A couple of years ago, I wrote about the death of Patrick Edlinger, a French sports climber.  In his prime, Edlinger dazzled the climbing world with his ability, traveling across the globe to scale rock face after rock face, and winning countless climbing contests.  His peers marveled at his endurance and speed.  A recent issue of Rock and Ice, a leading climbing magazine, contains an article about Edlinger that describes not his prowess but his personal angst.  Driven, torn, and often desperate for meaning, Edlinger, while amazing climbers around the planet with his skill, wrestled with innumerable personal demons.  His was a life divided in two.
     Similarly, Dougal Haston, one of the greatest British climbers of his generation, tangled with intense personal angst.  His journals speak frequently about his desire to fight the walls that he felt were always before him, his longing to break free of all constraint, his burning wish to let go and step into the unknown.  Like Edlinger, Haston struggled with his angst until the day he died.  (He perished in an avalanche in the French Alps.)
    Two highly gifted men, two tragic lives.  How sad that such ability was consumed by such angst.  How sad that too many gifted human beings are fractured by their dark sides. We all have dark sides, we all struggle to balance passion, ability, and desire.  It's our lot as human beings:  personal perfection will always elude us.  On the other hand, we are marvelous and wondrous creations, and it is this on which God wants us to most focus.  He demands repentance for transgression, yes, as he should; he is a moral God.  Yet the only reason he does is because we are such valuable creations to him.  He made us, he trusts us, we trust him.  As the writer of Psalm 130 observes, "There is forgiveness with you [God], that you may be feared [trusted and revered]."
     It is the fact of God and our humanness, giftedness, darkness, and all, that ground our hope of moral forgiveness and meaning.