Feeling Far From Home

I've been thinking about hills and mountains for the past couple of days.

It started with a song by The Pixies - "Bird Dream of the Olypus Mons" from their Trompe le Monde album.

The Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus), found on the planet Mars, is the largest tallest mountain in the solar system - three times taller than Mt. Everest!

Speed leaving without warning
i need some place to sleep tonight
blowing in the rocking of the pine

speed leaving without warning
the sunlight is going

into the mountain
i will crawl
into the mountain

sun shines in the rusty morning
skyline of the olympus mons
i think about it sometimes

sun shines in the rusty morning
once i had a good fly
into the mountain
i will fall.

This song is about a little bird who goes to sleep and has a dream that he's traveled to mars  But more than that, I think it's a song of longing, and of wanting to be in the right place, the good place.  It's a great song.  One of my favorites. You should check it out.

and that song led me to thinking about Mt. Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.

And then I started into preparations for next Sunday's sermon - which will come from Psalm 138.  It's one of the Psalms of King David, written, apparently as he was far from home, perhaps on a military expedition. 

I give thanks, O Yahweh, with my whole heart,
before the gods I sing your praise.
I bow down toward your holy temple
and give thanks to your name
for you have exaulted your name and your word above everything.

... For though Yahweh is highs, he regards the lowly
but the haughty he perceives from far away.

I don't know yet where the sermon prep will take me.  I'm feeling a little melancholic - or homesick - or je ne sais quoi.  I feel a bit like Gonzo in the Muppet Movie who sang, "I've never been there, but I know the way.  I'm going to go back there some day."