A Vow in Darkness
John Muir nearly lost his eyesight in an industrial accident in 1867. As he lay in a darkened room, uncertain if he would ever see again, he made a vow: if his sight returned, he would devote his life to studying God's creation.
His sight slowly returned. Muir immediately set out on a thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico, then sailed to California.
He Wept at Yosemite
When he first entered Yosemite Valley, he wept.
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness," Muir wrote. He spent years alone in the Sierra Nevada, climbing peaks, studying glaciers, and worshipping.
During a violent thunderstorm, he climbed to the top of a tall Douglas Spruce tree to experience the wind. "I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bird on a branch," he wrote, "feeling the wild, glad storm song."
The Mountains Are Calling
Muir saw mountains as cathedrals, trees as prayers, glaciers as God's patient sculptors. His writings awakened America to preserve wilderness.
His friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt led to the protection of Yosemite as a national park and the creation of the National Park System.
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike."
