Twirling on the Mountain

Ascribe greatness to our God! Deuteronomy 32:3

Sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:19-20

Some young people who are close to my heart have been singing and dancing their way through a high school production of The Sound of Music all this weekend, and whether they were cast as nuns or Nazis, they have expressed themselves with tremendous exuberance. But who wouldn’t be exuberant performing the timelessly uplifting music of Rogers and Hammerstein to tell the timelessly uplifting story of the Family von Trapp? Smiles all around.

I’m guessing that you’ve probably seen the 1965 movie version of The Sound of Music. (In fact, if you’re anything like me, you’ve seen it 20 or 30 times.) I’m guessing that you can conjure a vivid mental image of the exquisite opening scene. Remember? There’s a helicopter shot from high above the Austrian Alps, and as the camera sweeps by a shimmering mountain lake and a pristine stand of pines, it eventually zeroes in on a plush, flowered meadow. Of course, that’s where Julie Andrews is twirling in circles, her dirndl skirt fanning out around her. She breaks into the title song as though she cannot keep the notes of her heart to herself any longer.

And maybe she couldn’t.

I once had the splendid chance to run and skip and gallop through such a delightful meadow. I don’t know for sure, but perhaps it was the same exact one. I was on a day hike on a well-traveled Alpine trail above the lovely city of Salzburg, and the open expanse of brilliant green ground dotted with blooming accents of purple and yellow and surrounded by a distant border of snow-laced mountain caps stunned me, moved me. The view compelled me to frolic and vocalize. I could not contain myself. I spun myself in dizzying circles not because I had seen Julie Andrews do it so many times, but because the Creator’s magnificence had to be celebrated.

On a day like that, in a setting like that, it is a thoroughly organic development to ascribe greatness to God. Glory be to God! Thanks be to God!


P.S. As they take the stage this afternoon for one last performance, I offer congratulations to the theatrical folks at Freedom High School in

Bethlehem, PA.