Day 220: Why I Believe In (A) God

I've been taking photos of sunsets and sunrises for longer than I can remember.  These photos are only the most recent. I've probably snapped 200 or 300 in the past few years on various cameras. 

I've been staring at the sun even longer (which would probably explain a lot of things about myself). I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it is exactly about the sun that especially turns me on and makes me stop and take notice. It doesn't matter where I am or who I'm with, the sun has a pull on me, especially in the morning and fading daylight hours. I know I'm not unique in this way. I've met plenty of people who feel drawn to the sun and believe it holds or provides some kind of power over or to them. For me, the sun is a spiritual gift. It gives me faith and makes me believe. 

I've tried to describe to many people over the years why the sun convinces me that there's something bigger than you and I that's at work in this world, why the sun convinces me that there is a god of some sort, if "god" is what you want to label this "something." Words never do my feeling justice, though, and they probably won't here, either. 

Simply put, a sunrise and sunset creates a very positive disturbance for me. The way the sun reflects off of water, the way it hits a window, the way it bounces off chrome,  the way it lights up a face or burns through someone's hair, the way it separates one minute from another is proof of perfection. 

The colors that the sun elicits in the clouds and in the sky shakes me to the core. It concentrates me. It focuses me. For me, those colors are the essence of beauty. They are the embodiment of tranquility and meaning. Those colors cause a reaction within, and it isn't a chemical reaction as some would want me to believe. It's a reaction to being. It's a reaction to feeling integrated with life, to being a tiny part of the bigger whole. Those colors are church. Devotion. Truth. Existence. Love. 

Those colors represent everything that is living and breathing and growing inside myself. Those colors are proof to me that something indescribable exists, and it is creating and drawing out something that resides inside me to make me aware and make me care. Make me conscious. Those colors are the gift from something that is desperately trying to deliver enlightenment to me.   

Like I said, words fail. But I believe. I'm not always entirely sure in what or what form it takes, but I know I believe. For me at least, photos like these are the evidence.