The Glory of God

...or the glory of nature, however one wants to describe it.

As I drive to school I pass over the Catawba River, a meandering scope of water that is a comforting presence. Just before the bridge over the river is a small valley of sorts with those incredibly large electric skeleton towers. Typically as we pass into the colder days of fall my morning drive to school is shrouded in mist, the shock of cold air against the relative warmth of the water always inspires me to close my eyes and imagine for just a second that this ordinary mist was that of Avalon. There is something so ethereal about fog and mist, the known now hidden becoming all too secret. Fantastically stirring to my very wanting mind - wanting of magic and the possible.

Today, however, there was something different in the midst. As I drove past the valley I was startled to see the sun hovering in the middle of the valley, penetrating the mist. I don't know if it was because of the sun and some shift in the wind, but I saw a separation of the mist. Half clung to the ground, like a comforter draped over a bed - slightly mishapen but completely wrapped and radiantly warm. Then, I don't know how to describe it, there was a break which allowed only the rays of the sun through. The sun couldn't penetrate the ground layer of mist but it shone magnificently in the clear sky it conquered for itself, highlighting the middle of the electric towers. And then, where the sun was, the the top layer of mist remained, too powerful at it's origin to allow the light to completely shine through. The mist not only recreated the sun as a hazy, orange orb, it hid the tops of the towers so much that only the dimmest of outlines remained.

I will often stare at a particularly glorious sunset, sunrise, or any other event that causes to make the sky even more beautiful than it is at present. But this...this was shocking in it's beauty. I couldn't imagine putting such an image on a postcard and selling too many copies, yet I fundamentally wished I had a camera and the time to veer my car off the road and take as many pictures as I could of this setting of sun, mist, hills, and the structures of man.

I hope I in some way captured what I saw this morning. That would be likewise beautiful.

(Forgive me for absence. I have been thinking of many things to write yet am hampered by the trials of school and moving. Yep, moving out of the house that defined so much of my life. ....more on that later.)