Riding Down Memory Mountain

          Let's take a front-porch-gospel journey up high to the nostalgic mountain, 2015:

          The amazing blonde and I took our annual trip to Georgia and Tennessee this past week, spending several days high up in the Smoky Mountains, one of the best places to examine life and marvel. It was our first extended trip up to the Smokies during peak season, with the leaves in an amazing transformation.

            Being there on a rare Lord’s Day, we and Coca-Cola Mike and “Glory” Thompson drove high up on those Tennessee mountains for worship at the church of Christ in Grassy Fork, a community hidden way back in the woods of the little town of Hartford, Tennessee. The drive up and down the mountain is indescribable, adding more aura to a morning gathering with the humble brethren in an old country church.  Worshipping in spirit and truth comes naturally there as you gather around the Lord’s table the way the disciples did long ago, but the “spirit” part is easiest of all in that setting (Acts 20:7; John 4:24).

            On the ride back down the mountain after worship, we all requested that Coca-Cola Mike stop the car numerous times to step outside to the edge of the mountain to soak in every ounce of inspiration and joy that God’s handiwork brings.

             Being our first view of the transformation of leaves in the Smokies, the beauty grabs you and refuses to let you go. Oh, what a scene it is, looking down at the changing colors from high on the mountain, the trees cascading like Georgia's Anna Ruby Falls! It felt like gazing at a painting where the artist engages his entire array of colors—browns, greens, oranges, reds, and yellows—and slings them at once at the canvas, allowing them to land randomly and marvelously where they will.

            That’s the breathtaking view of those Smokies during this time.

            You cannot gaze at the austere scene without thinking of the psalmist's declaration: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1); or without unconsciously humming that great old hymn along, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the world thy hands have made …”

Indeed, the heavens—and all of God’s creation—show the powerful creative power and sculpting ability of our God. They show God’s greatness, and they remind us how small we really are.

              On one of our impromptu stops to absorb the surroundings, we made the same request we had made a quarter of a century ago. It was around 1991—we knew the year because the brick building that the Grassy Fork congregation is in now was just being built. We were all together then, both of our family’s children young—the amazing blonde and our two children, Rachel and Mal, along with Coca-Cola Mike, Glory, and their daughter LeAnne.

I requested a special picture that day on the edge of the mountain, God’s glorious nature set behind us as more than a pictorial backdrop: perhaps it was the backdrop of a life. I suppose our friends and family were somewhat like the horse in Robert Frost’s classic poem who “gave his harness bells a shake” in impatience. But friends will oblige you, especially since down deep they also are overwhelmed by a glowing beauty that was leading us down that mountain like that pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night we just read of from the pen of Moses.

We took one of my all-time favorite pictures in ’91. We stood there on the mountainside, face aglow, holding God’s Word in our hand, two of the Lord’s great glories juxtaposed in their power. The only difference between the 1991 picture and the 2015 one is that—while none of God’s glory ever changes or diminishes—we, perhaps, have aged a bit in a quarter of a century, but only in body, we trust, not in spirit.

            But all of our hearts were ageless that cool, crisp Sunday afternoon, November 1, 2015.

            The time came that we had to come down off the color-arrayed mountain and return to life’s demands. You never quite leave such a scene; life just requires your feet slide on down to level ground. But it can’t keep your heart from staying high up in the thin air of the mountains with those ever-changing leaves and never-changing beauty.

My feet protested the departure, naturally, and my eyes required one more panoramic view of the mountain’s highest peak as it reached up to heaven. The world can take your eyes and feet away from the moment, true. But it cannot remove what’s emblazoned deep in your soul, nor can it keep your eyes from an occasional wistful look into a foggy distance miles and miles away, even as they are at this moment. ~  November 2015