Fresh light on Peru

Colby Bermel

This past summer I was on a community service trip to Peru with some of my high school friends. On our day off, we had an opportunity to take a guided tour of Machu Picchu, “The Lost City of the Incas,” and often regarded as the most famous symbol of the lncan Empire.

Toward the end of the tour, we were walking near the edge of Machu Picchu, where the stone structures end and the mountainside begins. As the group moved on, I decided to stand still and take a last look at the view behind me.

I was absolutely blown away by the sheer volume of images hitting me all at once. They included stone structures built with precision and craftsmanship, complemented by a majestic spread of lush mountains and pure white clouds skimming the peaks in a bright blue sky. It was a photographer’s dream to capture the light and dark interplaying with each other.

But for me it was more than that. The awe-inspiring mountains, the clouds, and the sky reminded me of the majesty of God and His creation. I was also struck by evidence of the majesty of God's children, who, as I saw it, reflected divine Mind in their construction of such advanced yet beautiful structures. What I saw spread out before me made me think of Mary Baker Eddy’s delight in “giant hills...verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens”—which all pointed, she said, “to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect.” She spoke of “one grand concord,” in which “the rotations and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on eternally” (Science and Health, p. 240).

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