PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTY (Psalm 48)

His sacred mountain, breathtaking in its heights--earth's joy,
Zion Mountain looms in the North, city of the world-King.
God in his citadel peaks impregnable. (Psalm 48:1-3)

I left my beloved home state of Maine to go to college in New Jersey and only returned for one brief year since. I kept moving farther and farther away. New Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. I adapted and learned that America was more than my limited New England slice of it. But I never felt at home.

Until I moved to Colorado--which is quite something, given the fact that my family fell apart a month after we arrived in Denver.

I had never seen the Rocky Mountains. I think I expected to see them as soon as we crossed the border from Kansas into Colorado. Of course I didn't, as anyone who has traveled west on I-70 across Colorado knows.

And then we crested a rise--and they lept into view. I stared at those impossibly tall, snow-not-tree-topped, purple mountains, and knew I had come home.

The Rockies took on the role of the Atlantic Ocean outside my parents' home in East Boothbay, Maine. Immense. Awe-inspiring. Filling my horizon. A tangible demonstration of God's power and presence. I fell in love with the mountains, and Colorado, and only left when God pried me out with the jaws of life.

Today's verses made me think of that day. If I could have put my reaction that day into words, I might have used similar words to the one the psalmist used. (Sons of Korah. Not the zing of David's psalms, but good, nonetheless.) Sacred. Breathtaking. Joyful. Looming. Impregnable.

The psalmist spoke of Mount Zion (Jerusalem), but different places hold that place for others.

Is there a place, natural or man-made, that evoked a similar response from you? Revisit that place--and lift your heart to God.

Today's favorite verse: We pondered your love-in-action, God. . .your arms are heaped with goodness-in-action. (Psalm 48:9-10)