The Unexplainable

I believe in the unexplainable

This summer, I found God 10 km up a dirt backpacking trail.

The sun set over the backdrop of jagged peaks, brushing a varnish of orange on every surface. I crouched on the rocks beside Floe Lake, my blistered feet left bare and chilly. I didn’t care because all I could focus on was the view before me, the power in its magnitude and violent beauty. Here was my church.

I tried religion when I was younger. Lying in bed, I closed my eyes and did my best to pray. On one family vacation, I even decided to read the bible tucked in the drawer of our motel room. I went to a Sunday school class when visiting my grandmother. The problem was, I just couldn’t accept its logic.

My grandmother’s prayer lists (I found them online once, much to my shock) didn’t cure my Lupus or my mother’s depression. They didn’t save my father from a fatal heart attack or my aunt from terminal cancer. What benevolent being could make any of those events part of “the plan?”

Instead of sitting in a pew listening to the words of a pastor when I felt angry or sad, I went outside. Bushwhacking up mossy slopes and curling up in the crook of fallen trees, I cried my tears into the dirt and flowers of the wild. I found solace in its unapologetic arms.

It’s not easy to accept unpredictability. People like order. Our city streets are patterned into a grid-work, our days are framed by schedules, and our habits are graphed by statistics. Life is treated as a math equation with inputs equaling outputs. There is a formula, a reason for everything. Surely God has a plan, even if we don’t understand it. No. That’s not true or satisfying. My God doesn’t let the world fall to ruin from a heavenly perch, leaving me forever searching for His ulterior motive.

These ideas didn’t fully materialize until that moment in the light of the fading sun. The mountain before me didn’t control its destiny. It was formed by some ancient earthquake and reshaped by erosion from wind and snow. In the sparse woods that braved the elevation, owls caught and killed mice, fires burned the hillside, and landslides felled nests. None of this happened for a greater purpose or as divine punishment. It simply was.

Life is random. Maybe I’ll die tomorrow. Maybe I won’t. But there’s no plan. I don’t sit and second-guess myself or the objectives behind events I can’t control. I don’t yell at or pray to a God that isn’t listening anyway. I stare at the forest and remind myself that life is wild and unexplainable, but in the end that’s part of its beauty and part of mine. I must accept and move on because there is no reason. This is what gives me peace of mind. This I believe.