Ice mountains and forgiveness

 Mountains gotta be climbed, am I right?

One of the best parts of living in Northeast Michigan is the wicked-cool ice hills that appear like a miniature mountain range, complete with volcanoes, along the Rogers City-area Lake Huron shore in winter.

If you haven’t ever taken time to go see them, you really should. Just sayin’.

Now, one can’t just LOOK at an awesome ice hill, can one? I mean, given the chance, doesn’t one just HAVE to try to scramble to the top?

One does.

That’s why, a few Sundays ago, I found myself square on my rump, yelping in pain.

I knew the ice was too slippery. I’d already fallen once.

But, like Everest, the hill was there, begging to be climbed -- and, I told myself with a jaunty toss of my scarf, I was just the girl to climb it.

To my credit, I reached the top.

And then I hit the bottom -- in more ways than one.

If I hadn’t been carrying my camera, I might have fallen more efficiently. With precious cargo to protect, though, I thumped to my rump with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

Ever had a tailbone injury?

They’re a pain in the rear.

You can’t put a bandage on a tailbone. Can’t wrap it in a splint or put it in a sling. A couple of ibuprofen take the edge off, but you still wince when you stand up.

Or sit down.

Or sneeze.

It’s all painful, really. Lounging on the couch with a cat on your lap? Hurts. Sitting on a hard church pew for an hour? Whimper.

(Hot tip -- shoving a glove behind the small of your back during a 45-minute drive to work helps a little; not sure why.)

The good thing is, I’ve learned my lesson. With a sore bum to remind me of the folly of trodding on slippery slopes, I’m going to stay off the ice from now on.

Giggle.

No, I’m not. I may be walking gingerly now, but I’m still the same old dingaling who’s going to charge right up the next ice hill she sees.

Because that’s what we humans do, isn’t it?

Do something dumb, reap the rerpercussions, do the dumb thing again.

Act pridefully, get called out on it, feel rotten, act pridefully again.

Say words better left unsaid, writhe in agonies, say the wrong thing again.

Hurt a loved one, vow to do better, hurt them again.

Little ice hills all around us, and we can’t stay off of them, no matter how many times we land on our rears.

I wish the nagging residue of our downfalls were enough to keep us on solid ground the next go-round, but, somehow, the lessons of the ache we feel and the hurt we cause disappear, and up the slippery slopes we go again.

Again and again, we slip and fall and wince and climb.

And, again and again, we are forgiven by a God who, surely, must shake His head at us and wonder why on Earth we can’t learn our lesson.

Truly, God is a puzzle. He sees -- like nobody else can see -- our falls, our little resolutions to do better, our foolishness and forgetfulness and inability to learn.

And He still loves us.

It doesn’t make sense.

Again and again, we do the wrong thing. And, again and again, though we expect any moment He’s going to declare enough is enough and wash His hands of us, He picks us up, points us in the right direction, and says He’s there to help us to do better next time.

Again and again, aching and wishing I were a better person, I look to the cross and wonder why I’m loved and close my eyes and lean into forgiveness so incredibly undeserved.

The hurt that tails after foolishness ain’t fun. And it doesn’t always keep us from being foolish again.

But, pain in the rear though it may be, it is a reminder -- with every uncomfortable twinge and poke -- that we are fools, but we are forgiven.

Again and again and again.

First published in The Alpena News on March 13, 2021.