Time

Simply put, it is humbling to spend time in the Colorado Plateau. A geographic area that is found in the states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico (a state defined by the borders of the Plateau would make a lot more sense than the four corners we now have), it a geologic wonder. Created over hundreds of millions of years, it is comprised of layer upon layer of sedimentary rock. Thrust up by tectonic plate activity, these layers have been exposed over hundreds of thousands of years, chipped, carved, chasmed.

These sediments, pressed into rock, thrust up and cut away, now reveal the life and times of oceans, deserts, swamps, forests––then oceans, deserts, swamps, and forests again. When faced with a canyon wall, as in the Grand Canyon, or a hoodoo or an arch, it is a nearly overwhelming feeling to realize that the very place you are standing was once under a vast ocean, or in miles of desert, or was a swamp patrolled by the great Allosaurus.

In our hikes, we have come across 300 million year old sea sponges and shells, seen the tracks of dinosaurs, unbelievably frozen in time. This work of gathering and compressing, over millions of years is almost incomprehensible. For one, it puts the climate crisis we face into stark relief. Through the study of this terrain, it is clear that our earth’s balance can tip precipitously and disastrously. Oceans can indeed become deserts, fundamentally altering the life that exists there. Given what we already know of the mass extinctions that life on this earth has endured, it should shock us into change dramatically the ways we live that are accelerating these changes. Our actions in this next generation will likely bear fruit for centuries.

Another realization has emerged in our time here. It has to do with the dramatic changes that can only come through persistent action. One of the challenges of encountering the Grand Canyon is the vast scale that opens up before you. Miles and miles across, roughly a mile deep, it is a vastness that can’t really be comprehended, you can only somehow absorb it. With that nearly surreal scale is the remarkable manner it which it came to be. Unlike Yosemite Valley, that was formed by massive glaciers shearing the granite, the Grand Canyon is being made by persistent, everyday actions of wind, water and gravity. The water and wind has worn away the rock, frozen in its walls, fracturing it in dramatic fashion. What once was a level plateau has been very slowly and just as surely changed into a canyon that can be seen from space.

Given the scale of time, this is almost more understandable with the Grand Canyon, with the mighty Colorado River coursing through the valley. Given the runoff that feeds this river system, one can see how even boulders can be shunted downstream. But this phenomenal course of action is also the case in Zion Canyon, where the shallow and gentle Virgin River flows.

There is no way, when looking at the small Virgin River, that one would surmise that it could have carved the canyons hundreds to over a thousand feet deep. What I have realized, though, is that scale of time that we use is often quite short. Six months? A few years? A few decades? Rarely a lifetime. We humans seem to shrink our scales of perception to what we might live to see. In reality, though, it is the persistent, long-term efforts that change the course of time.

Several years ago I read an article about a Roman Catholic parish that was being shut down in the Bronx in New York. After decades of attrition, there were few parishioners in the pews and the parochial school did not draw the same number of children as it once had. After years of study, the Archdiocese decided to shut the parish down, and send those who remained to nearby congregations. For those who had been baptized, married, raised their children in this parish, this was heretical. They organized to fight this decision––it was to no avail. But it was the answer of the Archdiocesan spokesman that got my attention at the end of the story. He was asked by the reporter whether or not the Archdiocese would be selling the property, seeing as how they had just shut down the church and the school. “No,” the spokesman replied, “we think that we’ll need it in the next 300 years.”

This reflection on time has reminded me of the scale of time we should be using. Our efforts, the way we live, the witness we give to the world should not simply be on the scale of six months or three to five years or even fifty-five years. It is folly, even hubris, to think of only our own lifetimes. Our scale, understandably, is focused in such small increments. But the psalmist talks about one day for God being like a thousand years for us. What might change or shift if we were to understand that we were participating in a river that has been flowing for almost 2,000 years, that itself is fed by a stream thousands of years older?

And a river that we expect to flow for thousands more? Yes, our focus must be on what is immediately at hand, in our parish, in our neighborhood, In our city, in our diocese, This is important. Being able to see projects through for three months or for three year timelines is important.

But I have been humbled and inspired by the witness of persistence, of fluid water cutting through seemingly impenetrable rock. Drop by drop, minute by minute, millennia by millennia. It has me wondering what our persistent efforts, our continuing stance, the forces of our unrelenting love, will yield over decades, over centuries. For us as Episcopalians, Anglicans, Christians, we are fed by a Source that runs far deeper than we often allow for. As the Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel has written, “I am living in hope that we are coming to the realization that our traditions are not useless and dead, but rather mysterious and alluring to a new generation. It is not that our tradition is bad. The problem is that we don’t know it anymore.” The questions of our time, not only at All Souls, but for Christian communities around the world are these: What course are we setting ourselves to? How are we joining with the stream of billions? Are we ready to give our lives and our selves to the radical Good News of the reconciliation of Creator and created, that is right now as well as decades, centuries, millennia away?

Peace,

Phil+