PA

I fell in love with PA on a summer trip there when I was 10, maybe 11. There was a carnival in town and it was fun, but that’s not what made me fall in love with the area. My family was there, and they were being jerks, as usual. My Aunt & Uncle were trying their best to offset my family’s jerkiness.

The carnival was on a side street on the eastern edge of town and the road bordered a corn field. I looked at the satellite views to see if I could find a picture only to see the corn field is gone now, replaced with a housing development.

The sun was setting and as I looked out over the corn field it felt like the noise from the carnival drifted away and there was this stillness and this peacefulness and I just stood there in awe. It was, without a doubt, a religious experience. There have only been a few times in life that I have ever felt that calm, that peace, that moment where it feels like God is speaking to you. Showing you how beautiful the world can be.

The air smelled different, everything looked different, there was an electricity in the air that felt incredible.

I wish every day could be like that.

I felt the same feeling a few other times in PA.

One night was at Dorney Park several years later. I was on the water log ride and it had just gotten dark and the lights had come on and it was just amazing.

One fall, just before my Aunt & Uncle moved away, there was an orchard just down the road from their house that had dropped it leaves and the pattern was so symmetrical and it stayed like that for days, maybe even weeks.

I remember pointing it out. It was like God was leaving the beauty there for everyone to see.

Words do not do it justice.

There was a day, some time ago that I was feeling down and it was a grey day and it had been raining and I was just coming off the highway and making a left turn and I looked to my left and there was this rainbow. Like God saying there is hope. I looked at it and felt much better.

I wish God would speak to me more often, and I wish I was a better listener, but it seems when he really wants my attention He is able to get it. Maybe He just does not speak that often. Or maybe he does and only a few people stop to hear Him speak.