Mountains of Minas

I have spent a good part of the month of December traveling. I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent on a bus in the past 4 weeks. I really don’t even want to count. But one of the blessings about being on a bus, especially in the beautiful state of Minas Gerais, is the vast and breathtaking mountains that accompany your journey through the window. On one particular bus ride (at 6am) I found myself fighting off the urge to sleep so I could enjoy the beautiful scenery just a little bit more. I decided to get my camera and take pictures of the luscious green trees, mountains and open valleys flying by me. So I start snapping away. And yet, every time I looked at a picture, it just wouldn’t do it justice. Something was missing. It wasn’t as breathtaking in the picture as it was when I looked out the window. And so I tried again and again, much to my dismay to capture the essence and beauty that are the mountains of Minas. And nothing took. I always was left with a bland and flat image in comparison to that which my eyes beheld. Until finally, I heard a little voice say, “Emily stop trying to take pictures and just enjoy what is right in front of you.” And then it hit me. In my effort to capture the image on my camera, I was missing the real, overwhelming, spectacular beauty that was passing by me at 100km per hour. 

And then it hit me again, isn’t this what we do with God? Sometimes I think we look at God and get overwhelmed by God’s mystery, beauty, grandness, and immediately this reaction causes us to want to capture it- put God into a box, into our way of understanding, our way of thinking, reduce God to words so that we can capture God and keep God forever in our minds and thoughts and dogmas and institutions so that God makes sense. But maybe, just maybe God defies our words and boxes just like the mountains of Minas defy the camera. Maybe God’s beauty and majesty aren’t always meant to be put into words. Maybe they aren’t meant to be captured or defined and reduced to an understandable cliche. Instead of trapping God in our own camera or cage, maybe we should just let God be who God is and allow ourselves to stand in the slightly uncomfortable, slight breathtaking presence of that reality and let it overwhelm us. Maybe instead of trying to break God down into little pieces that we can understand (and control), maybe we should instead run and romp and play with God and laugh and sing and dance at the foot of those very mountains that overwhelmed us. Maybe this is what God would prefer that we do with our time.

My other problem with trying to take pictures through the window of a bus was that every time I tried to capture a picture of the landscape. No matter how hard I tried to position the camera, my reflection kept appearing in the picture and clouding the image. Once again, I realize how when we try to pin God down into our own images and definitions, we inevitably cloud the picture with our own image, our own prejudices, fears, culture, etc. It is impossible to get ourselves fully out of the way to see who God is in and of Godself. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as we all have our lenses through which we see the world. In a sense we will always be looking at God through the window of culture, class, race, gender, and experiences. And as long as we realize that our image is merely a part of the lens through which we see God and not necessarily actually God, we don’t run the risk of (falsely) believing that God is just like me. That God agrees wholeheartedly with my politics, my culture, my beliefs, and dislikes all the people that I also dislike. This is why we need each other. This is why we were created to be in community. So that others can remind us that there are other views to be seen, views of the greatness and mystery of God that I am missing or choosing not to see. We need friends and loved ones on the other side of the bus to remind us that there is a view from the other side of the road too that we cannot miss. 

May we be freed from our own photographs and attempts to capture that which is uncapturable and learn to live and breath and move in awe...