{"id":111014,"date":"2025-07-06T23:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T05:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=111014"},"modified":"2025-07-06T23:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T05:59:55","slug":"on-paving-paradise-with-gold-or-even-with-crystal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/07\/on-paving-paradise-with-gold-or-even-with-crystal.html","title":{"rendered":"On paving paradise with gold, or even with crystal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>
Reynolds Mountain, at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, Montana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a long time, I found one of the prophecies of Isaiah quite distressing:<\/p>\n

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. \u00a0(Isaiah 40:4)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even G. F. Handel\u2019s magnificent musical setting of the prophecy in his Messiah<\/em><\/a> wasn\u2019t enough to win me over or cheer me up.<\/p>\n

With apologies to those who live there, I haven\u2019t been able to muster much enthusiasm for a messianic future in which the landscape of the entire planet is transformed into that of Kansas and Nebraska. \u00a0 I\u2019m passionately attracted to the Alps and the Canadian Rockies, and to natural settings like them. \u00a0I love oceans and beaches but, for me at least, it\u2019s alpine mountains and meadows that speak most eloquently of the grandeur of God, that arouse in me what C. S. Lewis famously described as a sense of unquenchable yearning, of \u201cpure northernness,\u201d for which he borrowed the evocative German term Sehnsucht<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

For that matter, though, I\u2019m also inspired by such places as the Grand Canyon. \u00a0I have no desire to see it flattened out and paved over, not even with streets of gold. \u00a0(\u201cThey paved paradise and put up a parking lot.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
In Glacier National Park \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We drove through Glacier National Park today, up and over Logan Pass via Going-to-the-Sun Road<\/a>.\u00a0 As everyone who has ever done that road is well aware, the scenery is grand and breathtaking.\u00a0 Even more than that of North Dakota. \u00a0So I began to think, yet again, of valleys being exalted, of mountains and hills being brought low, of crookedness being made straight and rough places plain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Happily, I realized quite some time ago that Isaiah\u2019s prophecy doesn\u2019t mean what I had long taken it to mean.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about literally flattening out the topography of the planet. \u00a0On one level, it\u2019s obviously about the proud and arrogant being humbled and the humble being exalted. \u00a0It\u2019s also about injustices being made right. \u00a0In the words of Mary\u2019s Magnificat,<\/p>\n

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. \u00a0<\/span>He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. (Luke 1:51-52 KJV)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The passage has to be understood against the background of ancient Near Eastern culture and ancient Near Eastern practice. \u00a0So here, to provide more complete context, I give not only Isaiah 40:4 but the verses immediately preceding it and immediately following it:<\/p>\n

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord<\/span>, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:<\/span><\/p>\n

And the glory of the Lord<\/span> shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord<\/span> hath spoken it. \u00a0(Isaiah 40:3-5 KJV)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here is the same passage as it is rendered in the more contemporary Common English Bible (CEB), which I choose (somewhat at random) for the sake of freshness and perhaps slightly greater clarity:<\/p>\n

A voice is crying out:<\/span>
\n\u201cClear the Lord<\/span>\u2019s way in the desert!<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!<\/span><\/span>
\nEvery valley will be raised up,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>and every mountain and hill will be flattened.<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Uneven ground will become level,<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>and rough terrain a valley plain.<\/span><\/span>
\nThe Lord<\/span>\u2019s glory will appear,<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>and all humanity will see it together;<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>the Lord<\/span>\u2019s mouth has commanded it.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A royal herald has been sent ahead to announce the approach of a great king or emperor. \u00a0That great lord is coming to visit a portion of his domains, and preparations need to be made. \u00a0Things need to be spruced up and put in order.<\/p>\n

According to John 1:23, John the Baptist described himself as such a herald:<\/p>\n

He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the idea surely applies to anybody<\/em> who is called to make preparations in whatever way for the Lord\u2019s advent, whether for the first time or for the second. \u00a0It uses the specific imagery of creating a royal highway for the great king or emperor and for the formal procession of grandees and commanders and officials and attendants who will accompany him. \u00a0Rough portions of the road must be smoothed out. \u00a0In some cases, ideally, bridges must be erected across rivers and chasms, passes must be carved in mountainous terrain.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t, though, about making all of Planet Earth look like the Great Plains of North America.<\/p>\n

\"Alberta<\/a>
The Cardston Alberta Temple was designed by Harold W. Burton and Hyrum Pope, and was dedicated by President Heber J. Grant in 1923. \u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We drove around the Cardston Alberta Temple as we traveled northwards early this evening.\u00a0 It\u2019s always been a favorite of mine, clearly influenced in its design<\/a> and even, I suspect, in its interior furnishings by Frank Lloyd Wright and his \u201cprairie school\u201d of architecture. \u00a0True confession: Frank Lloyd Wright almost made me try to be an architect, even before I had read Ayn Rand\u2019s novel The Fountainhead<\/em>, which was plainly inspired by Wright\u2019s life and career.\u00a0 Probably the principal dissuading factor was my utter lack of even the slightest trace of any visual artistic talent whatsoever \u2013 although I\u2019ve since recognized that many others afflicted with the same deficiency have gone on to successful and productive lives in the field.<\/p>\n

\"Wright's<\/a>
The Unity Temple, in Oak Park, Illinois, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed around 1908. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image) \u00a0I much prefer Cardston\u2019s temple, but the influence of this building upon it seems to me undeniable.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After my marriage, yet another reason emerged to justify my affection for the temple in Cardston:\u00a0 My wife\u2019s maternal grandfather, whom I came to know reasonably well during our first years of wedded life, was a master woodworker who had emigrated from Germany. \u00a0One of his earliest jobs was working on the interior of the Cardston Alberta Temple, which is famous for the quality of its interior woodwork.<\/p>\n

\"Calgary,<\/a>
A view of Calgary, Alberta, Canada \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s much to like about Calgary and about southern Alberta, and I can easily imagine that more than a few Americans \u2013 those, anyway, who don\u2019t settle instead in Denmark, Panama, or Greenland when the invasions there have been concluded \u2014 will choose to move here after the Anschluss<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Posted from Calgary, Alberta, Canada<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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