After a good backpack in the mountains of California, I am back in town, but only for a few days.  For I'm preparing to go away again, this time to a mountain range in Nevada, to hike, camp, and explore.  I guess the adage about "making hay while the sun shines" applies here:  once snow starts falling in the mountains, backpacking opportunities, apart from those generated by snowshoeing, begin to diminish, largely ending until the following spring.

    Nonetheless, as I share this photo from my most recent backpack, I comment on one of the conversations my younger sister and I had in the course of our journey.  Although my sister doesn't share my spiritual starting points, particularly in regard to the fact of a supreme being, she, as so many others in the West do today, is very open to the idea of a spiritual experience.  Fair enough:  we're spiritual beings. 

    As I was remarking in a recent lecture, however, spirituality needs an anchor to be genuinely meaningful.  We camped by this lake for a couple of days and spent much time contemplating its wonder and beauty.  Yet all the while I did so I realized, over and over, that the awe I felt, I felt because I am a personal being who lives in a personal world.  A personal world rendered personal because it is in turn created by a personal God.

    Otherwise, spirituality vanishes as soon as we sense it.