Majesty in Albuquerque

I won't lie. Somedays I get so busy, that the word 'majesty' doesn't seem experiential to me. Sometimes I am too busy...sometimes its just spending a whole day in an airport that makes majesty elusive. Saturday was of the latter kind. we got up early, went to the New Orleans aiport, and though we thought we were leaving at 10am, we were forced to extend our time there until 4. From there we went to Atlanta (not my favorite airport..maybe even my second worst...nothing beats Dallas Fort Worth in the category of 'worst airport'). We then had an almost 3 hour flight to New Mexico. As a female, I have a couple of days of weepiness that I can count on like the sunrise. Saturday was also one of those days. Weepy + stuck in the aiport all day = less than ideal situation. so I was living this less than ideal day, eagerly awaiting being in a hotel bed asleep and God grabbed me.

I had the shade pulled on my window most of the flight so the darkness would hide my tears, but at the start of descent I decided to have a look at Albuquerque. We were coming down through the clouds and it was like nothing I have ever seen! And mind you, I fly often- really often- so the whole "ooohh"-ing and "ahhh"-ing about the clouds in the sky isn't just the experience of a newbie. At one point we were literally in between layers of clouds...the ones below us were just thin enough that you could see light peaking through, but above us was a dense and dark thickness of clouds...churning and full of mystery. I felt my heart say "hover over me like that"...seemingly in response to my cry the clouds ahead parted a bit and I saw the mountains beginging to poke through...they were unreal! I wish we had been able to get pics of the colors that God was showing off just then, because my words will inevtiably fail to describe them...dark purple masses against the night blue sky...the line between the two almost indistinguishable because of how close the colors were...the mountains just faded into the backdrop of the sky. Near their bases seemed to hang a gray fog hiding the place were the sky meets the earth. ... massive and yet maintaining all of their mystery...they became the scene for this city in the desert..announcing itself with tiny white lights moving on the ground. on the opposite side of the city the sun was calling it a night and melting into the horizon shrouded by its own fluffy clouds...the colors were so bright and distinct. On one end the murky purple and on the other the receeding brightness of the orange.

I found myself moving from the tears and tiredness into almost giggling. Majesty has a way of forcing itself into us so that it can't help but burst out.