When we moved to Portland a couple years ago, I had the rare fortune of returning to the land of my roots. My daughter's K-8 is the same school where I attended middle school; we live just a couple miles from my childhood home.
Given this, I've been astounded to find that there is a honking great mountain looming over the neighborhood landscape. How did I live here full-time for 17 years and not notice that Mount Hood (and in some places, Mount Saint Helens, too) is ALWAYS in the background on a clear day? Eleven thousand some-odd feet of snow-capped beauty, and I swear I never noticed it was there. Good grief.
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| Granted, it isn't as visible in the photo as in person, but note the pointy object between stands of trees on the left... |
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| Yep, that's a mountain... |
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| Elsewhere in the neighborhood... |
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| Lookie there. |
My childhood mountain-blindness reminds me of how easy it is to miss the wonder that surrounds us. Some days (let's be honest; many days) Mount Hood is obscured behind curtains of clouds or fog. Lots of people say they see God in the wonders of nature, and I believe they make a relevant point -- even though, as I noted the other day, we need to remember to tear our eyes away from the scenery sometimes and see God in other aspects of creation. The important thing about the mountain is that it's always there, even when it's been raining a zillion days straight and we seem mired in endless gloom. So, too, with God. All the more important, then, that we learn to pay attention. When we notice the wonders, we gain the fuel to sustain ourselves through gloomier days.
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