Awe-Inspiring

There are three times I can remember being overcome with awe and wonder. The first time, I was about eight years old, when my aunt took me to Niagara Falls. The intense power of the water pouring over the falls left such an emotional impression on me that I can almost feel it 50 years later. The second time was in Rome, at St. Peter’s Cathedral.  I had been chosen to do a brief lecture for the group I was with, but when I walked inside the Cathedral for the first time—the size of it, the beauty of it, the significance of it—I was rendered speechless.

The third time was last week, when my wife and I traveled to see the Grand Canyon for the first time. I’d seen a lot of pictures, watched a number of T.V. shows, heard many people talk about it. But walking to the edge of the “rim,” and looking outward at the vast expanse, stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps it was the three dimensional perspective that no book or description can convey, perhaps it was the sheer beauty of the cliffs and rocks, or maybe it was the vertigo I felt as I looked straight down, almost a mile below, but I was overwhelmed with awe in a way that’s only happened to me twice before. 

My take-away from these three very different but  similar experiences is the same: It’s almost impossible, confronted with absolute beauty of such magnitude, to be an atheist.  

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” says the Psalmist (Psalm 19:1). 

Amen!