Climbing Mt. Sinai in English

Climbing Mt. Sinai in English
By Barbara Hancock Cole

A WALL OF MOUNTAINS rose around us, black as night itself, their tops only faint lines against a paler sky. Somewhere in the darkness was Mt. Sinai, which we would climb at midnight, hoping to reach the summit by sunrise.

The way was not clear, and a field of boulders lay between us and the trek upward. From the first step the path was treacherous, and our guide's confident "Follow me" did little to reassure us. Contrary to him, we carried flashlights. "I have Sinai eyes," he said, leading us past and over chasms whose depths made mockeries of our feeble lights.

At last we were suddenly on a path, wide and clear in the night light, what there was of it, once our eyes had adjusted. Years and years ago, no one knows how many, monks had laid out a path, really a narrow road that writhed its way about Sinai, ever rising, switching back and forth until the halfway point. And then, as suddenly as the good road appeared, it disappeared. Just like that. The road where three or four could walk abreast turned into a steep path where one person must balance himself on a stone that looked flat enough in the gray light to be a step. The road had been easy, one side always against the mountain and the plunge side clearly marked for safety. But now there was no mountain "side" — both sides were "plunge" — and none of us dared to look behind, for eternity was at our heels. We stopped often to get our breath, literally, to give our hearts, our legs, our spirits a rest. But then the top another two hours away soared and taunted us. Never did the climb become easier. Each step was as dangerous as the last, and even that phase ended — the trail simply disappeared altogether. But the guide went on anyway, and we followed. By now the air was thin, and we could feel our hearts pumping. Our legs were tight and our feet, almost numb. Closer to morning more light forced us to wonder how we would get down what we could barely get up. By the time we reached the top, we were helping, encouraging, and believing in each other because it was necessary if we were to reach our goal.

The last step upward led to a table rock. We sat down or lay down, depending on the energy left in us. A man already perched there said in a distinctly French voice, "That's Mars straight ahead. It's a rare sight." The star hung over jagged mountains from whose valleys fog rose like smoke fed by ancient fires. It faded and sunrise blazed in a thin golden rim on the edge of the world. Light. Light as delicate as iris petals infused the mountains with gold and red and brown. Thistles bloomed in crevices, and tiny flowers like white stars dotted sparse patches of dirt. We stood in silence, thrilled, surprised, joyful, thankful. We had followed a man, not a path,in the darkness, and finally in the light we stood where Moses stood and saw what he must have seen.

AS IMPOSSIBLE AS IT MIGHT SEEM on first thought, the Mt. Sinai experience is not unlike the journey students make each quarter as they enter their first English composition course. The student comes in faith, although it often falters, that he can make it to the top, and the path for him may also be uncertain, forcing him to pick his way through comma boulders, sentence fragments, and dangling modifiers among many other dangers in the composition wilderness. The teacher, with eyes accustomed to the darkness, simply takes the next step. The handbook and the reader in the student's book bag may give little assurance that climbing this English mountain is even possible. Often the teacher's first report on student progress indicates that the hiker, failing, fell into one of the cracks before he reached the monks' road. When he has hauled himself — mainly his courage — up, he must trudge on or give up the expedition with a drop sheet, claiming he cannot work a full-time job and climb mountains too. To go or stay is his choice, but sometimes the teacher can persuade him that the traveling will be better, not necessarily easier.

You must climb until you can distinguish the stepping stones and the hazards. Write some more. Read some more. I know you are not a mountain climber, but if you follow me, you will get your second wind. Try as you've never tried before. This is only the beginning. You cannot get to the top without struggling. Sometimes there is no light at your feet, but you lift your head for a moment and the top is there, waiting to be climbed. You keep on until a voice inside you says, maybe faintly at first, you can do it.

Writing, like other processes of life, is a progression, and we as teachers know the importance of the writing "journey" that teaches and toughens and inspires. As the butterfly must struggle out of the cocoon himself or die, the student, likewise, must learn to write himself, or figuratively, he too will die. Teachers cannot climb for him, but with Sinai eyes we can climb before him.
Barbara Cole is professor of English at Sandhills Community College and author of Anna and Natalie, Wash Day, and Texas Star. This essay is reprinted from the Summer 1994 issue of the North Carolina Conference of English Instructors CEI Newsletter, Rick Lewis, editor.