water

in my last post i described christian spirituality as God looking down at us and swooning "I love you, I love you, I LOVE you." and our response being, "no no no, I love you, I love you, I love you."

First of all I need to recognize that I stole that analogy from a Donald Miller pod-cast. It is an excellent pod-cast and I would recommend any of Don's podcasts to you without hesitation.

Secondly I want to expand on that a bit.

since coming back from youthworks I've been bitten pretty hard by a travel bug. since coming back to Ohio I've been to New York city, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and most recently Niagara falls NY. Although a few of those places were hit during an intense 36 hour road trip only stopping in any one place for a max of three hours, the immense amount of site seeing has spurred my mind in a few directions. Why do we as humans go out of our way in large crowds to see certain sites?

this especially hit me in Niagara Falls.

our trip involved getting up early driving 5 hours to the NY side of the falls, arriving pumping our blood steams with caffeine, sight seeing for a few hours grabbing an early dinner at a hole in the wall diner, napping in the park for a few hours then wrapping things up by gazing at sun set over the powerful horse shoe falls and watching the strategically placed colored lights come to life and reflect off of the water like a brilliant show. it was while I was staring at the falls watching them cascade in their naturally majestic way that i began to ponder my own sanity. why? why do i do this? why did i drive this 4 hours on a holiday weekend to watch water fall into a large hole? i watch water fall down sinks everyday, when i come out of class i watch water in the air and fall back down every time i walk out of class. why did i do this? then i looked out again, the powerful water surged over rocks and cascaded hundreds of feet to the ground spraying mist in the faces of on lookers and all over buildings that have been built. And somehow my answers were met. I cant explain it, words cant describe the emotions that this phenomena evoked.

In my organismal biology class we are learning that everything that we do think and feel is caused by a chemical reaction in our brain. everything. we touch a hot stove and jerk our hand back because a chemical in our brain tells us it is hot, we kiss a member of the opposite sex and a chemical in our brain tells us it feels good, we pull all nighters studying or talking and a chemical in our brain tells us to sleep, we listen to Sufjan and smoke pipes and a chemical tells us this is relaxing. this all made sense to me as i looked out at these falls and found it to be one of the more beautiful things i have ever encountered, a chemical in my brain was telling me this is beautiful.

I once heard John MacMurray talk about how God created these chemicals in our brain and certain majestic sights to dazzle us. This makes sense to me. As I was sitting watching God's creation, enjoying this matural chemical that is telling me that this is beauty I could almost here God's song... "I love you I love you I love you." I had no choice but to return the emotion.

i began to discuss this concept with Bekah who was sitting with me and had an epiphany of sorts. God could have created us on a desolate planet made of granite where we are sustained by granite, breath by granite and acheive everything we need through granite. Instead he gave us trees, the ocean, mountains, waterfalls, and chemicals in our brain that tells us that these things are beautiful. we were created then to gaze into the water, climb mountains, dive into waves, enjoy a vast array of other wonders he has given us, and to love the creator. love for the creator then extends into love for the creation and our own desire to see the creators will for the creation realized.

my friend Tim posed an interesting question earlier on the trip.. he chuckled to himself and asked us all, "what do you think would happen if the falls stopped, just for one second everything stopped then picked up again as if nothing had happened. I looked at Tim and said well obviously people would just stop coming here. A good laugh was enjoyed by all at this response but now I think that my answer is true. If the falls stopped and people realized that they could stop or be controlled the wonder would be lost and people would stop going. we go to the falls to enjoy a chemical that rubs our mind in just the right way and feel like we are a part of something bigger, a part of something that we dont totally understand nor can we control it. we go there to feel love form our creator.