Wednesday’s Reflection
SOMETIMES WE GET a less commercially orchestrated view of the created world, a more intimate glimpse of the awe-full power, the startling depth and breadth of the body of God. Last summer during our biannual family trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, we attempted a new hike. Our final destination was Sky Pond, a crystalline circle of a lake that rests high above tree line on the east side of the park. We are reasonably adventurous hikers, as multigenerational urban dwellers go, but Sky Pond was a bit more of a challenge than many of our outings. This was in part because after a series of scenic climbs . . . the hike to Sky Pond ascends to the base of Timberline Falls. There the rocky but indistinguishable path dissolves as hikers make their way on hands and knees alongside the rock cliff that edges the falls. Spray from the falls slickens the rocks there and makes the ascent treacherous.
Cresting the top of Timberline Falls, one finds oneself in the alpine air where only the vestiges of trees still survive. Craggy cliffs marked by occasional cairns take one around the circumference of the Lake of Glass and then up over another ridge to the rock opening that reveals Sky Pond.
What had at the beginning been a well-trafficked path had become a wilderness entered by the hardy few. We were at the top of the world and saw only a half dozen other visitors during our entire time at Sky Pond. . . .
How little we and the other half dozen souls up there were, how vulnerable, how dwarfed by the imperious majesty of the earth. And how good it was to know that; to know the truth of our little lives, to have our hubris exposed, to see through the lie that the earth is ours to dominate and do with as we wish.
Step lightly, for [Earth] is as fragile as the minute wildflower surviving the winds on the tundra. Step respectfully, for she is as mighty and untamable as the craggy peaks whose gnarled fingers knock at heaven’s door. She is the body of God.
- Wendy M. Wright
The Time Between
From pages 104-105 of The Time Between: Cycles and Rhythms in Ordinary Time by Wendy M. Wright. Copyright & copy 1999 by Wendy M. Wright. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/. Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
Describe a time when God’s creation has inspired you. Share your reflections.
Today’s Scripture Reading
Sponsored by The Upper Room daily devotional guide. Subscribe Today.
Copyright © 2011 The Upper Room, a ministry of GBOD | PO Box 340004 | Nashville, TN 37203-0004 | USA
