Mountains & the Divine

I’ve never been able to find God, the Divine, very well in an urban setting. I think its at least in part because everything, literally EVERYTHING around you has been created and prefabricated by humans. And when it comes to nature, often prefabed poorly. Nature has its own order & its not straight lines or squares. Its different for me in the Mountains. Sitting in this valley, on top of a small hill, on top of the NVSU dormitory building where we are staying, I can see the mountains in the distance on all sides soaring into the skies. Majestic, Bold, Old, Patient, Proud. They will be here long after humans no longer walk these roads and they were here long before we built them. Even looking at the destruction & deforestation evident on the mountain sides I can still feel their power & somehow it still gives me hope.

Even the view closer to our building is an amazing sight. Looking out over the town from atop our hill the view is surreal & very stereotypically Peace Corps. The valley floor is flat for miles around & just down the hill from the University are rice fields with the town of Bayombong spreading out beyond. Humankind is good from some things though. Only two pills into my round of anti-biotics and I feel one hundred times better.

Host family stays start in two days. I can’t wait. Moral is high again, now if I could just figure out how to text the States…