Mountain Music

   [with photos from a recent western trip]

Grand Teton National Park*, Wyoming

I will lift up my eyes unto the hills
From whence comes my help.
My help comes from Yahweh
Who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121: 1-2)

Chapel of the Transfiguration (Episcopal)

Grand Teton National Park*

Great is Yahweh
And greatly to be praised
In the city of our God,
The mountain of His holiness.  (Psalm 48:1)

In whose Hand are the depths of the earth;
And the heights of the hills are His, also. (Psalm 95:4)

Thermal Pool.

Yellowstone National Park*, Wyoming

Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the hills shout together with joy.  (Psalm 98:8) 

Yellowstone River, Yellowstone N.P.*

[Jesus tells us]:
'"You are the light of the world.
A city which has been set upon a hill
cannot be hidden."  (Matthew 5:14)

Wasatch Mountains, as viewed from Bryce Canyon National Park*, Utah

All the things which happened upon mountains:  Moses was given the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai; Satan took Jesus to a really high mountain to show Him the kingdoms of the world and tempt Him with power;  being more isolated in Jesus's day, He often went there alone (or with a small group of three) to pray; He was "transfigured" (changed, shining bright with glory) on a mountain; the Sermon on the Mount was given in a natural mountain amphitheater; the night before His death, after celebrating Passover and the First Communion, Jesus and the disciples went out to the Mount of Olives; the place where Jesus died is called Mount Calvary; forty days after He rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven from a mountain.  Mountains join all creation (Revelation 5:13) in praising God.  Remembering Israel's flight from Egypt and entry into the Promise Land, the psalmist wrote:

The mountains skipped as rams,
The little hills as lambs.
What happened, O Sea, that you fled,
O Jordan, that you turned back?
You mountains skipped as rams,
You little hills as lambs. (Psalm 114: 4-6)

Wasatch Mountains, Utah,

with Grand Escalante National Monument* in front

I will lift up my eyes unto the hills
From whence comes my help.
My help comes from Yahweh
Who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121: 1-2)

    ---translations by C. Marie Byars

*This is the 100th birthday of America's National Park Service!  (A few individual parks were established even before this.)