Hello!
Six months ago, I finished packing my final things into the Subaru and started away from Newberg on this summer adventure. Today, six months later, I am preparing for my final few days here at Lake Powell. It's hard to believe this half-year has passed already, yet I have been anticipating this with great excitement. So many memories created during the summer, so many friendships made, the ministry team did so well in starting the ministry here at Lake Powell, yet so many things to look forward to.
As one of my final adventures, I got to take a Hummer Adventure tour to a slot canyon. It is an exclusive slot canyon in which there were only six of us exploring and photographing the canyon for over two hours. I felt so spoiled as this canyon held so many beautiful features, light beams, and array of colors. Usually when I am photographing these slot canyons, the colors lean towards the warm colors of red, orange, and yellow. Occasionally I'll get some purple in the picture, but this time, I got some blue! This took me by surprise how rich this color was, but as my cover photo shows, it was a wondrous moment.
As our tour guide took us to the canyon, he described the nature of Navajo Sandstone. Imagine a desert larger than the Sahara desert with sand dunes rising several thousand feet. It would be sand so incredibly thick that it compressed itself into layers of rock. The entire Colorado Plateau consists almost entirely of various layers of sandstone.
Sandstone has a strange characteristic to it. Around Page, it usually takes centuries, even thousands of years, to erode and shape Navajo Sandstone into the beautiful, yet seemingly delicate shapes of these slot canyons. While sandstone holds resilience in its durability, also has a soft side, allowing water to permeate its layers. Breaking off a chunk of sandstone, you can crumble it in your hands and it turns back into sand. During this summer I think I've come up with the perfect description of sandstone: petrified sand--it lasts for thousands of years, but is fragile like an antique.
We had a reminder of this dual nature of sandstone this past week when our recent rains caused a flash flood in Bridge Canyon--the canyon where Rainbow Bridge is located. This flash flood ripped out the hiking trail, leaving a 21-foot vertical cliff. The runoff from the flash flood was deposited in the lake at the boat docks, compromising the docks. Where the dock areas was in deep water, silt, mud, and sand filled the area.
As the driver took the Hummer by mesas, spires, and cliffs, I considered Jesus' words that whoever takes His words and does them is like a man who built his house on the rock--when the rains came and floods rose, the house stood firm. The one who didn't heed His words was like a man who built his house on sand. The rains came, the floods rose, and the house collapsed. This parable makes a lot of sense coming from Oregon, where sand is loose and unstable and rock is solid and unmovable. Surrounded by a petrified sandbox where sand and various sandstone layers vary from loose to solid, it has made me consider what it takes to build a house on a firm foundation in this area.
Near the entrance of the canyon, we were met with immediate evidence of a recent flood--areas where sand dunes sloped gently down to from the cliffs were not abrupt edges where the river carried away the bottom ten feet of these hills. Entering the canyon, a mud line marked the walls over thirty feet above our heads. We tried to imagine an instant river of water trying to pass through this narrow canyon at forty miles per hour, carrying sand and debris away and carving the canyon even further. The guide pointed to a log over 25 feet above us that once stood alone. Now, this solitary log was surrounded with weeds, grass, mud, and debris jammed into this narrow space between the canyon walls.
After the tour, I crossed the Colorado River back towards Lake Powell. Next to the bridge is the Glen Canyon Dam which took clearing an extra 125 feet away from the riverbed before reaching a bedrock hard enough to hold the structure. Along the sides, stability poles were drilled into the sandstone walls to prevent the sandstone from eroding from the backed up reservoir. Many of these poles were drilled over 75 feet deep. While the sandstone walls have demonstrated exceptional resilience, it is a bit difficult to conceive of drilling into sand to secure such an enormous structure.
It is here that I consider what it means to follow the words of Christ--so much so that my life is anchored against all rain and any flash flood that threatens to sweep both sand, and sandstone, away. I must be so secure in Him that even when the foundations are threatened, the house of my faith remains secure. As I head back home this upcoming week, I'll be bringing this reminder with me.
Photos of the Week are available for you. I hope that your week is blessed.
Pump Geyser
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Day 174: Online Experience
Hello!
School is now in its full swing. My mornings are spent reading school books, responding to discussion posts, and preparing for deadlines. In the midst of the work, I'm making sure I still get out exploring.
On my days off, I went to Mesa Verde National Park. This was my second time visiting the park, but it's still incredible to stand surrounded by 800-2,000 year-old ruins hearing the stories of how the Ancient Puebloans lived in this region, farming the mesa tops for food, gathering water in reservoirs (one of which could hold about 800 million gallons!), and surviving the arid region around here. There are over 2,000 separate archeological sites here in the park, and 600 of them are cliff dwellings. The artistry of the architecture is incredible to explore. This is the only national park in the United States dedicated to preserve human artifacts instead of a natural landscape. While the early days of white exploration of Mesa Verde stripped many of the artifacts of this place, to see the walls, watchtowers, kivas, and homes still standing is an awesome sight. On the inside of a watchtower of Cliff Palace, there is even an original painting made over 800 years ago! Having visited several ruins and archeological areas in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and across the nation of Israel, it's amazing to see similar ruins here within the United States.
In the midst of guided tours through the ruins, probably one of my best moments was sitting on a balcony watching a thunderstorm roll in while studying. In the canyon below I could hear elk bugling during their migration off the mesa, the smell of freshly fallen rain wafted across the breeze, and the rumble of ongoing lightning strikes continued to engage me in the midst of studying about the rise of the Google Age and how to minister within the virtual world. One of my new classes is called Communication in Ministry, exploring how to minister in a world that meets more people online than personally. No matter how much information the Internet or printed books can provide, there still isn't anything like the experience itself. This week has brought a good challenge to me: how do you take experience and put that into a blog? I say that sort-of tongue-in-cheek, because I've been doing it for two years with this blog, but something about this week's reading while being surrounded by ancient ruins really brought this to the forefront.
I first started this blog out of the demand of family wanting to keep updated on my adventures and because individual emails, and group emails later on, were becoming too much of a hassle. Attaching photos took so long in these areas with little Internet strength, and once summer ministry started, my time slimmed even further. This blog helped me stay in contact with people, giving me the chance to share my adventures vicariously with my readers. In response to this though, this week has caused me to really question the impact this blog has had. I've had to consider how many readers have gone out and had an adventure of their own, and whether readers now get out and away to spend quiet time listening to God in wilderness areas. While I recognize that not everyone can live the life I live, there isn't a substitute for experience. We read books, ebooks, and emails to learn and connect, but there will always be a threshold between those who are the recipients of another's journeys and those who step up and step out into something new. I don't necessarily have an answer to all my pondering for this week, but it's nice to step back for a moment and consider the reason why we do the things we do. As I seek to better understand how to connect with online readers, I'm challenged to lean more on God to show me in the weeks and months ahead.
Photos of the Week are included. My challenge for you this week is to intentionally spend some time outdoors in solitude and quietness. See what happens. Blessings on your week!
School is now in its full swing. My mornings are spent reading school books, responding to discussion posts, and preparing for deadlines. In the midst of the work, I'm making sure I still get out exploring.
On my days off, I went to Mesa Verde National Park. This was my second time visiting the park, but it's still incredible to stand surrounded by 800-2,000 year-old ruins hearing the stories of how the Ancient Puebloans lived in this region, farming the mesa tops for food, gathering water in reservoirs (one of which could hold about 800 million gallons!), and surviving the arid region around here. There are over 2,000 separate archeological sites here in the park, and 600 of them are cliff dwellings. The artistry of the architecture is incredible to explore. This is the only national park in the United States dedicated to preserve human artifacts instead of a natural landscape. While the early days of white exploration of Mesa Verde stripped many of the artifacts of this place, to see the walls, watchtowers, kivas, and homes still standing is an awesome sight. On the inside of a watchtower of Cliff Palace, there is even an original painting made over 800 years ago! Having visited several ruins and archeological areas in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and across the nation of Israel, it's amazing to see similar ruins here within the United States.
In the midst of guided tours through the ruins, probably one of my best moments was sitting on a balcony watching a thunderstorm roll in while studying. In the canyon below I could hear elk bugling during their migration off the mesa, the smell of freshly fallen rain wafted across the breeze, and the rumble of ongoing lightning strikes continued to engage me in the midst of studying about the rise of the Google Age and how to minister within the virtual world. One of my new classes is called Communication in Ministry, exploring how to minister in a world that meets more people online than personally. No matter how much information the Internet or printed books can provide, there still isn't anything like the experience itself. This week has brought a good challenge to me: how do you take experience and put that into a blog? I say that sort-of tongue-in-cheek, because I've been doing it for two years with this blog, but something about this week's reading while being surrounded by ancient ruins really brought this to the forefront.
I first started this blog out of the demand of family wanting to keep updated on my adventures and because individual emails, and group emails later on, were becoming too much of a hassle. Attaching photos took so long in these areas with little Internet strength, and once summer ministry started, my time slimmed even further. This blog helped me stay in contact with people, giving me the chance to share my adventures vicariously with my readers. In response to this though, this week has caused me to really question the impact this blog has had. I've had to consider how many readers have gone out and had an adventure of their own, and whether readers now get out and away to spend quiet time listening to God in wilderness areas. While I recognize that not everyone can live the life I live, there isn't a substitute for experience. We read books, ebooks, and emails to learn and connect, but there will always be a threshold between those who are the recipients of another's journeys and those who step up and step out into something new. I don't necessarily have an answer to all my pondering for this week, but it's nice to step back for a moment and consider the reason why we do the things we do. As I seek to better understand how to connect with online readers, I'm challenged to lean more on God to show me in the weeks and months ahead.
Photos of the Week are included. My challenge for you this week is to intentionally spend some time outdoors in solitude and quietness. See what happens. Blessings on your week!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Day 167: Focal Point
Hello!
Though the storms from last week have continued into this week, there has been a lot more sunshine, making way for more time to explore.
With some good sunlight during the morning, I was able to get onto a photo tour of the most-popular slot canyon in the area. It's one that I've been avoiding due to the summer crowds, but as the season is slowing down, I decided it was a good time to go.
What an incredible experience! The first time I ever went on this tour, it was a rushed tour through the canyon, but this time, our tour had two hours to explore the canyon. The sunbeams were beginning to reach the bottom of the canyon in long, slender lines. The colors of the canyons themselves were filled with yellows, oranges, and reds towards the bottom-end of the canyon where the chambers are large, but then the canyon becomes darker towards the back as the canyon narrows, allowing for only a little bit of light at the very top of the canyon walls. Photographing the canyon was a little bit of a challenge due to the number of people still visiting the canyon. It was the most crowded I had ever seen that canyon, but still our tour guide was good at making space for us to take the photographs we wanted.
Sunday was our last Sunday. KelLee and I had the great joy of having eleven people attend the service! It was awesome to experience, as most Sundays this year has been only one or two other people joining us for service. To have so many people attend the service was a really great experience!
As a final treat before school starts, I got to make an overnight dash to the Grand Canyon. Since my visit during the Spring was spent in the main section of the canyon, I focused my time on the east rim of the canyon, where the flat desert ascends to the peaks of the Palisades, then instantly drop to the depths of the canyon. While the upper end of the Grand Canyon is shallower than the main part, it was beautiful to see. I found one point that had some great vantages to photographing both sunset and sunrise. This section of the rim is where the Colorado makes a drastic turn from the north, flowing from Lake Powell, towards the west, heading through the main section of the canyon towards Lake Mead. Standing at this vantage point, I could see for over fifty miles north and west. While the point was popular during sunset, I had the entire point to myself during sunrise. I felt so spoiled to enjoy the beauty of the canyon all by myself.
After capturing the first light over the canyon, I spent some time sitting quietly and praying. As I did, Ephesians 3:18-19 came to mind: "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, it is easy to visualize the meaning of this verse as the canyon spreads into depths, heights, and distances away from my vantage point. Like so many others, there is a feeling of smallness and inadequacy to comprehend the extent of this canyon, much less the love of God which extends beyond any imagination!
When people cannot grasp the incredible size of the Grand Canyon, it is common for people to minimize it in order to take it all in. It just becomes another landscape amongst so many other sights to see along the canyon rim and the rest of the Colorado Plateau. My grandpa once commented that the Grand Canyon was just "a big hole in the ground". Sitting here at the rim, while he was right, he was also quite wrong--it's not just a big hole in the ground, but probably one of the most beautiful and intricate "holes in the ground" across the entire planet! But, "if you've seen one 'hole in the ground', you've seen them all".
How often am I a culprit of continuing this mentality towards the love of God! It's the love of God...it's everywhere. It's unescapable. The love of the most Beautiful One is so common that the unescapable becomes escapable. It becomes common and ordinary. In trying to grasp the great extent God's love reaches, how often do I minimize its reach or great intricacies. Having to wrestle with both the great extent of the Grand Canyon, one trick I learned is to find a focal point. It could be a spot on the Colorado River, a particular rock, spire, or butte, but find something in the midst of the entire canyon that captures your attention. As you focus upon that one point--it's beauty, it's mammoth size (or smallness), and all the details upon that one point, then the rest of the canyon falls into place--in seeing this one point, I can see the rest of the canyon in context to this one point, and the Grand Canyon becomes all that more grand.
In comprehending the love of God, I need to do the same thing. In focusing on one particular point in God's love, I am drawn to see the intricate and incredible essence of that one facet of God's love, and while focusing upon that one point, my periphery starts setting that one focal point into a context of the grander scheme of God's love. I can start to see and appreciate His limitlessness.
That was such a good reminder as I sat in the silence of such a massive canyon.
Photos of the Week are available. Blessings to you!
Though the storms from last week have continued into this week, there has been a lot more sunshine, making way for more time to explore.
With some good sunlight during the morning, I was able to get onto a photo tour of the most-popular slot canyon in the area. It's one that I've been avoiding due to the summer crowds, but as the season is slowing down, I decided it was a good time to go.
What an incredible experience! The first time I ever went on this tour, it was a rushed tour through the canyon, but this time, our tour had two hours to explore the canyon. The sunbeams were beginning to reach the bottom of the canyon in long, slender lines. The colors of the canyons themselves were filled with yellows, oranges, and reds towards the bottom-end of the canyon where the chambers are large, but then the canyon becomes darker towards the back as the canyon narrows, allowing for only a little bit of light at the very top of the canyon walls. Photographing the canyon was a little bit of a challenge due to the number of people still visiting the canyon. It was the most crowded I had ever seen that canyon, but still our tour guide was good at making space for us to take the photographs we wanted.
Sunday was our last Sunday. KelLee and I had the great joy of having eleven people attend the service! It was awesome to experience, as most Sundays this year has been only one or two other people joining us for service. To have so many people attend the service was a really great experience!
As a final treat before school starts, I got to make an overnight dash to the Grand Canyon. Since my visit during the Spring was spent in the main section of the canyon, I focused my time on the east rim of the canyon, where the flat desert ascends to the peaks of the Palisades, then instantly drop to the depths of the canyon. While the upper end of the Grand Canyon is shallower than the main part, it was beautiful to see. I found one point that had some great vantages to photographing both sunset and sunrise. This section of the rim is where the Colorado makes a drastic turn from the north, flowing from Lake Powell, towards the west, heading through the main section of the canyon towards Lake Mead. Standing at this vantage point, I could see for over fifty miles north and west. While the point was popular during sunset, I had the entire point to myself during sunrise. I felt so spoiled to enjoy the beauty of the canyon all by myself.
After capturing the first light over the canyon, I spent some time sitting quietly and praying. As I did, Ephesians 3:18-19 came to mind: "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, it is easy to visualize the meaning of this verse as the canyon spreads into depths, heights, and distances away from my vantage point. Like so many others, there is a feeling of smallness and inadequacy to comprehend the extent of this canyon, much less the love of God which extends beyond any imagination!
When people cannot grasp the incredible size of the Grand Canyon, it is common for people to minimize it in order to take it all in. It just becomes another landscape amongst so many other sights to see along the canyon rim and the rest of the Colorado Plateau. My grandpa once commented that the Grand Canyon was just "a big hole in the ground". Sitting here at the rim, while he was right, he was also quite wrong--it's not just a big hole in the ground, but probably one of the most beautiful and intricate "holes in the ground" across the entire planet! But, "if you've seen one 'hole in the ground', you've seen them all".
How often am I a culprit of continuing this mentality towards the love of God! It's the love of God...it's everywhere. It's unescapable. The love of the most Beautiful One is so common that the unescapable becomes escapable. It becomes common and ordinary. In trying to grasp the great extent God's love reaches, how often do I minimize its reach or great intricacies. Having to wrestle with both the great extent of the Grand Canyon, one trick I learned is to find a focal point. It could be a spot on the Colorado River, a particular rock, spire, or butte, but find something in the midst of the entire canyon that captures your attention. As you focus upon that one point--it's beauty, it's mammoth size (or smallness), and all the details upon that one point, then the rest of the canyon falls into place--in seeing this one point, I can see the rest of the canyon in context to this one point, and the Grand Canyon becomes all that more grand.
In comprehending the love of God, I need to do the same thing. In focusing on one particular point in God's love, I am drawn to see the intricate and incredible essence of that one facet of God's love, and while focusing upon that one point, my periphery starts setting that one focal point into a context of the grander scheme of God's love. I can start to see and appreciate His limitlessness.
That was such a good reminder as I sat in the silence of such a massive canyon.
Photos of the Week are available. Blessings to you!
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