On Mountaintops

Almost daily I wonder about mountaintop experiences. That moment when you suddenly have perspective, can see the horizon, feel connected with everything around you. Or maybe, even better, that moment when you kiss the face of God? I don't know -- how does it work exactly?

This certainly has never happened to me. Not even close. I am fairly skeptical as to whether it happens to anyone. I don't really believe those people that say it does, if you know what I mean.

But then sometimes I wonder. Maybe it is a matter of having experiences for which you have been primed. What if I had spent my formative years preparing for the extraordinary and the noble? Instead of, you know, obsessing about how many fat grams a bagel had, and whichever ridiculous unattainable boy I had a crush on, and how to set the timer on the VCR so that I could tape Days Of Our Lives while I was at school.

Or maybe the whole notion of the mountaintop experience is some kind of Romantic illusion. Why should we value these Great Sweeping Moments of Grandeur, these John Williams-scored epiphanies? Isn't that just a bombastic culture's view of a mystical experience?

Maybe perspective comes in quiet moments and in modest conclusions. Maybe it comes from wit and sacrasm. I hope so. I'm actually a lot better at that. Moutaintops are nice, but in point of fact I've never been fond of heights.

And yet. Transcendence is not without its appeals. Are we not ever intended to be thoroughly humbled and awed and thrilled and uplifted by contact with something greater than ourselves?

But there may not be anything greater than ourselves. Or there may be something that just doesn't care for us to kiss its face.