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The Isaiah 6:3 Tour, Chapter One:
To Behold the Witness of Creation
to the Creator August 2009--December 2008
Position Report
In the last nine months I have watched the sun come up on 55 campsites in seven states, thirteen national parks and numerous state parks and national forest campgrounds, and a handful of commercial parks. Needless to say it is my favorite time of day. That preference goes all the way back to my youth on a farm in western Illinois, where, every planting season, I watched the sun come up from my vantage point on a John Deere Model A tractor, working some of the flattest, most fertile back gumbo in God’s creation. There’s just something profoundly spiritual about the birth of a new day, a new beginning, that is not present at sunset, even though they are more often more visually spectacular.
None of the cows seemed the least bit interested in the macho show, so the stranger apparently decided there would be no reward for the winner and walked smartly away. The next morning, as I went about my predawn campsite chores I heard triumphant bugling and went looking for him. God was gracious and we found this magnificent creature again and got very close to him (we crept up to him in the truck). This morning as we broke camp to leave there was even more bugling. They say each bull bugles his own tune, but I couldn’t discern that. We drove down into the valley and the action was indeed picking up. The cows were feeling much more frisky and the male competition for their favors had increased. The ladies galloped around the valley and the bugle boy was having a terrible time trying to circle them up like a sheep dog and keep them focused on his magnificence. I thought his galloping around chasing them rather detracted from his dignity, but then I doubt any of them cared what I thought. It looks like we left the party just as the band was beginning to play.
As dawn was breaking we came down out of the high mountains, past Long’s
Position Report Completing the Circle
We’ve been 30+ miles into a deep canyon all week without a cell phone or internet signal, so I am posting this enroute to worship at Cornerstone PCA church in Ft. Collins, CO. Eight months and twenty-three days ago we exited Colorado southbound on this grand Isaiah 6:3 Tour, and this week we re-entered Colorado southbound. It’s been a 5000 mile right-hand orbit with the travel trailer in tow, another 4000 miles sightseeing with the truck alone, and yet another 900-1000 hiking miles in mountains and desert. The more we see of God’s magnificent creation the more we want to see. Without a doubt these have been the happiest days of our life. We’ve spent the last week up the Cache la Poudre Canyon west of Ft. Collins in northern Colorado. We’ve been camped in green pastures beside the unstill waters of the roaring river by the same name—the natives pronounce it “cash la pooder”— Colorado’s “trout route.” The canyon is so deep and winding we were without a cell phone (except for one very strenuous hike to the summit of Mt. McConnell) and internet connection all week, the better to focus on this beautiful creation without the superfluous distractions of the rest of the world. One week from today we will be home, worshiping in our home church—Village Seven Presbyterian Church—in Colorado Springs, and doing all our annual doctor appointments the following two weeks. God willing, the docs will find nothing seriously wrong with these aging bodies and we’ll then hit the road again. Our plan is to make an eastbound exit from Colorado this time, visiting family and friends and keeping some speaking dates in a right-hand orbit through Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi and back to beautiful Colorado for next summer. Be assured we’ll also catch every natural wonder along or close to that route, beginning with Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. It’s a beautiful country and a wonderful life our LORD has given us. As Spurgeon says in today’s (August 22) Morning and Evening devotional, God has given us “two heavens—a heaven below in serving Him here and a heaven above in delighting in Him forever… The unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8)!
Position Report
It's been nearly two weeks now and I can’t decide if I like the Black Hills' scenery or solitude best. These beautiful hills have both in abundance. We’re back mooching off relatives again (after an interlude camped in the Black Hills National Forest and a day trip to the Badlands NP, which was anything but bad!) parked in their spacious driveway in this idyllic remote setting. Karen and I went for a walk this early morning under a crystal clear blue sky and a delightfully cool temperature. We ended up on a wooden bench propped semi-precariously on a lichen-covered rocky promontory overlooking their little piece of paradise. It was a 220-degree multi-ridge many-mile view of the Black Hills on the far horizon and a deep green valley at our feet, with Dan and Barb’s beautiful new house on the opposite hillside—an exhilarating, sanctifying, gratitude-inducing view of God’s magnificent creation. What a wonderful time it has been, hanging out with relatives whose company we really enjoy and making new friendships with their friends, all God-fearing folks. And if that were not enough grace for one sinner, we’ll worship Almighty God with them tomorrow at the Berean Bible Church in Custer, SD, and I get to preach. I have so much pent up inspiration from this Isaiah 6:3 Tour, and this congregation is used to listening to 45-50 minute sermons. It doesn’t get any better than that on this side of the river! LORD, please keep me a humble expositor.
Position Report
The Indians called them the Black Hills. No one has a clue why, but the name stuck. They don’t look black, but they sure are beautiful. We began our stay by parking in our cousins’ driveway and mooching food and free showers in an adult-sized shower stall. Dan and Barb are just finishing up building their house, much of it themselves, in 28 acres of Black Hills valley just west of Custer, SD, that they share with a friend and lots of wildlife and no other mankind. What a great life they have made for themselves. Dan still practices dentistry two days a week when he is not practicing carpentry, electricity, plumbing and hunting.
Now we are parked about 30 minutes away in the Black Hills National
Forest overlooking Bismarck Lake and adjacent to the Custer State Park.
Twenty miles away is the highlight of tourist attractions in the Black
Hills and one of the most visited by all Americans, magnificent Mt.
Rushmore—one man’s dream, and he not a sculptor, and one sculptor
audacious enough to buy into the dream and spend the last 14 years of
his life (dying just before the official dedication) sculpting (with the
help of 400 non-sculptors) one of the most spectacular pieces of art in
the world. I
But most importantly, God created man in his own image, which means that man, too, is creative, each according to his divine gifts. Each of us are called to use our gifts for God’s glory. I have no idea where Gutzon Borglum spends eternity, but in the providence of God no man has used his gifts any better, placing his spectacular white granite creation right in the middle of the rocky spires of God’s magnificent Black Hills creation for all the world to see. It’s all for God’s glory and our enjoyment. What an amazing God we serve.
Position Report
“There are things in nature that engender an awful quiet in the heart of man; Devils Tower is one of them.” (N. Scott Momaday) I don’t know what Mr. Momaday was thinking when he said that, or the people in the National Park Service who used it in the park brochure they hand out at the gate. But, in my view, this breathtaking hunk of God’s creation, rising shockingly out of the rolling hills of Northeast Wyoming, is the most inappropriately named national park or national monument in America. I would much prefer “Angels’ Landing” (like that big rock at Zion NP, or “The Pulpit of the Almighty.” The Lakota Sioux, who were here ahead of any white explorers, considered it holy ground and still do. Signs along the hiking trails read, “Please do not remove the [Indian] prayer clothes" (brightly colored cloth 1-3 feet long) hanging from tree branches at the base of the massive rock. I wondered…if I chiseled Isaiah 6:3 into the rock or one of the tree trunks here, would a sign ask people not to remove my reminder of the one true God who created this awesome monument..? You and I know the answer to that.
The place certainly has the feel of holy ground to me, but then all of
nature contained in this beautiful country, especially that in its
national parks, has that feel to
Position Report
America is so beautiful! I wondered if the rest of the Isaiah 6:3 Tour would be downhill after the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, but such has not been the case—nearly eight months and not a hint of ennui. We’ve spent the last week high in the spectacular snow-capped Bighorn Mountains (but well below the snow) of north central Wyoming. I’m writing this report on the banks of the South Fork, but “Roaring South Fork” would be a more appropriate name. There is no better white noise, no better audio to inspire my creativity than the sound of rushing water deep in the woods, high in the cool mountains and far from the nearest city on a midsummer day. With the RV parked 25 feet away, I hear it when I lay down and when I arise. The Bighorns are also lupine land, my favorite wildflower. The forest floor is mottled with sunshine and covered by a blue carpet, with yellow (stonecrop) and white (yarrow) accents and a faint scent of jasmine—an inspirational visual, aromatic and audio feast. Even my internet addiction is taking the cure up here—a good signal is hard to find. Thus there’s no bad news to disrupt the Isaiah 6:3 Tour! This is to glory in the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living (Psa. 27:13)—a foretaste of heaven. I signed off on the third and final proof copy of my next book, No Time To Waste, in this wonderful place this week. The ideas and inspiration flowed through my brain like the rushing white water at my feet. It should be available at Amazon by mid-August. God is so gracious. We ran into the nearest town, Buffalo, WY, 17.5 miles east, yesterday. It was a fun town in which to get groceries and a civilization fix as well as a history lesson. We ate lunch in the bullet-holed saloon off the lobby of the Occidental Hotel, a famous old 19th century hotel recently refurbished in the original décor. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid liked to hang out there when the austerity of their hole-in-the-wall hideout in a canyon maze south of town got to be too much for them. In fact, the famous picture of those two outlaws and three of their associates in bowler hats was taken at that hotel and was what led to their arrest. Teddy Roosevelt liked the place, too, in his pre-White House years when he was a young, slim, swashbuckling white hunter. And legend has it that Owen Wister wrote The Virginian while staying at the Occidental. Obviously he, too, was inspired by the wilds of Wyoming. I’m sure there are some similarities in our accommodations. I wonder if he paid more than we paid for ours: $7/night for a patch of dirt (our only essential need), towering evergreen shade trees, rushing white water, a hand water pump and an outhouse. Life is good. I marvel and give thanks daily that my gracious Lord should so bless such an unworthy.
Position Report
We’re breaking camp early in the morning to drive up into the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming and I am not at all sure I’ll find an internet signal up there, so I’ll post our position report tonight. These mountains of Wyoming make for lots of signal shadows. After weeks of immersing ourselves in beautiful sylvan settings of national parks, all five in Utah and two in Wyoming, we’ve been laying around a commercial RV park in Cody, Wyoming, for four days, enjoying a “full-hookup”—electricity, water and sewer—after 100% self-sufficiency for so long. Cody is a beautiful town of 8,500 souls with wide streets, manicured lawns and well-maintained real assets. Buffalo Bill, whose name appears in all kinds of places, instructed his town planner to make the streets wide enough to turn his horse-drawn show wagons around in—his biggest frustration in eastern cities—and that prepared the city of Cody to adapt quite nicely to 21st century four-lane travel. The surrounding countryside is a feast for the eyes. Forty-five miles northwest is a sundrenched deep green valley surrounded by high mountains called, appropriately, Sunlight Basin. In the 19th century the reconstituted US 7th Cavalry (after Geronimo’s forces wiped them out) chased Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce out of this idyllic valley. They would have preferred blood revenge on the Indians, but Chief Joseph was too wily for the cavalry and gave them the slip, escaping out of the eastern pass while leaving behind only a single wounded brave. The frustrated Cavalry dispatched him with a bullet. Today it is called Dead Indian Pass and the best place to view Sunlight Basin. An interesting observation about commercial RV parks: they are full of motorized mansions. We don’t run into them in the national forests and parks very much because they can’t get into small places over less than perfectly level paved roads. I marvel at where so many people got so much money to invest in depreciating assets. Most of them tow a car or truck to run around in when they arrive at their destination, called a “toad,” as in “towed.” Their toad’s are often more expensive than my entire rig of truck and travel trailer, called a “white-walled throw-away” by those can afford so much more. A seven-figure motor home down the way from us has a license plate frame that says, “There is more to life than gas mileage.” I could not agree more, but I suspect for entirely different reasons. In an effort to engage one of those big rig drivers in conversation, I complimented him on his shiny mobile mansion. There was a temporary license plate in the window of the rig and I asked him if it was brand new. He indicated he’d had it two years, and I explained that I got the idea from the temp plate in the window. He said that in his state they allowed motor home owners to license them for brief periods of use, like a month, if they were in storage the rest of the time, and it saved him a lot of money. I incredulously asked, “You mean you own a big rig like that and don’t use it all the time?” He replied, “I can’t afford to.” That is materialism taken to the brink of insolvency… Only in America. God have mercy on us.
Position Report
We’ve been parked atop one of the world’s largest and most active
volcanoes since Thursday, though all that blows these days is steam and
scalding water and an occasional large rock. Yellowstone National Park
is a unique and fascinating place. Three to eight miles below the
surface of the earth here is magma—molten rock—that
Twenty miles north of Norris Geyser Basin, home of Steamboat geyser and Four fault lines meet under Yellowstone, and, combined with the magma, cause a thousand or two small and not so small earthquakes each year, opening up new geysers, damming up rivers and forming new lakes. Most are not even felt, but last night, while sitting quietly alone at the picnic table at our campsite, the ground and table vibrated for several seconds, like I was sitting atop a large idling engine. Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord (Psalm 114:7). Surely the Lord is present in this place.
If Dante was right and The Inferno is in the middle of the earth,
these geyser
I highly recommend you Come and see what God has done (Psalm 66:5b) at Yellowstone. And while you are here you can meet, up close and personal, one of these lovable fellows. The one on the right passed us this morning as we were easing down one of the park highways... Note he is in the passing lane!
Position Report
This week’s position report is from the same position as last week. If
you’re Last Sunday we were richly blessed by a worship service in the Signal Mountain Amphitheater in our campground, led by two winsome young witnesses with A Christian Ministry in National Parks, a 50-year-old interdenominational ministry (www.acmnp.com). Lee Kuiper, just graduated from Calvin College in Michigan, delivered a wonderful sermon I urge you to read here. Tomorrow we will get to hear Katelyn Hiett, who’s headed to Concordia Seminary this fall, bring the message. What a delightful providence to worship in such a Garden of Eden where praising God seems as natural as breathing. As in the original Eden, most of the wildlife here is friendly toward humans, accept for mama bears, grizzly and black, as you can see from the pics. I wanted to include a picture of a friendly Whistle Pig, who lives in our “back yard,” but he was friendly only when I did not have my camera in hand. What an interesting, rare little creature! He spends 8-9 months of the year hibernating in a hole in the ground. If you are really curious you’ll have to Google him
One final pic this Independence Day. Earlier in the week I took a picture of the flag by the Jenny Lake visitor center with majestic Mt. Teton in the background. It reminded me of something my dear deceased friend, Jack Bennett (memoir, entitled No Time To Waste, coming soon) told me once when I was visiting him. He was living in an elegant retirement home in SoCal and had his easy chair positioned so he could see the flag flying in front of his complex through the sliding glass doors onto his balcony. The man who dedicated his life to his country’s service said, “JD, I get such pleasure out of watching that flag fly.” This 4th of July I say, “Me too, Brother Jack. Me too.” May God continue to bless America, so beautiful, so undeserving, so abundantly showered with his amazing grace.
Position Report June 27, 2009 The Grandeur of the Tetons
It’s a grey day in paradise today, with melodious raindrops falling on the RV roof, but grey is beautiful, too, in God’s creation scheme. I’ve gotten so frustrated with national park visitor center movies and park ranger lectures that I’d urge all visitors who love the Lord to skip them. If I hear one more preposterous multi-billion year assumption, wild guess or bald-faced lie put forth as fact about how this beauty all came to be…. Not once have I heard the truth: In the beginning God created…. But God’s children know, and we are grateful for our God-given eyes to see that …the whole earth is full of his glory.
Tour Position Report
Not! You might think that after beholding rocks for the last month,
from the Grand Canyon to Zion to Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef to Arches
to Canyonlands National Park we’d be overdosed on rocks, but you’d be
wrong. Such divine sculpture does not weary the eyes of this beholder.
We’re still marveling at rocks, but now also with lots of green
Ponderosa pine and grass and riotously blooming wildflowers and billions
of acre/feet of water at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area on the
Utah/Wyoming border. A dam built on the Green River in the last century
changed the scenery from what it was when the one-armed explorer John
Wesley Powell first saw it in 1869. He thought it was spectacular then
and named it Flaming Gorge after the 1,000-1,500 foot-high red rock
cliffs on either bank. Now it’s a 91-mile long reservoir teeming with
world record-sized trout (over 50 pound lake trout and over 25 pound
rainbows). It’s a perfect sunny day in NE Utah and this campground up on
the rim is nearly empty, probably because the campground host says it’s
the first nice day they’ve seen this summer. The only sounds are the
breeze in the ponderosa tops and bird calls. In the picture, even the
roar of the few motorboats making Speaking of wheels, here is a little vignette on Amazing Grace. We were headed up to this lovely place Thursday, but it just happened to be raining and I just happen to be opposed to towing a travel trailer on steep, snaking mountain roads in the rain. So mid-day we just happened to choose a delightful shady and green little RV park in the middle of Vernal, Utah, for the night. As we were setting up, the front wheels of my truck just happened to be turned sharply where it was parked. Karen never before had a reason under those circumstance to walk around the left front corner of the truck, but she just happened to then. The tire just happened to be stopped in its rotation in such a way that Karen just happened to notice a screw in the tire, though it was not leaking air. The stress on that tire from all the steep switchbacks on the mountain road ahead almost assuredly would have caused a flat or maybe much worse and the likelihood of enough room to pull off the road was nearly nil. There’s more. The RV park just happened to be located adjacent to a tire dealer. I got in the truck and drove over to the open overhead bay doors of the tire dealer. Business just happened to be a bit slow for them at that moment and a smiling Mormon lad, not me, got to pull it off and fix it in less time than it has taken me to type this amazing witness. “Just happened” is a pagan term for the providence of God.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for
good….
Tour Position Report
Utah State Route 12, the two lane highway (my favorite kind) between Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park is the most extraordinary 115 miles I’ve driven. It descends down into verdant valley farmland from the 8,400 foot rim of Bryce Canyon, then skirts the Northwest side of the thousands of acres of the hauntingly beautiful desolation of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. From there it turns north, descending steeply via 20 mph switchbacks into a narrow canyon just wide enough for two lanes of concrete and no shoulders or sunshine. It climbs out in the same manner, then winds along a narrow rolling ridgeline, still with no shoulders and a bottomless drop-off on both sides. It was sorta like flying—pulling over to stop and lower the blood pressure was not an option. Karen prayed without ceasing that my heart would not chose this time to go into cardiac arrest. Then the road dropped down into another verdant valley of farmland before beginning a very long and increasingly steep ascent to Boulder Pass at 9,600. The last two miles were a 12% grade. It will test your driving skills and the advertised promises of the manufacturer of your tow vehicle’s engine and transmission. I am happy to report that my truck is indeed “Ford tough.” That is probably why Ford Motor Company is the only major American automaker who is not now a ward of the government. My nifty little add-on digital ScanGauge II, with its 27 engine and transmission performance real-time readouts tracked the flawless performance of my F-150 (not related to the F-100 that also served me mostly flawlessly many years ago). At the end of that spectacular white-knuckle drive was yet another visual delight. Descending down into a red and tan and white canyon at Capitol Reef, we came upon Fruita Campground, set in “a sudden intensely green little valley among the cliffs of Waterpocket Fold, opulent with cherries, peaches and applies in season” (Wallace Stegner). We parked under a giant ash tree in a grove of tall ashes, hackberries and maple trees surrounded by an orchard. It is a lush Midwestern oasis in the middle of the Western desert, reminiscent of the city park along the Mississippi River where our family attended an annual family reunion every summer in my youth. Mormon settlers planted these orchards in the late 1800’s and irrigated them with water from the Fremont River that winds through this valley. What a delightful green haven it is. Last night we drove out of the canyon about 3 miles, to a mountaintop called Sunset Point, and climbed the highest pile of massive rocks there to watch the setting sun shine on this 100-mile-long red and white and tan cliff called a Reef. No living creature sound, except for two awestruck/dumbstruck sinners breathing, interrupted a video extravaganza that could only be choreographed in the throne room of God. There is one more visual delight here. Capitol Reef claims to be the best National Park in America for stargazing, and for good reason. The canyon walls shut out the ambient manmade light, of which there is very little to start with. If you look at a map of Utah and Capitol Reef, you will note the few towns within a 75 mile radius in all directions are all denoted with the smallest font and the tiniest dot. If you like remote this is the place. The birds appreciate it, too. The sound of jubilant robins, cowbirds and orioles in our intensely green oasis singing their predawn hymns of praise in fortissimo easily penetrates the RV walls and the soundest sleep. If there is a better way to awake this side of the river, I have not found it. The more we travel, the more of God’s majestic creation we see, the louder the throne room seraphs’ praises echo in my head: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:3).
Position Report
The LORD roars from Zion….
From the peak of the world’s largest sandstone monolith rising 3,500 feet above the canyon floor, from the hanging gardens of Golden Columbine cascading from weeping sandstone canyon walls, to the tiny snails the size of a pinhead that live only in this canyon, the LORD roars from Zion National Park: I AM. Cliff-hugging hiking trails take your breath away three ways: by exertion, by the sheer beauty of God’s creation, and by one step in the wrong direction. When the new creation comes, God will not have much more work to do in Zion. If I could live my life over in another era, I’d be a 19th century pioneer farmer in this fertile canyon floor, where I could awake alone with God in this stonewalled Beulah Land, listening to the sound of the rushing water of the Virgin River that irrigates my fields, the birds whose melodic voices are amplified by the canyon walls, and where majestic cottonwood trees add a riotous green to the earth tone canvas of God’s canyon creation. One of those cottonwoods, a hundred feet tall and a hundred feet wide with an 8 foot diameter trunk, thrives today in the center of the massive lawn of the Zion Lodge, half way up the canyon. A bed there costs $160 a night, vs $8 a night (Senior Pass) to sleep in my own bed in the RV campground three miles down the canyon. Three mornings, after our hikes in the canyon, I bought coffee, sat on a shady bench and rejoiced in the beauty of that tree. Joyce Kilmer said, “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.” I’m with Joyce. I have not, nor do I anticipate ever seeing anything made by the hand of man—poetry, prose, art or architecture—as lovely as a tree, or the great Divine sandstone sculpture of Zion’s wall behind it. And yet, and yet I am in complete agreement with John Calvin, who said (when he was feeling magnanimous), that only one human in ten hears the roar of the LORD in a place like this, though “all are without excuse.” Paul told the Romans, that God …has mercy on whomever he wills (Romans 9:18a), that is, he performs a miracle of spiritual rebirth in chosen hearts, gives them eyes to see (John 3:3) and the amazing gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8), and whomever he wills he hardens in their unbelief (Romans 9:18b). We have some dear sweet family members whom we love in that latter category. They think we are nuts. They think nobody times nothing equals all there is to see in Zion. They actually think that time and chance have creative power that trumps intelligent design of mind-boggling complexity. They take at face value “scientific facts” based on unprovable assumptions. We pray for their enlightenment and salvation: LORD, please perform a miracle of rebirth in their hearts, that they may see what you have allowed us to see, the whole earth full of your glory. And the kingdom of God to come. May they know the mercy we know, unworthy sinners that we are. And may they hear the roar of the LORD from Zion. Position Report
…on your wondrous works I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness (Psalm 145:5b-6). It is possible, with so many miles of canyon rim, to find a quiet spot like this one and be alone in the midst of throngs of tourists from all over the world. In the deafening silence and overpowering visuals it is like no house of worship built by hands. Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on earth. (Psa. 46:10) God speaks to me through this awesome witness to the Genesis flood: Behold the wrath of God. Pagan scientists, using unprovable assumptions, put the age of these rocks at 840 to 1,375 million years old, depending on which of four radioisotope formulae they use, none of which come close to agreeing with each other, as you can see. And when their theory cannot explain a particular strata of rocks, rather than throw away the theory they give the mystery a fancy name, the “Great Unconformity,” as if that were a scientific explanation. And yet any child of Scripture can see the Grand Canyon was caused by a catastrophic flood. The Colorado River drains the Colorado Rockies and surrounding area. The flood waters were 15 cubits (20 feet) higher than the highest mountains the world over (Gen. 7:20). And when it began to recede that incomprehensible volume of water cut the Grand Canyon from flood-accumulated silt a mile deep in a matter of weeks. Karen and I have hiked many dry mountain and desert washes this winter, and have often seen boulders strewn about the dry river bed larger in diameter than we are tall. The hydraulic power of water, even in a local flood, is astronomical. Consider how a global flood that covered every mountaintop on the planet would have reshaped this planet. The Grand Canyon rock strata and fossil record overwhelmingly point to the same conclusion an unbiased casual observer would reach, a catastrophic flood. Don’t take my word for this. I urge you to read Grand Canyon: A Different View, compiled and written by Tom Vail with the help of two dozen scientists contributing evidence and explanations, all pointing to a great flood. Then read my friend’s 10 part blog series of a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon last summer with the author of that book. Blogger Dr. Del Tackett is President of Focus on the Family Institute and Adjunct Professor at New Geneva Seminary in Colorado Springs. He’s an astute observer and a passionate man of God. In the midst of our Lord’s passion, less than 24 hours before he was crucified, he instituted the sacrament of The Lord’s Supper with these words, This do in remembrance of me (1 Cor. 11:24b). It is a profound remembrance that he died in the place of his elect, that they might live with him forever (John 3:16). And in The Great Flood, in the midst of his vengeance on every living creature, save a few chosen pairs on a boat, in a sin-saturated world, he sculpted a monumental work of art that by its magnificence draws the world to it. No reminder is needed at the Grand Canyon to remember that God is a promise-keeping avenger of his holiness. A trillion tons of divinely sculpted rocks cry out. The message echoes through a thousand ragged canyons within the Canyon. It reverberates to the rim for those awe-struck spectators from every nation and tribe and language and people who have ears to here:
Vengeance is mine. I will repay. Position Report Oak Creek Canyon, on Highway 89A between Sedona and Flagstaff, AZ, lived up to its billing as Arizona’s second most visited site after the Grand Canyon. The scenery is just drop dead gorgeous, and the sun sets 2.5 hours early down in that canyon. We found the best hiking/birding trail we’ve ever hiked in the Southwest—West Fork Trail. About half way up the Canyon, West Fork Creek joins Oak Creek from a canyon of its own, about 150 yards wide on average with 800-1000 foot high red walls and lush oaks, cottonwoods, and ponderosa pine growing alongside the stream. The trail along the creek is rated moderately difficult. I’d call it piece of cake easy, not at all steep and treacherous as so many mountainside trails that follow streams can be. As such it was bird heaven, and the farther up that canyon we hiked the more beautiful it got and the happier the birds were, judging from their singing. Today we are parked about 50 miles north of there and 60 miles south of the Grand Canyon, in a national Forest Campground at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. The ground is volcano cinders and the only thing that grows in it are ponderosa pines—no bushes, no grass. The forest floor looks like it has been paved with asphalt that has all crumbled. But tranquility abounds. We took a hike in the lava fields this morning and this afternoon are just chillin’ in the shade of the ponderosa, listening to the breeze in the treetops. The visitor center literature I just read says the volcano blew in 1064 A.D., and it is a statistical certainty it will one day blow again. God laughs at such godless assurance. It reminds me of Jimmy Buffet’s musical dilemma, “I don’t know where I’ma gonna go when the volcano blows.” I have no such dilemma. If it blows tonight, not half a mile from our home on wheels, I know where I’m going. And the guvment won’t have to waste a plot on me at Arlington. Life is so good. God is so gracious. Position Report Have you ever been to Sedona, AZ? They call it Red Rocks Country. An inn keeper a century ago made a terrible mistake making a city out of that real estate (and naming it after his wife), even though the zoning board has tried hard to make all construction blend in with the countryside. Even McDonald’s and Burger King are housed in adobe facades that match the soaring red cliffs and rock formations. The scenery is so breathtakingly beautiful it should have been declared hallowed ground, reflecting the glory of its Creator, or at least a national park. Try as I might I could not capture its essence with the camera. The above photo is a poor representation of one small arc of a horizon over 50% filled with towering red rock columns and cliffs. In words, an even sorrier substitute for being there, it’s something like living at the bottom of the Grand Canyon…if it were wide enough to accommodate a city. Highway 89A, running NE out of town, passes through Oak Creek Canyon, the second most visited geography in Arizona after the Grand Canyon. It is federal government land, part of the Coconino National Forest. Deep in the canyon are two campgrounds that required reconnaissance without the rig in tow to be sure we could get in and out without blemishes to our little house on wheels. It passed our inspection and next Monday we will be there. Meanwhile we’ve spent the week at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, an odd name for one of Arizona’s finest state parks. It seems the family who sold the ranch to the state for a park insisted the the name remain as part of the deal. It’s a beautiful northern Sonoran Desert oasis, lush with majestic cottonwoods along the banks of the Verde River. The birds love it too and are here in brilliant abundance. The stars of the show have been the Summer Tanager, the Bullock’s Oriole and the Yellow-Breasted Chat. The resident Bald Eagle failed to make an appearance.
Another pleasant surprise about this place: Just outside the front gate of this park, in the town of Cottonwood, is the sister church to the one we attended last Sunday in Prescott, just 40 mountainous miles from here. The same preacher, Pastor Charlie Perkins, serves them both and we will end up having communion two weeks in a row in two different churches with the same preacher. And just to cement the providential aspect of it all, I have spent the week in my morning devotions studying Calvin’s writing on the means of grace, specifically holy communion! Amazing grace! Here’s the line that keeps echoing in my head: “…[God] nourishes faith spiritually through the sacraments, whose one function is to set his promises before our eyes to be looked upon, to be guarantees of them.” (IV.xiv.12, underline my emphasis) No magic, no miracle performed by the preacher, no power in the act—in fact worthless—apart from the truth it signifies and seals, just a guaranteed, astounding promise set before our eyes. And it is not a frivolous ritual to be taken lightly. Calvin quotes Augustine: ‘…the Lord’s morsel was poison to Judas, not because he received evil, but because an an evil man evilly received a good thing.’ (IV.xiv.15). And for the impious partaker, Augie warns, ‘…it does not cease to be spiritual, but it is not so for you.’ (IV.xiv.16) That truth will be come to mind tomorrow when the preacher “fences” the table, and hopefully every time thereafter. line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> There’s nothing better than an unbreakable promise guaranteed by the highest level of authority, that we are possessors of paradise, eternally, with the loving God who created, for his glory and our enjoyment, all this beauty, which is but a tantalizing taste of what is to come. What could be more astounding than that?Position Report We bid adieu to the desert this week, after bathing in its beauty, absorbing the glory of God’s Sonoran Desert creation these past three months. Summer sneaked up on us and caught us parked on the southern shore of magnificent Lake Pleasant, just north of Phoenix. We tried to bear the heat for the sake of the beauty, but at 96.6 degrees under the awning, with an uncool zephyr that felt straight from the oven, we admitted defeat and fled to the mountains of the Prescott National Forest ninety miles north. A beautiful two-hour drive on two lane roads that became steep and serpentine with fabulous vistas brought us to a glorious forest of towering Ponderosa Pine forest at 6000 MSL, not a mile from “everyone’s hometown,” the really cool cowboy town of Prescott, Arizona, population 43,000. I guess it’s predominantly a retiree town, but its cowboy heritage is apparent everywhere, from Whisky Row, with 100 buildings, mostly converted old saloons, in the National Historic Register, to the statues in the courthouse park in the center of town. It’s our favorite kind of location, a campground that feels far from civilization, yet is close to all the essentials for resupplying, like food, propane, gasoline, and a good church—this time an OPC church that we are looking forward to worshiping in tomorrow—and nighttime temps in the 40’s, perfect for sleeping, and daytime highs in the low 70’s, perfect for hiking. The birding is excellent too, though the tall Ponderosa do put a stress on the neck. What a delightful change—from the glory of the desert to the glory of the forested mountains, all by and for the glory of God. Once again, in His sovereignty, my reading complimented our Isaiah 6:3 touring. I came across a C.S. Lewis quote online that addressed the very thoughts that had been rolling around in my head of late:
We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. —C. S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
Beauty is integral to God’s glory. As the Westminster divines concluded in the first question of the Westminster Smaller Catechism, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But beauty means more than just esthetically pleasing to the eye. Creation is beautiful beyond words because God, the Creator, is beautiful beyond human ability to comprehend or communicate. Another of my heroes, Jonathan Edwards, was seen on occasion on his hands and knees in tears as he marveled at the intricate “divine beauty” of a tiny wildflower and pondered the beauty of its Creator. By God’s grace I can relate to that experience and would expand it to include birds that fill my binoculars’ field of vision and far horizon mountain vistas that make my eyes sweat and halt my breathing. As we conclude the fifth month of this Isaiah 6:3 Tour, “enjoy him forever” sounds like just the right amount of time.
Position Report
We moved twice this week. The Isaiah
Tour is becoming a little more planned and less spontaneous as one
of the very few deadlines we have draws near. The Grand Canyon, in
the northwestern corner of Arizona, is a popular spot, and as a
result we have to reserve a campsite at the south rim to assure a
place to stay. It is the first reservation—May 10-17—we have
made since we hit the road December 1. So we are juggling deadlines
and weather with seeing all there is to see. It will be in the 80’s
today here at McDowell Mountain Regional Park northeast of Phoenix,
in the 90’s tomorrow, but just two days ago it snowed and blew so
hard on I-40 that it was closed. We must cross it, two hours
drive north of here (and 4500 feet higher), enroute to the Grand
Canyon. But the beauties of the Sonoran Desert continue to captivate us. Early morning hikes, before the heat of the day takes the fun out of them, still lead us to marvel at the glories of God’s creation. This Great-Horned Owl, a foot-and-a-half of feathered ferocity mothering two downy gray fuzz balls, gave us a disproving look this morning from the crotch of a uniquely shaped 150 year-old Saguaro in a big wash about a half-mile from our campsite.
We had lunch this week at the home of some
long-time friends we had not seen in 29 years. What a joy!
They were our neighbors in Wheaton, Illinois, and our children
played together. They are second generation Italian immigrants
who have realized the American dream and are now enjoying a most
delightful retirement in Fountain Hills, the Arizona equivalent of
Palm Springs, CA. We had gourmet Italian cuisine, Rina’s
Thinking of those days reminds me of how much the world has changed since then. Today my old employer (Morgan Stanley) is one of only two firms still independently standing on Wall Street, and it will take a miracle to put any value on my stock options. Truth be told, I have never been more pessimistic about my (now post-Christian) country’s economic, moral and national security future. The electronic marvel of the internet at my fingertips wherever we travel has a downside: the distraction to our Isaiah 6:3 Tour by the bad news of the world. But it’s a reminder of another Biblical truth. God calls us to be in this world, and be its salt and light (Matt. 5:13-14), not to withdraw from it. Dear God, by your grace may I be your witness in all our divine appointments in our travels in your glorious creation, in a culture that desperately needs to hear your truth. Position Report For most of my life, by God’s grace through god-fearing parents, I have been consumed by the Easter story during Holy Week. Southern Arizona’s weather is nearly perfect this time of year, the hiking in Catalina and Oracle State Parks has been awesome, the bird sightings have been beautiful and bountiful, but they have been secondary to the Gospel story epitomized by hymn-writer Charles Wesley’s consummate question, “Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God shouldst die for me?” Today, as I stare through the window at gloomy cloud-shrouded mountains in the picture at the top of the page, and listen to rain on the roof, my mind is on what must have been the gloomiest day--Silent Saturday--in the lives of 11 disciples of a man called Jesus. The Apostle Paul provides the divine antidote: Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (I Corinthians 15:12-20). No incident in antiquity has had more courtroom case-winning proof recorded, more firsthand written accounts, more eyewitnesses than the resurrection of the Son of God. And that in spite of a maximum effort by the church officials of the day to discredit the story and silence the witnesses. As Thomas Arnold, former chair of Modern History at Oxford University, said, ‘I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God [has] given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.’ (HT Ligonier Blog) R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries Blog this week summarized the case thusly: The testimony of Scripture to Christ's resurrection, says Paul in 15:5-7, is corroborated by the testimony of eyewitnesses: "and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then ... to more than five hundred brothers at one time .... Then ... to James, then to all the apostles." Don't pass over the numbers Paul mentions: more than 500 people saw, heard, looked upon, and/or touched the resurrected Jesus (cf. 1 John 1.1)! Yes, Thomas and others among the original disciples (John 20.24-29; Matt 28.17) were initially skeptical of Jesus' resurrection. But, friends, if you had asked them how they overcame their skepticism and came to "know He lives," they most definitely would not have said, "He lives within my heart." No, they would have said, and did say, in effect, "by the visible, audible, and tangible evidences of His resurrection." Christian, never forget: we have more than 500 eyewitnesses who testify that Jesus was and is alive and well. And John Calvin had his usual brilliant observation: The tomb is sealed [by the ruling civil authority], watchmen guard it (Matt. 27:66), but on the third day the body is not found (Luke 24:3; Matt. 28:6, 11; 27:24). Bribed soldiers spread the rumor that he had been stolen away by his disciples (Matt. 12-13, 15). As if they were capable of overpowering a troop, or were supplied with weapons, or even had sufficient experience to dare to commit such a deed! But if the soldiers had not enough courage to drive them away, why did they not pursue them, that, with the people’s help, they might catch some of them? Pilate truly sealed Christ’s resurrection with his own ring; and those stationed guards at the tomb, by their silence or their lying, became the heralds of the same resurrection… (Institutes, III.xxv.3) Then, of course, 11 of 12 disciples sealed the truth of Scripture testimony with horrible deaths of their own because, even under fear of torture and death, they could not recant their eyewitness testimony of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. You must decide. Either it happened as reported or the Bible is fiction. The consequences of your decision are eternal, either everlasting torment or endless joy beyond human comprehension. One day everyone will experience a resurrection for which Christ’s was the prototype. Every knee shall bow (Romans 14:11) before our Creator, and you will either be …fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming… (Luke 21:26), desperately wishing a mountain would fall on you (Luke 23:30), or overwhelmed with gratitude that Christ died for you as your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:27-8).
Position Report For the first time in The Isaiah 6:3 Tour we have returned to a place—Catalina State Park on the north side of Tucson. It is no accident it is one of our favorites. See the picture at the top of the page and you will understand. We did a bracing five mile up and down hike in those steep rocky mountains today. But there’s more. This place is another bird heaven. Yesterday, in a bird hike guided by Denis Wright, volunteer with the Tucson Audubon Society, and once-upon-a-time Apache helicopter mechanic, we found 44 different species of birds in a 2.5 hour walk. I am in awe of the guy’s eye and ear for birds. His audio and video ID’s are nearly instant. Too often I hear silence when he hears beautiful avian music. April weather in southern Arizona is about as perfect as weather can get, too, but none of the above gets at the heart our reason for returning to this place. Holy Week begins this Palm Sunday, the most important week in a child of God’s year, and we’ve discovered a PCA church where we want to be on Palm and Easter Sunday—Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church in Tucson. We were there last Sunday and that church family made us feel so welcome! It is amazing (grace) how that works. We have been in a few churches on this tour, even PCA churches, where we came, worshiped and left without a greeting from anyone accept the official perfunctory one that is part of some worship services. Perhaps I am just more unapproachable than I realize, but I have a beautiful and approachable wife that everyone usually wants to meet. She’s long been my social crutch. The one thing missing in this tour has been the lack of a close church family with which to worship each Sunday. God has blessed me with a desire to rigorously engage the Scriptures early, long before daylight at the start of each day of my life, as we travel. I have done that for a few decades now, but never have I been blessed with the time to do it for extended periods, without the distraction of a job or other social responsibilities. I am free to follow the Scriptures wherever they lead my thoughts, and with a huge variety of helps online. Only one stop so far, a deep canyon, has been of out of reach of the internet. If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you know that John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion have been my primary guide this year—3000 scripture references in 1,521 pages. I read it with my Bible open beside me and it has been God’s illumination indeed, even though I have read Calvin's Institutes twice before and the Bible innumerable times. It is another amazing thing how God’s grace keeps the Bible message fresh and awesome in the extreme, with no end to new illumination in the rereading—it’s part of the Doctrine of Sanctification, in fact. To read Scripture (special revelation) and advance your understanding, then look up at the mountains (general revelation) in the picture above as you ponder the truth of our Gracious God, is a marvelous work of the Holy Spirit. For those of you who do not know this guy Calvin and his extraordinary impact on western thought, worldview, economics and politics over the last 500 years, I highly recommend you listen to Dr. Steven J. Lawson’s talk on Calvin’s legacy at the Ligonier Conference recently. Newsweek’s cover story a few weeks ago listed the top ten ideas shaping the world today, and “The New Calvinism” was number three on the list. As Dr. Lawson said when he quoted from the article, “It is really the Old Calvinism.” I would call it the Old Orthodoxy. I strongly suspect John Calvin would prefer that term also. God’s truth is an endlessly edifying study, but it does not take the place of corporate worship on the Lord’s Day. So we are parked for this brief season as we seek God’s face in His sanctuary with His people. This Holy Week may our Risen Savior speak to you afresh, with all the illumination of the desert sun on a clear day.
Position Report It was the middle of the night and we were surrounded, not six feet away, by a pack of coyotes. From a distance they sound mournful in the night. Up close they sound in pain, like they all just walked through a cactus patch and ran their paws through with cactus spines (Nature’s needles go right through soft-soled slippers, I learned the hard way). And it is quite startling when close in coyote yelps wake you out of a sound sleep at 2:30 a.m. A thin fiberglass wall was all that separated us. I raised the bedroom window night shade and shined my billy-club sized Mag-Lite on them and they disappeared into the desert night. There’s probably a sermon illustration here. The devil is a scary guy, too, prefers to operate in dark places and runs from the light of Truth. But it ended my sleep for the night, so I got up even earlier than usual and read an extra portion of Calvin’s Institutes. I’ve been doing that so much lately, as well as reading more than I had planned out of sheer engrossing grace, that it looks like I’ll finish all 1,521 pages by the end of June, handily beating my old record of August 25. It is also an added measure of Amazing Grace to be reading such a theology text in the middle of this Isaiah 6:3 Tour. Total absorption in this “magnificent theater” of general revelation, with a mind elevated by in-depth study of special revelation at the start of each day, is a good as it can get this side of heaven. I am grateful beyond words, and wake each morning thanking God for such a life.
This morning’s
reading was Chapter XXI of Book III—“Eternal Election, By Which God
has Predestined Some to Salvation….” This is a hard truth for those
who have not studied Scripture with the zeal of a reformed believer,
but no one makes this Biblical Truth more clearly and convincingly
than John Calvin, with humble explanations of all the Scripture that
supports it. Calvin’s
Institutes of the Christian Religion
has been in continuous print for 474 years, for good reason. I would
urge every soul to read his explanation of this doctrine. If you
have trouble with 16th century Latin translated into
English, you could read a simple little text, entitled
No one….
It has short sentences and monosyllable words and you can read it
in an evening. Or you could do like I did when I was first
exposed to eternal election. I said, “No way,” and sat down
with my Bible to prove it. Many many hours later I came to the
inescapable conclusion that it was the only way to salvation, and I
will gladly suffer the slings and arrows of scorn and ridicule by
those who twist the Gospel to stay something else. It was good
enough for Paul and all the disciples, for Calvin, Luther, Edwards,
Knox and Witherspoon. It is good enough for me. It is as
good as it gets. It is an integral part God’s plan of salvations for
sinners.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:28-38). Position Report
The 16th
week of The Isaiah 6:3 Tour was, as usual, full of God’s macrocosmic
glory—spectacular vistas and grand panoramas—but the highlight was
His microcosmic glory. They were .1 to .25 ounce bundles of
incredible feathered energy, complexity, and beauty—hummingbirds.
There are some
truly amazing facts about hummingbirds. They fly at 60 mph, hover,
and, alone among birds, fly backwards. They flap their To keep that high-performance engine fueled a hummer consumes half its weight in sugar daily. They drank our sugar water through a grooved (like a trough) tongue that looked no bigger than 4 pound monofilament fishing line. If my tongue were as long relative to my body as a hummer’s, it would be a foot-and-a-half long. Then there is their gorgeous iridescent color. Depending on the species, they show day glow orange, red, blue, purple and green. When the sun strikes them just right those colors gleam like gemstones. The pictures here do not begin to capture what my eye saw. It requires a better camera and photographer than I. Some of the hummers are just passing through here on their annual migration. Prior to migrating they carbo pack their bodies till they are 25-40% heavier than normal. Most birds could not get airborne with that much extra weight. Their migrations are solo. They are the original fighter pilot. They dogfight to protect their territory—the feeder. The way they jink and roll and turn nearly square corners in their dogfights, I cannot imagine what their g-tolerance must be. Just the most amazing work of God’s creative art. Those who say that such complex creatures came about through millions of chance mutations over billions of years–the official faith, in the absence of an iota of evidence, of the biology academy—are “condemned by their own testimony,” says John Calvin (Institutes I.iii.1), an eternally catastrophic snub of what he called the self-evident God of creation. I’m with John. The whole earth is clearly full of His glory for those who, by Grace alone, have been given eyes to see (John 3:3). Thank you, Lord, for such a gift. Position
Report The moon was one night from full and in the clear desert air it was casting a mid-day shadow. Just outside our RV window a wild donkey brayed at the moon, a long, wheezing, inhaling/exhaling soliloquy that was startling and not readily identifiable when awakened from a sound sleep. We both sat bolt upright in bed. I opened the night shade and saw a dozen donkeys grazing in the moonlight. The pickings were sparse in the gravel of the RV park, but probably no worse than the desert itself. Next morning there was a large puddle around the water faucet at one of the empty RV sites. I assumed it was caused by a broken water line and the donkeys had smelled the water and really came there to drink in the night, not to graze. I was wrong. The park proprietor told me the donkeys knew how to turn the water faucets with their teeth and drew their own water. He was busy removed the the handles on the faucets of unoccupied sites. I suppose the Darwinists would say the donkeys have evolved into that gift, survival of the fittest and all…. We were parked in the desert just outside a “town” called Why, AZ. It consisted of two business establishments, one of which was a gas station/general store named Why Not. It was just 10 miles southeast of Ajo, pronounced “ah-hoe.” A large sign on the side of a store there read, “End of the world—9 miles. Ajo—12 miles.” The local VFW had just concluded a “Chicken Dump Fundraiser.” It consisted of an 8X4-foot piece of paper with 6-inch squares drawn on it like a checkerboard. People purchased chances by buying squares at $1 each and signing them. On the assigned day the crowd gathered in great anticipation at the VFW hall, located right on the main drag—Highway 85—of the former copper mining town. When all had gathered the 8x4 foot-paper was placed on the floor of a chicken mesh cage of the same size, and a well-fed rooster was inserted into the cage…and you can probably figure out the rest. The winner was the owner of the square whereon the rooster dumped. I guess it’s a Southwest cultural thing.
Our next stop was Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge a hundred
miles east across the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation on the
Mexican
Position Report
The Sonoran Desert has sure busted a lot of my
long-held myths about deserts. Unlike the Mojave or the Sahara,
this one thrives with desert life. There are over 2000 plant
species here at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, over 300 of
which bloom if rains and temperatures fall
It was worth every panting moment of the 4 hour hike. We’ve hiked a lot of mountains—nearly ever day—in the last 3 months and this just may have been the most beautiful and enjoyable. As advanced as digital photography is, a two-dimensional image just does not envelope and overpower you the way three-dimensional reality does. Mere words don’t do it either. I urge you all to take a personal Isaiah 6:3 tour sometime in your life. Be filled to overflowing, speechless with love and gratitude and praise to and for the God who created this glorious universe. Go here to see several more desert flowers in all their blooming glory. We’ve listened to many lectures and taken a lot of guided hikes and drives that are now so popular in national and state parks and have received a terrific education, but with one major irritant. Evolutionary theories are always used to explain how all creation came to be. A young lady, a park ranger intern, made an innocent comment in her lecture this week that made me want to jump to my feet and throw a fist in the air and shout, “YES!” Explaining that the desert was once an ocean bottom formed by “millions and billions of years of change.” She got her story a little tied in knots, and, in frustration just ended with, “It's all just a theory.” God bless her. I suspect pagan professors and evolutionary aficionados in her life had failed to dislodge her creationist convictions. I don’t know if she is a child of God, but this I know: Nothing can overpower the Holy Spirit indwelling God’s elect, enlightening them to absolute truths utterly incomprehensible by any level of unregenerate I.Q. The whole earth is full of his glory! Position Report It’s been three months now and this traveling life has settled into a most delightful routine, not least of which is sleeping in my own bed every night, just different venues. I arise at around 4 a.m. and do my devotional reading. I take Robert Murray McCheyne’s advice seriously: “Let God’s Word be the first word you hear every day.” Then I jump online and see what’s going on in the world, beginning with The Wall Street Journal—a 40 year habit—and ending with the New York Times. (Only one stop out of the few dozen remote ones we have made, and that in a deep canyon, has put us out of touch with the internet.) The economic news has never been so grim in my lifetime—a flagrant failure of leadership among our elected officials being the root cause, with amply secondary causes in corporate America. Last fall I watched my industry (“greedy” old Wall Street) disappear before my eyes in a few weeks. While my old firm, Morgan Stanley is still standing, one of only two, it’s a different animal and my stock options are so far under water they will never bob to the surface before expiration. The common stock of major American firms are trading at levels not seen in decades, and many are struggling to survive. I have not been a stock market investor in over a year now (praise the Lord!) and don’t know if I ever will be again—definitely not a scenario I considered when I planned my retirement. My government’s debt is 4 times larger than it has ever been, with all the attendant adverse consequences, not least of which will be an inflation rate heretofore unseen in America.
This morning, to take my mind off all the bad
news and concerns over the future of my children and grandchildren,
I decided to go for a
Jesus is the source and the sustainer and the goal of all created reality. Do you believe that? You have to believe that. This is the only way that you can watch CNN or Fox News or read the New York Times or make your way through The Wall Street Journal. Otherwise you will join the ranks of the gloomy. Otherwise you will sing the song of the fearful. Otherwise you will sound like everyone else in contemporary American culture…. It is a mind-altering thing to be in Christ. It is a mind-altering thing to bow beneath the authority of what is said concerning him, this cosmic Christ who reigns over all.
I might add it is a mind-altering thing to know, with absolute assurance—a gift of the Holy Spirit (Calvin’s Institutes, Book III)—that God is still in charge, that he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. I step outside the door of my RV at night and see a billion stars in this dark desert sky, and I am reminded that God hung them all and named them all (Isaiah 40:26), and that what goes on in one continent of one tiny planet, a spec of dust in an obscure corner of the cosmos, does not escape his notice or his plan. It is the comfort that overcomes all adversity, the peace that passes all understanding. In spite of all the bad news, rejoice, our LORD reigns. Note: Next Tuesday, March 3, from 1-2 pm EST I will be doing a radio interview about my book, NO ONE…, on Knowing the Truth with Pastor Ken Boling, Travelers Rest, SC. Go here and click on "webcast" to listen.
Position Report
I hear the trains on that track in the night, though they don’t wake me up, and it reminds me of when I was a very young squirt on the farm, trying to sleep on a hot summer night with the windows open and hearing the chuffa-chuffa-chuffa of the steam engine and whistle of the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe’s Denver Zephyr tooting its way through the hamlet of Stronghurst, IL, 3 miles NW, as the owl flies. And I remember dreaming of riding that train someday and seeing the world. It’s been sixty years since those dreams, and I’ve ridden the Denver Zephyr and many others, and driven planes and boats and cars and trucks all over this magnificent planet and am now a long way from that heartland farm, and God has been gracious beyond my dreams and deserving. And I sleep the sleep of God’s elect in peace as perfect as it can get in this fallen world. Amazing grace! And each time we move on down the road we find another Garden of Eden to enjoy—from grace to grace. I am thankful beyond words that God has opened my eyes to the magnificent theater of his creation and given me the opportunity to enjoy it for an open-ended season in my retirement years with none of the distractions of earning a living. And what a preparation for the next life!
Those wise in their own eyes, past and present, have regularly belittled the "credulity" of Christians and declared the gospel to be unworthy of serious consideration, but the desert sands of infidelity are littered with the whitened bones of foolish people who said to themselves and to others, "There is no God." [Psalm 14:1a] I say “Amen,” and urge you, for the sake of your eternal soul, to read the entire article.
Position Report
Three weeks in Tucson and we have fallen in love with the Sonoran Desert. Downtown is nice, too, nicer than nearly any city I’ve visited in the world, if you like big cities. We were there once to go to the visitor’s center and the botanical garden, but we prefer God’s creation made without the secondary cause of man’s hand. This birding business has added a whole new dimension to hiking—two more guided bird hikes this week, plus every time we hike (at least once a day) we take the binoculars along. It is so much nicer to see something and get the instant gratification of an expert saying, “That’s a _________. See the markings etc etc,” as we all study it with binoculars. Looking it up in a book can be a huge frustration. If you’ve never gone for a hike with a decent pair of binoculars, you have missed some of God’s most beautiful creation. Most birds from afar are just dark shadows in the bright desert sun, when in fact many are spectacularly colorful—Vermillion Flycatchers, Verdins, hummingbirds, and the king of the avian kingdom, to my eye, the Elegant Trogon, to name some of my favorites. There are dozens more in these parts. There are also a lot of dead things in the desert, but no plant looks “deader” than an ocotillo (or nastier, for that matter—8 out of 10 things that grow in the desert can inflict sharp pain, and the ocotillo is near the top of the list). The ocotillo is helpless to do anything about its deadness…. It must rain. When it does rain, in 2-3 days its vicious looking thorny tentacles are covered with green leaves and in a few more days, some times simultaneously, the tips display beautiful red/orange trumpet-shaped blossoms.
There are a lot of humans in this world who are dead, too, still upright but dead—like an ocotillo—in their trespasses and sin. They, too, are unable to do anything about it, until God’s grace rains on them and they are born again. Plenty of folks who call themselves Christians today think they can pull themselves up to heaven by their own boot straps, that God puts the offer of salvation on the table and they decide whether to believe him or not. If they choose to believe, then they are “saved.” But that is not the gospel. Jesus said, No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3). One cannot choose what one cannot see, and one cannot see, let alone choose the things of God unless God’s grace rains on him and he is born again like an ocotillo. The Apostle Paul said while we are still dead in our trespasses and sin God makes us alive (Eph. 2:4-6, Col. 2:13). Dead men can’t make choices, dead men can’t do anything. Bottom line, depraved man is just like an ocotillo, a dead stick in the desert, until God miraculously makes him alive and, like an ocotillo blossom, beautiful in his sight. That is just the first step in God’s plan of salvation for sinners, and it is all of God from first to last. Jesus said, …apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). No room for quibbling there either. No wonder it is called the Gospel—“good news” indeed. The ocotillo, endemic in the Sonoran Desert with all its glorious witness to the Creator, keeps that good news foremost in my mind, and that, too, is by God’s grace, and I am grateful.
Position Report
I’ve had another one
of those teaching moments our gracious God blesses me with from time
to time. God in his infinite wisdom used a poet once, a despicable man, political radical, and strident God-hater, Percy Bysshe Shelley to eloquently communicate a similar eternal truth in a similar setting. Shelley’s poetic monument in the desert was commissioned by an arrogant man, a great king, to sneer at the world and brag about his own accomplishments, but untold years later nothing remains of them, the monument has crumbled, and no one remembers his name. In the many dozens of times I have read or recalled Shelley’s poem, one of a very few I’ve memorized, Ozymandias, I have never ceased to be profoundly moved by it’s message: the utter fleeting futility of a powerful and successful man, “haughty, ambitious and blind with self-love” (Calvin II.viii.1), who usurped God’s title and became a god unto himself for a brief moment in time, then sank into oblivion, ironically penned by a godless poetic genius using the imagery of the desolate desert and decay as a metaphor for despair.
I met a traveler
from an antique land Contrast Ozymandias’ end with the humble, uplifting prayer of a powerful Old Testament poet/king, a man after God’s own heart, whose writing has providentially persevered for the ages: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the all days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever (Psalm 23:6). Ozymandias is everyman’s dream and destiny, absent God’s grace. Mortal man is dust and, with the Saguaros, to dust his body and monuments shall return, but the image of meaninglessness and despair that Shelley portrays is the destiny of the devil’s own—“abandon all hope, ye who enter here” (Dante). God’s elect will be shown undeserved goodness and mercy now and raised to immortality later. If you share King David’s faith, give thanks to an infinitely loving God who, by grace alone, plucked you from the burning, changed your heart and opened your eyes to his truth. Eternal bliss in his bosom awaits, a guarantee from the highest authority—Christ, who redeemed you—in a world without decay or despair. Look on Christ’s works, ye mighty and ye lowly, and rejoice.
Position Report The Culture War
The exhibits in the Visitor’s Center,
following by a self-guided walking tour, followed by a picnic in a
small indestructible stone ramada with a 360 degree view, was a
delightful, fascinating one-day education in this amazingly complex
desert ecosystem. A Saguaro is nature’s water tower, among other
critical functions, in an arid place. The insects, the birds, the
mammals, the plants all support one another in an intricate and
thriving system. Saguaro grow in the shade of a Palo Verde tree,
taking ten years to get to 3-4 inches high, then grow as high as 30
feet over a 200 year One of the etched educational signs on our self-guided walking tour explained how the nearby mountains to the east were formed “…over 300 million years….” Someone—I suspect a Christian with less than saintly judgment—had taken a sharp object and scratched out those four words…and someone else had written them back in with a black felt tip pin. So goes the culture war….but I know who’s gonna win this cosmic battle. We’re in a commercial campground—Desert Trails RV Park—near Saguaro NP, full of snowbirds parked cheek by jowl hither and yon for the season, with a couple dozen programs and physical amenities to keep the customers entertained. There are huge rigs in ostentatious colors in here that probably cost more than any stick built house I ever owned. And dogs of all sizes and shapes, even a mastiff…in the cramped confines of an RV…. Not our thing, nor our favorite venue, but a very convenient location for all the things to see and do in Tucson. The trails that lead into the desert from the campground are really terrific though, and you really couldn’t cover all that are available if you stayed here a month. We’ll be back in the wide open spaces of a state park on the opposite corner of Tucson mid-week, if I can get out of this place without getting lost or mixing paint jobs. God is in charge, and boy is he blessing us unworthies.
Position Report For the Birds
Bill Adler, Arizona State Park Ranger, is the most knowledgeable “birder” I’ve ever met. The citizens of Arizona are getting an excellent return on their tax payer dollars in this guy. He can identify a bird by its call, interrupting a conversation to say, ‘I hear a ______. ” Unfortunately, I don’t hear half of them. Their calls are too often at the same frequency as the high whine of a jet engine. F-100’s wiped out my hearing in that range years ago. So now we’re lusting over binoculars. Ranger Bill let us look through his Leika binocs and they were like night and day compared my ancient no-name pair. When I asked how much they cost he told me I didn’t want to know. I looked them up on line when we returned from our hike and found them on sale for $2,500!!! That pretty much took care of that lust.
Patagonia
State Park and the adjacent
Sonoita Creek State Natural Area are a
beautiful place. We going to stay as long as they allow—two Today was cloudless and balmy, great for a Saturday afternoon nap under the awning after a morning bird hike. Tomorrow we’ll go to Rio Rico to worship with those friendly reformed Baptists we found last Sunday. I got an invitation this week to speak at a Memorial Day Service in San Francisco sponsored by a World War II veterans group. What an honor for a vet of America's only losing war! I think it is going to be the excuse I've been looking for to RV up the coast of California. Many years ago, on an earlier speaking engagement in San Francisco, Karen and I flew in our own plane from San Diego to San Fran just offshore and a thousand feet high on a clear day. Spectacular scenery. Ever since I've wanted to drive up Highway 1 through Big Sur and get the view from the other end. Life is good. God is great.
Position Report
Again, the devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matthew 4:8).
I thought of
Jesus on the high mountain last Sunday afternoon when we stood at
the summit of Coronado Peak (6468’ msl), with a vast 270 degree
far-horizon view of the desert below. Gazing easterly and southerly
into the San Pedro River Valley we could see another kingdom,
Mexico, and San Jose Mountain, standing as the opposing sentinel 20
miles away in this magnificent panorama. In 1540 Coronado led a few
hundred soldiers through the San Pedro Valley on his futile search
for the seven cities of gold. Today the valley is scarred by an
ugly black line running due east across the valley that is really a
20-foot high black steel wall, called “the border fence” with
Mexico—a sad commentary on mankind. You can In our travels I have yet to figure out the difference between a national park, a national monument and national memorial. They are look like parks to me. This Coronado National Memorial was so beautiful we came back for another day of hiking. The second hike led us a mile up a steep rocky trail to a cave, called Coronado Cave, about 600 feet into the earth. You could not prove it by me. We settled for just a few feet into it—the bowels of the earth are a dark place. I shouted into the inkiness, “Anybody home?” The reply I got was a chorus of bats screeching in the dark. The Apaches used this cave for a hiding place from the US Cavalry in the late 1800’s when southeast Arizona/southwest New Mexico was some of the last wild west to be tamed. By the time we got to the cave the arrow heads and spear points had all been found by earlier visitors. A few days ago we passed a tall marker on highway 80 northeast of Douglass, near the New Mexico border marking the spot of Geronimo’s surrender in 1886, marking the end of the Indian wars, whereupon he spent the rest of his days as a POW.
The next stop on the Isaiah tour may not really meet the objective of the tour—Isaiah 6:3—but it was some fascinating history of some of the devil’s best work. Tombstone, AZ, a booming silver mining town in 1881, is known for the Battle of the OK Corral where three bad dudes lost their lives in a shootout with the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, who were on the side of the law…that day. Wyatt and his brothers grew up in my community, Monmouth, Illinois, which still annually celebrates his claim to fame. Death by gunfight and by hanging was a pretty common occurrence in Tombstone in those days, and the cross-shaped courthouse was a busy place, one day hanging five men simultaneously for a particular heinous robbery/murder. A reconstructed gallows in the side yard marks the spot. Today the courthouse is a state park, a fascinating museum that can occupy a good half day, and down the street entrepreneurs have turned Toughnut Street into a minor league Disney World that re-enacts the famous gunfight every day…for a price. Coming back to Bisbee from Tombstone we stopped at the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM). So much natural tranquility after Tombstone! We hiked the San Pedro River banks in both directions over two days, tho not nearly all the 40 miles that are in the Conservation Area. It has become a major stop and destination for tens of thousands of birds, tho it was not nearly as crowded as Bosque del Apache NWR over in New Mexico (week 2 position report).
We worshiped this
week in Bisbee’s Covenant Presbyterian (PCUSA) Church, a magnificent
edifice listed in the National Historic Register, Saturday morning in Patagonia Lake State Park near Nogales, AZ, we had the extraordinary blessing of seeing an Elegant Trogon on our daily hike. He is the star of the show in these parts, called the most fabulous bird in the Southwest, but rarely seen. Watch a YouTube video of it at exactly the place where we saw him, within 40 feet at eyeball level for a good five minutes, both front and back angles as if God choreographed his dance for us...which of course he did. Elegant indeed! And with a most unusual call for a bird (hear it on the video)--like no bird you ever heard before. ...the whole earth is full of his glory. Our first night (Thursday) at Patagonia Lake we attended a wonderful program put on at the visitors center about the wildlife and history of the area. A knowledgeable naturalist was explaining how a hummingbird in the area migrated here from central America, and how ocotillo, upon whose nectar the bird survived, “just happened” to bloom seasonally and sequentially further north at the same time as the bird migrated, providing it the essential fuel it needed for the long journey north. He concluded in an aside barely audible, “Nature is pretty amazing.” I thought, “Yeah, right.” Then, in the providence of God, I read early the next morning Sinclair Ferguson’s blog on Calvin’s Institutes explaining the witness of creation to the Creator:
We have all seen or heard it. A secular naturalist engages in the activities Calvin here describes—whether by exploring the heavens or investigating things on earth. Insects and animals with the most limited mental capacity are said to engage in all kinds of detailed logical thinking as they develop coping mechanisms in a hostile environment. And as the program ends the naturalist comments, “And so again we find ourselves saying, ‘Isn’t Mother nature wonderful?’”
But who, one might ask, is Mother Nature? Why is her name always capitalized? On what logic has our agnostic or atheist presenter smuggled in his or her appeal to the transcendent? How profoundly true are Paul’s words that men exchange the truth of God for the lie. Mother Nature? Or, Father God?
Amazing indeed! Countless times in my life I’ve had teaching moments like this. As John Calvin said, “…the Spirit ever teaches us to our profit” (I.xiv.3). And I am so grateful.
Position Report The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).
“[God] revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. As a consequence, men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him. …he shows his glory to us, whenever and wherever we cast our gaze. …you cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness. Therein lies an attestation of divinity so apparent that it ought not escape the gaze of even the most stupid tribe” (John Calvin, Institutes I.V.1) I have been blessed to be in some remote places in the world where the night sky reveals a brighter attestation of divinity than most. The two most memorable ones were South Vietnam in the dry season and the Bahamas from the deck of a sailboat. It was too hot to sleep below deck on the sailboat, yet the heavens proclaimed God’s glory so loudly sleep was not possible topside either. It was worth losing a night’s sleep to witness it. Add the San Simon Valley of southwest NM and southeast AZ to the brighter attestation list. The night sky is so clear that a community of stargazers has made this area their home, with their own mini-planetariums (actually not so mini), as a wing of their house or as a separate building on their property. Check out this link to see what a stargazer/photographer has recorded at Rusty’s RV Ranch, a delightful spot where we camped for 10 days.
Calvin called creation “dazzling theater” (Institutes, I.v.8). He was right, and surely Cave Creek Canyon is more dazzling than most of his theater. Has a scene of natural beauty ever made you weep? Me neither, but this one comes mighty close. Pictures do not do it justice, but you may see them at my Picasso Web Album. Two-dimensional pictures do not convey the overpowering immensity of this canyon, the ever-changing shading and coloration on the rocks as the sun traverses the visible sky above—only 5.5 hours worth a day this time of year—or the crick in the neck you get from looking up to marvel at rock walls towering 1500 feet above your head. At 4 a.m. in the morning the Big Dipper shined brightly among a billion other stars directly overhead and looked just out of my reach. It pointed at the North Star just a degree above the north canyon wall, which gives you an idea of the depth of this canyon. What a glorious site to behold! As Calvin wrote, “the very school of God’s children” (I.vi.14). Amen! Curiously, as I watched, a satellite traveling southerly flew right threw the middle of the pan of the Big Dipper. We have no connection with the outside world—cell phone or aircard—in this magnificent canyon—so I cannot research it. Perhaps a reader can illumine me as to what kind of satellite makes a polar north/south orbit of planet Earth. The canyon floor is lush with oaks (non-deciduous here) , spruce and grand denuded white-barked Sycamore trees, and it’s home to millions of birds. The American Natural History Museum has a rustic research complex a little further up this world-renowned birding canyon. This paradise on earth is also home to small Coos Deer, the same as those little ones you find in the Florida Keys. In the American West Mule Deer and White-Tail Deer abound, but in this canyon are the same little deer as grow in the Florida Keys. Only God who put them here can explain that.
This weekend we are back in civilization…of a
sort. We are camped in
Queen Mine RV Park overlooking Bisbee, AZ,
population 6,000, just a 5
Position Report
Four hours into the New Year, I began, for the third time in my life, the daily reading of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin, in two massive volumes. It is a righteous fad this year, the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, with many conferences and celebrations of and about this theological titan scheduled throughout the Christian world, the biggest one being in his home town of Geneva, Switzerland. Only the Bible has had a more profound impact on my thinking and believing and living—actually it is Calvin that helps me, by God’s grace, to understand the Bible. I suppose some folks would consider theology somewhat dry and esoteric, but in reality it is “what you are when the talking stops and the actions starts” (Colin Morris) and what you are determines where you spend eternity, so what could be more important than that? Calvin himself, in his commentary on Jeremiah 9:23-24, said, "...to know God is man's chief end, and justifies his existence. Even if a hundred lives were ours, this one aim would be sufficient for them all." The intellect and clarity of expression displayed in The Institutes are superior, and explain why the book has been continuously in print in multiple languages since its first edition in 1536. In the introduction of the edition edited by John T. McNeill and translated by Ford L. Battles (my favorite), in an eloquent echo of the great truth of Romans 1:18ff, this paragraph once again blew me away—it is now highlighted and annotated in three colors (which means you don’t ever want to borrow a text I have read three times):
Unquestionably, [Calvin] earnestly affirmed on the one hand that a sense of deity is so indelibly engraved on the human heart that even the worst of men cannot rid themselves of it, and, on the other, stressed the evidence of God’s handiwork that meets our senses in the beauty and order of the world and in the marvels of man’s thought and skill. [Calvin] does not doubt that the objective world bears ample intimation that God exists, and that he is almighty, just, and wise and exercises a “fatherly kindness” toward his creatures. Yet men are so damaged by the heritage of sin entailed by Adam’s fall that they miss the testimony of creation to the Creator, and grope blindfolded in this bright theater of the universe with only erroneous and unworthy notions of the God who made it (page liii).
Wow! I love that term, “testimony of creation
to the Creator.” It is precisely what our Isaiah 6:3 Tour is all
about, and I have made it the subtitle of this page, as you can see
above. New Year’s Eve the testimony of God’s glorious creation
from a truly unique
perspective was revealed to me—breathtaking, heart-stopping, dumb-
In my college years
I was a sky diver, and I have always thought that once you master
controlled free-falling at 120-180 mph, it is the closest you can
come to feeling like you are flying like a bird. In fact I used to
dream at night I was flying like a bird when I was a sky diver.
Well, that
We flew close enough to the peaks and canyon walls of the Chiricahua’s to see raptor’s eggs in nests (if it had been the season) “ran the ridges” at maybe ten feet and 45 mph, and skimmed the desert floor like a pelican glides in ground effect inches above a calm sea. When we landed I held up a foot to Karen and asked if there were grass stains on my shoe soles. As the pilot/poet John Gillespie Magee said in High Flight, “…things you have not dreamed of.” An extraordinary perspective, an extraordinary experience. You may see and read more about this at skygypsies.com, a group organized by John McAfee, founder and former owner of an anti-virus software company, who operate just 2 miles from where we are camped. If you are interested, read a number of their links to major publications, starting with the UK Times, that tell some great stories about this type of flying. We did not discover them by chance, we came this way on The Isaiah 6:3 Tour by design to experience this. I have not yet talked Karen into trying it, even though she is a licensed private pilot. She says she’d rather spend the money on a new cashmere sweater…
The Chiricahua National Monument was so uniquely beautiful we have decided to go back, the safe way, with the RV and camp awhile, so I will save that story for another position report. God’s grace is, was and forever will be sufficient. May the Holy Spirit instill or reinforce that truth in your heart, with whatever trauma the task may require, this new year.
Position Report Pancho and Black Jack and Christmas Cheer
We spent 11 delightful days at Rockhound State Park, NM. We extended our stay one more day than planned (that’s a pretty loose term these days), grounded by high winds—gusts to 50. Everyplace has it’s price—at least it wasn’t a negative number chill factor. We made a day trip to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, N.M. , 28 miles south, on the border with Mexico. Fascinating bit of history in an excellent museum there. In 1916 Pancho Villa attacked the town, the site of a small US Army garrison, for reasons known only to himself. Black Jack Pershing with 10,000 men chased him 500 miles into Mexico and never caught him. But, in the providence of God, General Pershing got lots of invaluable experience with the new mechanized Army—some pretty exotic looking motorized machines in the museum—and the first use of airplanes in warfare. A Jennie hangs from the ceiling of the museum. Four months later Black Jack put his lessons to good use when America entered WW I. President Wilson picked him to lead the US expeditionary force and bring that bogged down trench war to a victorious close. Pancho probably went to his grave crowing about outfoxing the Yanks, but what they learned in that excursion won a far bigger and more important war. We also ran up to City of Rocks State Park, a natural Stonehenge out in the middle of the rolling prairie—fascinating to look at and read the old earth scientists’ conjecture about volcanoes millions of years ago…. Then we ran on into Silver City, an ancient and current mining town. The massive Freeport-MacMoRan copper mines had all shut down recently due to low copper prices and the town was full of gloom and doom, but it had another side to its culture—artists with their wares for sale. Last year the New York Times, in a glowing travel story, described Silver City as “Santa Fe without the trustafarians” (google it and expand your vocabulary). The massive Gila National Forest, just north of town, is high on our Isaiah 6:3 Tour list, but it will have to wait for nicer weather at those elevations.
Christmas Day we talked with and watched the grandkids open their presents in Ohio. What a wonderful invention Skype is. It was nearly as good as being there, and in one way even better—when we’d had all the excitement we could stand we said good-bye and clicked on "hang up"…and the silence was GOLDEN! We found a local restaurant in Deming and had a great Christmas buffet along with a bunch of old cowboys and their wives. One gaunt old codger had a belt buckle the size of his plate and a black hat big enough to shade half his table of eight. Although the shade wasn’t needed the hat remained on his head the whole meal. I could not figure out how his face could be so deeply suntanned with a hat that large. Perhaps it was his going-to-town hat and his everyday hat was smaller. I ate like I used to eat at Grandma's house growing up in rural western Illinois—till I was miserable. Today we arrived at Rusty’s RV Ranch, 6 miles north of Rodeo, NM (check out Google Maps above). This little bit of heaven is REMOTE— the nearest supermarket is 65 miles away. That’s why it’s heaven and that’s why we can see a billion billion stars on this new moon night. We'll be here at least a week exploring and visiting with some free spirits who fly some exotic flying machines. Tune in next week for details In case you are curious
about this “camping” lifestyle, perhaps these pics of an evening
camping in an RV will be enlightening. This is my kind of camping, a far cry from Dad's feed wagon tarp that I used as an open-ended pup tent as a kid. Life is grand. Thank you, Lord.
Position Report Christmas Blessings
Christians are never strangers. We worshiped last Sunday at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Alamogordo, NM. Rev. Rick Steele delivered a powerful sermon and the congregation was most welcoming. How Presbyterians ever got that handle “frozen chosen” is beyond me.
After 5 nights at
Oliver Lee Memorial State Park we moved on down the road with great
memories and anticipation. Less than 30 minutes
We spent that night
at Leasburg State Park, over the San Augustin Pass to Las Cruces,
then 14 miles north, on the banks of the Rio Grande.
This morning we ran
over to Spring Canyon Rec Area, just a couple of miles from
Rockhound, for a wicked, steep, rocky hike up the Canyon to the
pinnacle, called Lover’s Leap Trail. The pictures here show only the
beginning and end of the trail, the rigors of the canyon kept my
mind off
We’ve attached a
Christmas tree outline on the side of our travel trailer with $2.50
worth of tiny colored lights from Wal-Mart and clear We hope to Skype all five grandchildren together, gathered in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Christmas Day. What fun that should be! The kids love seeing Grandpa and Grandma live on the computer, almost as much as they love seeing themselves down in the corner of the picture…. A blessed Christmas to all my readers! Position Report Just 35 miles on down the road from Bernardo’s waterfowl diner (last week’s position report) is “the most fantastic” of America’s 500 wildlife refuges, begun by CCC workers back in the Great Depression, and designed specifically to cater to the original snowbirds, coming all the way from the Arctic Circle—tens of thousands of snow geese. Bosque del Apache NWR, “Bosky” for short, 57,191 acres of Rio Grande bottom land 20 miles south of Socorro, New Mexico, is all by itself worth an Isaiah 6:3 tourist’s trip to New Mexico from anywhere. And you’ll see thousands of sandhill cranes as well, even larger birds, who travel south for the winter from the northern US. Actually the list of feathered guests of Bosky in the winter fills a whole page in their annual tabloid newspaper. In the providence of God we “just happened” upon the one flooded field, a small one at that, out of hundreds in the “Bosky” Refuge, where 6-8 thousand snow geese and a few hundred sandhill cranes chose to spend that night. They turned that body of water into a snow field with a 10 foot wide mote around it, apparently as protection against coyotes who do not like to get their feet wet in pursuit of their meals. Geese are social animals, they mate for life and families stick together. Their eyesight is so good they can pick their own out among a sea of white. No wonder they never came within twelve gauge range of my blind on the Mississippi River—they could see me hunkered down and shivering behind all those willows we cut to “brush up” our blind. For an hour and a half, from 3:30 pm until sunset they arrived in two’s, ten’s and hundreds. I find the traffic patterns and final approach techniques of geese, all without air traffic control and devoid of mid-airs, endlessly fascinating. A snow white goose against a clear blue sky, in the glide phase of flight, with its wings slightly cupped, is just the most glorious critter in motion that God created, in my view. A goose flies final approach for landing like an airplane, but with much greater flexibility as to the steepness of the approach. If he sees the need, he can do a maneuver that looks like snappy ¼-barrel roll left and then right to loose altitude quickly. If I had tried that in an F-100 on final, it would have got me dead or grounded. The last 2-3 feet prior to touchdown, if over water, the goose transitions to helicopter mode. With head and neck horizontal, the rest of his fuselage gets nearly vertical, landing gear down, killing off the horizontal vector, and plopping nearly straight down onto the water, with a 1-3 foot rollout and modest bow wave, tipping forward as he comes to a stop. And the majority of the time the first thing a goose does when he comes to rest is take a drink. Thirsty work, this flapping a 5-6 foot wingspan on a 4-7 pound airframe at a far faster rate than a human can move his arms, let alone get himself airborne. It’s a marvel to me how God could pack so much strength into so little mass. No less marvelous is the endurance required to fly to the treeless tundra of northern Canada come February, to nest and raise a family in the short Arctic Circle summer. And they cruise at a speed of 25-30 miles per hour, by my truck odometer as I tried to keep up with them 100 feet over my head. To God be the glory! Next morning at Bosky, by God’s grace, we crept thru the predawn twilight with headlights off and once again chose the one grain field, out of dozens, where the thousands of snow geese who chose not to run up to Bernardo’s, 35 miles north, for breakfast, took their morning meal.
BTW, if you are taking notes for future reference, the closest RV campground is Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park three-and-a-half miles up the road from the entrance. We met a friendly owner and our basic needs were met. I can’t imagine when or where we will top this glimpse of the glory of God short of heaven, but we are going to keep looking.
On a monetary note, as Federal public land, our “Senior Pass” ($10 for a lifetime) allows us to camp here, as in all National Parks and Forest and BLM land, for half price--$9 per night with electricity and water and a dump station for this campground. It’s one of the last good deals left in America and I fear it is short lived with what is going on in our increasingly socialist country. There is a downside to my Verizon aircard on my laptop that lets me keep tuned into the world via the internet nearly everywhere we go. It can be a distraction from the primary objective of The Isaiah 6:3 Tour. Today we witnessed another spectacular sunrise, thanked God for such blessings as this little house on wheels and a wonderful night’s sleep, then the WSJ emailed me this news: “Dow Chemical is planning to cut 5,000 full-time jobs, or about 11% of its global staff, as well as about 6,000 contractor positions. The company also will close 20 facilities and temporarily idle 180 plants.” But we rest in the knowledge of the reality that our Gracious God is still in charge, He is calling out His elect and executing His plan…and heaven awaits. And it will be even better than this island in a river of lava at dawn. Readers Digest published a book called The 120 Most Scenic Drives in America. It was graciously given to us by our fellow staff members when we retired from Ridge Haven last January, and we intend to sign off on as many drives as possible. Monday we toured drive #53, a round-trip thru the Capitan and Sacramento mountains via Capitan, Ruidoso, Cloudcroft, Alamogordo and back to Valley of the Fires, and I wrote the the date in the margin. The weather was less than ideal. As we drove the truck (sans RV) into a cloud about ¾ of the way up Sierra Blanca Mountain (12,003’) north of Ruidoso, NM, enroute to Ski Apache, it began to snow and we chickened out and made a U-turn. The road was narrow and “serpentine” with no guard rails. It was a beautiful drive none-the-less.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…. (Romans 1:18-22)
Wednesday was a “hole up” day on our island in the lava river—cold, windy/gusty and spitting snow. My organization obsessed bride used it as an opportunity to reorganize our rocking and rolling (in the wind) little house on wheels. Eight days on the road have generated all kinds of ideas for where to put essentials to get at them easily. The marvel has been, though, how precious little one really does need to live this way. We had a full walk in-closet in a stick built house. Now we each have about 4 cubic feet each for clothes, and only a fraction of those clothes have been been pulled out of those cubby holes and worn. My wardrobe expense these days is about 1-3% of my Wall Street/LaSalle Street days, thanks to Wal-Mart blue jeans at a dozen bucks apiece…and they last a whole lot longer than a suit.
The campground, nestled at the base
of the Sacramento escarpment (the moonrise picture at the top of the
page was snapped from our We’re loving this place so much we are going to hang around awhile. Online we've found a PCA church in Alamogordo and we will worship there tomorrow morning.
Position Report After 9 months and 19 days of mercy ministry, the Isaiah 6:3 Tour resumed on schedule Dec. 1, only because God was gracious and the Thanksgiving weekend snow in Colorado Springs was blessedly lighter than just a few miles north. Raton Pass was a bit dicey with wet salted roads that made our windshield opaque every time a semi passed us. So when we poked our nose thru the pass and got our first glimpse of the vast magnificent expanse of New Mexico below us, under a cloudless blue sky and relatively balmy temps, it was mighty close to heaven. I have a nifty little add-on gizmo (ScanGauge II) on my F-150 that gives a massive amount of digital data on engine performance, and freewheeling down the south side of Raton Pass I was recording fuel consumption of 30-50 miles per gallon versus mid-single digits lugging 6 tons of toys up the north face. Gravity is still cheaper than gasoline, even at today’s greatly diminished prices, which, in the providence of God, could not have occurred at a better time for us. The thought made the smile even wider. Yet another wonderful observation: When you have no timetable and no deadlines and are easing down the road at 55 mph in a big comfy truck, having every vehicle on the road passing you no longer stirs an ounce of competitive spirit. The need for speed is gone! Hallelujah!
Our second stop ended up being a
three night stay a “town” that somehow earned a name—Bernardo—and
small black dot on the map, but had only a
But the highlight of Week One of the
Isaiah 6:3 Tour has been Bernardo Waterfowl Management Area. The
pics
Note
in the pic at the right the tails of a hundred snow geese getting
airborne. They were breakfasting in Bernardo’s alfalfa field as I
slowly walked up on them with the camera ready. As I got within 50
yards of them they began to waddle away at the same pace I was
approaching. I accelerated my pace and at thirty yards I reached
their prudence parameter. They We can’t wait to see what He’s going to show us tomorrow! November 27, 2008 ON THE ROAD AGAIN
I have a strong feeling
that the first picture on the left, of Pikes Peak soaring
majestically above the Garden of the Gods, will still be in the top
ten scenes when our travelling
Our first outing of the
summer of '08--Memorial Day Weekend--was at
Rampart Reservoir, the Meadow Ridge
Campground. Still chilly and lots of snow on
Mueller State Park, 40 minutes from
Colorado Springs on the back side of Pike’s Peak, has one of the
nicest campgrounds in the state, of those we’ve seen so far.
We
Our farthest from
home outing was to San Isabel CG, 2 hours south of Colorado Springs
near Colorado City. It was a beautiful place
We tried two “dispersed” campsites this
summer, which are just open spaces anywhere in a National Forest
that is level and clear enough to park your Karen's TLC and good cooking have Mom healthier than she's been in years and capable of living on her own again--miraculous!--so Monday, Dec. 1, we get on the road again. No timetables, no fixed destinations, just southbound till it gets warm, stopping at whatever looks interesting, moving on when we've seen all there is to see. We have a long list of God's magnificent creation on our "to see" list, and that doesn't count targets of opportunity in between. God is so gracious. Rejoice, He reigns.
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