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.

The blazing sun burns my face with little atmosphere between us. The ancient wind harkens from eons away, whipping the sand from crushed rock against my cheeks. Skies showing off a blue I have never before known. White, red, and countless shades of brown rock surround and arch overhead. White clouds adorn the blue, skirting the bent dome above, stretching and highlighting the peaks, valleys, canyons, bad lands, plateaus, and mesas spread as far as can be beheld. Sand as white as the Caribbean’s fills my shoes from the climb. Stubbornly courageous trees somehow sit atop a peak higher than I can scramble.

I am here. And the moment enraptures me. Rugged, unforgiving surroundings call to me and I surrender. The wind filling my ears and blasting my hands and face with sand deafens me. It is both cold and hot all at once. I am here and if I ever return, this place will be changed – never to be the same as now. Wind, rain, fire, rockfall, are already shifting the behemoth rockface to be never as it was in this moment and the moment before that and …. This was made for me? In some ways I am an invader and a wanderer. In this moment, however, I surrender to the power of the artist’s hand that made this indescribably fierce beauty … just as it is now. I am here – fully here and I’m being transformed by the sun, sand, and vistas encircling me. I am here. I am.

I am not alone, however. In this moment, I am embraced, even pushed, by the force of the wind, yes, but even more by the force of the hand that made all the miles I can see. Pushing? More like firmly embracing from all sides, above, and as solidly as the grounding rock beneath me. There is a calling in this to me. I am called to adventure … daring adventure. I am also called to be right here in this moment. At peace with self, the little boy still in me, the man into which he’s grown, and the grey beard I am meant still to be. To this moment I can return, but it has passed already. That moment was made for me.