Psalms 32
2 Each will be like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm,
Like streams of water in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in an
exhausted land.
3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And the ears of
those who hear will listen. The mind of the rash will discern the truth,
NASB
Zion National Park, Utah
One of my favorite places in the desert is Zion National Park. It is actually
one of my favorite places on earth. My children and I stumbled upon it
one Sunday afternoon on our marathon trip of 26 states in 16 days when
they were eight and twelve years old. I have returned to it more than any
other National Park over the last twenty five years (except the Great
Smokies of course). and I have asked myself what draws me there and I
think it is the canyon.
I have been to a lot of places that have canyons. From The Grand Canyon to
the Canyonlands, to numerous other places that bill themselves as the Grand
Canyon of “such and such” such as the one in Alabama or the one in
Yellowstone. Many places boast of their canyons. For me, though, it is the
canyon of Zion that peaks my interest the most. I think it is because I do not
have to ride a donkey to get down to the Colorado River, it’s just there.
Regardless of how you enter the park, you end up in the canyon and in the
summer it is a lush and green place surrounded by miles of desert.
After hours of riding through the red and brown landscape that characterizes
that part of Utah, the road takes the traveler through huge rocks and tunnels
and then meanders down to the bottom of the canyon where the Virgin River
and its tributaries provides a fertile valley . It is an oasis in the desert. There
are weeping willows and grass and shallows where you can walk through the
water. Wildlife scurries about. It is indeed beautiful and deceptive.
It does not have a rushing river or thundering waterfall that lets people know
there is no way to settle there. Its tranquil beauty lures the visitor into thinking
this is a perfect place to put down roots. What they forget in the moment is
that it does not take much water to fall up on the rim for it to make its way to
the bottom, gathering momentum and flooding out the whole basin. It
happens unexpectedly and often without warning. More than one group of
settlers thought they could tame and cultivate the floor of the canyon, leaving
in its wake only foundations of homes and remnants of their efforts.
Our lives are like that in many ways. We look for beauty and confuse it with
certainty. We assume our desire to put down roots makes it so. We feel
betrayed and devastated when life does not protect us from the unknown or
unforeseeable. We are often broken by life events rather than open to its
possibilities. The homes on the floor of the canyon are washed away because
they believed that fortification would save them, but in the end, what is left in
the wake of the flood was the willows. They were designed to bend and adjust
to the water and the wind. May we learn from the willows.
Prayer:
It is our prayer oh God, that we will eventually see through the pain that comes
into each of our lives. That our holy imagination will know that we will one day
bask in the sun that breaks through the darkness and shines over the rim into
our canyon of grief. Oh God let it be so. Amen.
Wanda Kidd