"Endless glaciers under my feet make my heart throb.  I feel like I should discover every corner of the Himalayas."  So said South Korean climber Kim Chang-ho who, along with seven other climbers, perished in a fierce storm in the Himalayas a few days ago.  Kim belonged to the rarefied group of mountain climbers who not only had ascended the fourteen highest peaks on the planet, they had done so without the aid of artificial oxygen.  He was amazing.

    Sadly, however, Kim will never see any more of the Himalayas.  His earthly life has ended and he has gone to his eternal home.  And, as the twelve chapter of Ecclesiastes notes, "Mourners go about in the streets."  Only life and the mountains remain.

     Some of my atheist friends suggest that we don't really need to know why things are, only that they are.  Maybe.  Yet when I confront death and dying, particularly in someone pursuing something which I, though in much lesser form, once did, I cannot help but wonder:  what is the point?
     The answer is pretty clear:  the point is that there is a point.  And we wouldn't be able to deny this unless there was.  Nothing "just is."
     Rest well, Kim.