I was 17 or so, a disgustingly spoiled child, and at this instant I was, in June, in Italy, in their Alps, on a glacier (now, probably melted in June due to our GHG ecocide).
It was darkly overcast. We had traversed, with our instructor, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy out on a XXX snow bowl - sheer drop. Due to the overcast, well, it was almost like flying on instruments (oh, in my criminally over-privilege, I did that, too). I was terrified, as were the other US over-privileged kids with me on this 2 week European skiing orgy. But God, did I crave skiing, and I was very, very, very, very good at it.
But, this sheer drop was wayyyyyyyyyy over my head. Here, Literally the other side of Zermatt, Switzerland, and the Matterhorm - Cervinia, Italy:
I had NEVER been on anything nearly so steep, with so long of a sheer drop - endless. And the crevasses, well even on a clear day, their many hundred foot drops were almost impossible to see, before it was too late. It was completely terrifying - Facing Death. There were about 20 of us. I forget what the instructor said, exactly, something like - 'leap out into space with your shoulders - and the skis will come underneath you in time.' I, none of us, had absolutely any frickin idea what he meant.
The twenty of us stood there, frozen in fear; I can still feel it.
I don't like being frozen in fear. I don't do real well being frozen by fear.
So, with everyone else motionless, I leaped out into nothingness.
Five turns later, I stopped, breathless. Out of my Mind.
Sheer, inexpressible, poetic, Spiritual, physical ecstasy.
Grotesquely over-privileged. But it also was training for me in Faith in the unseen Truth, of God, God being the unseen, but quite knowable (if we'll totally devote ourselves. Totally....) Truth of How things work. Skiing was that for me, when I was a kid. I had this sense that if I could totally submit to the Truth of the Rules of the Mountain, of Skiing - if I could enslave myself, subordinate myself to that Truth, to God, it would be ecstasy. It was. Not a fraction of the ecstasy, the Joy, of my current days, these last 12 years of enslaving myself to the Truth of what our Neediest Brothers and Sisters require of me, but it was a start.
Oh, and no one liked me for my total, complete, 100% devotion then, or now. "If you pick up your cross it WILL cost you husband, wife, son, daughter, house, fields.... But in this life you will reap 100 fold." Jesus. True. 100% True. So sad that we are so determined to remain Blind. And now, ecocide for our children, as a result.
Oh how I'd like to awaken us.
