Friends,

As part of my wife’s master’s program, she read a study that measured people’s access to information and how informed they were. The first part of the results was not surprising. If you don’t have access to information, you were ignorant. The second part was quite surprising. The category of people with the most access to information showed similar levels of ignorance as those with the most limited access. I remember her telling me about the study and how interesting she thought it was. I hope I am not miss-remembering it too badly, but I believe I have the basics of it right. Regardless, how I remember the story has always resonated with me. It is when I am being bombarded with information, that I often feel the most powerless and the least composed. For me, this has been one of those weeks.

I could write to you about a dozen different major things in the works, but at this point I don’t think what I would have to say would be coherent. I am still digesting everything, and with the rate in which things are moving, it would probably all change by the time you read this. Instead, let me tell you about lead climbing.

In January, James Reily, Connor Stephens, and I got our “top-rope belay” certification. This means that at our rock-climbing gym, we could do everything necessary to keep someone safe as they climb up their seventy-foot-high walls, as long as there is a rope going over the top, hence, “top roping”. We thought we were pretty cool, and we have been happy with this type of climbing for some time. However, if you go to the bay with the very large walls, you can see that the most intense sections are not compatible with “top roping” and require a different approach.

Lead climbing is much more difficult and requires the climber to clip into pre-secured carabiners as they go up the wall, while ensuring they do not get tangled in the line, or put their hand through the clip, which could lead to extreme injury. There is also much more to consider for the one belaying (belaying is handling the rope so the person is safe but still able to climb), as you are having to give out rope as the person climbs while making sure that you can stop them from hitting the ground if they fall. The reward for this more difficult type of climbing is being able to do significantly more dramatic climbs, and it’s considered a segway to outdoor climbing. We have finished the second of three two-hour long classes, and we hope to pass the test this coming Monday.

Our instructor told us to get in tons of practice before our last class and test. James and Connor could not join me last night, but two other climbers who are already lead certified joined me. One is a fighter jet pilot and the other a seminarian. Though they had not met before and came from very different backgrounds, they immediately bonded over their love of climbing, and their passion for teaching me “right”, as I would likely be belaying them soon. They were particularly indulgent to helping me learn to fall. In climbing, if you are not falling, you are not trying and growing. Falling, and falling well, is an essential skill. Falling while lead climbing is significantly scarier than top roping, as you will free fall twice the distance from the last clip you were able to secure. All of this might sound jumbled, but the result was me free falling twenty feet before I felt the rope catch me. As expected, my belayer was hoist up into the air and sent toward the rock wall, which he expertly handled.

After watching Hans Gruber falling from Nakatomi Plaza from the movie Die Hard so many times, I assumed that I too would go into slow motion in free fall. It happened in an instant. One moment I was letting go and the next I was twenty feet lower with my feet against the wall and my adrenaline was rushing. When I was lowered down, both of them went on about how I would always remember that fall after every fall that would happen in the future. Twenty years from now, I could fall and get caught hundreds of feet up a serious mountain, and I would be transporter back to that moment. I didn’t realize I was walking into a milestone sort of an evening, but there I was, a bit different from when I started the evening.

Climbing is interesting. Falling is a pre-requisite for growth, but it is also a sport that is obsessed with safety…. because it has to be. There’s a sermon in there somewhere about grace, but my brain is too fried to put it all together. I’ll see you all on Sunday.

Blessings,

Nick