Making a Home

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but when I went to the carport to get my hiking boots I found a bird’s nest in each of them. My left boot even had an unhatched egg in it. I guess it had been awhile since I’d been to the mountains. 

Ever since my father died forty years ago, I’ve considered the mountains my home. I was so lost, and it wasn’t until I moved to the mountains that I began to feel found. The dramatic contours of the land with all the peaks and valleys spoke a language my soul understood. I felt I could see God’s fingerprints in the earth’s clay, and name etched in the granite cliffs. Even when I was by myself, I didn’t feel alone. When the streams sang their way around the rocks, and birds danced effortlessly with the wind, it was as if I was being invited to come close. Even the weather, which is wildly unpredictable, plays a part in the liturgy of the mountains. The lightening and wind are often of biblical in proportion, and no organ can match the sound of thunder echoing through a valley.

As I drove up to the mountains yesterday, I remembered all the mountains have been to me and celebrated all that they still are. The birds may have used my boots to make a home, but now it’s my turn.