A Piece of Heaven

I think that I felt close to heaven physically when I flew over Mt. McKinley’s ice fields by helicopter. I had never seen a mountain range so majestic. The mountains possessed a presence, a grandeur that I had not experienced when I saw them from below. The color and quality of light was different, and the colors contrasted from brilliant white when the sun was shining on the snow to charcoal grey from the weathered rocks, to slate blue and dark blue in the shadows, to turquoise for the glacial streams and lakes.

Being so high up gave me a unique perspective. Brown bears were the size of peanuts on grassy meadows at the foot of these monoliths, and the smoothness of the glacier was a long swath of white that spilled over the plane of rock like a blanket. I could begin to understand why mountains were held to be sacred and holy. They were a different worship area, vast and full, under a vault of piercing blue. My mind struggled with the seemingly infinite sight of one peak after another. It didn't seem real to zip along with the high noise of rotors spilling into the cabin. The picture spread below us belonged in a book. A tiny red plane in the distance parked on the sloping glacier looked like it had fallen out of a Crackerjack.The ethereal vastness of those ice fields moved me in a way that was new to me.

I was living a National Geographic special outside the plane’s window, but with all the emotions that I never had felt while sitting and watching one on TV. I was confronted with my smallness, and with a power greater than I was—a geologic power, but a power nonetheless. Forces moved mountains, created upheaval, but there was more.

I sensed that there was the power of God that could be found just beyond the brilliance; God had created mountains to make us look up and marvel, to ascend to a different realm. Heaven was never so close between the intersection of sky and granite. I felt power and majesty, intense light and even a type of holiness too.

God was near. God dwelt in the expanse of glittering snow and the intense blue of the sky. It was an unforgettable experience for me.The irony though is that God isn't also located there; He is with each of us in our hearts and souls, a constant companion on our journey. It’s just that sometimes His glory comes to us in the sweep of mountain radiance and clear sky, in the expanse of frozen geology, and in the never-ending wonder of this planet.

- S. Becker