Prodigal Signs

Pervasive Beauty Leads Us Home

Why is the world a beautiful place and why does it touch me?

When I was 16, my parents gave me a horse. I was a fairly typical teenager—alienated, self-absorbed, and without a way to ground my understanding of the world. I had received a certain worldview from my parents, but it was incomplete and unsatisfying to me. I think my parents hoped that the horse would liberate me from my existential crisis. Some sort of animal therapy, perhaps. And it did, but not in the way they thought.

Where we lived had expansive, wild grasslands up in the hills, and I rode practically every day in those hills. As I rode, I was surrounded by nature at its best: blue skies, the scent of sweet grass, the wind soft on my cheeks, and...