It was a reunion of sorts: almost exactly ten years ago I stood on this very spot overlooking the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon and made a promise: the rest of my life would be dedicated to protecting the precarious environment of our precious planet.
I’d even bought myself a ring, a small band of white and yellow gold, to signify my commitment. As I slipped it on my finger, I had not yet hiked down among the colorful formations. There was no chance to do so back then, when I was enroute from my first interim ministry, in Nevada, to my second one in Vermont. Since then, I’ve served four other congregations in transition, from Colorado to Arizona to South Carolina to Maine.
Having awakened to the human impact on the environment while living in Las Vegas, I chose interim positions that would take me to a variety of ecosystems across this America the Beautiful. Alternately awed and appalled over the years, I was now back at this place, as if to give an accounting.
Yet this time I am not alone; a life partner accompanies me into the canyon down a steep trail with a deep descent. Milt tries to take pictures, but can’t get the whole of the rock formations into the frame at the same time.
“Too big; too big,” he keeps muttering in exasperation. “To fail, to fail,” I keep adding, like an echo.
For after all, we are carefully making our way down a trail that winds through enclosing walls of towering hoodoos; in fact, this section is officially called Wall Street! We laugh at the irony…and marvel at how closed in we feel: we can barely get a glimpse of the brilliant blue sky growing higher above us, distorting our perception and blocking out a wider perspective.
How metaphoric: a street of walls become Wall Street, synonym for corporate greed, particularly the gas and oil industry largely responsible for the green house gas emissions and backing us up against an irreversible climate change loop.
As surely as these marvelous hoodoos are slowly eroding under the forces of nature, there’s an expectation that the planet will shuck us off for its own good and go on without us.
How very sad, that thought: all the awareness that evolved through life forms and became, in the human, an ability to appreciate the wonder of such a place as this..gone forever!!
I resolve to work even harder over the next ten years…..
No Comments