I spent an afternoon on Loch Ness once, it was beautifully mysterious, the play of light and cloud over deep water; I can see why people believe in Nessie. What I glimpsed there, I lived for several days on our recent Alaska cruise. Between the shadowy mountains and the startlingly blue water, the ever present mist and cloud, and the haunting light of dawn and evening, one felt as if you had somehow slipped out of the sphere of this world and found another, mysterious, solemn, joyous, ancient but ever young, untainted by the sorrows and sins of men. It was wonderful, I spent long hours on deck just watching (and photographing) the play of light on the water, despite drizzling rain, cold, and a vigorous wind. It was a strange contrast to life onboard the vessel. I've never been cruising before and felt as if I was trapped in a floating mall/informercial encased in all the gaudy splendor of a carnival where physical health, gourmet food, abstract art, and expensive trinkets were the be all and end all of life.
We were cheap, we booked an inside cabin with no windows and happily we weren't quartered next to any live chickens, but we certainly didn't have access to a private balcony. I thought I would have to fight the other plebs for a spot on deck to bird watch, sight see, and photograph, but strangely, I had most of the boat to myself, aside for an occasional selfie taker who seemed to think the scene unworthy of memorializing without themselves in the picture. It seemed a very commentary on our western culture, unable to step away from gazing at itself long enough to bask in the splendor around it.
There was only one time I had to fight for my spot, it was when the entire cruise ship sailed down the Endicott Arm to give us a glimpse of a glacier. I was out first thing in the morning, but was forced under cover by the constant drizzle (you can't see or record anything with water on your lens), but happily found a spot where I could open a window and still get good pictures. There were half a dozen hearty souls (out of 3000) doing likewise, but eventually the horde came to pay its respects at the last moment, oohing and aching and snapping photos (selfies mostly) with their smart phones before heading inside for an early lunch while the boat turned around and made its way out of the fjord, missing the best part of the journey through the ghostly light of dawn.
Why does it feel like life (at least modern western life) is perceived as just that: a cruise on which you are a prime passenger and entitled to all these 'ooh' moments but in-between you can just kick back and relax and complain over any little thing, not having to work or grieve or sorrow or toil, but supposedly happy and content the whole time. I don't even know why most people were on that boat, they missed the very reason to go! You can buy a watch or a purse or eat snails whenever, but how often do you get a chance to float through the mist with great and shadowy heights on either side with water as blue as a September sky beneath you while every moment the light dances and plays over the water and in the ridges of the hills, in and out of cloud and shadow, mist and rainbow. It was wonderful! But the gaudy shallowness of the cruise itself called them away from all that: it is cold, it is wet, maybe when the wind doesn't blow so much they cried. But I was there, I got a picture with it in the background, check it off my bucket list, what do I go see next?
Is that how we see God? He's there, glorious, splendid, huge, wonderful, awful, we'll snap a selfie when life gets a little scary, but otherwise He can just stay there, unseen, unheard, unnecessary, just as long as we are as happy and unbothered as we deserve to be, but then something happens, and it is His fault, we'll blame Him, we don't deserve this after all! I just want to be happy and live my life my way. But it isn't your life, no more than those haunting mountains and eerily blue water are yours. They are yours to enjoy, but they are not enhanced or benefited by being caught in a snapshot with your face in the fore and pasted on your social media site. Rather get your silly head out of the picture, be humbled and awed before the vast natural beauty before you, let it remind you of Him who wrought it, the Artist who dreamed it up and gave it birth, the same who made you!
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