June 23, 2009

• But he puts it so much better than me…

  “I jumped into one of those volkswagen camping vans and shoved off for the green lumpy places. a week into our American tour, we found ourselves at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, which is more lumpy than green, it turns out. By the time i got to the bottom of that gargantuan hole in the ground, i was miserable. it was beautiful, but when your head is throbbing, you don’t want to sit and reflect on how beautiful things are. lumpy or not.
  The Canyon is more spectacular from the rim than from the river. Once in it, everything looks like Utah. Beneath the billion stars and beside the river, i called to God softly. “Hello? I am sorry God. I’m sorry i got so confused about you, got so fake. I hope it’s not too late anymore. i don’t really know who i am, who you are, or what faith looks like. But if you want to talk, i’m here now.”
  It felt like i was apologizing to an old friend, someone with whom there had been a sort of bitterness, and the friend was saying it was okay, that he didn’t think anything of it.
  There is something beautiful about the Grand Canyon at night. there is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing.”   –Donald Miller

  so we followed the footsteps of the great Don Miller, but i made it down without bloody feet or blisters. and i don’t think it looks like Utah. I haven’t been in Utah yet. Personally, i wasn’t impressed by the top view. it is so big i just dismissed the whole thing. But you can’t dismiss something you trek down, one foot in front of the other. something about red dirt really makes me happy. And i climbed an oak tree because i think better in a tree and i listened to David Crowder say:

  And the problem is this
  We were bought with a kiss
  But the cheek still turned
  Even when it wasn’t hit

  And I don’t know
  What to do with a love like that
  And I don’t know
  How to be a love like that…

  and then we hiked 5 more miles because somehow we got the wrong campground–the one halfway up. and thank God we did or i dunno because uphill 10 miles is a lot at one shot…and i was asleep even before the sky turned dark, listening to Carina read “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” but at midnight i woke up, cold. i only had a blanket and a trashbag and it wasn’t enough. The girls were sleeping and everything else was sleeping and i crawled next to Anna and looked at the sky and…

  “There is something beautiful about the Grand Canyon at night. there is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing.”

  “Life is a dance toward God, i begin to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign. And i think to myself, There is nothing i am missing. I have everything i was supposed to have to experience the magnitude of this story, to dance with God.”

  “A canyon is, after all, an upside-down mountain.” –Don Miller

  • 12:32 am
  • Leave a comment