How can we own a part
of what we only can possess entirely?
We who do not own ourselves, being free,
own by theft what belongs to God,
to the living world, and equally
to us all. Life is a gift we have
only by giving it back again.
- excerpts from Wendell Berry of Kentucky
********************
i'm leaving for Mexico on Monday. it's been a bit of a vagrant month. more than anything i've learned that i don't want to live for myself anymore. i want to give myself to something. to other people. to the common air into which we all sing and through which we all travel. to belong completely to God. thank you, God, for the entire gift of life, of air, of freedom and of love.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
deserts and volcanoes
i went to the desert in march
and i'm planning on hiking a volcano in april.
*************************
i went to Utah with good friends. nice, warm camping, fine foods and little fires. there were about 36 hours when we were in the Canyonlands, we hiked for miles and looked out over more and more miles of canyons - we hardly saw any people the whole time. people always wander what it must have been like for the first settlers to stumble upon these canyons for the first time? and i feel like i can almost imagine what it was like because when i looked over my first desert canyon (no, my family did not vacation at the Grand Canyon in the late eighties) and i saw amazing shades of red on the canyon walls that seemed to go on forever and boulders the size of small houses and crevises and dry, crooked creeks, orange delicate arches and just the entire landscape, nature in one of its rawest states, yeah, i was overwhelmed - in awe of the unsuspecting, desert canvas - a lot i feel like the first desert pilgrims may have felt.
but after the experience, as i was trying to process the desert with a friend. i commented that yeah, the desert is great - it's so vast and unlike anything else, but i wouldn't want to stay there forever i would miss the green grass and rolling hills of elsewhere and matt said, well, you don't climb a volcano to build a house there. you just go there because it's important. because volcanoes and deserts are beautiful and majestic and unique and they need to be climbed and explored and appreciated but not necessarily moved in upon. so, yeah, if you ever get the chance, i recommend going to the desert and hiking a volcano because it's just important.
and i'm planning on hiking a volcano in april.
*************************
i went to Utah with good friends. nice, warm camping, fine foods and little fires. there were about 36 hours when we were in the Canyonlands, we hiked for miles and looked out over more and more miles of canyons - we hardly saw any people the whole time. people always wander what it must have been like for the first settlers to stumble upon these canyons for the first time? and i feel like i can almost imagine what it was like because when i looked over my first desert canyon (no, my family did not vacation at the Grand Canyon in the late eighties) and i saw amazing shades of red on the canyon walls that seemed to go on forever and boulders the size of small houses and crevises and dry, crooked creeks, orange delicate arches and just the entire landscape, nature in one of its rawest states, yeah, i was overwhelmed - in awe of the unsuspecting, desert canvas - a lot i feel like the first desert pilgrims may have felt.
but after the experience, as i was trying to process the desert with a friend. i commented that yeah, the desert is great - it's so vast and unlike anything else, but i wouldn't want to stay there forever i would miss the green grass and rolling hills of elsewhere and matt said, well, you don't climb a volcano to build a house there. you just go there because it's important. because volcanoes and deserts are beautiful and majestic and unique and they need to be climbed and explored and appreciated but not necessarily moved in upon. so, yeah, if you ever get the chance, i recommend going to the desert and hiking a volcano because it's just important.
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