Inspiration comes in all shapes, sizes, and formats. A friend commented on a post. They asked people to share the most beautiful place they’ve visited. This little piece was inspired by that. Being the analytical nerd I am, I read a few responses and realized I had to write about the matter.

First, as you’ve read or heard many times, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, as I wrote some years ago in “A Blind Eye,” humans can find ways to see only what they wish to see. People see what they want. This applies to everything, from a mountain vista to their belief in God. Beauty depends on more than just colors, shapes, lighting, and setting. It is like one’s religious or spiritual beliefs. It is a complex and multifaceted experience.

Take my first parachute jump, for instance. It was early 1969 at Fort Benning, Georgia. I was wrapping up my training and would be heading back to Texas in a couple of weeks. However, I still needed to jump out of an airplane at 1,200 feet several times. This was necessary to earn my Jump Wings. And, as luck would have it, I was the first guy to jump in my platoon.

The Jump Master instructed me to step up. I had to stand in the door of that noisy old C-119 for what felt like forever as we approached the drop zone. As I’ve written before, I counted the rivets on the engine boom while standing there. I was afraid to look down for fear I’d freeze when the Jump Master yelled, “Jump!”

He yelled. I jumped and remembered little except the rushing wind battering me until I felt a tug and looked up. My parachute was unfolding just as it was designed. I can’t tell you how beautiful that was. Then I looked down. I enjoyed the view from a thousand feet above, as I drifted over the forest toward the drop zone.

So what does all this above have to do with the point of this piece? First, the beauty I felt when I realized my equipment worked was profound. I understood I would not die that day. This beauty is different from the beauty one experiences on vacation. It is not like a less dramatic visit to a scenic area or locale.

I have been blessed to travel to some gorgeous places. I’ve been as far south as Brazil, west as Hawaii, east as Wales and England, and north as Alaska. I’ve been to mountain tops, the bottoms of canyons, the depths of caves, and many points in between.

I’ve had some wonderful experiences. I have seen some beautiful things. I admired the magnificent vistas in the Rocky Mountains National Park. I was on a boat near Niagara Falls. I also swam with the dolphins in the Caribbean. The most magnificent was Glacier Bay.

Yes, Glacier Bay is at the top of my list. It is not there because of the mountains. It is not because of glaciers, the bay, or any one thing you might normally identify with something beautiful. In fact, the day we were there, it was overcast and hazy.

There was also the distraction of groups of tourists full of chatterboxes. They yammered about everything. They ran around as if the rest of us were blind or didn’t exist. And there are always those who cannot wait their turn to get to the railing. They had to push to the rail to get a picture, even if it meant ruining someone else’s shot.

Eventually, the pushy, noisy groups were satisfied. They went back to their cabins or down to the lounge. Wherever they went, everyone remaining stood in awed silence or spoke in hushed tones to avoid disrupting others’ experiences.

As we stood there taking it in, the glaciers would groan. An iceberg would occasionally be calved with a sound like a cannon shot. And a line of ships floated motionless and silent, strung out the length of the bay. It was magnificent, and it would be hard to imagine anything more beautiful. Even the critters were in awe.

Okay! The little critter below did not appear in awe as it floated around on its little iceberg. Instead, it exhumed an air of disdain and grudging tolerance. It waited patiently for the captains to start the engines. It wanted them to leave this piece of paradise to its natural inhabitants.

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