The Grand Canyon

Last night during sunset we saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. There was a melange of different tongues floating around us. I heard Dutch, German, Chinese, Spanish, and French expressing awe at this world wonder. As the sun was setting there was a group of Spanish teenagers that were blindfolded, unloading from a tour bus. As soon as they were all lined up in front of the canyon their director ordered them to remove the blindfold in unison. When I first saw it my breath was literally stolen from my lungs and I didn't realize it at first. It was deeper and more gigantic then my imagination could've previously conceived. I could feel their hearts beating out of their chests as the sun hit their faces and this natural wonder revealed itself before their eyes. It was moving to watch their anticipation and then their expectations fully satisfied. The last picture was us this morning, loading our fully assembled tent on top of our car. We had to move just a few sites down the road so we hoisted it up on our car (sleeping bag and all!) and held on tight to it, getting lots of chuckles from onlookers on the way.

GRAND CANYON by Parker J. Palmer

They say the layered earth rose up
Ancient rock leviathan
Trailing ages in its wake
Lifting earthness toward the sun
And coursing water cut the rock away
To leave these many-storied walls
Expose’ of ages gone
Around this breathless emptiness
More wondrous far than earth had ever known

My life has risen layered too
Each day, each year in turn has left
Its fossil life and sediments
Evidence of lived and unlived hours
The tedium, the anguish, yes the joy
That some heart-deep vitality
Keeps pressing upward toward the day I die

And Spirit cuts like water through it all
Carving out this emptiness
So inner eye can see
The soaring height of canyon walls within
Walls whose very color, texture, form
Redeem in beauty all my life has been
The darkness and the light, the false, the true
While deep below the living waters run
Cutting deeper through my parts
To resurrect my gravebound heart

Making, always making, all things new