Talking to a friend of mine on the bus about traveling to unique destinations, and he mentioned that many cities weren't built near mountains (usually they were built near rivers where there was food and water readily available). He jokingly said that they should've built mountains near the city to improve the view. I mentioned that they did, and had to explaine myself:

You see, many ancient cultures had a creation story that began with their god calling the land out from the sea. The first land to break the surface were special and these became the tops of the mountains. So, if you wanted to talk to God, you often climbed a mountain. Some ancient cities, like the Sumerian cultures, built pyramids as symbolic mountains so they wouldn't have to go so far for divine revelations.

I then said in my best Cliff Clavin imitation, "There's a little known fact for ya there."

But it got me thinking that for thousands of years, we've expected to find God where we aren't... like the tops of mountains. Think of Mount Olympus. But once we've climbed to the tops of all of the mountains, and didn't find God, we assumed that he must be in the sky or on a cloud. Think of all the thunder gods. But once we started flying around and didn't find him there, we started placing God on a distant planet, or the center of the universe, and now his angels have shed their wings for flying saucers.

It seems we've been looking for God in all the wrong places. Perhaps we need to change the direction of where we've been looking …