What to do with Montana
Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.
- The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
My daughter and her husband live in Montana. My wife and I recently visited there and made several hikes into the depth and beauty of Glacier National Park. One of them being the famous “Highline Trail.” The Highline Trail is an extremely popular hike, and for good reason. At every step, you can enjoy spectacular scenery as the Highline follows along the Continental Divide, also known as the Garden Wall. The beautiful views, the excellent opportunities for spotting wildlife, and the wildflowers, all combine to make this a hike we will never forget.
There are no words to describe the beauty that emanates from these “purple mountain majesties.” More than once, I felt an overflow of inspiration. That feeling that a writer or an artist gets when his/her keypad or paintbrush cannot keep up with what they see in their mind’s eye. You don’t know what to do with the excess. You simply are speechless!
Like so much on God’s earth, these mountains, valleys, and streams are an unfiltered and yet pure expression of God and His infinite ability. They exist as monuments to His very strength and power without the lens and skew of religion and with no need of commentary from a theologian. Like their creator, they just are! They need no words for prelude and no explanation for postlude. They are! They are majestic and yet simple. They are colorful without being gaudy. They are both breathtaking and inspiring. They are a grand dichotomy of high and low, of stress and relief, of shadow and light. The mountains beckon for you to see them but warn you to leave them. In most cases, they are better off without you. But not so with you. You need them!
You need their pointing. They point to their creator, your God. He made both you and them. That’s why you love and respect them and yet have no need to worship them because they point upward. You look up to see them looking up to see Him.
I can do nothing with Montana. To try to “do something with it” is like trying to capture a butterfly. I could catch it, press it between two pieces of glass in order to preserve it, but I’d have to destroy the very essence of its color and grace. I’d have to destroy its life.
At best, all I can do with Montana or any beautiful thing for that matter is attempt to capture its beauty in my heart and mind. Perhaps one day when in a time of need or during some inspirational drought, I can draw from this deep well of memory without limitation.
Psalms 121 (The Message)
1-2 I look up to the mountains;
does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.
3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
Guardian will never doze or sleep.
5-6 God’s your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.
7-8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.