Showing Off Alaska

The tourists are coming!  The tourists are coming!  The old Alaska joke is that there are four seasons:  winter, winter, winter, and relatives!  My 80 year old parents and favorite aunt visited our state last week for Jeremy's college graduation.  I took a week to be their tour guide to Denali Park where the mountain showed her glory against a pale blue sky for us.  Then we went to Seward and a 4 hour tour of Resurrection Bay.  We saw caribou, ptarmigan, dall sheep, eagles, orcas, sea lions, tons of birds, and humpback whales.  For my Arizona aunt who had never seen such beauty it was the trip of a lifetime.

What do you see when you gaze out your window at your piece of the Alaskan landscape?  Because you have looked at that mountain, harbor, forest, or cityscape a zillion times does it ever draw you back to stop and appreciate the wonder of it all?

Surely it is God's desire to continuously call us back to look at this world both natural and human creation as God sees it with a sense of wonder and beauty and simple joy.  Let us take some moments today.  Let us create some time and space where we can breathe more slowly just so we can truly gaze at this amazing world God has given us, a scene we see nearly every day.

And thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me a spirit of adventure that brought us to Alaska.

Grace Always,
Dave