The Hills and the Mountain

Bret Harte was a popular American writer and storyteller of the nineteenth century, who most often wrote short stories the hard times and pioneering days of the great wild west.

His short story entitled, “In a Hollow of the Hills,” begins with three men who have lost their way in a thickly forested, hilly countryside. He sets the scene like this:

It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had been preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side, which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a certain mystery to, said:--

"I can't make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway? It's as black as Tophet, here ahead!" [1]

As the story begins, there is an awful foreshadowing of evil to come. Lost in the unfamiliar foothills, the darkness is upon the protagonist of the book, and his two acquaintances, and they are disoriented. “I can’t make out anything, Where have we got to, anyway?” says one of them and uses the term Tophet to describe how dark and bleak the path before them seems. Tophet is a place which is remembered in the annals of the Old Testament. It is a place where ancient and barbaric people would go to sacrifice young children to what they believed was a god of fire. In the nineteenth century, Tophet was understandably another name for hell.[2]

This fictional rider is cursing aloud and commenting on the path before him, on the palpable darkness, the hellishness, the blind soundlessness he is experiencing in the depths of that wooded hill.

Unless we go camping or head up into the high mountains of the more Northern parts of our state, or we draw curtains and shades and refuse lights and lamps, it is in this day of technology and noise and sensory overload quite rare to find ourselves in such profound and deep darkness.

Yet in a very different way, the intense hellish darkness of the hills Bret Harte describes are quite familiar to us. You see the short story is about the Tophet-like darkness of murder, of deception, of delusion and pain and sorrow, and such things are not strangers to us.

WORCESTER, Mass. -- A man was charged with stabbing two relatives who allegedly criticized his table manners during Thanksgiving dinner.

Police said the fight broke out when an [eighteen year old man, and his father,] reprimanded an uncle for picking at the turkey with his fingers, instead of slicing off pieces with a knife.

The [twenty four year old] uncle, allegedly responded by stabbing them with a carving knife.

The father and son were being treated for stab wounds at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Police said the eighteen year old suffered stab wounds to the chest, back and right side. His father was treated for a stab wound in his arm.

[The uncle] is charged with two counts of domestic assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault with intent to murder.[3]

From the same edition of the Globe: WESTON, Mass. -- A 26-year-old nurse pleaded innocent Friday to drunken driving and vehicular homicide charges after she allegedly killed a man in a Thanksgiving morning hit-and-run on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Police said, a 25 year old computer engineer and Northeastern University graduate student from Cambridge, had pulled his Mercedes to the side of the highway in Weston to fix his windshield wipers when he was hit around 2:30 a.m. Thursday.

The other driver, allegedly continued driving another 500 feet before leaving her car on the side of the Mass. Pike and walking away. Police said she was drinking from an open container of alcohol when she hit the man.

Police later found her sitting on a doorstep in a nearby neighborhood. She initially told them she'd been carjacked, but later admitted she was behind the wheel when the car hit the man. [4]

Two members of the Indiana Pacers professional basketball team charged into the stands and fought with fans in the final minute of their game against the Detroit Pistons, and the brawl forced an early and ugly end to the Pacers' 97-82 win last Friday night.

Officials stopped the game with 45.9 seconds remaining after pushing and shoving between the teams spilled into the stands and fans began throwing things at the players.

"It's the ugliest thing I've seen as a coach or player," said one coach with more than thirty years of experience, who was in the middle of the confrontation, trying to break it up.

After several minutes of players fighting with fans in the stands, a chair, beer, ice, and popcorn were thrown at the players as they made their way to the locker room in one of the scariest brawls in any professional basketball game.

"I felt like I was fighting for my life out there," another coach said. "I'm sorry the game had to end this way."

The public address announcer said the game was being stopped and pleaded with fans not to throw things. [5]

That happened on Friday, November 19. These clips from various news sources describe an event that occurred the following day:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina and Clemson football teams will stay home for the holidays, choosing to pass on special New Year’s Day bowl games as penance for a brawl that marred their annual game Saturday.[6]

The brawl broke out with about six minutes left in the game. South Carolina coach Lou Holtz, in his last game after 33 seasons, and Clemson coach Tommy Bowden tried to break up the brawl. But the mobs of players stretched nearly 60 yards along the field. Eventually, security and police officers were needed to restore order.[7]

"It was no worse than the Pacers-Pistons," the violent basketball game of the previous evening, said one young player, who took a momentary break from the brawl to hurl an opponent’s helmet into the stands. "They actually got the fans involved. At least we kept it between the football teams " [8]

From ordinary and mundane daily events, to outrageous trends and extraordinary and unexpected craziness, the darkness and hellishness of Tophet, of Harte’s Hollow of the Hills are all around us.

Darkness and chaos and sadness and violence. War and anger and tragedy and turmoil.

Sometimes negotiating the dark mountain passes as the darkness seems to deepen and draw us into its dismal vortex can be depressing and gloomy and disheartening. What in the world is going on? Are things getting worse? Is it true that each time we turn the television on, there is yet another disturbing image before us? Is it true that each time we open a newspaper, we find the story of an even more demoralizing happenstance which places us into the same kind of deepening darkness and desiccation that Harte describes. Have we too lost our way in the noisy, roaring crazy darkness which is life in the 21^st century?

As winter comes to settle down around us, with its early darkening nights and its bitter cold it can be downright depressing sometimes, can’t it? And it feels like these early dark evenings and cold mornings are foreshadowing even more darkness, and even more desolation to come.

Cold, darkness and despair looms around us and overhead like the dark mountain from Bret Harte’s stories.

Yet with winter comes something else. Even as we dread the cold, even as we fight against the darkness and hope to continue our regular routines despite ever constricting shortening of the days, that are chased into darkness by the crazy chaos of contemporary life, we enter the season of Advent, and we look forward.

As oppressive and overwhelming and frightening the darkness of the world we live in can feel, as Advent comes, we have the assurance that it will not always be that way. Despite the dark mountains and hills which often seem to hem us in, we hear word during Advent of an even higher mountain, the mountain of the Lord. And on this mountain of the Lord is enlightenment to wipe out the darkness, is light to illumine the way, hope to give life and motivation to our days and power that heals and saves and restores the abundance of God’s blessing and grace.

The Hills and oppressiveness of this era and this world may be around us and encircling us…

But the Mountain of our Lord is the highest mountain of them all, overarching the oppression and over turning our depression, bringing order to the chaos and vibrancy to the despair, becoming a beacon above the darkness which acts as a target and a goal toward which to strive

During this time of Advent, when we anticipate the coming of our Lord, all the world mobilizes, often not even knowing why, claiming some nebulous and disconnected “Spirit of the Season” and contributes to making the light of Christ illumine the world, participates in the climb to get above the darkness of the oppressive surrounding hills, and up into the stratosphere and into the territory of the Mountain of the Lord.

During this season of Advent, even in the Newspapers we hear the sounds of a lighter tune. Listen to these words also from the Boston Globe last week.

For most children, the sights and sounds of a late-fall family gathering and the mouthwatering smells of turkey and pie baking in the oven mean that another holiday season has arrived and Christmas can't be far away. They know that soon Santa Claus will visit and they will wake up Christmas morning to find that their dreams have come true.

But for tens of thousands of less-fortunate children, Thanksgiving serves as a reminder of their lonely plight. For these children, there is little excitement; previous hopes have delivered only disappointment. The Christmas season is instead filled with the fear that they will again be forgotten, that they will not find a single toy under their tree.

Thanks to the Globe Santa Fund Drive and the great generosity of those who contribute to the effort, it doesn't have to be that way.

The 49th annual Globe Santa charity campaign formally began recently. It is an effort to help families who celebrate the holidays in the Santa Claus tradition, but cannot afford to buy gifts. All of the money donated to Globe Santa is used to buy toys for children at Christmas. The Globe Foundation pays the administrative and operational costs of the drive.

Last year, Globe Santa raised $1,163,942.48 and delivered gifts to 57,668 children in 29,157 families. [9]

When Honor Society members at Nettle Middle School in Haverhill decided they wanted to give back to the community, they didn't have to look far.

During parent-teacher conferences Monday evening, they gave away dozens of coats, hats, mittens, gloves and scarves that were donated by students and dry-cleaned by E-Z Way Cleaners at no cost.

"Some students come to school without appropriate winter clothing," said a guidance counselor who acts as adviser to the Honor Society. "For some, purchasing a new winter coat can be a financial hardship."

One seventh-grade Honor Society Member noticed last winter that some students avoided going outdoors for recess on frigid days.

"A lot of kids stay inside because they don't have warm coats to wear," she said.

Sensing there was an uneasy feeling about their project, she and other Honor Society members went from classroom to classroom to promote the idea and ease students' concerns about appearing to need charity.

"We told kids that it's a cool thing to do to come and get good coats," said one seventh-grader. "It isn't bad stuff, it's all good stuff. Some really cool stuff."

The kids made sure word got around that you didn't have to be needy to come to the coat drive.

"I told them it was for kids who don't have a coat that is warm enough and for those who can use a bigger coat," she said.

Honor Society members were assigned different roles, including creating posters and announcements in English and Spanish, bringing in cardboard boxes to store donated items, and setting up clothing displays for the big event.

Hats, mittens, gloves and scarves proved to be the most popular items when students and their families dropped by, although about half of the 100 coats the Honor Society collected went home with new owners.

"What wasn't taken will be donated to local family support agencies," Rand said.[10]

We too participate in this lightening and brightening and lifting of the darkness, both literally and figuratively. Even as we celebrate the lighting of our Christmas candles on December 12, all season, we’ll be gathering food for our local food pantries and toys and gifts for children who have a parent overseas fighting in the Iraq war or who have little resources for such gifts and things without some help.

Advent isn’t just time to anticipate the coming of Christmas with only 26 days left for shopping and buying and gift-giving, Advent isn’t just a time of anticipation for kids and dread for adults who must prepare the festivities. It is a time to celebrate the coming kingdom and to climb above the darkness of the foothills to the gleaming light and joyful story of the bright and brilliant summit of the mountain of our Lord.

Yes we celebrate the birth of Jesus, whom we consider the Messiah, the Christ, the new King who came to establish that kingdom on the mountaintop. We give gifts and plan our parties and family gatherings, but we also cerate our own enlightening, Christ-revealing, peace-inviting opportunities that foreshadow the 2^nd coming of the Christ that will truly establish that kingdom once and for all.

If we believe in that kingdom, if we believe in the power of the coming light, then we participate with joy in the celebration of that coming brightness, we jump in and begin the sprint for the top of the Mountain of our Lord, experiencing the enlightenment and bringing with us as many folks as we can.

This is Advent and this is how we celebrate the coming of the child that would be our Savior, this is how we participate in the defeat of darkness in our own way and in these days.

[1] http://www.americanliterature.com/HH/HHINDX.HTML

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