Spring is leaping towards us, and Donna and I are doing more than daydreaming about our planned vacation next month.
Now we’re thinking about Zion National Park again.
I’m just a bit nervous about rocks called “the apostles” and the picture above of the “temple.” This is, after all, deep in Mormon country, and those folks have apparently matched all the symbols they could possibly relate to their religion to the marvelous formations this park. I don’t want to spend five days immersed seeing and hearing praise of Joseph Smith, who, according to all the history I’ve been able to find, was a rogue from his toenails up. He died in a gunfight in the jail where he was being held awaiting trial for various crimes. Read about it here.
Enough of that.
My buddy Donna from northern California and I are going to look at rock formations and try to figure out from our puny perspective how they were formed. I lose credibility with a lot of folks when I admit I’m a creationist, but I’m not in 100% agreement with everything creationists say any more than I believe the Mormons. We tend to see what we think we need to see.
I suspect that the rocks themselves have been around for a few million years, and even the Bible (Genesis 1) says that God divided the water that was already on earth, revealing the structure of earth’s surface. Our globe in those days was a lot like a few billion others whirling in space, mostly rock and frozen chemicals, totally devoid of all forms of life. Then came the Flood.
What an uproar that was! No wonder people can’t believe it happened. Rock formations from deep within the earth were stirred and tossed about. It’s a miracle that Noah and family weren’t hit by the raining down of heavy rocks tossed from beneath the surface of the earth into the sky. Of course I don’t know exactly what happened. Even believers in the Bible account don’t know that. We weren’t there.
But we can see evidence all around the globe, and Zion Canyon along with the other great canyons of the southwest display that evidence in a beautiful setting.
That’s what I want to see. Just a month from now we’ll be on our way. Hip hip hooray!
JG
