Last week-end we visited Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
As we walked the rim trail we
paused to look out at the amazing vista of colors and shades of light on
ancient rock formations, the same scene that has entranced millions of visitors for over a
century and probably some Native Americans who were here before us.
What struck me were the almost incomprehensible numbers of
years it took for erosion to form this magnificent natural wonder.... counted
in the billions of years. We heard that
this geological change is still going on ... the canyon grows deeper by about
the width of a sheet of paper each year..
We stopped to gaze out in wonder just as my Great Aunt Ella
Henning did 110 years ago... right at the grand Tovar Hotel, which was under
construction when she visited in 1903! We marveled at the same sight from the
same spot... though over a century of time separated us.
This is what Aunt Ella wrote in her journal. She was traveling by train and on this
portion of the trip she had come from Albuquerque overnight into Arizona. The train route into the Grand Canyon had just been in place for two years - what she probably thought of as a very modern technological development. It is interesting that we happened to stay at
an old 1930s Route 66 motel in Williams, a small town she passed through ....
July 8, 1903:
A little after noon we changed cars at Williams for the
Grand Canyon, passing over a distance of about sixty-three miles. The scenery was much similar to that we saw
before reaching Williams, but not a living thing nor a single house was in
sight, except in one place, I saw a team before a wagon. This was near a mining station.
We arrived
at the canyon around four o'clock. Such
a grand sight, I never saw. I had never
for one minute imagined it to be what it really was. The great variety of colors in the huge stone
walls with the rays of the setting sun falling on them produced a grand
effect. The canyon is thirteen miles
across and one mile deep. This is where
conception of size cannot be formed by mearly looking at it. I found that out, when after supper we
started to descend the trail. We walked
down and down the trail, and each time we looked up, the rising cliff above
seemed no higher than before. O my! It
was hard work to get to the top. The
moon was shining full upon the canyon walls long before we reached the
top. It was a beautiful scene, and the
cool mountain breeze was delightful.
We left about nine o'clock the next day, July 9, and returned to
Williams where we again changed cars, leaving there about two o'clock.
As I thought about it, a life-time is such a speck of
time in the grand scheme of the ongoing creation of the earth. I can easily feel insignificant and small in
the face of such grandeur, but at the same time I am filled with awe and
appreciation for life. Ella's words
express the same feelings and wonder as we felt.... viewing the sunset and sky above, the vast
cavern before us and the forests surrounding us... Psalm 8 comes to mind:
When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers; the moon and
the stars that you have established: What are human beings that you are mindful of them? Mortals that you care for them?
It is true that the grand canyon was formed by
the forces of nature over millions of years, but the capacity to appreciate and
reflect on its grandness is a here and now God-given human capacity.... including our natural inclination to wonder about change and how we fit in this world.
We passed through the park almost as quickly
as Ella did, but we, just as she, paused long enough to marvel at it all... I
voiced a prayer of thanks for those who have preserved such places for
succeeding generations ..
What changes prompt you to stop and ponder?
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| Here I am, sitting near the same spot where my aunt Ella viewed the canyon in 1903. Also the below postcard view. Little of it has changed. |
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| A postcard several years after Ella's visit & most likely several years before the Grand Canyon became a National Park in 1919. |
