To Touch the Face of God

There was a moment during the Peru hike when I was all alone with this mountain. The LTR had gone ahead on horseback. The rest of our band was behind and I was the first to reach a "saddle" between two glacier-laden mountain peaks, at about 14,000 feet above sea level.

The Incas believed this was a sacred place. While standing there I believed it too. There was such a feeling of both contentment and awe in that place like I have never experienced. With no other humans in sight I didn't feel alone. Maybe it was Mother Earth -- what the Peruvians call "Pacha Mama." It felt as though Pacha Mama were singing to me, wrapping me in a blanket of sound. Somehow through the mountains I felt connected to the universe.

I am reminded -- in hindsight -- of the verse that goes:

All things by immortal power
Near of far
Hiddenly
To each other linked are
Thou cannost stir a flower
Without troubling a star

And yet -- as grand as this was, I also find truth in this line from Moby Dick:

Come, stand close to me. Let me look into a human eye. Far better than to gaze upon sea or sky. Far better than to gaze upon God.

Can both be true? Maybe. For whether gazing at the mountains and sky at the top of the world or gazing into the eyes of those you love, you are beholding beauty. And maybe that is what it is to behold God.