During the last week of June 1975, the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa suddenly awoke from a 25-year slumber. From volcanic fields asleep for decades, fissures opened, and a white vapor poured forth comprised of steam mixed with sulfur dioxide gas. As the molten magma began to shift and move upward, the ground started shaking in a swarm of earthquakes that could easily be felt underfoot.
From our military quarters at Ft. DeRussy on the island of Oahu (location of Honolulu), my friend Bill and I read the news with heightened anticipation. We had already planned a visit to the Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii 221 miles northwest of Oahu, and this appeared to be our one chance to personally witness a volcano erupt. So, when the experts issued warnings that the eruption was due at any time, we bought our Hawaiian Air tickets and flew to the Big Island to witness the “big show.”
Renting a car at the Hilo airport, we drove directly to Volcanoes National Park – a vast reserve of 523 square miles. The park was almost as large as our entire home base island of Oahu and was filled with open, barren lava fields and many old volcanic craters called calderas. And they were “smoking” – which means that in countless places across the blackened wasteland, fissures were open and active, and white volcanic smoke was drifting out and sliding across the desolate landscape.
It required most of our day to get there, so, as the sun began to set, we drove to a high overlook area on the flank of Mauna Loa volcano and parked for the night just to make sure that we did not miss anything. We weren’t going to go to all this trouble and expense and then miss God’s fireworks!
Soon, we drifted off to sleep but were frequently awakened during the night as small but very discernable earthquakes thumped, rolled, and rattled beneath the car.
As the sun rose over the wide cratered landscape the next morning, nothing had changed. So, we decided to take advantage of the lull and take a hike – down onto the black crater floor itself. Specifically, we wanted to stare down inside one of the large smoking vents and see the red of the magma below.
We drove down the hill from the overlook parking lot to one of the many roads that circled the lava fields alongside Mauna Loa’s flanks. Finding a convenient place, we pulled off and started walking toward a particularly large plume of volcanic smoke rising out of a very decently sized fissure about half a mile from the roadside. We began to walk quickly to our target, very excited to see some molten rock.
But just about 50 feet from the roadside, a single sign stood all alone on the black, cold lava field. Reluctantly, we detoured directly to the sign to read it. It said, in big bold letters:
DANGER – DO NOT ENTER
We looked at the sign. We looked at each other. Then we looked at the sign. Then we looked at each other once more – and we both shrugged and went ahead anyway, walking even more quickly to our smoking destiny.
I have heard (and can now attest with all forthright honesty) that it takes several decades for the human male “dumbass gene” to finally make the slow transition into common sense. This is true – trust me.
But as this enthusiastic pair of contenders for the next Darwin Award hastened toward the active volcanic fissure, it suddenly appeared much larger than it had from the roadside, and the pure white plume of volcanic gas rose at least 50 feet in the air.
Then, the wind began to shift. As it did, the cloud of vapor headed directly toward our position. In less than a minute, it arrived and surrounded us. What had been an incredible adventure one minute before, became a life-threatening emergency for me.
With the first sniff of volcanic gas, my lungs locked up. I literally could not take another full breath.
Bill looked at me, his eyes tearing from the fumes, but he did not appear to be having breathing problems like me. Yet, I was not able to take full breaths. We immediately began walking away from the plume and succeeded in getting out of it quickly. After racing away as fast as possible and encountering fresh air, Bill was unaffected. But as a person with childhood asthma and an acute sensitivity to sulfur dioxide that I never understood fully until years later, the temporary damage was done to my lungs.
I was operating at probably 20% of my lung capacity, so when Bill saw that I was in real trouble, he shouldered my weight until we got back to the car. He started driving quickly to a local ER, but I asked him not to do so. I knew that our grizzly Top Sergeant back at Hawaiian Armed Forces Police would probably just finish us off when we got home if he found out what we had done. Mercifully, in about an hour, my breathing had returned to normal.
The volcano lay there burping toxic fumes for another week before it finally erupted for a single day, and then went quiet again for another nine years. Of course, we missed it. But I came home with a few more points added to my IQ. Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “Good judgment is the result of experience, and experience the result of bad judgment.”
I personally found this proven true with that lightbulb moment in the middle of an active volcano!
And how does any of this relate to us as Templars? It’s because of the signs that pop up before each of us – in our C&I’s, in our emails, and hopefully in our consciences. And here they are – there’s hardly a way to miss them:
PAY YOUR OBLATIONS – PAY YOUR MITE
The fact is, our oblations and our mites make lifesaving differences to countless people in the Holy Land and the Middle East. Whole Christian families and the quality of their lives depend on us to do what the signs command. Their personal security is guaranteed by Templars like you and me doing what we have already vowed to do – a vow of courage and honor that has echoed over nine centuries.
If we walk past the signs and do nothing, if we abandon our vows as Templars, it becomes immediately life-threatening to those whom we have promised to keep in safety. In truth, fellow member of one of history’s most important Orders, those whom we have pledged to keep in safety depend on each of us individually not to pass the signs and shrug them off.
For the Templar Order is not made up of Priories or of Regions – but it is comprised of individuals who each do what we have pledged to do by our honor and by our vows. We succeed not because of our storied history or because of our international size. We succeed because each one of us carries our own responsibilities.
Templars are not made great because of the Order, but the Order is made great because of what each of us brings to the feet of Christ.