I’m not a religious person. Never have been. But I’ve also never been convinced that this whole strange, spinning, breathing operation is powered by nothing. There’s a difference between rejecting religion and denying wonder, and I’ve never been able to cross that second line.

I was flirting hard with atheism for a minute. Not in a dramatic way—no angry speeches, no slammed doors. Just a quiet drift toward maybe there’s nothing above us but sky and chance. Then National Geographic stepped in like an uninvited prophet.

The documentary was about the animals of the great Northwest here in America. Cold air. Endless trees. The kind of landscape that looks like it remembers things. And there they were—two elk bucks fighting for dominance. Not cartoon violence. Not chaos. Ritual. Precision. Ancient choreography written into muscle and bone.

They slammed antlers with a sound like thunder learning to speak. Steam poured from their mouths. Power met power. And one of them—Lord have mercy—had antlers that looked hand-painted with gold, as if the sun had gotten bored and signed its name on him.

Watching them, something in me sat up straight.

No altar. No sermon. No holy book. Just biology doing ballet. Evolution flexing. Nature saying, pay attention. That moment didn’t hand me a god with rules and punishments. It handed me awe. And awe, I’ve learned, is often the first language of whatever is bigger than us.

I don’t know what “higher power” means in the official sense. I don’t need it boxed or branded. I don’t know if it’s male or female, or no gender at all. But I know this: mere mortals didn’t design it. Something older than belief, smarter than doctrine, and wildly uninterested in our labels is at work out here.

Sometimes faith doesn’t arrive on its knees. Sometimes it walks in on four legs, crowned in gold, and reminds you that mystery is still alive and not asking for permission.