De Beque, Colorado
All things Bright and Beautiful
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.
by Cecil Frances Alexander
I do not know what I hoped to discover about animals of the desert, but like the
rest of the trip, I was open to the possibilities. When I traveled to South Africa
for the Baptist World Alliance several years ago, a group of us stayed over to go
on a Safari. We all brought back hundreds of pictures of elephants, giraffes,
rhinoceros, baboons, and a myriad of other animals. On trips to Yellowstone, I
had seen herds of buffalo and elk, as well as, moose, coyotes, fox, and bears,
but that was not the case for my time in the desert.
The animals I saw there were small and illusive: a mama pheasant and her
babies playing hide and seek among the sage; a lone coyote crossing the road in
Nevada, who stopped to look at me as if I were lost; a village of prairie dogs that
I shared a campsite with; and an occasional group of pronghorn antelope.
Thankfully, I did not see snakes or scorpions or the dreaded feral hog, but I
really wanted to see a herd of bighorn sheep. Try as I might, though, they were
secreted from sight . They were supposed to be in Death Valley, around Hoover
Dam, or at the Arches in Utah. Everywhere there was a yellow informational
sign, I took the road and tried in vain to drive and look for them. Unfortunately,
the one hike I did not take with my daughter and our friend in Zion was the trip
they saw a herd up a canyon cliff. I kept meeting people who had seen them,
but I never did.
It reminded me of something I had read by Parker Palmer about wild animals. In
his book A Hidden Wholeness, he said that people think of wild animals as fierce
and aggressive, but, really, they require patience and silence to emerge and let
themselves be known. He said that our emerging and hidden wholeness is like
that as well. It is not so much in the pursuit of something, as it is in patiently
waiting to discover what is hiding within us that will make us whole.
As a last effort to find a group of bighorn sheep, I went off the interstate in
Colorado on a Sunday morning. I followed the signs to the designated area. I
traveled through a small town, turned to head out into the mountains, crossed
over land I was not sure was open to outsiders, but, still, I did not see what I was
looking for. A little anxious about finding myself somewhere I did not need to
be, I turned around on a washboard road. As I began to make my way back
toward the interstate, I began to see bluebirds, tens of them, darting back and
forth across the pasture to my right. They were a brilliant blue in the morning
light, and I just stopped and watched. I had seen a random bluebird in my life,
even a couple on this trip, but I had never seen so many in one place. It took my
breath away!
I could not capture them on camera: I tried, but then I realized I would miss the
ballet of their beautiful dance if I were not careful. So, I simply sat, and I
watched. I thought how fitting it was that one of my longtime favorite places to
go to musically restore my soul had been the Bluebird Café, a singer/songwriter
listening room in Nashville. Their motto is “Shhhh….” I thought,
‘Be quiet and be
still and watch the bluebirds in flight.’ So I did, and in so doing, it was possible to
discover something I did not even know I was missing or seeking. A glimpse of
wholeness that was a gift that made my spirits soar and my weary heart take
flight.
Prayer:
For Patience, for an appreciation of Your grace, and an openness to wholeness,
may we bend our lives toward Your beckoning, Oh Lord. Amen.