As I read Diana Trautwein’s recent post about her view of the San Gabriel Valley (California), it stirred memories of not only that location where I grew up, but other hills where I have been gifted with scenes of beauty.
When we buried my father at Rose Hills cemetery one windy December 10th, we could see all the way to and beyond downtown Los Angeles since the smog was gone. Driving to my sister’s house afterwards for lunch, the snow-capped mountains in the distance shone. Such an achingly picture-perfect day at a time of great loss.
My husband and I rented a cabin in Arkansas at a state park during the week when it was quiet and uncrowded. We hiked to a rocky outcropping. As we sat and rested, a small drama played out below in the valley. We heard a hound’s barking and finally focused on it chasing a deer, the deer leaping over fences and keeping well ahead until the hound gave up.
When we served as library consultants to the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem, each morning I woke to the grinding of gears as trucks climbed the highway and heard the call to prayer from the minaret. We were living on Mount Zion. I hiked with the students to Bethany on a fieldtrip and on the descent we stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane where spread out before us was the Holy City.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising that I wrote and led a Bible study at my church in Dallas about the mountains in the Bible as places where God communicated with man. Mountains create new perspectives for us. Having spent many summers in the San Bernardino mountains, mountains always speak to my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment