I was born in Chicago. I guess you could say that I was a city kid and in most ways am still pretty much citified. I remember as a kid going on a Boy Scout weekend where it was necessary that I set up a pup tent and sleep in a sleeping bag. And even though we were just in what are called in Chicago ‘forest preserves’, I still felt a million miles away from my comfort zone. That would be my own bed, in my upstairs bedroom, conveniently shoved under the slope of the roof (don’t sit up suddenly or it could cause head damage), in the ‘Cape Cod’ house on Whitehall Avenue. Yeah, the great outdoors would never be my thing…. Or would it?
The strange thing is that as a kid, I never dreamed of living any further then maybe over in Stone Park or one of those ritzy neighborhoods I would ride my bike through. Instead, I spent a lot of my adult life living in rural America. Yeah, I have lived in big cities, L.A., Salt Lake City and in the Bay area, to name a few. But I have also lived in Hanover, Indiana, St. George, Utah and Green River, Wyoming. And it was in the Green River area where I became acquainted again with sleeping rough, in a tent and yes, in a sleeping bag.
I have written a few blogs about these times. It was in the first days of ‘cell towers.’ Cell phones themselves were still pretty much an oddity. Our company had purchased two of them, but they were big and bulky. They kind of looked like the walkie talkies used during WWII. All the same we had a contract to install the tower bases for several of them in the mountains around Green River and where they were being installed there were no accommodations, hence tent living.
Of course, by this time in my life I was no longer that kid who had the security of a permanent home. My life had taken many twists and turns. I had lived in fancy homes and slept in my car. I had spent months living with a bunch of guys in a man camp and I had spent more than a few days being locked down for varies crimes and arrests. I no longer was afraid of the great outdoors, but I still was not a great lover of it. I would say, a lot of that changed in those weeks spent in the mountains of Wyoming.
Have you ever been there? Maybe not Wyoming, but in the mountains at night. If you have you would know that there is something beyond words that is on display every night. It is meditative and restive all at once sitting below the enormous canopy which is only visible in the thin air and total darkness of the mountains. And if you want it to or not it changes you.
In those days, I was at the height of my atheistic hatred of God. I was among hardened and hardcore guys, like myself, who wanted nothing to do with all the nonsense espoused in the ‘Good Book’ or by those phony Christians. But strangely enough under those skies, the talk which normally centered around sports and sex, changed. A disquieting awe washed away the late-night bawdy talk, to be replaced by and almost reverent conversation about this magnificent spectacle we were seeing. One night a young man and I were the last ones up. I have written about our conversation before. But it is worth writing it again. Because that night I think both of us, if only for a moment caught a glimpse of God.
Those of you who know the Old Testament stories of Moses might know that he once asked God if he could see his glory. Moses wanted to see God. Well, God told him you could not handle seeing all of me. So, he hid Moses in the cleft of a rock and just showed him his back. The whole story is in the book of Exodus 33: 17-23, it is a beautiful read. I don’t know what Moses saw, but I have come to believe he saw God, the Creator, and the beauty and majesty of it must have blown his mind. I don’t think we saw all of that on that night so long ago, but we caught a glimpse of it.
When we did, still passing a bottle of booze between us, our conversation went to one question. The young man asked me, “Can you sit here and look at this and not believe some one created it?” Oh man, I wanted so badly to say, “There is no God! This is a product of the big bang, nothing more!” I wanted to say it, but I couldn’t. For that one night. Maybe for that one moment, when I like Moses, got a glimpse of God, I could not deny him. Not in the face of this enormous sky.
In the morning light, most of that was gone. We returned to being hardcore Ironworkers. The question he asked that I never answered, did not come up again. But each night before I slept, the awe of that moment would disquiet me, and I would try to drink it away. I never did that either. I now relish it because I can read these words and relive it, now knowing the truth: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2) As a stone cold atheist I saw the glory of God and lived to tell the story.
For some reason, I have been in the mountains at other times since then but have never experienced what I did that night. But when I get the chance, I still want to be under that Big Sky to relive it. Maybe when you are planning your next vacation or just traveling take the time to find a high place where it is dark and quiet. For some that might even be your back yard. If you look God is trying to reveal himself to you. I know it is true.
Blessings
John
4/10/19
