The First Time That I Saw God

I grew up Jewish and remain Jewish, but I struggled with the idea of God as a teenager. The years between my Bar Mitzvah in 1978, when I was 13, and my confirmation when I was 16 and a sophomore in high school, were very challenging to me.on this front. I considered myself an atheist.

I don't recall talking to any friends about this, but It bothered me that I couldn't prove that God existed. I also couldn't prove that God did not exist. I remember discussing this with my mother, though, and she was dismayed, suggesting that perhaps God was inside of a tree that we were looking at.

The summer before my junior year in high school, I went to Camp Horseshoe in Minong, Wisconsin for my sixth summer. I always felt so lucky to go there. Not only was it great to escape from Texas for eight weeks, but I liked the people there. They were mainly from Chicago, but there were people from other cities too.

There was so much that I liked about this camp, but my favorite part of going there was the trips that I went on. These ranged from canoe trips to a sailboat trip on Lake Superior, but one of my favorite trips every had been a backpacking trip to the Chequamegon National Forest during my fifth summer. This next year, I went on a new backpacking adventure, this time going to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan to the Porcupine Mountains. This was a state park, but what a place! It is located on Lake Superior and it isn't too far from the Chequamegon National Forest. It also wasn't too far from where I had sailed a few years earlier, the Apostle Islands.

In the park, there is a lake, Lake of the Clouds. I don't think I knew anything about it, but after a day of hiking on an escarpment, I looked down and saw it. Here is a picture that I found on the internet that captures it:

Credit to Eric Hergenreder of Detroit

Seeing this lake made me connect with God the Creator. I think this may have been my first time to be in the mountains, as I grew up in the very flat Houston. I felt so excited that I wrote my mother a letter from the escarpment and told her that I had been quite moved.

So, I saw God, but I didn't actually see any figure that might represent God or hear any voices. I saw something that to me was so beautiful that it reinforced for me that God is a Creator. Can I prove that God exists? Still no, but I accepted that day and subsequently.