In the adventure sport of mountain climbing, there is the axiom that once you ascend the mountain, you’re only halfway to your goal. You’ve got to make it back down the mountain. It’s treacherous. And when many of the deadly mountaineering accidents occur.

In Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales writes, “[D]escending is technically more difficult than ascending. During the climb up, your foot is planted before your body weight is shifted. The opposite is true on descent, and it’s less stable. Descent … is a controlled fall.”

The second half of life may be like descending the mountain. What makes it treacherous is the inevitable suffering: the death of parents, the disappointment of children, divorce, cancer, career frustration, a retirement that doesn’t meet expectations.

No matter how high the climb in one’s thirties and forties, no one makes it back to base camp safely. The climb ends badly for everyone.

Fr. Richard Rohr has, in my estimation, done the best thinking on the spiritual journey of men and women in the second half of life. For many men to know God profoundly, the trick is giving up the illusion of power. A friend calls it the Mirage. And then finding God, perhaps for the first time, in listening to and serving others. For some women, says Rohr, the challenge is to find resurrection. After years of sacrificing for family, they discover their own sense of mission in this world.

I’m always startled by how ordinary true spirituality is.

I recently watched my wife’s uncle care for his dying wife. In his mid-eighties, he never missed a beat in her daily care, always by her side, even as she appeared not to recognize him near the end.

I recently observed a woman in our church “shadowing” a special-needs child so that his parents could enjoy a worship service with no distractions. A simple but profound act of service.

Years ago, the parents of a stillborn child told me how an anonymous giver had paid for the funeral costs. The parents were virtually penniless at the time. There was no “brick” with the donor’s name on it. Or gold-plated plaque in the narthex. Just an anonymous gift to a poor couple in grief.

Those acts comprise the essence of God’s kingdom. Virtually invisible, they hold out hope for those of us who still think of spirituality as religion. It’s not. It’s the cup of cold water in Jesus name. Plain. Ordinary. In the moment.

Where have you seen the kingdom of God advancing in ordinary ways in your neighborhood?

My brother, the youngest in the family, is a research oncologist. He is on the leading edge of breast cancer research, specializing in pharmacogenetics and genomics.

Whatever that means.

I’ve asked him, “Have you ever had to tell a patient that her test results are positive and that the outcome doesn’t look good.”

He looked at me strangely, “How about almost once a day. Most people I see are in the later stages of cancer.”

I’ve also asked him, “How do you do it? How do you not become cynical amid all the suffering?”

He replied, “The danger is not cynicism. The danger is numbness. And I’m trying to figure that out.”

There’s the feeling of numbness and then there’s the state of numbness. Being numb.

That may be one of the great dangers of the good life. We work so hard to build a safe, secure life, but in so doing, we grow numb to the suffering around us. It’s strange, really. My brother grows numb being around suffering all the time, and I grow numb to suffering by, essentially, avoiding it.

The railroad tracks of the thicker, deeper life in Christ run down the middle of the suffering of this world. To enjoy fully the gifts of this life includes experiencing the darkness of those around us. Martin Luther, the cranky monk from the 16th century, talked about becoming sin with and sin for one’s neighbor.

I’d like to know how you work at not becoming numb. Please post your comments.

Several years ago, a woman working at a local fast-food restaurant in our community was gunned down. I don’t remember the precise motive, but apparently the issue was domestic—an old boyfriend or ex-husband. The killing shocked the community, or at least it did me. Things like that don’t happen here. I had taken our kids to the restaurant many times.

Not long ago, my oldest, 10, found out about the murder, and he asked where it had taken place. The next time we drove by the restaurant, I mentioned it again and told him that yes, this is where it happened.

Our oldest became quite fearful, not wanting to go to the fast-food joint again for fear of it happening again. No matter my explanation about how safe our community is or my explanation that most murders are not random. People often know their killers. But my son was not easily consoled. So much for the teachable moment.

I felt like a lousy parent for even allowing the discussion in the first place, but I was struck by his irrational but very real fear. It’s highly improbably that there will be a murder at that same restaurant while he is there. But it’s real to him. I often wonder how many of my deep-seated fears about my life are as irrational as his.

I am reminded by writer Kurt Vonnegut’s comment: “Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be the things that never crossed your mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 P.M. on some idle Tuesday.”

There is no safe life, no matter how safe your community. Truly, even in my county, which was recently ranked in the 99 percentile in the nation for quality of life, only God knows the number of our days.

A friend recently commented how soccer is not a sport anymore. It’s a program, at least in the ‘burbs.

In an email he said, “It’s like signing up for tumbling or a spin class. You pay your fee, you get your shirt, your instructor (coach), your class (practice) schedule—it’s all very organized and tidy.”

At times, when he has suggested to his kids to go outside and play soccer when they’re lying around and bored, they say, “I don’t have soccer today.” If it’s not scheduled, it’s not worth doing—at least that’s the thinking.

Everything is managed, even play, and so play is not really play but something that you do only when it has a purpose, like furthering your chances to make the team or for a future scholarship.

My friend says, “Most suburban kids are so scheduled they might as well have a PDA, and mommy is their personal secretary making sure they make all of their appointments.”

Play is a counter-cultural act in the suburbs. To play is to take a stand against efficiency, rampant scheduling, and a control-obssesed culture. To play is to create holiness in time, when, for a morning or afternoon, there is no reason or utility for the activity—only for the pure joy of it.

8. You can’t afford curtains on your dream home, even with an interest-only mortgage.

7. You go off on your son’s baseball coach and then avoid eye contact with him the next week on picture day for the third-grade baseball team.

6. You don’t really covet your neighbor’s husband but only the figure of his size-6 wife.

5. At the recent third-grade parent-teacher’s conference, you demanded to see hard evidence why your bright son shouldn’t be reading books out of the purple-colored book bin, the one for the talented and gifted.

4. You’d like to drive into the city to provide your exceptionally brilliant kids an educational experience at the history museum, but you’re nervous about being car-jacked or being hit on by a homeless man.

3. With all the sporting activities of your 2.5 kids and golden retriever, your next free Saturday morning is in 2012.

2. Your monthly Starbucks expense is almost as much as your monthly SUV payment.

1. You drive by the new gated subdivision near where you live and think, “How the heck can they afford that? Who died?”

Boys from North Dakota don’t go to hair salons, even if they now live in the Chicago suburbs. It’s not manly.

However, there are exceptions, like when you start to bald. You need more than a butcher for a barber. You need someone (a young woman, preferably) who can finesse your hair to lay strategically.

Okay, so I go to a hair salon. And the other day, my salonist told me that she and her boyfriend were buying their first house.

I congratulated her and said, “You’ve got to be excited—your first home together!”

But she hedged: “Well, it’s way out in Plainfield. It’s only a three bedroom in one of those subdivisions. It’s small. We’re going to do the sweat equity thing, where you don’t have to pay as much. You do the painting, you put in the sod. But at least I get to choose the color of the linoleum.”

In what was supposed to be a time of joy, she couldn’t even taste the moment. All she could think about was that the house wasn’t as nice as she had hoped and, in some sense, she was already looking to the time when she and her boyfriend could move up to the next level of house.

I felt sad for her. The suburbs seem to create an environment of chronic discontent. We’re never happy, because what we acquire is never exactly what we envisioned.

My oldest, 10, recently got booted out of a YMCA basketball game. Christian is tall and beefy, and while he’s a slow white kid, he’s physical. The ref caught him and another player exchanging elbows and hips.

The ref stopped the game, yanked Christian and the other kid to the side, and proceeded to turn the situation into a teaching moment.

I watched from the sidelines, on the other side of the court, anxious, wondering what the ref was saying. I could tell that Christian was defending himself. I vacillated between wanting to tell Christian to keep his mouth shut and listen to the ref, and wanting to tell the ref to shut up and keep his thoughts to himself.

Of course, later, I bragged to my friends that my son had gotten booted from the game (or at least one quarter of the game). It became a badge of honor.

Ernest Becker, in Escape from Evil, coins the phrase “immortality symbols.” Immortality symbols can be your bank balance, your Hummer, your fresh cleavage and low body fat, your athletic child. Immortality symbols confer glory on you. I think that’s one reason why raising kids in the ‘burbs is so difficult, and why I feel perfectly righteous going off on my son’s ref. There’s so much more at stake than simply basketball.

I had lunch recently with an business executive who went off about how crazy his life is. Both he and his wife are professionals, and the activities of their two kids are legion. I had to agree. His life is nuts.

I asked if he had ever considered taking a half day spiritual retreat once a quarter. He hadn’t. He asked, “What would I do for a half day?”

“Sleep,” I said. “The most spiritual thing you could do might be to get caught up on your sleep.”

“But what would I do when I awoke? You mean, I wouldn’t have a computer?”

He was incredulous.

The suburbs seem to produce a class a folks who feel trapped. Are we really trapped?

From the moment your child steps on a soccer field for the first time – at 4 years old – you are made aware immediately how good he or she is. The Park District, the reigning god in suburbia, requires its soccer coaches to divide the teams into “aggressive” and “nonaggressive.” I remember shuddering with anger when I learned that my youngest, Cory, would be in the “non-aggressive” for the first game. And when he graduated to the “aggressive” the next week, I felt a sense of victory.

My son is a winner. I am a winner. I am Lord of the Suburb. And I’m such a loser.

One of the deadly toxins of the suburbs is the constant positioning for status. It’s crazy, really. Positioning is all about feeding the ego, and true spirituality is all about starving it.

What are the toxins that you’ve noticed?