable by the forces of the world. Marked with years of beating from the weather, marked with age that had shaped and coloured it’s outer shell, the chip that fell revealing inside the boulder that remained course and unchanged. The boulder faced him boldly and the overwhelming presence of it blocked him dead in his tracks.
He had been hiking the resort’s mountain the whole day as a challenge to himself. Hiking was not his first love but he pinned himself to trying new things. This came from the desire that brew inside of him to find meaning in his life. He had read once that at the point of death, only do we know life. His life was not one filled with many near death experiences so he worked himself into trying the most daring of tasks. A friend was gossiping, enviously, about how their past school mates had went to a certain resort and were doing ‘white people stuff.’ He was annoyed by this statement, as hiking was as black as scorns were to black funerals and weddings. He however liked the idea of hiking and found himself travelling to this resort deep in the mountains.
He arrived on Thursday and since then, tried every activity that was available at the resort. From swimming (where he nearly drowned only to be saved by a 12-year-old Indian) to what he was doing now: hiking. He chose the single and easiest pass to the summit of the mountain. The “Motivational Board” at the foot of the mountain claiming it takes at least 3 hours to mount the mountain. 4 hours later, he was still at the half way “You can do IT!” board that stood next to a tuckshop that the resort had set up on the mountain. He was breathing heavily with a backpack that weighed as heavy as an elephant. After all, the backpack had all the essentials he needed- so he thought. But, he was determined to reach the summit. Even if it meant sleeping with mountain goats and snakes.
As he was steadily walking, air rushing into his overheating lungs, legs aching from misshaped rocks; he could not deny but thank the Lord for all he was seeing. He ran his hands against the smooth, cool walls of the mountain boulders. He rubbed his skin against the leaves of probing branches. Each insect that walked on him, he embraced and let the insect get on with its business. He was submerged deeply in the wonderful creation of God’s work. God’s work that was complex but simple in design. Here he was in the heart of the mountain. A highly complex and complicated life form but a simple slip would mark his guaranteed demise. For the first time in an extremely long time, he felt alive.
30 minutes later, he saw the test that would prove whether he was truly living or being lost in the experience. He had come to learn, through stories told by others, most people are never alive. They ‘live life’ but they are not really living the life. He understood this when a white friend of his complained about how her family had been in Lesotho and behaved like ‘tourists.’ He remarked that they were tourists in Lesotho. His white friend snapped and said that what she meant was her family were only in Lesotho because it was still very “African” and the only thing they were doing was collecting memories they would regale their friends with back home over braais and gatherings. Even the friend who gossiped him into visiting this resort, in the story the friend was sharing, he only heard about the resort and the beauty of it. Like a tourist in a foreign land, the experiences lived marked how different the land was. The experiences spoke from a third party, not from the point of self.
Thus when faced by this boulder he decided he was going to take every moment in. He first hugged the portion of the boulder he could hug and thanked the Lord for placing it in his way. He asked for the Holy Ghost to guide him to overcome this boulder. He spent a considerably long time allowing the boulder to communicate with him in languages not heard by men. He felt that ever-sweet peaceful love of God rush into him and burst him into life. For a moment, he felt as if he was reborn back into existence. He felt as if he was dancing on the golden streets that paved Heaven. Unlike the earlier experience, now after communicating with Nature in dialect not understood by human logic, this time he was alive.
With this new fond love for his Lord and Saviour and renewed appreciation for life, he placed his first step in a crevice wide enough for him to lodge his foot. He’s bare shin exposed, a mountain snake hidden within the boulder struck him. The strike so swift and sudden, he lost his footing and he slipped. Life plunged him back to Earth- only to be caught in the warm embrace of Death herself.