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Monday, September 21, 2009

Sunsets in Alpenglow

I don't know if it's always called Alpenglow, but what I refer to here is usually a mountaineering term. It's when you're in the mountains early in the morning, before dawn. When the sun first starts to rise, it lights the mountains up in the most vivid of colors, usually casting a gold or red paint on the still otherwise magnificent mountain peaks. This effect is so vibrant that the first Spanish explorers in Colorado met some mountains in the morning (or evening) and named them the Sangre de Christo Mountains, which translanted means Blood of Christ. I could only imagine the awe and spectacle of these mountains which would drive the Spanish to name them that.

I've found recently very beautiful places after numerous trips west and driving east into the next day's dawn. Coincidentally, I always drive east at sunset and have continually been caught by this phenomenon, sometimes inspiring me to pull over and simply gaze at the sunset without looking towards the sun. It's like an old analogy I use to describe religion: God is the sun, but it's what we find beauty in, what the sun shines upon, that's how we believe God to exist. No two people will have the same love for God as each of our beliefs are custom made by us and for us alone. I believe this is how God should be. I believe this is how God is, universally loving, yet intimately personal for each of us.