by Dale Reeves
Story Pastor
October 1, 2, 2024
In the classic 1986 comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris begins the movie by saying,
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it!”
This past Tuesday morning my wife, my brother-in-law Greg, his wife Dee, and I were heading out of Zion National Park on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Road, on our way to our next destination, Bryce National Park, and we almost missed it—our first significant wildlife sighting on this trip. And I’m not counting squirrels, chipmunks, crows, horses, and cows, Just as we came through a tunnel, Dee turned around in her back seat and yelled, “You guys, oh my gosh, I just saw about ten sheep on those rocks!” I quickly turned the car around and headed back to where several other travelers were gathered with their cameras and cell phones. And, sure enough, there were exactly ten bighorn sheep and their lambs grazing, undisturbed by the onlookers taking pictures of them. We stood there taking pics for about ten minutes— and we almost missed it!
Then, after stopping for a mid-morning snack consisting of coffee and some amazing pie at the Thunderbird Restaurant in Carmel, Utah, we drove on to Bryce National Park. We spent the afternoon driving down from the highest part of the park, Rainbow Point (elevation 9,105 ft.) on the 18-mile scenic drive, making several vista stops along the way. If you’ve never been to Bryce National Park, the unique geological feature found there are called “hoodoos,” which are rock pinnacles shaped by weathering and erosion. Often topped by erosion-resistant caprock, each hoodoo is unique and consists of rock layers that erode at different rates. We witnessed God’s incredible handiwork in many whimsical shapes made of white limestone oxidized into vivid yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. King David exclaimed, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1, NIV).
After a great night’s sleep at some quaint cabins in Tropic, Utah, we left our cabins the next morning at 6:20 am. Our goal was to get to Sunrise Point at Bryce in plenty of time before the 7:26 am sunrise. We stood for a while in the dark, wearing our gloves and several layers of clothes, hoping we were in the right spot. Then my brother-in-law Greg noticed some horse droppings nearby, and we discovered we were, in fact, on the horse trail. It was nearing the time when God was going to command the sun to rise above the horizon, so we quickly gathered our things and headed to Sunrise Point where many folks were already gathered. As the sun rose above the iconic Bryce Amphitheater consisting of scads of hoodoos, we looked at each other as if to say, “It was definitely worth getting up early and facing the cold to see God show off his breathtaking brilliance this morning!”
“Dress the canyon walls with live sheep, a drape of flax across the valleys. Let them shout, and shout, and shout! Oh, oh, let them sing!”
—Psalm 65:13, MSG
PACK IT UP
After the spectacular sunrise, Greg, Dee, and I set out on the trail that leads from the rim down into the famous “Queen’s Garden.” We admired the variety of hoodoos, pigments, juniper trees, and Ponderosa pines, along the way until we reached a spot where we were supposed to turn and walk up just a bit to see a hoodoo that resembles Queen Victoria. But if you’re not looking in the right direction, you just might miss it. As we arrived, I said aloud in my best British accent, “God save the Queen,” to which a young woman from Michigan responded, “She’s dead!” We all chuckled, and talked about King Charles and the coming generations of the Royals. But, had we not taken the turn to see “Queen Victoria,” we would have missed this fun encounter with others.
We had been told by my wife (our driver who would pick us up at Sunset Point after our hike), “Make sure you see the sign that takes you to ‘Two Bridges.’” So, we took the little spur that heads uphill and leads you to the spot where there are two small bridges, one just a bit above the other. And, as we sat there catching our breath and admiring the natural bridges God had created, I had an interesting encounter with a young couple who live several hours from Paris, France. I reached way back into my three years of French that I took in middle school and high school and conversed with them a bit. They told us they had been to watch some basketball at the recent Olympics in Paris, and said, “We watched the team from America play!” Then, spontaneously I broke into their national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” with our new friends, right in front of Two Bridges. Isn’t it amazing how a little conversation and a song can “build a bridge,” instantly uniting people from two different cultures?! Then, with my arm around my new French acquaintance, I shouted, “Vive La France . . . USA!” As we departed to go our separate ways, I remembered the French motto from my studies years ago, and shouted, “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”—liberty, equality, fraternity! I think those three words are words desperately needed in our world today.
If Greg, Dee, and I had decided not to take the short spur up to the natural bridges because we were a little tired from our early morning trek, I would have missed out on this brief, but fun, global encounter. Can I ask you, what does God not want you to miss today? What divine disruptions or promptings from his Holy Spirit will he whisper to you today? Will you be as quiet and still as a hoodoo so that you will be able to hear his still, small voice—and then obey him?
PRAYER
Lord God, thank you for displaying your magnificence in the creation that we see all around us. We are grateful for the diversity in cultures you have created throughout our world. May we be people who are on the lookout to be tools of unity, not tools of destruction, in others’ lives. What a gift you have given us to enjoy, as we marvel at your majesty. Don’t let us be so busy with our own agendas, that we miss it! Teach us to be still and know that you are God. Amen.
