A young man was walking in the mountains one day when he heard someone calling out to him. Finding himself on holy ground, all he could think to reply was, "Here I am."

Like the young man, I found myself one morning standing in the Presence of God in a place called "The Cathedral" in the Yosemite National Park. Overwhelmed by the beauty of His Creation, all I could think to say was, "Well, here I am."

Sucking cold, crisp air deep into my lungs, I stood and watched fairies reaching arms of mist heavenward as they danced on reflections of steel-blue, grey mountains in the glassy surface of the Merced River.

Peering through the viewfinder of the camera in front of me, I prayed that I could convince the device to capture even half of the image that I had already visualized in my mind. Checking the settings and the focus one more time, I snapped the shutter, burning a vision of God's world onto the electronic sensor of Man's. And then I moved on to make another image. And another. And another.

To endure the grandeur of God's Creation, one must breathe it in deeply, one moment at a time. It is simply impossible to grasp majestic views, minute details of flora or the intimacy of a wild creature or a young child in one small picture. Yet we are all called upon to create, within the finite bounds of our human existence.

Deep down in all of us is a fundamental longing for relationship with God. I believe that as we create, we reflect images of our Creator. Creativity is His gift to us. When we create, we return our gift to Him.

Creativity is life. Life is Creativity.