As I mentioned about a week and a half ago, I took some time to do a little traveling, my destination, of course, the American West.  I never tire of seeing the mountains:  I've adventured through them all my life.  I am of course certainly not unique in this regard:  millions of people enjoy the mountains.  For those of us who do, we would agree that there is something, a something that spans all corners of the human mind, heart, sensibility, and imagination, about seeing mountains.  Mountains are special.

       That said, as I looked last week at the peaks of Wyoming's Rockies, observed how they thrust themselves so effortlessly into the cerulean blue sky, how their slopes catch the sunset and dawn, and how their jagged edges glisten with fresh fallen snow, I thought about, as I often do, about why they are they way are.  Whether I say the ultimate origin of mountains is cosmically impersonal or the work, however, distanced, of a transcendent and personal God, the mystery remains:  why mountains?

     Religious loyalties aside, this is the most important question of all:  why do we, we fragile, finite human beings, get to enjoy such wonder?

     We grasp the meaning of existence only by admitting to its opacity:  the silent work of a hidden God.