Rock City, Pt. 1: God in the Grandiose

"Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all." -1 Chronicles 29:11

I love big things. I love grand, majestic, magnificent, things like the Blue Ridge Mountains or thunderstorms, and heavy old books like The Scottish Chiefs or The Silmarillion (my namesake). So I'm sure it's no surprise to you how much I love Rock City. ("What's Rock City??" you Yankees may be asking yourselves. In short, it's a giant maze of rock formations, swinging bridges, and flower gardens all on top of legendary Lookout Mountain, which boasts a spot called Lovers' Leap where you can see at least seven states on a clear day. Yeah, it's epic.) Rock City is by far my favorite thing in the natural world, besides peaches and unicorns. It's a very big place, not only in physical size, but in spirit as well. It holds a essence of grandeur. (If I could pick a person to represent its spirit, I'd probably pick an Appalachian version of Galadriel.)

Before you even get there, when all the anticipation is bubbling up as you're creeping up the winding road up to the top of the mountain, you get the sense that it's too big for it's britches. The mountain straddles the Georgia/Tennessee border, and both states try to claim parts of it; the town at the bottom is in Tennessee, but there's a "Welcome to Georgia" sign halfway up.

But the real grandness comes from the views.

And this is just the entrance!

Once you squeeze your way through the  moss-coated alleyways, up and down stairs, past these terrifying things:



Answer me these question three, ere the other side you see!

Past all the lovely gardens and paths, is Lovers' Leap, the "look-out" spot of Lookout Mountain.

 

 







 

 

Breathtaking.

As I was soaking in the glory of all those enchanting sights, I was reminded of an exchange from a grade-school musical at church:
 

"Blair, you like to draw pictures of dogs, right?" I asked, as Jungle Jean, Safari-guide and adventurer extraordinaire.

"Yes!" said Blair, played by a fellow fifth-grader whose name I can't remember.

"So what can we learn from your drawings?" I asked again

"Um...that I like dogs?"

"Exactly! Now, what can we learn about God by looking at the things He's created?"
Blair was stumped (because the script needed her to be), but I think the answer is obvious. As C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, chapter 5:

 We have two bits of evidence about [God]. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, than I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place).

Thankfully, the universe is not the only evidence we have about God's nature (or else it would be impossible to reconcile in our minds the greater of flowers and laughter and butterflies and imagination with the creator of lightning and fire and earthquakes and floods), and Lewis would go on to say that only through other modes of understanding would he be able to see that God, though mighty and powerful and holy, is also loving and kind. I do love a paradox. In the immortal words of Mr. Beaver, "Safe? 'Course he's not safe! But he is good."

"The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook." Psalm 77:18

God is a God of ridiculous abundance and unimaginable imagination. Just like that waterfall at Lovers’ Leap, He’s beautiful beyond words, but the weight of His glory could crush you in an instant if you felt its full force.
"His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow." Matthew 28:3

This is why I love grand places like Rock City- they remind me of how big God is. So often, when we're trapped in our silly little spheres with our silly little tunnel-vision and our eyes always glued to a screen of some sort, it's so easy to lose sight of the "big" picture. Sometimes when I put my phone away and just stare at the starry sky on a clear night, I think "Wow...I forgot just how big the sky looks." The sheer dimension and depth of it are jarring; it's so real. I believe it's essential to life to be constantly plucked out of our bubbles and reminded of God's grandeur. We need a good mountain to climb up every once in a while, if only to see the view.

Though it'll be hard to beat a view like this.

 

 

 

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…[that you]… may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

Ephesians 3:14,18-21