"The most beautiful job fell to me"

It’s a different world down there, under the ground, and one which most of us know nothing about. None of us know what Los 33, the Chilean miners rescued last week really went through. (We can wait for the film, I suppose.) None of dare think how we would react if we had to spend 69 days under the earth. But it is a world I moved freely in for a few years, as a member of a mine exploration society mapping and conserving underground mine workings in the Lake District. Perhaps it was because I was always in the company of some exceptional cavers and we carried with us state-of-the-art equipment that I never really felt in any danger, even in the four-hundred year old “coffin levels” of the Howgills or Coniston.  Eventually, I began to feel at home in the derelict mine workings, navigating my way around and wading through knee-deep muddy waters with ease and with an uncanny sense of direction that deserts me as soon as I reach the surface. Put me in a dark hole underground, and I will find my way out. Put me in a street in Wallasey and ask me to find my way home and I will be lost in minutes. I think there’s a parable in there somewhere. Underground is easy.

  I guess that the Chilean miners emerging into the daylight will find the world above ground a whole lot more difficult too (particularly the miner who emerged to find he had two women friends waiting for him on the surface). Life underground is in many ways simple – you have your equipment, and your mates. And that is about it. And they found they had something else too – faith. They say they had God with them. Jose Henriquez, who became the spiritual leader of the trapped miners, claimed “Only the Lord could guide that drill to us”. Although that may raise questions about what the Lord was doing when a group of Chinese miners died underground last week, and why a God capable of such miracles had allowed the Chilean earthquake to kill so many more people recently, Henriquez proved the old wartime adage: there are no atheists in shell-holes.

 Twice a day, Henriquez led the trapped miners in prayer and bible readings using 33 miniature bibles that had been brought down the borehole from the surface. “Out of all the jobs I think the most beautiful fell to me”, he told reporters on his return to the rescue camp. Like many Chileans, Henriquez is in doubt that it was God who saved them. Numerologists can even point to some pretty spooky numbers. 33, the number of miners, was the age at which Jesus died. They were trapped for 66 days before the rescue shaft reached them (33 times 2). And the date of their rescue? 13.10.10, which when added up is…33.

 OK, so these are just coincidences of the kind people will find anywhere, like seeing the face of Jesus on a piece of toast. But then as William Temple said “When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t.” Whatever it was that pulled those miners through, I hope it remains with them in the much more difficult world that awaits them. Already Jose Henriquez has had offers to preach from the sort of American religious organisations that make me cringe. Faith is tested over a much longer time span than 69 days. You may remember the gold-medal triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards, whose athletic prowess and famous victories he put down to his Christian faith. Later when he retired from competitive sport, he said his faith had been a charade, a psychological crutch used to convince himself he would win. Bible studies underground are one thing; the test of newfound faith is still to come for Los 33. Meanwhile, in this latest real life soap opera, perhaps it is best for us to draw a veil over what was going on in the hearts and minds of those trapped, and simply to echo Henriquez’ words: “When a man screams to God then He will answer the prayer.”