"I'm on the top of the world and looking down on creation,"
Every now and then, life provides something really special: an event or a song or a thought or a relationship that lifts us our hearts and makes us feel like we're on the top of the world. Part of the worldview that life is not random is that I can hold these moments close and revisit them whenever I find myself slipping into depression or feeling the futility and drudgery of everyday routines.
Like a thermal draft that helps the eagle soar, these episodes and the thoughts that go with them lift our spirits and give us hope. I can still close my eyes and relive several moments from the bottom of the Grand Canyon that I actually experienced in 1989. I remember the day I was good enough, the time I won a fight with the IRS, the first time I rented a car at an airport and drove through a strange city to a new place (that might seem mundane to you, but in the context of my story it was an amazing, wonderful thing).
These special things don't just apply to each of us individually. They apply to our families, our nation, humanity and any subset thereof. With all that's wrong with our country, a sense of national pride permeates the problems and there is hope. This pride is based on our special moments as a country when the world was right and we did the right thing.
It's not in our best interests, individually or corporately, to allow these special things in life to be eroded by bitterness, anger, cynicism or any other such disease. We need these times because their antithesis will make itself known often enough. For Christians, the image of the empty tomb with the stone rolled away or the baby in a manger under the Christmas star are powerful, healing, necessary images.They give hope and reassurance not to be found anywhere else in life. Those who dismiss those images through skepticism or ridicule are denied their benefits.
For the rest of us, those images and all of the special moments in life serve to teach us that life is not futile or meaningless. On the contrary, these special things are but a foretaste of eternity.
So, let us rejoice and be thankful for the special things - the gifts from a loving God through a universe created to provide them. Let us hold on to and respect the special things in our past, and look forward to experiencing many more as life unfolds. The special things make life good, and creates something inside of us called happiness.