The Peripatetic Preacher
Several weeks ago I said that my wife, Diana, and I were on our way to our New Mexico cabin high in the mountains of the Pecos wilderness in order to observe one of nature’s grandest displays—the fall leaf change. We chose a glorious year! When we arrived, there was only a hint of yellow above the 11,000 foot marker, just below the peak of Santa Fe Baldy. During the succeeding three weeks of our stay, the yellow drained down the mountain, sometimes in small patches, sometimes in large bursts of gold, finally reaching our grove of aspens outside the windows of our mountain lodge. What I had hoped to see for decades, I finally saw, and it was even better than I dared hope. I know something of the scientific claims for this annual event, and I know that those claims are still disputed despite years of careful research and study. But for me it was without doubt the handiwork of God, not that I think God brings it on each year, but that I believe that in the New Mexico fall I see God as particularly golden.
But all was not sweetness and yellow at the end of our stay. My computer weather report warned that a very early snow storm was on its way, and that above 7500 feet, we could expect a thick blanket of white along with below freezing temperatures, making driving a lose-lose situation. Since our house stands at about 8800 feet, we, in our worrying old age, decided not to risk waiting, so we headed down the mountain two days early, and spent two nights in Albuquerque, some 4000 feet lower in elevation. I will not ever know whether this was the correct decision, since there is no weather station in Pecos Canyon Estates, where our place is. Did the snow come down in buckets? Did the roads freeze slick with ice? Or was the whole event merely a close call? In any case, we had a very nice time in Albuquerque, spending the last night in a fabulous place called Los Poblanos, a lavender farm and small resort, complete with peacocks and alpaca! And though it is rather close to a slightly busy road, it was magnificently quiet, offering lovely food in their restaurant, all locally sourced, either from their own farm or from nearby establishments.
We then headed back west to our LA home, imagining that any bad weather would stay well north of I-40, since it was only mid-October after all. Surprise, surprise! We spent the last night on the road in Flagstaff, AZ, a great town about mid-state, and had a good night’s rest in preparation for our 450 mile trek home. We woke up in the morning to some 4 inches of snow! Our car was quite literally buried in the stuff! I took a hotel towel and swept the white stuff off most of the car’s surfaces. Fortunately, the snow was quite dry and powdery, lovely for the skiers among you I am told, though I am not one, and very good for driving since it does not pack nor easily freeze. The temperature stayed well above freezing, and about 10 miles west of Flagstaff there were few signs of any snow at all, and 20 miles west there were no signs at all! The “storm” was very localized—the famous Flagstaff Snow Bowl getting a very nice 15+ inches—so we drove on now oblivious of any poor weather. Even our drive their the notorious Needles, CA, an inferno of 115+ degrees for four months of the year, was a balmy 80 or so, making it just another small town on the interstate. We arrived in LA late in the afternoon just in time for some of that lovely and justly famous traffic, though after living here some 17 months, I admit that I am hardly fazed by that sea of tail lights at all—well, hardly at all!
I imagine by now, if you have gotten this far, you are wondering just why I am sharing the minute details of the most recent of our road trips. And, I must warn you that next month we are scheduled for another such trip, all the way back to our former town, Dallas, TX. You may be less than thrilled to anticipate still another blow-by-blow account of a lengthy trip on the roads of America. But as usual, mundane things like road trips set the mind to active thought, or at least stir the brain cells to fire a bit in response to what the eyes and the spirit have witnessed along the way.
Here are a few of my thoughts. We drove this time about 2200 miles, by no means the longest of our journeys, since the one next moth will be closer to 4000 miles. I was reminded that not 100 years ago, within the lifetime of my parents, such a trip would have been nearly unthinkable, or only reserved for those with both fabulous wealth and oodles of time. In the time of the Bible, some 2500 years ago, well more than 97% of all people then living would have been born, lived, and died, within 5 miles of the same spot. The so-called “kingdom of Saul” was barely 30 miles east to west and 20 miles north to south! Many in my city commute to their jobs further than that each day. I met a man on a plane some four decades ago who lived just outside of Dallas and worked on the north slope of Alaska, two weeks on and two weeks off. His job was easily 8000 miles from his home! In our time, we take all this in our stride and may marvel at that man’s commute, but know well that modern transportation makes it possible.
However, the down side of that freedom of movement is the cost it demands of our earth. Though I drive a hybrid car, and get between 45-50 miles to the gallon of gas, I still had to have that refined petroleum product to make my trip possible. My car emits very little CO2, but it does emit some which adds to the immense problem of global warming, which despite some continuing dunderheads in Washington, D.C., including the current occupant of the White House, is an all-too-real fact. The planet is heating up, and we are the primary cause of that heating with our continued reliance on fossil fuels. When we start our gasoline-powered cars, when we enter a gasoline-powered plane, when we take a lovely cruise in a huge pleasure boat, powered again by fossil fuel, we add inexorably to our problem. By driving our now third hybrid car, we have reduced our carbon footprint, but we have by no means reduced it to zero.
As we returned to LA during the evening rush hour, and saw a near endless sea of red tail lights on the 210, the 605, the 60, and finally the 10, I could not help but think of the vast CO2 emissions, wafting their way into the stratosphere, adding to the blanket that bids to suffocate our earth in rising heat. Every day that passes, many of those same cars will be on those same roads, emitting the same gases. It is enough to drive one—if you will pardon the metaphor—to despair!
But not a Christian! One cannot be a Christian and a pessimist; those two words are by nature oxymoronic. We Christians do not believe that God will solve it all for us, will miraculously create more oil for us to extract, or suddenly produce a kind of magic pill or elixir that will sweep the carbon out of the air, and reverse the terrible road we all are on. No! Nor will the climate reverse itself, as our ignorant and complacent and ridiculous president said this week on national television! Real Christians disregard such utter inanity, and get to work, reducing their own carbon footprint by what they drive and what they eat and how they live. The UN governmental agency on the climate announced last week that the world had only until 2030, just 12 years from now, to make such changes as to begin to reduce the atmosphere’s carbon load back to such percentages that the oceans will not rise and die, the poor of the earth will not be forced to migrate to higher ground, that storms will not grow larger and more destructive. I cannot know whether this agency has its terrible timeline exactly right, but given what they know, it cannot be too far wrong.
Not only do Christians work on their individual lives, they also work to elect those who are committed to climate action and work to defeat those who have their heads in the sand and refuse to see what is happening all around them.
All this and more I thought about as I drove back from the glorious yellows of New Mexico to the sea of red lights in LA. I want my grandchildren to see what I just saw in New Mexico and to revel in its beauty. I want them to experience the wonders of the earth as I have been privileged to witness them in my 72 years on the planet. Please vote with our dear planet in your heart when you step alone into that booth or when you mail in your ballot. Your mother earth will thank you, and will spread her glorious wonders before you and those you love for many years to come.
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