The Edge of Infinity

He climbs the untrodden path, darkness surrounding him as he trusts his feet to find the trail. How long has he been climbing? How much farther to the top? This mountain is never-ending  When he first set foot upon it, he thought it would be easy, and at first it was, but each step becomes steeper. Any moment he expects to find a cliff in front of him--something that can be scaled at first, but soon it will turn to glass. And then what?

Quitting is not an option. He will have to find a way. As his feet follow each other, he knows this, but will he remember when the road seems impassible?

Time goes on and nothing changes. The path seems steeper than it was, but he can’t really tell because the change has been so gradual. The unending uphill climb becomes unbearable and he fights with himself. Heart and mind battle as his feet continue the journey and he wonders if it is worth it. Now, here in the middle of the mountain, he cannot remember what madness convinced him this was a good idea.

It was all lies, a voice says to his heart. Lies brought you on this journey. Turn back now and be free from the struggle.

Lies? How could they have been lies? But he remembers the look in their faces as they told him. Something about it was not quite right. Something about the lack of information, and the blind trust they requested. The map took him to the foot of the mountain, and from there he climbed alone.

Suspicion brings anger, and anger pain. Fear rises within him as he realizes the lies of those gone before.

He pauses beside a boulder and looks behind him, just to imagine what it would be like to walk down instead of up for once. There are no trees on this mountain and he expects to see the path winding away behind him, but when he looks he sees nothing. There, where the path should have been, is nothing but the vast emptiness of space, and a few stars twinkling in the distance.

“What has become of the path?”

He reaches down and feels the rocks under his feet. His hands inch forward and he feels nothing beyond his toes.

And then he realizes. There is no turning back. When he took the challenge and decided to climb the mountain, he took a leap of faith and crossed the point of no return. Perhaps that is what their concern meant. Perhaps they wanted to make sure he was serious, because once he accepted, there was no going back.

He feels as though he will totter over the edge, so he continues up the mountain. The incline is definitely steeper now, but the vast emptiness behind him makes that fact insignificant. He hurries for a while, but then is tired. He walks along, remembering the expanse eating up the ground behind him, but feeling as though it is simply inevitable.

As the fatigue grows once again, he tries to comfort himself with stories of the end.

“They say there is a sea of glass,” he tells the sleeping flowers as he passes. “They say there are angels with six wings, two to cover the face, two to cover the feet, and two to fly. I wonder why they need to cover their face and feet? Is it because they are impure and cannot look on their King?”

He ponders these things as he walks along, asking his questions to the rocks and the few shrubs he encounters, knowing they will not respond, but hoping they will anyway. The journey gets so lonely.

Doubts return as a cloud covers the stars above him. He is inadequate. He is unclean. He is worthless. Nothing can make him clean and he will never be acceptable. Fear comes. Anger comes. Pain comes. The heart and the mind draw battle lines.

Lightning strikes the hill somewhere off to his right, but he barely notices. The battle within consumes him and he stops between a cliff and a precipice. The cliff had been rising beside him for some time, and now it blocked the path completely. Smooth surfaces rose on two sides, and on the third was a drop into the abyss.

“Did you lie to me?” he yells to the one beyond the hill. “Did you draw me into this knowing it would be my downfall? Did you invite me into this adventure only to destroy me?”

Thunder rumbles around him as the clouds move in. He turns his back to the cliffs and sees the path. There is no return that way. There is no return at all. Despair overwhelms him and he sits in the corner of the cliffs as the rain drives into him. He sits, huddled against the cold and wet, and watches the rain bounce off the rocks and fall into the blackness.

He sits. He shivers. The rain turns to hail and the hail grows.

But the storm can't last forever. Once it subsides, he looks around him and sees a way up the cliff. And he continues on.

How long he climbs, cannot be known--how many battles won and lost, how many tears and how many gallons of perseverance. Soon though, he looks up and sees the top of the mountain before him. A few steps more and he is on the top, standing before the edge. An infinite abyss opens before him and he stands on the only remaining land between the abyss before and the abyss behind.

Stars surround him and he looks out, wondering and knowing what he came for. He sits and lets his feet hang off into the nothingness and gazes up at the stars. One falls, and as it streaks through infinity, he recognizes it. It is a memory. He sees himself there in the distance, sitting in a coffee shop and staring into the depths of the drink. It was the first time he thought of leaving the path. Another star falls from the sky and collides with the first. It was a prayer, one that when answered brought hope.

He watches the stars fall through the sky and understands how his life on earth was connected with the lives of those around him. His memories collide with others’. Others’ memories collide with his. They streak through the sky in an ever increasing meteor shower until the entire heavens are falling around him. Something like the northern lights streaks in among them and a few of the memories are ignited. The lights transfer color into the memories and he watches as the One he came for--the one he climbed for--comes toward him.

More lights join the shower and he watches Infinity come. The God of the universe reaches out His hand and takes the man there on the edge. He carries the man through the abyss and shows him the reason for danger, the reason for struggles, the reason for hope. And the man understands why perfect love casts out fear.