Hana

Me and my cool "little" brother in paradise.
This is pre frigid swim.

In my experience and my head, Maui was just one giant beach punctuated with luaus. This is not true. Over the weekend my brother and some of his friends and I went camping in Hana. If you are not familiar, the road to Hana is a circular trek around the island. The way to Hana is all lush, verdant green and waterfalls.  Once you pass Hana you are in The Beyond. Isn't that cool? The Beyond.

We hiked a bamboo forest (yeah, didn't know Hawaii had bamboo.) It was mysterious and made me feel like saying profound Confucius things, like, "This is so neat!"

Then we climbed ladders, and rope-climbed over rocks and even had to swim across a frigid pool to get to the highest waterfall. Yes, Hawaii has frigid pools, I didn't know that either.

"The Cliffs of Insanity!!" (Meniacal laughter!)
Not really, but that's what it made me think of.
Look at that tiny person just to the right of the
fall for some perspective. You might find
yourself saying something profound like
"It's so big!"

In Hana, we hiked up to a 400 ft. waterfall and once again I found myself spouting eloquent poetry, like, "Wow," and, "It's so pretty!"

The Beyond was different. It was like driving through African plains, if they grew on the side of a hill that ran into the ocean....and lava fields, and then this brilliant green high country of some land where people drink beer and leave pots of gold at the end of rainbows.

All of this was stunning. It was the kind of pretty that makes you feel cleaner, better, important. If the God of All spent time knitting these vast waterways, these delicate flowers, these abundant trees, these ragged lava beds, and now I'm seeing them, well I will carry a piece of that. A knowledge of Him I absorbed in the midst of the wonder and between photos. It has to change me. It must.

Seriously, even Disney couldn't come up
with some of this stuff.

Sunday was a truly cool day, too, but more on that later. For now, I am grateful for a God who doesn't just make beauty, who doesn't just revel in it, but who speaks through it. Who can take the nasty this world throws at us and from it draw glorious good for us and for his name, sure. But who chooses to speak joy through stunning colors, power through the spray of mighty ocean waves firing off of stalwart rocks, peace through the quiet of pre-dawn as the sun eases unrushed over the horizon, love that he made it all and lets me see and enjoy it.

Thank you, Lord, for your creativity that is always refreshing, for the endless wonder of who you are.  All my love.