So… it’s been awhile.
Has it?
45 years.
A blink of an eye!
To you perhaps.
Actually barely an eyelash quiver
Or one pulse of a hummingbird
Wing.
Well, canyon’s don’t age
Like people.
Are you that different?
Can’t you tell?
So much has happened.
Births and deaths.
Divorces and careers
Politics, wars, pandemics.
I wear it on my skin,
In my back, in my hair.
All the aches of a half-century.
Yes. The pain of living.
I know it well.
What? A canyon can feel pain?
Of course.
You try having your insides
Carved out
For seven million years.
Now that is pain.
But all that carving …
Is what makes you so beautiful.
So grand.
Isn’t that true for you too?
I don’t see how.
It is impossible to be as magnificent as you.
I’m little more than a fly. A speck of dust.
You are an amazing grouping of cells and tissues,
Sinews and bones.
That breathe and feel and love.
That is pretty amazing.
I am but sand assembled from elements.
Acted upon by nature.
You are breath
A wind moving through life
Creating who you are and all who are around you.
You are the very image of the Creator.
But I will be gone in mere moments.
You will be here for millions more years.
Time isn’t what gives me my grandeur,
You do.
I do?
You were here long before I was.
It is your capacity to
Experience beauty that
Makes me who I am.
Otherwise, I am a pile of rocks,
An old river bed.
A mass of sedimentary clay.
Meaningless without you.
Remember that morning so long ago?
Of course.
It was one of my best sunrises.
I felt a connection –
To everything.
I remember.
It was as if I was part of
Something so much bigger
Than me.
Something huge and timeless.
Perfect, dynamic
Peaceful and joyful.
We still are connected, you know.
Every moment flows into the next
All connected by you.
All created by God for you.
It feels so far away, that July morning.
The crisp air
The silence before the first
Rays shot across the rim.,
Melting orange paint
Dripping down craggy walls.
Nature stopped in reverence.
And you were there to receive that gift
Of light and shadow.
Color and creation.
You were the receiver for God’s
Beacon.
I was merely the channel
For the message.
And what is the message today,
As I sit here gazing again into the vastness?
That we are joined together
In love of each other.
That He sees each of us as part
Of the whole of creation.
The receiver and the received.
Each breathtaking in our uniqueness.
Each important in our place in eternity.
You are pretty wise for a canyon.
I’ve had a few years to think about this stuff.
I hope to be back soon.
I’ll be here.
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