"and it was good."

i've written in passing about this before. but regardless. i found myself thinking about it today.

it's april 2004. my friend matt and i were sitting at the top of a mountain. by top, i mean some where over 12,000 FASL. we had arrived at the top of a ridge. we were so far up that the trees had ceased to grow any higher, making a crisp, green line across the gray snow below us. we unstrapped our left feet from our boards, settled them into the crook of our arms, and looked up towards the top of the ridge. we began to climb up about another 40 feet. we got to the top.

the two of us.

speechless.

enveloped in our own thoughts. enveloped in the sheer magnitude of the beauty around us. enveloped in the overwhelming feeling of being so small, yet part of something so much greater than ourselves.

i've never felt such a loss for words. a feeling, a sight, a moment so much greater than our small lives, that to put it into words would be a crime.

there were only a few small words uttered up there on that sharp, rocky, peak.

we had been sitting there for i don't even know how long. matt didn't even turn his head to look at me. and i didn't even answer his question. but quietly, and almost under his breath, he simply said, "i don't know how you can see this and not believe in a God." I'll never forget that moment. ever.

there is something in that fiercely cold afternoon that speaks to something deep within me.

it's the same thing that spoke to me last summer. ally and i drove out to the marina late in the summer evening. the hot sting of the day had succumbed to the coolness of the night. we walked out to the end of the docks and laid down on the wide wooden dock. we gazed up at the stars. we watched hundreds of meteors. flying, hurdling, flaming chunks of space rock streak across the night sky. we laid there staring up at the great unknown well into the night. at one point, ally slowly spoke a few words, echoing the words of another friend, "how can you see this and not believe in a God...?"

i think that too often we separate our world into two separate places. a physical and spiritual world. when the truth is. they are one in the same. creation speaks so strongly of a creator, because that's what it was designed to do.

God reached across the earth and covered it with beauty and majesty and ceaseless wonders.

"and it was good."