The Mountains Declare

If you ever hike the Alps, don’t be surprised if you see, perched between hay fields and pine forests, small alters to the Crucified Savior. There seems to be one for every grassy field that creeps around the feet of these mountains. They’re like large bird houses, except the front is open and has a small painted statue of Jesus on the cross. Sometimes he is alone; sometimes he’s flanked by Mary and John. At his feet are pieces of grain, flowers or candles, small offerings and prayers.

It’s as kitschy as a Hallmark Card and probably stained by superstition, but in some ways, you can’t blame them. In central Europe, religion is for two people, children and country folk. Children, to get a little culture and values training before they have to take on the real world, and country folk, because, bless them, what do they know about reality?

But, really, you can’t blame them. I know I can’t, because today I hiked the Alps. I hiked, with my wife beside me and my daughter strapped to my back, little creatures on a country path surrounded by a congregation of mountains. The Alps are a congregation, that’s the best way to describe them. These ancient giants stand in a position of wizened and lively worship, and they beckon all who crawl on them, however lost and diminished, to join in.

Worship. Worship beckoned me, hiking the Alps. The Alps are glorious, jagged in a way that comes across as both random and purposeful. They stand as proud equals to the clouds, some bald, some defying July to wear patches of glistening snow. Unending pine trees grow bravely upwards until the point that the mountains are too high and they can no longer grow. They form an evergreen skirt around each mighty hill, a quilt of needle and bark to measure the years. The congregation sings, joys and sorrow, celebrating the summer sun until evening winds cool the daylight passions into meditations of wisdom.

Worship beckoned me. “Heaven is a place that everybody here believes in. Why we have every reason,” wrote American folk singer Pierce Pettis about a town of country folk in Alabama. Hiking the Alps, I could relate to the country folks. I wanted to build an alter or at least find two decent sticks to make a pine cross. I wanted to lift my hands and sing the words of an anointed shepherd. I recognized the handiwork of a Creator, and I knew enough about myself that I knew I needed the Creator to be a Redeemer. I knew that the woman walking next to me, the girl strapped to my back and the passing strangers in hiking boots were his handiwork too, and in the presence of the mountains, my loves for them deepened in their various paths, like the streams of melting snow that carves the wrinkly face of an ancient hill.

Has busyness, disenchantment, noise, pollution or just plain pride left you disconnected from God? Are you hurting from hope, weary of faith and unable to love? Are you doing just fine, convinced that you’ve mastered your life with no pressing need to look up. Hike the Alps. Or the Appalachians. Or the Rockies. Catch a ride to the closest mountain range. Find a path that graciously allows you to climb something much larger than you, something that has been around much longer than you or your family or your city. Hike with your eyes open. How, then, could you not join the congregation? How could you ignore beckoning worship? How could you not relate to the country folk? How could you not become a psalmist, singing, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” “What is man, that you are mindful of him” and “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name above the Earth!”