The Mountains Are Calling

When I wake up each morning, and wait for my coffee to brew, I am reminded each day of my own gratitude. I look out my kitchen window and I see a mountain range in the Sangre de Cristo’s. I say thank you but it doesn’t seem sufficient.

When it comes to mountains, I’m reminded of a verse in the Bible that says, our faith can move mountains. Instead I see mountains that will never move, will never give up the strength they embody and can never be shaken. Embolden and emblazon into the horizon, never wavering in their majesty and fortitude. With ease, their sense of faithfulness reminds me each day there is goodness and hope, beauty and love in the world.

It’s so easy to lose hope sometimes, and our faith can certainly wane. But here in this valley I have a daily reminder that these things are stronger and more apparent that my meager mind can fathom.

I find myself searching each day for some evidence of weakness, but none is ever found. I search for things that have changed, but it is only the colors of the seasons, or a cloud heavy with rain.

The wind blows fiercely, but it only strengthens the resolve of the forest to abide in the steadfastness of the mountain itself. The wind tests the hardiness of each branch and limb. It sheds those that are weak and aged. It prunes those that are ready to retire.

What is left is a cocaphony of beauty and resolve that never wavers. It dances to the heartbeat of the Mother Earth. It stretches before each man to be admired and copied in their magnificence. It is a constant recreation of creation itself. It begins and ends with a timing only a musician could echo. It reaches for the sky as if it could take it with them. It touches the souls and hearts of men, and in its embrace we find we are made of the same atoms, the same breath, the same exhale and sigh. In so observing, we each bathe in each other’s greatness.

The mountains are our teachers. They constantly instruct us on how to express ourselves in a manner that commands respect, but does so with kindness and gentleness. The breezes flow amidst her boughs and those of us astute to their presence, rock in the ever soothing calmness of her beauty and grandeur.

She has a soul and we mustn’t mistake it for a power She welds with defiance. Her spirit is changing, yet never wavering in her offer to us as humans in return for our respect and love.

“The mountains are calling, and I must go.”