The Elusive Mountain
And our own search
According to Biblical Scholars, Elijah travels for forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, where Moses had received the Ten Commandments. Elijah is the only person described in the Bible as returning to Horeb, after Moses and his generation had left Horeb several centuries before. He seeks shelter in a cave.
There he came to a cave, where he took shelter. But the word of the LORD came to him: Why are you here, Elijah?
He answered: “I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”
Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD;* the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire there was a silent sound.*
When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, Why are you here, Elijah?
Why are we here oh people of the Most High, His Spirit and our Master, His Son?
I’ve come to live in a place where they have ‘The Mountain’. Technically it is called Rainier. Wikipedia also provides this info…
Mount Rainier (/reɪˈnɪər/ ray-NEER), also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. With a summit elevation of 14,411 ft (4,392 m), it is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington, the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States, and the tallest in the Cascade Volcanic Arc.
Due to its high probability of an eruption in the near future, Mount Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list.
Lushootseed speakers have several names for Mount Rainier,
including xʷaq̓ʷ and təqʷubəʔ. xʷaq̓ʷ means "sky wiper" or "one who touches the sky" in English. The word təqʷubəʔ means "snow-covered mountain". təqʷubəʔ has been anglicized in many ways, including 'Tacoma', 'Tahoma', and 'Tacobet'.
This incredible spectacle of His Creation literally dominates the skyline if you are far enough away like fifty miles.
The closer you get you get immersed in rainforest like groves of ponderosa pines towering up to eighty feet above you.
The road becomes narrow, barely two cars can pass and one is some places. You crosses bridges, many one lane and made of steel plates, whose bottom is endless.
Trout streams run everywhere.
The closer you get to the third way point – about five thousand feet you drive for miles in a tunnel of dark evergreens. The Ponderosa pines!!
There are many rain forest like features that make it seem more reminiscent of the Olympics not the Cascades.
We didn't I make it near the mountain top. We just made it to its base. The snow levels were too low. They were about 6000 feet. Which is about as far as we made it.
Again I tell you how much incredible and never ending evidence there is the glorious creation of our Most High, our Creator, and all His Triune-ness. As I continue to heal, I will roam more in more into the ruggedness and life that surrounds me. Washington folk appear to be a ‘rugged’ but kind and helpful breed.
I am literally in awe every time we leave the apartment. (Still looking for land or a house).
I know I will be happy here and the fuel of the nature here for writing about Who He really is makes me tingle with fear of the Most High and His Splendor at the Northwest edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
I won’t make it to the top of our ‘Horeb’, but some roads get you over halfway when the snow settles into spring. I will go. In the meantime there are hundreds of ‘Horebs’ surrounding me.
And I will go to the top and listen.
Oh Great Lord, why am I here?
Clement