My soul is at home in the Mountain and Desert Western United States.  It may very well be this way because I was born along the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains. It could also be due to the fact that many of my best childhood memories happened in a place where the air is dry, the sky is blue, and humidity is a foreign concept.  But perhaps the West is my spiritual ally because of the wide open spaces.  

There is something unique about driving along a dusty back road where mountain peaks 90 miles away are visible.  And for me, there is nothing like standing on one of those peaks looking out over miles and miles and miles of creation.  When you get down to it, I feel the way I do about the mountain and desert West because of the space. The scenery is just so vast.

Space enables perspective.  Space facilitates inspiration.  Space creates awe, renders silence, enhances the sense of how small we are, and allows us to see things in ways we otherwise would not be able to perceive.

It is only on a mountain top we gain a sense of what a valley is and it is by standing on a desert floor we begin to understand height. Space highlights opposites and exposes differences.  Beauty happens because of space.

As I reflect upon geographical space, it occurs to me that space is something that happens within human relationships as well. While space can mean a relationship is strained or that people within a relationship are unhappy, space can also represent a basic truth that all human beings are different from one another.  And perhaps rather that seeing such differences as a negative, we should view others who are vastly different from who we are in the same way we view the space of the West.

People from whom we differ offer us perspective, a different way of viewing things, and hopefully enables us to see things in new and varying ways.  Topographical space offers us vistas and propels us to ponder and wonder. Wouldn’t a similar reaction to those with whom we differ be just as wonderful and impactful?

If everyone around us thought, believed, and expressed themselves as we do, if would be like living in a cave, a cave in which all people would be the same and life’s beauty and spectacular nuances would disappear.  Imagine if the West was flat.  Do we want life to be like that?