Responding to Life

My friends and I were spending a four day weekend in that collection of cliffs and steep narrow paths that makes the interior of the Grand Canyon such an unearthly place.  Each of us were living in different cities at the time; and now that we were there together, we found limitless adventures awaiting us.

“Listen,” my friend Steve said, on arriving at the bottom of the canyon after 7 miles of hiking, “let’s continue up the north side of the canyon.  There is a waterfall just a few miles up that we can camp at.  I think it will be awesome!”

Two hours later,with a few moments of daylight left, being completely exhausted, and having hiked only two miles up the north side, it began to rain.  We were shut in by sheer precipices in 32 degree temperatures without a tent.  I cannot explain to what we did next to survive through the night.  Just know that Steve received his due ridicule for getting us into the predicament.

The next morning we sat with our legs over the side of the cliff we slept on, drinking coffee and talking about the night we endured.  I remember yelling, at the top of my voice, and hearing the words come back to us without a flaw.  You cannot hike the grand canyon without sounding an echo.  This brings me to the point I want to make.  The whole wide world is a canyon of echoes.

Of all there is to marvel at in the Grand Canyon, the sights I remember the most are that of animals.  What was it about the fox that only a few of us saw, but the rest of us sought out in earnest if only to get a glimpse of?  What was it about the large crow that seemed to follow us on our journey?  What was it about the deer that prompted me to get as close to it as I could?  Why is it that today, with two years between me and the Grand Canyon, the fox and the crow and the deer stand out more vividly than the snow capped ridges?  There were a hundred things bigger and more noteworthy that the fox, the bird, and the deer.  Why have I remembered the animals?

It is all because of the echoes.  Life is a very relational affair; it longs for a response.  Life loves to meet life and be greeted by it.  To me, an environment is never complete unless somewhere within it is a living, breathing creature.  You may never understand this until you have found yourself in a lifeless place.  You see, we often fail to see the importance of a thing until we are temporarily deprived of it.  I came to realize that the response of life to life is such an essential affair of human existence when I visited the caves of West Virginia and the Redwood forests of northern California.  The eerie sense of being the only living creature on the surface you are exploring almost freezes your blood.  It is a world that is desolate, exhausted, silent, destitute, and cold!  It is a world in which nothing scurries or sings or flies.  It is the absence of any kind of response that begins to plague your psyche.

When you are staring at a dead animal, whether in the field or in the supermarket, do you not find yourself wondering what that creature must have been like when it was alive?  Does not a small part of you wish it could respond to your presence?  When we encounter the utter irresponsiveness of death, we get a glimpse, from a different perspective, of the awesome responsiveness of life. 

The world we live in is a world full of echoes, full of responses.  I am surrounded in all directions by life in many forms.  It may be terrifying or inviting, beautiful or ugly, it does not matter.  Wherever there is life, it will react to the life that is within myself and the life what is within myself will respond to it.  This meeting and greeting is exhiliterating, even if it is just encountering a small rabbit and being fearful of scaring it away.   That is why I have not forgotten the fox, the crow, and the deer.  I assure you, there are more echoes around us than we know.  Even if we didn’t see the fox in the canyon, we knew it saw us just fine, and it gave us an impression of companionship.  The canyon was never desolate.

I have written far more than I had set out to do and it is time to bring this all together and reveal the fruit of these thoughts.

As you go throughout your week, stop and look at the deer alongside the highway or the rabbit in your side yard.  Do you not feel your pulse beat just a hint faster as you stare at these timid creatures?  Life is responding to life!  And stop to have one more look at the dead salmon at the market, or the deer lying on the side of the road.  Do you not have some aching sense knowing that your presence and your voice awakens no responses, no echoes?  And most importantly, take some time each morning this week to look up.  There is, in fact, a higher Life that calls for a response from the life that is within us.

Jesus said, “I am the Life!”  “I have come that you might have life!”  “Whoever believes in Me shall not perish, but have everlasting life!”

As a believer in Jesus, the Bible says that our spiritual life is of Christ, the Life.  His Life seeks from us a continual, waking vibration of response.  And where there is no response, we may find something cold and lifeless.  If you find yourself spiritually cold and desolate, I encourage you to read Psalm 119 and cry out to God, “Revive me in your Word!  Grant to me a responsiveness to your gentle voice!”