Creaturely Media
There is much conversation about the means of grace in the Reformed tradition. The basic theology is that God’s grace is mediated to us through certain means, which are ordinarily scripture, preaching, the sacraments, and prayer. God’s grace does not interact with us in a raw, unmediated form. If it was unmediated, we would not be able to sense it, let alone comprehend it, because God is wholly beyond our ability to grasp and understand, in and of himself. God is our creator; we are his creatures limited by time, space, and the structures of our existence. Reflection on God’s mediated action toward us will prove to be abundantly fruitful. For example, it is not only true for the means of God’s saving grace, but also for his providence. Here is a story of God’s mediated providence towards me.
Those who know me, know that I am an avid backpacker and climber of 14,000 foot peaks. In the 1990’s I was on a backpacking trip in southern Colorado into an area where there are three fourteeners: Mt. Blanca, Little Bear Peak, and Ellingwood Point. I hiked up to the open space into which these peaks all drain their rain and melting snow. The day I arrived in this bowl, as it is called, was early in the season and there was still three to four feet of snow in it.
The next day I proceeded to climb Little Bear Peak alone. I labored up the slope to the peak’s western ridge at about 12,800 feet. The route took me to the other side of the ridge on a line that followed the crest. On the ridge I could see the steep, rocky slope of Little Bear Peak, mostly covered in snow and ice, dropping down to an ice covered lake far below. The line I was on was level enough to hike but at the end of it was a gully with a rock face washed smooth by millennia of melting snow and rain running down the granite. In order to climb to the top of the peak I had to get above this smooth rock face. Fortunately, when I climbed it the snow was still frozen.
Following my guidebook, I worked my way over this rock face and scrambled back on top of the ridge. The hard work was over. From there it was a few more hundred yards to the top of Little Bear Peak. After a quick break, I began to make my way down the same way I went up. The main obstacle for my descent was that smoothed out rock face in the gully. I got above it and chose the way I wanted to go down. With my boots planted in the snow, I forcefully planted my ice axe in the firm snow. Carefully, I took a step forward and shifted my weight. Almost immediately, my feet slid out from under me. It turns out there was a sheet of ice under the thin layer of snow. But I did not slide down the rock and careen down the slope—1,000 to 1,500 feet—into the ice-covered lake below. The rag wool mitten I was wearing caught on a screw on the ice axe. There I was hanging on to my ice axe, by one mitten, with neither boot securely on the ground. It did not take me long to find better footing and I was able to get below the rock face and finish my descent to my camp on the other side of the ridge.
As I climbed down, I gave thanks to God for preserving me in spite of the fact that climbing that peak alone was foolish. At a minimum, if I had slid down that slope I would have broken some bones, probably ended up in the lake, and no one would have found me for days. God acted in his providence with a rag wool mitten. That is how his kindness was mediated to me that day on the mountain. Using ordinary things, God is at work.