WORSHIP: A Sunrise on March 17, 2017

Mount Haleakalā, Maui, Hawaii

We woke up at 4 am. Left our Airbnb by 4:30, and drove on dark, desolate roads for an hour, accompanied by the dull whispers of our half-awake car and the soft, familiar hum of the worn-down tires of our rental car hurrying along the pavement of Route 378. Around 6:30, we stopped – parked 10,023 feet in the air on the summit of Mount Haleakalā.

It was black outside still. We used phone lights to make our way fuzzily from the car, dragging blankets and swaddled in coats and fuzzy gloves to join a huddle of people. These people had woken at 4 am too. They had driven for hours listening to the still, quieting songs of night. They had left their warm car to join a huddle standing on a mountain cliff in a bone chilling wind at 6 am in the morning. They too had travelled here for a reason.

Together, we waited, crouching low against the rocks to hide from the wind, pushing our palms together to make heat, rubbing our eyes to stay awake.

At 7:05 am, a noise rang out from the front of the huddle. A ripple of applause pierced by occasional shrieks broke the mountain’s impatient silence. I stood up, no longer feeling the icy wind or my frozen fingers and heavy eyelids. I stepped back to capture the moment on film – a frame of the huddled figures who stood before me, facing a radiant light with heads bowed and arms raised.   

We worshiped, on top of the world. As the first spindly rays of sunrise touched my face, I felt it – not a spirit, or a God, or even the sun itself– but the ephemeral, indescribable feeling of being alive.

We had all come to worship the feeling of being alive.