You Must Be Present to Win

August 28, 2010


A scene from Scenic Byway State Road 12 up and over Boulder Mountains:  green and glorious stands of quaking aspens up to and over the summit of the Utah highlands at 9300 ft. The quaking was filled with awe, excitement, and glory to the Creator: “and the trees clapped their hands, with vigor.”

Those massive red slate rocks jut straight up thousands of feet from our campground, striated with lines of terracotta, cream, and blood-stained layers. Park rangers told me that rains on the forested crests percolate down through porous layers of rock. This sandstone holds up to 20% of its weight in water. So the waters trickle downwards in the dark, and emerge, sometimes as long as 3,000 years later, into the weeping mountain base. I imagine that the water is weeping with relief that its finally been released from within the mountain :).  As I consider these truths I must consider the One who imagined, created, and sustains them. He not only made the blueprint, but also the building; not only the map, but the territory.

It’s been a good day of travel through this glorious territory. Often we became aware of our unhurriedness. We would stop and walk, inhaling deeply the extra oxygen from all this green. My lungs are barely adjusting, shocked at the absence of smog. In spite of these withdrawals, my whole body gives praise to the God who keeps us all on life support. Bethyl and I would read to one another, pray, sing from the hymnal, and commit verses to memory.   We are the "Human Factor", as I'm pointing out here, in the midst of the God Factor.

I’ve enjoyed continuing to read Rachel Naomi Remen’s book, Kitchen Table Wisdom. In it she relates many instructive teaching stories. One tells the tale of a woman who had a successful heart surgery for angina. Prior to that time she would experience physical pain, but also more instructive, subtle pains. Her heart hurt when she compromised her own sense of personal integrity, skated across a deeper truth, caught herself going along to get along—“times when she allowed who she really was to become invisible… (p 76).” After her surgery these subtle signs became fewer and although she was physically more comfortable, she missed “her inner adviser.”

Another story is of a group of physicians sitting at the feet of the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell. He was showing slides of different faces of the Divine. One was of God dancing joyously with one leg raised high in the air, the other planted on the back of a small, naked man busily examining the veins of a small leaf. When asked what this meant to him, Campbell replied, “Why, my man, it’s obvious. This is a naturalist such as yourself, who is so absorbed in his science that he doesn’t even know that God is dancing on his back.” I recognized myself at various points past and present and ask my Lord for his forgiveness. I’m grateful that school’s open every day that I wish to attend. But I must show up, be sentient, aware, conscious. Like the big sign in the Florida senior center recreation hall--where bingo games are played daily--“You must be present to win.”