Tuolumne River in Yosemite

Before we had the written word we had nature, God’s primary text. We learned about God from the seasons of the year, the stars in the sky, the action of the ocean, and the soil of the earth  I pondered this as I lay on a rock beside the Tuolumne River and gazed up through a pine tree at the clouds.

As adults, we understand the physical nature of clouds, but as children, we delighted in spotting familiar shapes in cloud formations.

“Can you see that rabbit chasing a dragon,” we would ask a playmate.

“No, where? I don’t see it.”  As we tried to explain, it dissipated.

A rabbit chasing a dragon. Hmm, what does that mean?  The thought might lead to a journal entry. “Am I the rabbit or the dragon? What am I chasing or fleeing?”

Most of believe that clouds are simply a vaporous phenomenon, but could they also be a medium God dips his brush into to paint a picture for us to contemplate?

What message do you see in this cloud?

I’m reading The Romance of Religion, Fighting for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty by Dwight Longenecker, a lovely treatise on the unseen world that runs parallel to ours. The author maintains that great stories enchant the hero with whispers that ordinary life contains portals into the unseen.

Perhaps Yosemite National Park is so beloved because it contains so many portals that transport us. I hiked Pothole  Dome yesterday to get the kinks out. My body was kinked from maintaining an unnatural posture in front of my computer day after day. My brain was kinked from an ongoing discussion of what is off limits as subject matter and expression for authors who are Christians and the consequences for those of us who see that boundary differently than the gatekeepers.

Taking a day to walk through a portal and  work out the kinks has brought me peace.

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Before we had the written word we had nature, God’s primary text.

Perhaps Yosemite National Park is so beloved because it contains so many portals that transport us.