What's It All About?

If you are ever in Christchurch you should consider staying at the Hotel Commodore near the airport.  A stay at this place is worth a year of therapy.  For quiet comfort, courteous staff, and good food, this is pretty hard to beat.  The memorabilia on the walls attest to the Patterson family’s long standing support of Operation Deep Freeze, and the aviators who frequent New Zealand while transiting to and from the ice, particularly the members of the 109^th Airlift Wing of the 13^th Air Force.  The people of New Zealand (the Kiwis) embody the best of British culture in their warm and friendly courtesy and innate graciousness. 

Before I set off on my 36 hour endurance trip back to the winter snows of Montana, let me make one final post to this blog, and reflect on the meaning of my whole experience; the blog, the “Ice,” the ministry, and the adventure.  They say that to see current events through the news media is to see the world through a straw.  The media can only focus on one narrow place or event at a time; and they will naturally choose the most dramatic or shocking views to show.  What they can’t normally convey is the everyday mundane events and human interactions that go on all around, but outside of, the view of the camera lens. 

While writing the posts in this blog, I was aware that I couldn’t bring it all to you, nor would you want to read it all if I did.  What I tried to share with you were some pictures and descriptions of highlights of the overall experience.  What I will bring home with me is a much larger experience of the moments and the days, the work and the routines, the conversations and encounters, and so on.  I have tried to err on the side of brevity, not only for your sake, but for the sake of the important work I came to do.  While the overall experience was one of adventure, there are also the daily chores and trials of life that follow us anywhere.  Going to Antarctica is something like going to another planet, but even that is not ultimately an escape from life itself.

I have intentionally avoided featuring and focusing on people in this blog; not because they are not an important part of this adventure, but because they are.  People are the reason I came here.  I have largely not shown their pictures or related their stories.  Their stories and experiences are for them to tell; and for me to treasure as I remember them.  Why do people come to Antarctica?  Well, the joke is, “You come the first year for the adventure; the second year for the money; and the third year, because you no longer fit in anywhere else.” 

The people here are all alike and as different as night and day.  They are all people willing to trade comfort and security for adventure and austerity.  Some are admittedly vagabonds (wanderers), traveling the world in search of the next unique experience. Some come for seasonal work. Some come to leave some part of their past behind.  Some come out of a sense of duty—to their country, their company, their field of science.  Together they bring the strengths and weaknesses that make us all human.  They bring their individual talents and trade skills. 

Whatever reasons may bring individuals here, overall it’s about science.  The very forces that make it hard to support life here make it an ideal place to study our planet and its place in the universe.  Scientists are always looking for ways to isolate whatever it is they are studying view it in a controlled environment.  For instance, some scientists spend the austral summer in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica; so called because snow seldom falls and doesn’t collect there as it does on most of the continent.  Here they can study small worm like life forms that actually feed off of the minerals in the sand, rather than organic matter.  These life forms exist in other places, but here there is little or no competition from other life forms.  This is one of the few places on the planet where human beings and other life forms have had very little impact on the environment.  At the South Pole, weather patterns through the ages can be studied by examining ice cores dug from thousands of feet of accumulated snow and ice; untouched for thousands of years.  The high altitude, thin atmosphere, and lack of light pollution from civilization allow telescopes to get a clearer view of the skies than at most places on earth.

To be a chaplain here is a very rewarding challenge.  There is a certain liberation, for me, in letting go of specific denominational doctrines and approaching Christian worship in a way that is not specifically “liturgical,” nor “Gospel,” nor “Pentecostal.”  Never was I bashful about presenting the theology of St. Paul and the gospel message that it is precisely because the world is broken (not in spite of it)  that Christ came; allowing himself to be broken for us.

Is there some vast chasm between science and theology that will not allow for an honest and open look at one by the other?  I think not. Nor do the significant numbers of prominent scientists who worshiped faithfully with us at the Chapel of the Snows.  I am fascinated by virtually every aspect of science.  I can’t get enough of trying to learn what makes creation work; and perhaps catch some further glimpse of the Creator of it all.  I had the opportunity to attend weekly science lectures—free.  The earliest explorers to the Antarctic Circle would entertain one another through the long winter nights, by sharing lectures on their specific specialties.  That tradition continues much the same to this day.  More than once I had the privilege of sharing a mealtime conversation with one or more of our nation’s leading scientific minds.  They didn’t seem to tire of my elementary questions—and once in a while, they asked some questions of me.

There are many at the McMurdo community (scientists or not) who see no particular need to worship a god they don’t know, or particularly believe in.  I take no offense at them.  I would only hope that they could at least know what it is they reject.  Too many of them have a very poor knowledge of what the Christian message actually is.  I had frank and open conversations with some of them.  I think I was, to them, a representation of a belief system that they had many questions about.  I hope I answered a few of those questions.  My ministry was as much as possible a ministry to all.  I hope I was a positive presence in the community—a visible reminder of the Holy.

So I go on not knowing,—I would not if I might; 

I would rather walk in the dark with God than go alone in the light; 

I would rather walk with Him by faith than walk alone by sight.

--From the poem, “Not Knowing,” by Mary Gardiner Brainard  

Thanks to all of you who have written and commented and followed.  I have felt your presence and your prayers.

...by the way--no I didn't see even one penguin!

God Bless You -- "see you on the flip side."

John