I recently received a letter from a friend of mine, a friend who unfortunately is at present incarcerated in a state prison for a tragic episode of excessive drinking.  Along with his letter, my friend enclosed a newspaper clipping he had found that described a trip to the Grand Canyon, that fully spectacular national park in northern Arizona.  What struck me about my friend's thoughtfulness is that even though he has been imprisoned for nearly ten years, never seeing much of anything besides the walls of his jail cell, the corridors of the exercise yard, and a general meeting room, he nonetheless thrilled at the beauty of a place that he will not be able to see for a long, long time to come.  There is something, I thought, about the splendor of the untrammeled world, about the sublimity of natural places that never fails to move the human psyche and imagination.
     We can of course ascribe a variety of causes for this, but I would like to point the discussion towards the metaphysical.  I suggest that the reason we swoon at photos and thoughts of such places is that not only are our brains bent to do so, but that the nature of the universe is such that we cannot do otherwise.  If God has indeed created the universe, if God has indeed created all the natural wonders of the world--and us along with them--then it seems that we, purposeful beings that we are, would naturally and inevitably be moved by the splendor of a purposeful world.  We who were made with purpose, to pursue purpose, would naturally look to other things of purpose to do so.  We find wonder in natural beauty because we are beings who are made to marvel and delight in the purpose before us.
     Although my friend is in prison, he remains, as we all are, a creature of purpose, a creature of profound purpose who cannot help but find purpose and wonder in a purposeful and wondrous world.  Why, really, would we look for purpose unless we had a reason to do so?