Wind, water and time
This essay was first published on George Rede’s blog.
I was 12 the last time I visited the Grand Canyon, and I was told it was created by the hand of a
god.
This made sense. When I looked out over the massive expanse, I imagined a giant hand coming
down from the sky and scratching the canyons out of the deep earth. I felt big with knowledge
but insignificant in creation.
I looked at much of the world through this creator lens and ignored the interpretive signs that
explained the ways of wind and water and millions of years.
Especially the millions of years because I was taught the earth was only 6,000 years old.
I viewed people through that same lens too. Every single one of them created by a white,
gendered god and in his own image.
Religion shaped me like the wind, the rain and the Colorado River shaped layers of igneous,
metamorphic, and sedimentary rock. And, like a canyon, it’s hard to shake off the influence of
what’s been cutting into you for the better part of your life. I had a wide faith but not a deep
one.
The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon’s story begins about 2 billion years ago, mine is getting close to 50.
But dogmatic erosion can happen a lot faster than natural forces like water, wind, ice and
gravity. It can happen slower too, and for some, it doesn’t happen at all.
When I first looked out over the vast expanse of multicolored rock layers under the Colorado
Plateau, it was not difficult to see a designer and creator behind the scenes having carved this
for its amusement or our enjoyment.
It made understanding the complexity of such a mind-blowing place somehow easier to deal
with. It super-simplified something that desperately needed context and, for the time being,
quelled my curiosity.
I was 12, and the great enigma of my life at the time was girls. I could care less about erosion
and rock layers; the Grand Canyon of my curiosity was also multilayered and decidedly more
thrilling.
From the age of 12 to 28, I traveled around the world with a super-simplified mindset. I saw
many grand canyons, those carved in the earth and those carved into the human heart. Not the
physical heart that beats in our chest, but what several religions consider a spiritual heart
wherein lies our sense of being.
I’m not even sure how or when it really started, but like the Colorado Plateau, into which is cut
the Grand Canyon, I was uplifted - though by biological forces rather than tectonic forces.
In short, I grew up.
People living dangerously
Dogma, is seems, has no chance against diversity, curiosity and a varied experience.
Like most erosion, it starts small. You meet someone outside your community. Someone who
has seen things you haven’t, who thinks thoughts you don’t. They challenge you and your
beliefs, and you defend them, but it loosens some sediment.
The wind does what it will with sediment.
Your first child is a miracle, and when you look in those newborn eyes, you see a god back there
behind the curtain pulling the strings and levers.
But your third child is a biological act, also a miracle, because you only wanted three, and after
having two boys, your partner tells you this better be a girl or you’re trying again, so you gather
all the available science.
But you also pray.
We have a beautiful daughter today, and I’m leaning towards the science more than the prayer.
Visiting the Grand Canyon at 49, 37 years after my last visit.
I recently traveled back to the Grand Canyon for the first time since I was 12. The boys are all
grown up and on their own, so I brought my partner and our daughter with me, because I’ve
always felt the Grand Canyon is one of the things everyone should strive to see in a human
lifetime.
It was day 8 of a long road trip from Oregon to Texas for my sister’s wedding and then a swing
through the Southwestern states revisiting some old favorites and sharing some first-time
experiences.
Spring had sprung over the canyon, but it was chilly, and due to lack of planning, we hadn’t
eaten, leaving everyone grumpy. I hoped the experience would blow them out of the water and
out of their funk, but then Instagram didn’t exist when I was 12, and I should’ve lowered my
expectations for this digital audience.
I chased ravens over the canyon’s edge with my camera lens and thought about the 37 years in
between visits and how time, experience, curiosity, and exposure have played a role in eroding
the religious structures built in my youth. I gazed down the layers of Kaibab limestone and the
Concino sandstone, Hermit shale, Redwall limestone, Mauv limestone, Bright angel shale and
Tapeats sandstone all the way to the basement of time where the Colorado River is now more
constrained by much harder rocks.
Most people don’t throw it off like an old robe, they shed their religion slowly over time. And
some put it on slowly like a fine patina. There is no right way to do either.
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon as two very different people. When I looked out on it as a 49-year-
old man, I saw the scale of time displayed before me, and it made me feel tiny but not
insignificant. I saw the geology play out sped up to the speed of light for our benefit on
interpretive signs. And it made sense.
If I squinted hard enough, I could see the waters of the Colorado doing god’s own work. And
the invisible wind moving grains of sand off the cliff faces. The Grand Canyon will get much
wider before it ever gets deeper.
