The Ayes of Faith

To you I lift up my eyes, to you enthroned in the heavens. Psalm 123

I was driving home the other day from a Book Club that meets along the Swinomish Channel on the western edge of the Skagit Valley. As I was driving, I glanced to the south and spotted Mount Rainier, which lies about 164 miles away. I didn’t realize it could be spotted from that distance, what with hills, low cloud cover, fog, agricultural haze, smog, smoke from seasonal fires, and other stuff that clogs the view. I’d simply never been able to see through it all to spot that beautiful cone off in the distance. I suppose the fact that my eye is normally on the road in front of me has also prevented me from enjoying all there is to see in the world around me.

It was a clear and gorgeous day, however, so I was able to take in that spectacular vista for a moment before turning my attention back to the road I was traversing. There is something mystical about mountains that impels us to look skyward. “I lift up my eyes to the hills,” says the psalmist in Psalm 121. “I lift up my eyes to you,” he says again here, “enthroned in the heavens …”

The psalmist is a realist. There is a God, and neither he nor any of the rest of us mere mortals is Him or Her. One’s temptation, of course, isn’t to confuse who or what is God, but to think of God living “up there” on a high mountain, like Zeus on Olympus, or far away in heaven – out of sight and out of mind. I worry that my life, like my driving, is so focused on what I’m doing and where I’m going I don’t even bother to turn my head and look to see if God is “there” or not. People and situations are often obstacles to being able to see God clearly, let alone draw near. 

“It’s a jungle out there,” says the Monk theme song, and I agree. I often can’t see the Divine through da vines! I suppose that’s one reason the Almighty decided to climb down off the throne and join us here – up close and personal. 

While there are certainly passages that describe God-the-Warrior, the stories that really capture my imagination are those where God is not the complete Other, but One who steps into the Garden in the cool of the evening to chat with us. “Adam; how was your day? Eve; I love what you’ve done with the place; those orchids are really flourishing, aren’t they?” Or the story of Moses finding God playing hide-and-seek in a fiery bush on one mountain, and a game of peek-a-boo in the cleft of another mountain. Or the story of God whispering softly to Elijah when the prophet was feeling so alone and forsaken. Or the most dramatic story of all – God lying in a feeding trough (manger), totally dependent on the willingness of a young, unwed girl (and her fiance), to take him in and raise him up right.

When Jesus prayed, he spent hours talking to Poppi more than to the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth. He didn’t navigate the halls of heaven and make his way past a host of angelic bureaucrats. He spent his time conversing with God the way you and I might chat with friends and family about matters both profound and mundane.

When I lift up my eyes to the hills, I am profoundly aware there is a universe of which I am not the center. But I know, too, that when I lift up my head, it allows God to look me in the eye and say, “Aye, that’s better.” God’s desire is not to be remote, out of sight, or out of mind, but right here, right now, looking us full-on in the face and nodding, “Aye, I understand.” 

God doesn’t look down, as I see it, but across. I lift up my eyes unto the hills, and suddenly I realize our eyes have become God’s Ayes, for God is now (and always will be) our Poppi here in this, our valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of newly released: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available exclusively through Amazon in Print and e-book)