Here’s another picture from the Kentucky hills for our Lenten contemplation. Click on it for a larger image.
This shot was captured by our friend Alan Creech. Alan took this in Lee County, KY, just barely on the other side of the Red River Gorge.
I sometimes imagine our forbears here in North America, for whom a scene like this was common, and probably fearful. Making one’s way west through the wilderness was daunting.
When I think of how the state where I live, Indiana, as well as all of the Midwest, was essentially covered by forests just a little over 200 years ago, I stand amazed to think of those who saw beyond the trees and hills and the other obstacles of the land and envisioned that one day there might be farms and communities in those places.
Of course, we’ve destroyed a fair bit of beauty and life in the process, and therein lies reason for deep sorrow and repentance.
Nevertheless, the power and persistence of the human spirit, often motivated by faith in a God of salvation and providence, is a matter of continual wonder in this world.
There is a way through the rocks, the trees, the hills, the fog, the dim light of morning.
As your days, so is your strength (Deut. 33:25).
The Internet Monk Archives 
Love it!
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Yeah, you’re right. Cities do have an appeal; I lived in Chicago for several years and grew to really enjoy the city. I’m probably a little jaded by the traffic I encounter on my commute!
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I agree with you, Robert. There are elements of cities that I like (most of the ones you mention).
That said, I’m with Scott. Love nature, especially the surf of an ocean. Or beside a river.
I hope Heaven is the best of both worlds…
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I love cities. The arts, restaurants (though I cannot afford them), downtown markets, the interesting architecture, people of every kind and from every place in the world. Cities are actually quite wonderful. And there are gardens in cities, too; on rooftops, in tiny little backyards, in parks. The kingdom of God is a city of the living.
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And speaking of Joni Mitchell, she says,
“We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden”
and Rick’s poems speak to this pull to return to the Garden, also. Most of us, myself included, seem to find peace in natural settings as long as I’m not struggling for survival like Bear Grylls. Why then, is the coming of the kingdom of God illustrated as a city descending from above–the new Jerusalem instead of a return to the Garden? I can not think of many things less peaceful than a modern urban cityscape.
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Topless mountains are obscene.
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a beloved reflection on our heritage:
” . . . the end of living and the beginning of survival . . . ”
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The Koch bros. need to come up with the anti-Trump super-PAC money somewhere. So what if they have to strip a few mountaintops to do it? The future of Murika is at stake! Pay no mind they created the monster they are now trying to destroy. But I digress…
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And another one…
Reclamation
Rick Rosenkranz (2008)
I was on a stark walk
through a paved parking lot
of a strip mall filled with stores
that sell videos and stuff for a dollar
when the ground erupted around me
and I trembled in fear.
Chunks of concrete blasted upward,
and out of the newly tilled earth
sprang evergreens and birches,
trees stretching their limbs
toward the sky like slumbering giants
awakened and angry.
Shrubs and grass burst up around me
like millions of soldiers in nature’s army
here to reclaim what we’d taken
when we planted our homes
and block upon block
of big box buildings.
Vengeful foxes and coyotes
charged out of the holes
of secret underground tunnels,
followed by deer and rabbits
whose once timid eyes
were filled with bitterness.
Wherever nature attacked
furious dirt swallowed up
all things man-made;
storefronts and sign posts
disappeared,
and the beauty of what once was
began to form around me,
a snapshot of a forest
untouched by human growth,
a forest that will thrive again
when mankind is gone.
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Concrete Garden
Rick Rosenkranz (2008)
An Arby’s has sprouted
where evergreens once grew,
and the nearby horizon, once filled
with majestic emerald splendor,
is now eerily bare.
Costco has taken root
atop the green grass home
to ladybugs and bunny rabbits,
creatures who must now search
for another leaf, another hole,
to raise their young, a place far away
from my child’s adoring eyes.
Strip malls spread like weeds
as a city shoots its concrete tendrils
across Earth’s beauty, choking out life,
and asphalt is painted over lush fields,
then lined with hundreds of yellow stripes,
to give order to the unnatural,
sleek BMWs and smoke-puffing
Volkswagen vans.
As mankind thrives, nature wilts.
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I love the picture — thank Alan for it, please.
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Joni Mitchel – Big Yellow Taxi…
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And they put up a parking lot
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Hi NUMO,
the strange thing is that so many Americans do actually have some native American blood if the families have been here for a number of generations . . . we seem to have not lost those native American genes entirely, and I’m glad for it . . . we are the better for it as a people . . . we are irrevocably genetically woven into our past
and yes, the picture is stunning!
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And a large number of people, too. Whom many of our forebearers did not regard as human.
Beautiful pic, though!
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What good are Seven Mountains if we can’t strip mine them a little?
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“Making one’s way west through the wilderness was daunting…. Nevertheless, the power and persistence of the human spirit, often motivated by faith in a God of salvation and providence, is a matter of continual wonder in this world.”
“Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you…. So Abram went.”
“Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
You are right, Chaplain Mike; it is matter of continual wonder. Thanks for this and the other Lenten reflections you have offered.
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Does the “F” stand for “Frost”? 🙂
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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” . . . we’ve destroyed a fair bit of beauty and life . . . ”
a fair bit, yes
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Middle of the night–
the darkness is a forest,
and sleep the way through.
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