[Salt Lake City’s reservoir; Easter Sunday, 2014]
A few summers ago, the teenaged son and daughter of an old friend—who now lives in Wyoming—stayed with us for a couple of days to take a look at colleges, these young people’s first trip East. At breakfast one morning the teenaged son stepped out onto our deck: “There’s nothing to see but houses!” he complained. “Back yards. How can you stand it?” Other Beyond-Route 128 residents have told us the same thing. “I just felt so boxed in,” the Washington-state father of my son-in-law complained of his college years at Dartmouth.
Gotta say, a major joy when visiting my step-son and his family in Salt Lake City is just looking up! To push my grandson on a SLC park swing and gaze at a snow-capped Wasatch mountain is always a thrill. Since I’m clearly quite content to live exactly where I live, in sardine-can Somerville, I must not require these heady, Rockies glances to sustain me. Or even, as Psalm 121 goes on to say, to be reminded of “whence cometh my help.” (Sometimes the King James version is just what’s needed, right? Or is it just me?) But these ever-present mountain views never get old.
No, as thrilling as these sightings are, my experience of Divine Assistance is inward. I know this is a construct, I know I’ve been using English, both modern and early 17th century, to explore The Unexplorable, “the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (John 1:9)
But it works for me.
Dear Patricia,
Hello, there, Patricia! What a marvelous blog post article which you have written! I, too, gain so much strength and love from our Good Creator God’s Nature all before us. I love the outdoors and nature so, so very much! Like you, I can hear our Good God Creator Holy Spirit’s stirring in my heart in a very inward manner. This is a very integral part of my spirituality. Our help for always does indeed come from God from whence our help comes! No matter how difficult life gets with all of its problems and the evil which sometimes can happen in the world, our Great and Good God is always there to help us to keep the faith and to cope and get through whatever in which we have to deal. Always I try to the very best of my ability to love our God and God’s people-my people in God are so, so very important to me no matter how imperfect they can be and despite the honest mistakes which they make.
Very Sincerely Always,
Sherry Gordon