Even after being up all night on a red-eye a week ago, when every other single soul on the plane was asleep, including probably the captain and co-captain, I have to admit: it was stunning to fly west with the night and see the Sierra Nevadas from 35,000 feet just at sunset.
It was more than thrilling to have seen the Arizona desert a few days before.
They call it the Sonoran desert. Its saguaro cactuses, some of whom seem to be doing the Walk-Like-an-Egyptian dance, live for 200 years.
None of us will reach 200. We can’t hope to.
The most we can hope for is the occasional glimpse like this, of a landmass that looks made up of the mounded backs, the living vertebrae of large unknowable creatures.
But WHAT creatures, you think, on whom so many life-forms ride?’ And who is the even larger Creature upon Whose back WE ride?
Paul said it: We see through a glass now, only darkly and know only in part, but one day face to face.
May it be so! May it one day prove to be so.
