Walking the Tochar, Part I | Seeking the House of God

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose hearts are the highways to Zion.” (Psalm 84:5, ESV).

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” (Psalm 84:5, NIV).

Psalm 84 is all about the House of God – the place where God dwells, the place where Heaven and Earth meet, the place where all that is wrong with the world is made right. The psalmist speaks of the loveliness of God's dwelling place, how he yearns and faints for God's courts, how one day spent in God's presence is better than a thousand spent outside of it.

At one level, this place is identified as the Temple – a specific building on a specific mountain, set apart as holy. At another level, though, it isn’t about a place at all. It’s about a journey. The pilgrim’s heart is set on the highways to Zion as much as on Zion itself; and she is called blessed not only when she arrives, but also as she journeys. What is more, she blesses all the places through which she journeys – she makes the Valley of Baca a place of springs, as the Autumn rain covers it with blessings (v6).

This was always the Way. Abraham was on a journey when he was seeking God's House, though he never saw it; Jacob was on a journey when he saw God’s House, though he was not seeking it; and we, as exiles, sojourners, and strangers in a foreign land, are on a journey, seeking God’s House even though we have already seen it.

***

I have been captivated by the idea of pilgrimage for years – so much so that I wrote a novella with pilgrimage as its central theme. This Easter, I decided to walk the talk. I travelled to a remote corner of West Ireland to traverse the Tochar Phadraig (St. Patrick's Causeway), a twenty-mile route from Ballintubber Abbey to Croagh Patrick (St. Patrick's Mountain, locally known as 'the Reek').

Why did I chose this route? To be honest, I’m not really sure. Admittedly, there were some practical reasons. For one, I've always wanted to go to Ireland, and thanks to a new scheme it is possible to combine an Irish pilgrimage with the Camino Ingles, one of the famous routes to Santiago De Compostela in northwest Spain, this one used by British and Irish sailors in centuries past. The Tochar in particular was an ideal length – achievable over the weekend but still long enough to count towards the Camino, should I ever wish to complete it.

But there were also more romantic reasons. Of all the saints after which the Irish routes are named, St. Patrick resonated with me most strongly. Patrick’s life is a beautiful story of good overcoming evil, of redemption in the most unlikely of circumstances. As a child, he was kidnapped from his home in Britain and held captive in Ireland. After escaping back to Britain, he later returned to bring the Gospel to the island which now cherishes him as a patron saint. I was also attracted by the layout of the route. Something about walking towards a Lonely Mountain and finishing on its summit seemed in keeping with the Biblical idea of pilgrimage, in which the pilgrim walks on the “highways to Zion”.

Actually, technically speaking, the route doesn’t finish on the mountain. After descending, the pilgrim makes her way to sea – something which was to prove equally significant.

Continue the journey to Part II

Walking the Tochar, Part II | O Destroying Mountain, Be Rolled into the Sea

“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
declares the Lord,
    which destroys the whole earth;
I will stretch out my hand against you,
    and roll you down from the crags,
    and make you a burnt mountain…
‘When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’” (Jeremiah 51:25,63; ESV)

“And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls...
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,
    and will be found no more…’” (Revelation 18:11-13,21; ESV)

“And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him...” (Mark 11:15-18; ESV)

“O destroying mountain, be rolled into the sea
O destroying mountain, be rolled into the sea
The mountains shall be levelled and the earth shall be set free.” (David Benjamin Blower, ‘Destroying Mountain’)

***

I spent my first day in Ireland thinking, reading, and praying about my upcoming pilgrimage. I had been tempted to start the day that I arrived, but my exceedingly wise (and generous) host Peter counseled that a pilgrimage should never be rushed. I’m glad that I took his advice. In our busy lives, we often seek to minimise times of idleness. Yet it is precisely during such times that we are often best placed to receive creative inspiration, to speak to and hear from God, and simply to ‘be’ - which I don’t think we do enough these days.

In this instance, it was during a day of idleness that God revealed to me the significance of the journey ahead. Wandering around the coastal town of Westport, I was treated to a fine view of my objective, the formidable Croagh Patrick (aka 'the Reek'), looming ominously across an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean.

As I surveyed the mountain, I recalled the lyrics of a song called ‘Destroying Mountain’ by David Benjamin Blower, a refreshingly unusual artist who creates laments, jeremiads, and other rare but much-needed forms of Christian music. The song, the lyrics of which are reproduced at the bottom of the page, had already been stuck in my head for about two weeks. But this time, in view of the scriptures above - and in view of the mountain itself - the song suddenly ‘clicked’.

One would assume that, in a pilgrimage with a mountain as its destination, the mountain would represent something sacred, or at least something positive. But what God emphasised to me as I scrutinised the mountain was that what my soul yearns and faints for - the House of God, i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven - is not the kingdom which reigns on the earth. This kingdom, in the Bible symbolised as Babylon, is the opposite of sacred. On the contrary, as the Apostle John describes in Revelation 18, it treats what is in fact sacred - namely human beings and the earth from which they are made - as mere inputs to be exploited, commodities to be traded, plunder to be seized. It is thus a system of violence, mammon, and oppression; of profanity, defilement, and desecration. It this system which is responsible for the countless forms of injustice, inequality, and insanity that plague our society, economy, and ecology.

It is this very system which provoked Jesus into a tirade of righteous anger when he encountered it in the House of God (Mark 11; cf. Matthew 12, Luke 19, John 2). The institution of the Temple was exploiting the poor, for example by allowing its money stores to be loaned out at interest, particularly to the most financially vulnerable who were already at risk of having their land requisitioned; by selling doves, which served as sacrificial animals for those, particularly women, who could not afford sheep or cattle; and by demanding tithes from destitute widows so that it could embellish its buildings and enlarge its coffers. This episode reminds us that, before we can reach Zion, before we can see Heaven come to Earth, we have to dethrone the system of the world which sits proudly atop the mountain - the “great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:18), the cup of madness from which “all nations have drunk” (Revelation 18:2; cf. Zechariah 51:7).

This system is ultimately doomed, for it eventually destroys its own foundations, including mankind and landkind. In such an eventuality, the system falls, but only after it has inflicted irreparable destruction on people and planet. In his mercy, God will therefore intervene to destroy the destroying mountain: “Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon….” (Jeremiah 51:1,26). It is only once this judgement has come to pass that the longings of our souls can ever be satisfied.

***

The Tochar begins at Ballintubber Abbey, a truly magnificent building which one would not expect to find in what seems like the middle of nowhere. I say ‘seems’, because it’s a fallacy of Babylon to define ‘somewhere’ as a place of trade, technology, industry, and wealth. Ever since Cain the brother-killer built the first city east of Eden (Genesis 4), we have designated such places ‘civilisation’. Yet when Abraham was looking for the City of God (Hebrews 11), he let his brother Lot have the first choice, settling in the land of Canaan - the middle of nowhere - rather than the more fertile Jordan valley (Genesis 13). When Jacob encountered the House of God, he was in the middle of nowhere, on his way from one city to another (Genesis 28). Though it may seem inauspicious and even invisible, it will be this City, this House, this Mountain, this Kingdom, which will stand when judgement comes, because is built on the only true foundation - Jesus Christ, whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (1 Corinthians 3:11; Hebrews 11:8-10,12:22-29).

Plenty of brotherly blood has been spilt in Ireland, and County Mayo is no exception. Through over 800 years of history, Ballintubber Abbey has endured a lot, including dissolutions, fires, and famines. At various times, it was illegal for Catholics to hold mass here, and priests were systematically hunted down by the authorities. The grave of a local priest-hunter, blackmailed into service after stealing a horse, is still marked in the graveyard. Whereas all the other graves face east, the locals buried this man facing north, where the sun never rises. An ash tree has since grown on top of his grave, splitting it in two - which I like to think is a symbol of death defeated, of reconciliation for the culprit as well as the victim.

Following the short drive from the house, Peter accompanied me into the Abbey and introduced me to Father Fahey, who led in restoring the Tochar and still acts as a sort of custodian. Father Fahey is a cheeky old man, a real Irish character, someone who always seems to be laughing inside as his last joke while he waits for an opportunity to crack another. After introductions, he leaves me alone for a minute to light a candle at the altar before I embark on my journey, representing a statement of faith. Only one other candle has already been lit in the dusty transept, which smells of ancientness. Perhaps a fellow pilgrim has set off ahead of me, or perhaps Father Fahey lights a candle for himself each day. Either way I felt blessed to join their company.

After providing me with a hand-drawn map and stamping my pilgrim’s passport - trusting, he says, that I will be honest enough to complete the journey - he leads me to the edge of the Abbey grounds where Patrick’s Causeway begins. He tells me that there six principles of the pilgrimage which I am to observe: Faith (light a candle before leaving and say a prayer after crossing each stile); Penance (no complaining; instead say ‘thanks be to God’); Community (include the stranger in your group); Mystery (observe periods of silence); Change of Heart (ask God what you need to change about yourself); and Celebration (share with each other).

He then gives me a smooth stone and instructs me to pick up a sharp stone from the ground. I pick up the first one I see and ask him whether it’s the right size. He tells me it should be larger, but points to an exceptionally large rock (which, incidentally, looks like a millstone) and tells me, “that one’s for real sinners”. When I reach the summit of the mountain, I am to throw away the sharp stone but keep the smooth one, an act which is meant to represent a change of heart. My hosts had told me about this practice; supposedly pilgrims used to put the sharp stone in their shoe as an act of penance, and some people still climb the mountain barefoot for this purpose. I ask Father Fahey about it; he tells me that, if I get the top of the mountain and God hasn’t shown me something about myself that needs to change, then I should put the stone in my shoe. That always seems to do the job, he says.

With stones in hand - along with a shell that I selected from the shore by home in Edinburgh, the symbol of those who walk the Camino de Santiago - I set off bright-eyed over the first stile, full of curiosity and expectation. Within minutes, my shoes are soaked in the morning dew, which still lingers in the long grass. And it isn’t much longer before my feet are completely submerged in a slimy bog. It looks like I will be paying penance after all.

The route is replete with interest. Every stile - and there are many - contains a plaque with information about the history, the geography, or the folklore of the area. St. Patrick features heavily in the landscape: along the way, I crossed such items as Patrick’s vat, Patrick’s seat, Patrick’s bed, Patrick’s stone, and Patrick’s church. These are particularly concentrated in the town of Aghagower (Field of the Spring), where Patrick lived during his local ministry.

Most pilgrims finish their first day of walking in Aghagower, which lies around half-way into the route. But I I wanted to keep walking. The spring sunshine had really blossomed, and, thanks to a hearty Irish breakfast, I still felt fresh. Thankfully, my host was a born-and-bred local who knows the countryside like the back of his hand - an expertise in which he took great pride - meaning that he could pick me up anywhere along the route, as long as I could reach a road.

I won’t bother recounting the walk in exhaustive detail - what I saw and what I thought; the bogs and the blisters; the hazel wood and electric fence; how I got lost and how I found my way. It wouldn’t mean very much to the reader, even though it means the world to me. That is the nature of pilgrimage.

There is however one part of the first day of my journey that I think is worth sharing.

***

Around 13 miles into the walk lies the Boheh Stone, also known as St. Patrick’s Chair. The Stone is an exceptionally well-preserved specimen of Neolithic rock-art whose concentric-circular engravings are thought to derive from pagan practices of sun worship. As was his way - more on that tomorrow - Patrick redeemed the site and turned it into a place of Christian worship.

Now for the trippy part. In the early ’90s, a local historian discovered a remarkable phenomenon known as the ‘rolling sun of Boheh’. On two specific days of the year - April 18th and August 24th, to be precise - the sunset, viewed from the Boheh Stone, appears to not only set on the summit of Croagh Patrick, but also to “roll down” the mountainside.

Credit: Ken Williams

A lump formed in my throat the moment I read this. I thought immediately back to Jeremiah 51:25, which I quote again here (emphasis added):

“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
declares the Lord,
    which destroys the whole earth;
I will stretch out my hand against you,
    and roll you down from the crags,
    and make you a burnt mountain...
‘When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’” (Jeremiah 51:25,63; ESV)

I thought, too of David Benjamin Blower’s jeremiad, which is based on this passage: “O destroying mountain, be rolled into the sea”. The Reek lies next to the sea, so the sun does indeed roll down the mountain and into the sea on the days when the phenomenon occurs - a vivid image not just of the fall of the false sun god, but also of the fall of Babylon.

What is equally remarkable is that April 18th and August 24th together divide the year into three equal parts - three, of course, holding a special status in the Celtic psyche. Even before reading this, I had an image in my mind of three periods of time: the fall of Babylon, an interregnum in which the mountain would lie under the sea, and the rise of Zion. In a happy if corny coincidence, these stages were neatly symbolised by the three objects I carried with me: the sharp stone, the seashell, and the smooth stone.

Since it was Easter, I was also aware that the three periods of time were broadly (but not perfectly) analogous to Jesus' death, three days in the ground, and resurrection - a sequence which Jesus Himself, having driven out the moneychangers and the merchants, associated with the destruction of the earthly temple and the appearance of the Heavenly one (John 2:19). In this regard, it's especially noteworthy that the Neolithic sun-worshippers likely associated the trinity of seasons marked out by the Boheh Stone with sowing, waiting, and reaping. Further down in Jeremiah 51 (verse 33), God declares:

“The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
    at the time when it is trodden;
yet a little while
    and the time of her harvest will come.”

The Temple, of course, was also built on a threshing floor (2 Chronicles 3). At that very site, God had earlier relented from destroying Jerusalem, after He sent an angel of destruction to punish David for taking a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21; 2 Samuel 24). Importantly, this was a sin because it demonstrated David’s belief that he, rather than God, owned the people - and recall that the commodification of human beings is the hallmark of Babylon, the system which God vows to destroy (Revelation 18:13).[2]

Even earlier, it was on that same mountain where an Angel of the Lord had stayed Abraham’s hand from sacrificing his son, Isaac - a striking foretoken of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus (Genesis 22).[2] Given that I was walking on Holy Saturday - the day after Jesus had died and the day before he had risen - the Boheh Stone thus seemed like a perfect place to ‘call it a day’.

***

'Destroying Mountain' by David Benjamin Blower (https://benjaminblower.bandcamp.com/track/destroying-mountain)

O destroying mountain, be rolled into the sea
O destroying mountain, be rolled into the sea
The mountains shall be levelled and the earth shall be set free

Behold, destroying mountain, the blood beneath your feet
Behold, destroying mountain, the blood beneath your feet
You’ve crushed the poor into the floor, beneath your own conceit

Be gone, destroying mountain, go terrify no more
Be gone, destroying mountain, go terrify no more
Put your weapons on the fire, your crown upon the floor

You’ve heard, destroying mountain, that the first shall be last
You’ve heard, destroying mountain, that the first shall be last
Before the wounded crucified, we all shall be disarmed

O destroying mountain, you too shall bow the knee
O destroying mountain, you too shall bow the knee
In the twinkling of an eye we shall be changed, both you and me

***

Notes:
[1] There’s an interesting commonality between the story of David’s census and the story of Abraham’s sacrifice. In 2 Samuel 24, God actually incites David to take the census, just as in Genesis 22 God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. I think it’s an open question as to whether God really did will these things, or whether what we are reading are interpretations of events by people who believed, along with everyone else at the time, in a violent, dictatorial god. On this reading, the text demonstrates an evolving revelation of what God is really like - a revelation which culminates in Jesus. In fact, in the version of David’s census found in 1 Chronicles 21, it is Satan, not God, who causes David to sin, perhaps exposing the authors' changing conceptions of God.
[2] It's interesting to remember here that Jesus was born during a census, the first of Emperor Augustus's reign (Luke 2). Symbolically, census is an implement of empire - it represents the reduction of human beings to sources of revenue, be it profit or tax.

Continue the journey to Part III

Walking the Tochar, Part III | Let Us Walk in the Light of the Lord

“It shall come to pass in the latter days

    that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
    and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
    and many peoples shall come, and say:
'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.'
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
    and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore.

O house of Jacob,
    come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord.” (Isaiah 2:2-5, ESV)

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." (John 2:19, ESV)

***

Peter dropped me at Boheh Stone, where he had picked me up the day before. The weather had changed. Yesterday, although the mountain was visible for most of the walk, it was veiled in in a thick haze, making it appear distant and indistinct. Today, the air was clearer - and I was closer.

The mountain had been topped in cloud since sunrise. Over breakfast, Peter had urged me with unsettling gravity that I was not to climb the mountain if, when I reached the bottom, I could not see the top. For fear of causing insult, I didn’t care to ask whether this advice was based on safety concerns or mere superstition. Either way, I was hoping that the Reek would “take off his cap”, as Peter put it - if nothing else to get the views.

I was shown no such respect. It wasn’t long, though, before I could see a steady stream of people making their way up and down the Reek from the seaside town of Murisk, where my pilgrimage would end. Not only did this reassure me - if the tourists can make it up, a seasoned pilgrim should be ok - but it also evoked a strong sense of deja vu. The spectacle reminded me of a dream I had dreamt years ago - I dream I had forgotten, but now remembered as if I was dreaming it again. Indeed, as I came within a mile of the mountain, it felt as if the mountain was approaching me rather than vice versa, as if it was growing inside my mind. And as I began to climb, it felt as if another world was emerging within the present, as if something hidden was being revealed.

In time, I reached the point at which the visible became invisible, and ascended into cloud.

At the summit lies a chapel dedicated to Patrick, who turned the mountain from a pagan site of idolatry into a Christian site of prayer. According to the legend, he achieved this transformation by fasting on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. I like to think that, like Jesus in the wilderness, he was tempted by the trappings of power, the comforts and riches of Babylon, and persevered.

Patrick was certainly not aligned with powers and principalities of his age. His practice of relating the Christian message to existing, pagan traditions is usually interpreted as pragmatic at best and syncretistic at worst, allowing him to get his message across without provoking resistance. But as the information provided along the Tochar had made clear, he encountered plenty of resistance - usually by local power-holders who were threatened by his claim that the One God was Lord of All, and that our true allegiance is to Him and Him alone - not to false gods or earthly kings.

So perhaps his ministry was neither pragmatic nor syncretistic. Perhaps he was following the example of Paul, who identified Yahweh as the Invisible God, winning the souls of many at Mars Hill. But perhaps, even moreso, he was following the example of Jesus, who claimed at Caesarea Philippi, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus made this statement while standing on a literal rock that was used a temple to Pan, where a literal Gates of Hell had been marked out in the cliffside as a space for lewd acts of demonic worship.

Indeed, what occured to me most strongly on this final day of walking was that the two opposing kingdoms - the Kingdom of Heaven, God, and light, and the kingdom of the world, Satan, and darkness - can often be found in the same place, possibly even at the same time. There is a kind of quantum dynamic involved, whereby our own consciousness and our own actions determine which outcome prevails - and until that happens, both outcomes coexist in the realm of potentiality.

Maybe this is what Jesus meant when, after proclaiming that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His church, He promised to give us the “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven”, and that “whatever [we] bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever [we] loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” (Matthew 16:19). On this reading, how we see the world and what we do about it matters a great deal, because part of the way God answers our prayer for His Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven is to give us eyes to see, which in turn gives us a mind to act.

I was particularly assured of this when my host Peter, seemingly out of the blue, told me about a local economist who was well before his time in identifying the destructiveness of our economic system for communities and the environment (deriving in particular from our reliance on economic growth) and presenting a number of viable alternatives (such as local currencies). On a separate occasion, Peter's wife Jojo commented, again spontaneously: "Isn't nature amazing? The problem is that we don't take care of it. And we don't take care of each other." She was right, of course; but the fact that she and Peter seemed to spend all of their time caring for their garden and caring for their guests was proof that a different world is possible.

What is more, not only can Babylon become Zion, as with Patrick’s Mountain, but Zion can become Babylon. In Galatians 4 (verses 21-31), the Apostle Paul draws a distinction between the earthly Jerusalem and the Heavenly Jerusalem. The earthly Jerusalem, he explains, is represented by Mount Sinai, the symbol of the Old Covenant. This Jerusalem is characterised by slavery, which I have identified as the hallmark of Babylon, and Paul urges the Galatians to leave it behind. There is therefore a sense in which, as a church, embracing the Old Covenant, the earthly Jerusalem, is tantamount to embracing Babylon. Unfortunately, also like Babylon, Jerusalem can become a “cup of reeling” which intoxicates and deceives (Zechariah 12:2). As a result, Christians have conflated the earthly and Heavenly Jerusalems since the dawn of Christendom, with devastating consequences.

The city which Abraham was seeking will not be found or bound within the dominions of this world, which are beholden to the Destroyer, the ruler of this age (Ephesians 6:12; 1 Peter 5:8-9; Luke 4:5-6). In their thirst for power, their lust for violence, and their penchant for greed, those systems are hard-wired to reject Christ, who is nevertheless the chief cornerstone (1 Peter 2), the true foundation of the true Zion (Hebrews 11:10). Indeed, when all is revealed, there will be no foundation other than Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11), for no cornerstone will be taken out of Babylon when it is destroyed (Isaiah 51:26).

This is a subtle insight which is not amenable to simplistic, dualistic thinking. On the one hand, we are to ask (and act) for the Kingdom of Heaven to be here, now, on this very rock, this very mountain. But on the other hand, we are emphatically not to mix ourselves with the powers and principalities of our age, for the Heavenly Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). To my mind, the Western evangelical church has this backwards. It conceives of the Kingdom as something that will be realised in a galaxy far, far away, sometime in the indefinite future, possibly not until the afterlife. At the same time, it acts as a “chaplain to Empire”, to use Brian Zahnd’s words, sanctioning the destruction of man and land. Ever since Constantine, the church has sided with the warmongerers, when, according to Isaiah, and according to Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is radically peaceful. It has sided with the oppressors, when the Kingdom of Heaven defends the oppressed. It has sided with the status quo, when the Kingdom of Heaven promises to upturn everything.

This strategy will not end well, for it ultimately pits the church against Christ Himself. This is evidenced by the reaction of the priests and the scribes when Jesus cleansed the Temple: they "[sought] a way to destroy him" (Mark 11:18). They did eventually kill Him - using the implements of empire, no less. But we know that isn't the end of the story. Jesus will return to destroy that destroying mountain; he will separate the goats from the sheep, those who served "the kingdoms of the world and their splendor" (Mathew 4:8) and those who served the everlasting Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, which eschews earthly power and embraces the powerless (Matthew 4:8;25:31-46). The Apostle John would therefore admonish us from the grave, and from Heaven:

“Come out of [Babylon], my people,
    lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
for her sins are heaped high as Heaven...
    mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.” (Revelation 18:4-5).

JRR Tolkien does an excellent job capturing this distinction - that the Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth, but separate from the earthly kingdoms - through the role of Erebor (‘the Lonely Mountain’) in his enchanting book The Hobbit. Erebor is occupied by an evil dragon, so Gandalf the wizard incites its dwarvish heirs to reclaim it. But Thorin, the king of the dwarves, is enthralled by the riches in the mountain and becomes no better than the dragon. I do hope it means something for the church that Thorin ends up repenting from his service to mammon!

***

I waited for about an hour for the cloud to clear. Having climbed all the way up the mountain, I was keen to witness its legendary panorama. Suddenly, though, it dawned on me: I was on a pilgrimage, not a sightseeing tour. I didn’t come for the views, or even for the mountain; I came for the journey (also, I was getting cold!). I threw away my sharp stone and began to descend with the crowds.

The fact that there were so many people scaling the mountain formed a nice contrast with Moses, who alone was permitted to ascend into the clouds of Mount Sinai to receive the Old Covenant under pain of death:

“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant....” (Hebrews 12:18-24)

The prophets had long ago picked up on a similar distinction, except that they referred to Babylon rather than Sinai. Speaking of Babylon, Jeremiah (51:44) prophecies that “the nations shall no longer flow to [it]”; and by contrast, speaking of Zion, Isaiah (2:2) prophecies that “all the nations shall flow to it”. Later, God speaks through Isaiah (56:6) to declare:

“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
    and holds fast my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
    for all peoples.”

Centuries later, Jesus would quote this passage as he evicted the moneychangers and the merchants from the Temple, the place where Heaven and Earth meet (Mark 11:17). I have already referred to this episode in the first part of this journal, but what I would highlight here is the paradoxical relationship between inclusion and holiness. On the one hand, holiness is traditionally defined by exclusion - a state of separateness from the world. Our discussion of Babylon and Zion would confirm this definition, in the sense that we must be keep ourselves separate, undefiled, and free from the powers that be. But Isaiah’s prophecy seems to suggest that holiness is also defined by inclusion. Babylon enriches the few at the expense of the many, and Jesus is incensed to find this exclusionary system operating in a place that is supposed to be “for all peoples”.

In the Gospel of Mark (ch.11), the cleansing of the Temple is sandwiched in the middle of a teaching about a fig tree. Immediately before entering the Temple, Jesus finds a fig tree without fruit - which is to be expected, since it was not the season for figs - and curses it. Immediately afterwards, the disciples return to the tree to find it withered. It is then that Jesus makes the claim that their faith can move mountains - which, I have suggested, is an allusion to Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon. The Temple is a house of prayer, and it is through prayer that Babylon will be destroyed, Jesus tells them. It therefore seems to me that the fig tree, like the mountain, represents the system of Babylon which Jesus confronted in the Temple - perhaps because, like Babylon, it gives life only selectively.

After the fig trees of Babylon wither, the fig trees of Zion, which give life unconditionally and universally, can flourish. The passage from Isaiah at the beginning of this post describing the House of God is repeated almost verbatim by the prophet Micah (ch. 4), except for a couple of extra verses which begin, “but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree…” (v.4). If we keep following the trail of breadcrumbs, we find that Jesus alludes to this very passage when he tells Nathaniel that he saw him sitting under his fig tree (John 1:35-51). When Nathaniel reacts with amazement, Jesus responds, “‘Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And He said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’” (John 1:50-51).

Completing this whirlwind tour of scripture, the reference to angels ascending and descending between Heaven and Earth is, in turn, a direct allusion to Jacob’s ladder, the original image of the House of God (Genesis 28). As I ascended and descended the mountain with the crowds, I felt indeed that I was amid a multitude of angels, moving seamlessly between Heaven and Earth, dwelling, even as I journeyed, in the place where God Himself would dwell.

***

Truth be told, I wasn’t that thrilled to be around all those people. Besides being an an introvert, I was wearing the wrong shoes, I hadn't slept as much as I should have, and my knees were beginning to act up. To be honest, I really wished that all those people would just disappear. They were noisy, distracting, and in my way.

It was then that I felt a stone in my shoe. It felt like standing on a nail - that is to say, it hurt. When I stopped to remove it, I was reminded of Father Fahey’s advice - “if you get to the top of the mountain,” he said, “and God hasn’t shown you something about yourself that needs to change, then put the stone in your shoe.” God had shown me a lot about His Kingdom over the course of the pilgrimage, but nothing about myself - until then. It’s in the presence of other people - particularly when there are lots of them - that my worst side comes out. That needs to change.

That needs to change because systemic change starts with individual change. As individuals, we must be "transformed by the renewing of our minds" before we can go about transforming society, for it is only then that we will really have eyes to see (Romans 12:2). Insofar as we still conform to the patterns of this world, we are part of the problem, not the solution. Personal sanctification and social justice are therefore two sides of the same coin.

Before setting off again, I picked up another sharp stone. My pilgrimage wasn’t over, even though I’d (more than) conquered the Reek. When I reached the bottom, I cast the stone into the sea, praying that the Lord would take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. After walking along the shore for a while, I also let go of the shell that I had carried from my home in Edinburgh, making sure to find another to replace it. I will take this shell with me on my next pilgrimage - and there will be a next one, of that I am sure.

***

Patrick experienced the destructiveness of Babylon firsthand, having been abducted from his homeland and pressed into slavery. Yet he rolled that kingdom down from the mountain and cast it into the sea. In its place, he established a house of prayer for all peoples. Like Abraham, like us, he was looking for the House of God.

O Destroying Mountain...

...Be Cast into the Sea

Your Kingdom come, Lord Jesus.