Emphasis Preaching Journal

Greg loved the Southwest United States, its deserts, mesas, and canyons, so rich with color and steeped in mystery. It was a particularly spiritual place for him. The rugged glory of its landscapes left him breathless no matter how often he came. He sat at the edge of a mesa, looking down on one of the larger cliff dwellings, abandoned by its inhabitants 800 to 1,000 years ago. As his gaze traced the lines of wind-worn sandstone, he marveled at the length of time the pueblo's walls had stood without benefit of caring hands to restore their mudplastered smoothness, monuments to the skill of their creators. Greg could almost hear the sounds that must have echoed down the reaches of this canyon when people lived here long ago: laughter, crying, sneezing, snoring, coughing, talking, shouting, whispering, singing -- surely there was singing in this ancient place, in praise of the Giver of Life and Beauty, songs of thanksgiving, songs of communion. "What had become of the singers?" Greg wondered. Archaeologists had never been able to determine a satisfactory answer, although soil depletion resulting in general crop failure was one possibility, forcing the people to abandon a land they had worn too thin to sustain them, leaving behind only these silent walls to testify to their ever having been. Greg felt certain there was a warning here for a global society that failed to prevent the clearcutting of rain forests and the depletion of the ozone layer. What songs, he wondered, would some day linger in the folds of time, echoing memories of humanity? From: B. Kathleen Fannin, In His Presence: Meditations for Communion, (Jefferson City, MO: CatTale Publications, 1994). -- Fannin