God is all around us in every moment of every day. Many of us have come to believe this. And most of the time our awareness of this reality is fairly low. We go about our living, doing the things we do. Maybe we offer up the occasional prayer of thanks, or make a request for some guidance. Mostly we just put one foot in front of the other, dealing with each moment as it comes along. And all of that is really OK. But once in a while there are experiences which transform the very shape of our living. There are those moments when we become profoundly aware of the sacred quality of life - when the presence of God takes center stage, not to be ignored. Who can say exactly why it happens when it does. Who can say why one person has such an experience and not another. Certainly learning to pay attention increases the chance that we will notice. And yet there is strong evidence that such experiences remain unexpected and unpredictable. Moses goes up on the mountain and encounters the mysterious presence of the divine. Jesus takes three of his followers up onto the mountain to prayer, and they have a profoundly moving experience of the sacred. The scriptures are filled with stories of such experiences. And yet it is also clear that such experiences are not ordinary or commonplace. Such "mountaintop" encounters with God play an important role in living faithfully, but they do not define or contain such living.
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