Mornings
For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?
– From Deuteronomy 4
Standing along the entrance to Nevada Interstate 15 in early August, it’s hot. I didn’t expect to be the third hitchhiker in line. The highway looks busy and so is the ramp, but no one has stopped for two hours. Just here, between Las Vegas and Paradise, I slowly begin to want some food.
One good thing for the Hebrews, God chose them. Only then could they choose God. Their acceptance of God’s covenant rose and fell, like mine. God chose me?
Just in the last few days I have been amazed at his choosing. Hitchhiking opens doors, physical and metaphysical. I slept in a cave beside a beautiful lake in southern Missouri and dove in to wake up in the morning. Riding for weeks with Jay, a new friend I met in Arkansas, we chose places to go together headed toward California in July.
We helped to build an outhouse at the Lama Foundation near Taos. The next day we climbed the highest mountain in New Mexico. We stared up at grottos of the Canyon de Chelly. On a Hoteville Second Mesa hillside, the night before the Hopi Home Dance, we drank ourselves to sleep and then awoke to beating drums and sunshine on kachina dancers.
We drove till midnight, just to stare into the black darkness of the Grand Canyon.
We awoke to children playing and Chicago parents cooking breakfast in the middle of the biggest campground in the world. Someone suggested we find the trail to Supai, west of the national park. Take an unmarked dirt road fifty miles through the desert, and we’d be there. The hike to Supai at the bottom of the canyon would take five or six hours.
Easy to get lost in the desert. We just kept heading west. At last a sign and place to park, a trailhead. We walked for hours down to the village. It was dark, and we slept along the trail until people walked past us in the morning.
The source waters of the Havasu River run through underground caves. Then it rises, cold and turquoise blue, into the desert. Two hundred foot waterfalls chase the river down the Havasupai Canyon to the brown water of the Colorado. We couldn’t help but follow it. We couldn’t help but stand just inside the waterfalls, stretch out our arms and shout, “Hallelujah!”
How many religions did we touch, praying to the unknown God? I grew up Lutheran. My companion Jay? I’m not sure. We smoked pot and chased God’s river, but we had no names for Him. Her. God. Yahweh. I am … who I am.
We climbed at dawn back to Jay’s car, which had made its way over lava beds and rutted tracks beside sheer cliffs. But it overheated on the way out of the desert. We poured our drinking water (dumb!) into the radiator. That was a mistake. Night fell, the stars crashed in on us, and we slept.
Thirsty.
Then in the morning just as we awoke, a photographer from Germany’s National Geographic stopped for us. He drove us to Peach Springs on route 66. We separated there: Jay went home to Denver, and I continued west with our German friend. His next stop was Las Vegas, where we saw a show and gambled just a bit (I think I won $9 in quarters). He was staying, so after breakfast he dropped me on the I15 ramp …
All those mornings that make up a life. Diving into a cold blue lake. Hearing dancing and the drums. Smelling breakfast from a thousand campers. That incredible silence beside the Havasu River. Wondering whether we would die in the desert.
… Day breaks one more time, early on this highway ramp. I stand without resource along the road, remembering last night’s MGM Grand.
Awed by God, by his world created, this amazing world in which we live our lives.
Always the lifeline runs and runs, seems to never stop. We are left amazed, with stories of all kinds to tell. God is good and his mercy endures forever. Moses spoke for his people and for us all: “How close God is when we call upon him.”
Lord, what has happened then and what will happen next? And now, there is THIS moment, Lord, this breath I take, my heart that beats. You love me always and teach me daily to be thankful. Day by day, dear Lord I pray.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2019/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1772
