At The Crest

It was a beautiful sunny day in southern Italy. The tour had taken us south from Rome the previous day for an evening stay in Sorrento. My sons had been mesmerized with the early evening spent at the show of local and traditional folk music and today was to be a different adventure. We boarded the bus for the short ride to the western edge of the giant Vesuvius, the infamous volcano that blanketed the entire town of Pompeii with its toxic ash two thousand years before. As the tour guide pointed out specific sites he thought to be of interest, we had our thoughts set on climbing the barren crest to the top of the once ferocious outpouring of molten lava. We reached the peak and were each enchanted by the vastness of the cauldron, seemingly dormant. Behind us lay the city of Naples on the shore of the Mediterranean and in front of us the still yet potentially deadly volcano of legend. The vastness of the potentially deadly crater juxtaposed to the busting and thriving city not far from it base gave us pause to reflect on the wonder of God’s creation. Life moves forward in all that surrounds that massive mound made from earth’s molten outflow without a thought of the potential devastation that could come with short notice. So it is with all our lives. An eruptive event may at any moment diminish, disrupt or destroy our very lives, yet we thrive in the presence of the non-event. Today is the gift that is best received with gratitude and opened enthusiastically with the love by which it was given.