The first week of October, my husband Doug and I went exploring. We headed to Zion National Monument in Utah and to the north rim of Grand Canyon. Our named desire was to be in majestic natural beauty. We hoped for wonder. We wanted to visit places we’d not seen before. I suppose we are hungry for wide open space. Something about aging seems to have set our palates for wilderness.
We received that lovely gift that sometimes comes when we put ourselves in immense natural settings—that gift of being reminded of our smallness as creatures. I remember my friend Susan Hanson saying that in the aftermath of her mother’s death, the chasm of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison healed her.
Against the stunning colors, the heights and the depths of those eternal rocks, the cobalt blue sky of the southwest, we felt joyously little. When we first arrived at the north rim and were peering into the depths of the canyon, a man next to us said, (more to himself than to us), “And we think we are such big shots.” It made me remember Psalm 8: “What are human beings that You are mindful of them?” (NRSV) Often as not, even in this age of selfies and Instagram, the people gathered on the rim were quiet, reverent, stunned, marveling.
In ways we are still uncovering, Doug and I re-discovered the gift of knowing that we are knit together with all that exists. Our bodies responded so graciously to natural rhythms of light and dark, rest and walks, silence and conversation. On the trail, we often found ourselves in the midst of a symphony of languages—Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, to name a few. At sunset at the north rim, people gathered on the west porch of the lodge to watch the sun go down. One evening as the collective hush descended, a fellow behind us said, “This is like being in a cathedral.” He recognized that we were, all of us–though from so many different places and cultures–caught in a moment of worship. Soon cameras were clicking, and a champagne cork popped. Yet there was that moment when all of us were caught by the Gracious Light in the pink and salmon western sky, shining upon us gently and generously.
We’ve been home a couple of weeks now, and I’ve been listening to a new CD by Charlie Peacock. The songs were written as he reflected on his mixed race lineage from Louisiana. One song about his grandfather, a musician, has this refrain: “He lived deep inside a rhythm, deep inside a word.” As I remember those western landscapes and the gathered communities on the trail, in the canyon, as the sun came up, as the sun went down, I am grateful for those times when we live deep inside the rhythms not of our making, deep inside the Word in whom we live and move and have our being, deep inside the Trinity in whom all is knit together.
Mary C. Earle, retired Episcopal priest and SSW alum, is a writer, spiritual director and retreat leader. Residents of San Antonio, she and her husband Doug enjoy organic gardening, cooking and travel. Her website is www.marycearle.org.
