Always More…

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Alaska.

I hadn’t flown too many times, and wasn’t crazy about flying in general. One of my characters in Year of the Wieners explains:

“People are always saying flying is safer than driving. But when you’re suspended up there, the world beneath you and the clouds around you, statistics aren’t very comforting. And you think of all kinds of things when you’re vulnerable like that– and there’s no way out, no door you can open. You have to close your eyes and pray until your feet touch the ground again.”

I never get used to turbulence, dropping fuel, or any malfunctions that occur during a flight.

But the beauty!

All was clear outside the window when the massive white peaks of Alaska came into view. It really was breathtaking and only solidified my faith.

My faith that there’s always more. Alaska was new to me then, so who’s to say what else is beyond the present boundaries?

C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere that we as scientists or theologians are simply uncovering what’s already there. We are not always inventing, but discovering.

Makes sense to me.

All the fear and anxiety that gripped me before and during the flight dissipated when another experience of nature’s wonder captivated me.

I agree with John Glenn, who stated in a 1998 broadcast from the Discovery Space Shuttle:

“I don’t think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and see Earth from this vantage point, to look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God. To me, it’s impossible–it just strengthens my faith. I wish there were words to describe what it’s like.”

Amen.