Mountain Music Part 1

Purple Mountain Majesty

For the past few weeks my wife and I have enjoyed watching “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” on PBS.  It’s been a fascinating story about the initial inception of the park network in the mid 1860s all the way until today.  There were personal accounts from naturalists, zoologists, scientists, park rangers, and visitors – all sharing their perspective on the parks, what they meant to them personally, and what they meant to the country as a whole. 

If you’ve ever been to one, especially one out west (where most originally were) you understand the majesty and wonder that is a National Park.  From the snow-capped mountains, to the mile-deep canyons, to the millennia old sequoias, to the lush expanse of the Smokies & the Everglades – there is so much to behold in the natural panorama of America.

I’ve only had the chance to go to two national parks and a few national forests.  But they are amazing.  It is one thing to see the great photography of Ansel Adams, or to watch Ken Burns’ films, or even to catch an IMAX experience.  But to be there in person, to hike up and down and around and through for miles, to be in the center of a National Park’s magnificence is a bit mind-blowing.  To experience the animals and plants and landscape with all your senses overwhelms you.  You are small, and yet while not insignificant, your consequence is put in its place.

I think of Psalm 144:

 ³ O LORD, what is man that you care for him,
       the son of man that you think of him?
 ⁴ Man is like a breath;
       his days are like a fleeting shadow.

Even the trees live for hundreds of years, the rocks thousands.  How long will the rivers continue to run into the see after I’ve gone? 

Still, Psalm 8 reminds us.  Truly majestic is the One who created the wonders.  And we, although finite in this seemingly infinite world, are but a little lower than He, and tasked with the stewardship of all that is seen. As Howard Zahniser, primary author of the 1964 Wilderness Act said, "We are guardians not gardeners."  What a humbling, yet empowering task.

I love nature, but am not a complete naturalist, per se.  This post is not intended to be a soapbox for the Sierra Club or Green Peace or even the National Park System.  It is the first of 3 blogs that I’ll share as I have begun to reflect on the National Parks and how they ultimately can help us in our understanding and response to who God, and our perspective on worship.   Come back soon for part 2!