(Windy Gap Retreat Center, Weaverville, NC)
I was thinking about a question earlier as I was walking up to this secluded spot to sit down with You – “What is it that draws me to the mountains? What is up here that isn’t in Charlotte?” As I was reading Brennan Manning’s book, “The Importance of Being Foolish”, I think I realized the answer; or at least a portion of it: the mountains readily offer something that is more elusive and scarce back home – wonder. Manning suggests in his book that we have lost our sense of wonder in this tech-savvy, media-driven, information-overloaded culture. He says:
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when a thunderstorm caused grown men to shudder and feel small. But God is being edged out of his world by science. The more man knows about meteorology, the less inclined he is to make the Sign of the Cross during a thunderstorm. Airplanes now fly above, below, and around entire storm systems. Satellites reduce these once-terrifying events to photographs. What ignominy (if a thunderstorm could experience ignominy) to be reduced from theophany to nuisance! (1)
It is this loss of wonder that lulls us back into living life in the natural, at the expense of seeing the supernatural at work in our world. We worry instead of pray. We scheme instead of trust. We struggle instead of rest. We see the world instead of God. As Manning states later in the book, “It is impossible to consider God with heart and head filled with earthly business.” (2)
When standing in the presence of the mountains (and other overwhelmingly large natural wonders, such as oceans, canyons, or gigantic forests), we come face-to-face with our own relative smallness. We are forced to admit that we are a tiny part of a huge, living, breathing planet – which is itself a tiny speck of dust in a gigantic universe – all designed, held in place, and fully known by this God that we speak of and serve and worship.
The biblical psalmist David captured this sense of wonder and awe in Psalm 8:
1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
3 When I look at the night sky and see the works of your fingers – the moon and the stars you set in place – 4 what are people that you should think about them, mere mortals that you should care for them?
David must have felt what I feel when I drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway, when I hike up to Beacon Heights, or go up to Wiseman’s View and look over across Linville Gorge at Table Rock. It is this unavoidable sense of smallness – and it is precisely this sense of smallness that eludes us when we are submerged in our everyday worlds… because in our everyday worlds, we are big (or at lease, we see ourselves that way). We are important people with important jobs and important ideas and important lives. But when we stand on a precipice overlooking an amazing mountain vista, we see ourselves as we really are – tiny as ants - specks of dust.
I am reminded of a reference made by Donald Miller in his book, “Searching for God Knows What”:
I remember seeing that made-for-TV miniseries with Shirley MacLaine called Out on a Limb. There’s a part in the movie where Shirley MacLaine goes out for a walk on the beach and starts twirling around, saying, “I am God, I am God, I am God,” right there in the waves. I heard a lecture by novelist Frank Peretti in which he wondered what that must have sounded like to God. He leaned up to the microphone and squeaked out, in a very little voice, “I am God, I am God.” He got a big laugh out of that from the audience. What he was saying was that Shirley MacLaine must have sounded very small to God, on account of she was standing way down on earth on a beach, twirling around. (2)
I can imagine MacLaine’s voice sounding to God like the tiny “whos” crying out in unison trying to be heard, “We are here, we are here, we are here!” in Dr. Seuss’ children’s classic, “Horton Hears a Who”.
David’s wonder then migrates to an entirely different place as he continues to compose Psalm 8:
5 Yet you made [humans] only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority – 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.
I see emerging here three miracles that take my wonder (and must have taken David’s, as well) to an entirely new level.
The first miracle here is that You acknowledge us at all. Beyond our comprehension - yet there it is in black and white. And there is it in flesh and blood – every day of our lives. You see us. You know us. You want us to know You. You want a relationship with us – US… the tiny speck on the tiny speck. That alone is an amazing fact that is difficult for our finite minds to grasp. The God who created the moons of Jupiter and the Crab Nebula and the Sombrero Galaxy stoops down to count the hairs on our head.
The second miracle is that not only do You see all of us little specks of dust, but You put us in charge of this larger speck of dust, Earth. We are created in Your image – in other words, You created us and designed us to relate to You. And You have given us a position and an intellect just above the animals and just below You – “middle management”, so to speak. You have entrusted us with caring for and enjoying this world You created. You have entrusted us with Your precious artworks. We are caretakers of this garden of Yours called Earth. [This fact is both encouraging, considering what this implicates about our position with You; and disheartening, considering what a mess we’ve made of Your “garden”.] Amazing that You would lavish such love and trust on us little dust specks.
The third miracle is that You cared enough for us to make a way for us when we messed up this world of Yours, betraying the trust You had placed in us, and elevating ourselves to a false place of “importance”. You sent Your Son here as a speck of dust to walk among us, to teach us, and to give His life to save us. Your unfathomable love and care for all us little dust specks drove You to make the ultimate sacrifice to be in relationship with us.
Thank You, Abba, for seeing us, for listening to us, for knowing us, for caring for us, and for giving to us – US… the tiny dust specks on the tiny dust speck. You are truly an amazing God!
9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills all the earth!
ENDNOTES:
1. Brennan Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2006 [2005]), 16.
2. Manning, The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus, 128.
3. Donald Miller, Searching For God Knows What (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2004), 35.
