Fog

I remember when Lisa and I were travelling back from a wedding of some friends in Birmingham a number of years ago (quite a few actually). We were in two cars (we’d gone to Birmingham from different places) and Lisa was following me. We were driving on the motorway after a long day at the wedding (weddings can be very long events can’t they), so we were keen to get home. But we had a problem: it was foggy. And this wasn’t just a whispy kind of fog that disappears as you get to it. No this was real pea-souper (hope I’ve remembered that phrase correctly). It means it was very thick fog, one in which you couldn’t see much on front of you at all. It was dangerous and it was unnerving. It was also a very slow drive. But at least we had road to follow. A few years ago we went to Scotland on holiday and we’d decided we would climb Ben Nevis. We’ve summitted Snowdon a few times without oxygen, so we thought we should take on the challenge of the highest peak in the UK. Can’t be that hard we thought. It’s not technical climb and people go up there all the time after all. Then we met the father of one of the girls Meghann went to Albania with. Turned out he worked as mountain guide in Scotland among other places. We told him of our plan and our intent to summit the mountain in a few weeks time. We never climbed Ben Nevis. It was only one sentence: “If you go up Ben Nevis, you must have a map and a compass because if the fog comes down you’ll get lost and people fall off the mountain when they get lost.” If you get lost in the fog it can dangerous! This lockdown and all that’s happening is like a fog: it’s difficult to see clearly and we might be in a different place when we emerge from it. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I struggle to see anything in this fog, let alone the way ahead. Sometimes it feels like every way I could go might end in disaster, and yet staying still isn’t an option either. Truth is the way ahead may not be clear, I may stumble and fall sometimes but there is one who walks alongside and comes to me even in the fog. And he is the one who knows the way. So I guess I’ll stick close and trust myself to him. However long the fog lasts. And trust that wherever I emerge, he will be there.