Out in the west where I grew up there is an experience that is like no other I know of. You drive for hours through painted desert rocks and sands, past Navaho women weaving blankets and boys herding sheep through the dried brush and emptiness. Then you get out of the car and walk up to a place where it appears the world ends . . . or perhaps begins. The ground stops abruptly and you look out over the great empty expanse of the Grand Canyon. Nothing can prepare you for the awesomeness of what is to be found in the middle of what looks like desolation. Nothing can prepare you for the new emptiness that is so miraculous and beautiful. At the rim of the canyon, you meet the overwhelming beauty of life in all its emptiness and power and fullness too. You meet something so much bigger than you; where you saw a mile at most through the desert near those sheep, you now see miles and miles in every direction including beneath you. And perhaps you see a new depth inside yourself as well. The sense of who you are and how you exist changes before the Grand Canyon. There is something at the rim of the canyon that brings us to our edge as well, to that place where we must reach beyond what we thought we knew for sure, beyond what we expected to be always there, beyond what we thought we could do and be, .
The Grand Canyon has long been a metaphor for me of my relationship with God. It is so immense and beyond me, yet I have been there and seen the Colorado River snake it’s way miles below, I have touched the sun-warmed rocks on a chilly morning, and I have breathed the sigh of disbelief before the sheer unbelievable nature that is the Grand Canyon. There is the danger of slipping at its edge or on one of the canyon paths that reach down to the river. And there is the yearning to explore and remain and love not the rock of the valley so much as the empty entirety of the space. God is like that for me. God surprises me by showing up when I least expect it – just when I was getting used to the monotony of the rolling, rocky plain that is my life much of the time. Or even just when I thought things could not get worse.
Every once in a while we are given the blessing of seeing beyond what we usually see; we are given the blessing of having the wind knocked out of us by the sheer grandeur of life. It comes when we least expect it: at a funeral, or a doctor’s office, or driving down the road, or doing the same dishes we do every evening. It does not come because it was invited, but because it is always there and we only seldom risk to wander to the edge to see it.
As we explore the joys of summer, I hope and pray for each of you that you will find the edge, catch your breath, and worship in the beauty of holiness the grand God we each are blessed to know and experience.