Murray Canyon

For nearly 20 years, Judy and I have traveled to the Coachella Valley, a desert terrain that lies east of Los Angeles and includes a nest of cities including Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Indio. The valley sits on the San Andreas fault, through whose cracks the subterranean waters gurgle up in unexpected places and sustain palm oases. In our hikes, we marvel at the stark contrast between the frugality of the desert and the abundance of the oases. We ponder the power of water, a power we take for granted in our native Michigan, the so-called water wonderland. The truth of the life of Jesus seems more real to us as we rest and refresh ourselves by springs of living water. 

The Coachella Valley is bounded on the west by the San Jacinto and the Santa Rosa Mountains. This edge between the valley and the mountains is the home of the Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Indians. Their ancestors settled in the canyons where water from snow-melt and underground springs flowed abundantly year-round. The Agua Caliente people have thrived in their own version of Eden for centuries, drawing water from an eternal stream and harvesting melons, squash, beans, and corn. They live here still and generously open their homeland to visitors. We thankfully hike these canyons, and one of them is our favorite: Murray Canyon. 

In February, Judy and I were again hiking Murray Canyon. Walking past desert cacti, yellow-flowering brittlebush, and red-flowering chuparosa, we reached a place where the canyon stream petered out and disappeared in the gravel and sand of the desert floor. Hiking further upstream, we passed clusters of palm trees and finally arrived at a waterfall and pool where the trail ended. We have hiked this trail repeatedly, but that day I noticed for the first time two small signs near the pool: “End of Trail,” and “Murray Canyon 2 miles.”  How could I be at the end of the trail if I still had two miles to go? I paid attention on my way back down the trail and saw a series of signs: “Murray Canyon 1 ½ miles,” “Murray Canyon 1 mile,” “Murray Canyon ½ mile.”      

I couldn’t make sense of the signage. The further I walked up the trail, the further I was from the end. Then I realized that I was hiking on the land of indigenous people who, unlike Westerners, viewed their world as expanding from a single source and marked space and time from their point of origin. The Agua Caliente people were telling me how far I had come from where I had begun. That perspective gave me pause. It is wise counsel, not only on the Murray Canyon trail, but on the trail of life. Always be mindful of the place where you began. 

Indigenous Understanding of Space and Time

For indigenous people, space was not an endless matrix which one could survey, fence in, and claim as one’s own, and time was not an endless mass of moments which one possessed for a few short years. Space-time was not a vast and eternal entity but a contingent one. It expanded from a single source and depended on it, like ripples in a pond. Anticipating the modern scientific cosmology, indigenous people imaged space-time expanding from a singularity. They told stories of a god of the sky who took undifferentiated mud, formed the earth as home for all creatures, seeded it with all manner of plants for food, and blessed the first people, the ancestors, with the original teachings, the great words. These words were the foundation of what Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass called the “moral covenant of reciprocity.” They taught humans how the various systems of the mud-earth worked together to produce abundant life and how to preserve this abundance by living in harmony with it. 

Deeply conscious of earth’s point of origin and the power of the original teachings, indigenous people moved forward in life by looking backward. They developed practices and rituals that directed attention back to their elders, their ancestors, and to their god/s. They honored their ancestors for passing on the great words and preserving harmony through the generations. 

This indigenous understanding of space/time fascinates me–to the extent that as a Westerner I can understand and appropriate it–because it is very similar to the understanding of the people in our scriptures. This similarity should be a surprise to no one. The people of ancient Israel and early Christianity had more in common with indigenous people past and present than with Westerners today.

The people of our scriptures marked time from a point of origin. They believed God had spoken the great words in the beginning and had reiterated these words as life on earth expanded. The great words congealed into the material systems of the world (Genesis 1), and they became flesh in the person of Jesus (John 1). Inspired by this view of the world, they affirmed that creation was full of the steadfast love of God, full of the glory of God. The people of our scriptures honored their ancestors for embodying these beliefs and passing them on through the generations.   

Like indigenous people, the people of ancient Israel and early Christianity moved forward by looking backward, and this orientation permeates their scriptures. Because this backward orientation has been overlooked and even minimized by Westernized Christians, I want to briefly offer two examples of it, one in a vision from the prophet Isaiah, and the other in the genealogies found throughout the Bible. These examples show not only how important looking backward was to the people of those days, but also how important looking backward could be to us as we respond to the breakdown of our religious, social/political, and environmental order.   

Looking Backward in Space: Isaiah 2:1-4

The people of Israel viewed the house of God as the center of the world and the place from which God spoke world-shaping words. This house stood in heaven, a bright realm of inexhaustible energy and all things eternal. A replica of this house stood on earth, a shadowed realm of exhaustible energy and all things ephemeral. The people of Israel experienced the house in heaven and the house on earth becoming one briefly when they gathered for worship at the tabernacle and later the temple, and in this short-lived union they were rejuvenated by the glorious presence of God. Worship was a brief return to Eden (the temple was detailed to recall Eden) and the people longed for a time when both houses would be one forever. 

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
    and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
   Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
 He shall judge between the nations
    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    neither shall they learn war any more.
 

Isaiah had a vision of this forever-oneness. He saw the house of God on earth rising and becoming one with the house of God in heaven, blazing like a fiery pillar at the center of the world. The prophet then saw all peoples and nations streaming to the house of God.

These pilgrims came to participate in a worship service with a classic three-fold movement: approach to God, word of God, response to God. They approach the temple on Mt. Zion, the Lord judges and decides their disputes, and, in response, they beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.   

The vision of Isaiah shows us that the Lord created the world as a place of worship. The structure of creation itself invites a specific type of movement, and this movement of the people—what we in a desacralized world call history—is liturgical: approach to God, word of God, and response to God. 

For all of human history, worship has been imperfect. Humanity has ignored the word of the Lord, the origin instructions given to our ancestors. We have used every advance in knowledge to devise weapons. In ancient times, people learned how to chip stones and to forge metals like copper and iron. In modern times, people have learned how to access the energy locked in atoms. In all cases, we use our newfound knowledge to devise weapons. We have militarized human endeavor and brought inexpressible suffering to the world. 

In Isaiah’s vision, worship has been perfected. All roads will lead to the Lord of Zion, and all human endeavor will focus on the will of God. Peoples and nations will travel these roads and hear again the word, this time not from the mouth of their ancestors but from the very mouth of God. They will respond by retooling their weapons of destruction into instruments of production. They will return to the work that they were assigned in the beginning. They will tend Eden, the garden of God, and the world will be born again.  

Looking Backward in Time: Genealogies

I have never heard a sermon on the Bible’s genealogies. I have only heard them read in worship once, and the poor liturgist mispronounced the names so badly that the congregation started to giggle. Most of us cannot imagine why the genealogies are included in the scriptures, much less what they might be able to teach us about faithful living. 

The genealogies focus on God as the giver of life and were an essential part of worship. In the act of the recitation of names, worshippers were returning to the sacred moment when God blessed creation and said: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.”

A blessing was not mere words; it involved a transfer of power, either by word or touch or both together. When God said, “Be fruitful and multiply,” God passed on life-giving power to humankind. Each conception and birth was a continuation of the original divine blessing. God was the creator, and by divine blessing human beings became procreators. 

For the people of scripture, the mighty acts of God were not limited to dividing waters or giving manna in the wilderness; they included opening the womb, whether it was the womb of an old woman like Sarah or the virgin womb of Mary. The genealogies were not just a list of names written on parchment, filed in dusty temple archives. They were a creed, an account of the mighty acts of God; they were a sacrament, the recitation of names ushering believers into the presence of God.   

The recitation of names was not an onerous task but a great joy. When the people of Israel recited a genealogy, they were celebrating that God had been with them through good and bad times. They saw each name as a step on a pilgrimage—not only over land to meet God at the temple in Jerusalem, but also over time to meet God at the moment of creation.

Looking Backward: The Reformed Tradition

I was born and bred in the Reformed tradition, Since I was a boy, I was encouraged to move forward by looking backward to my spiritual ancestors: the writers of the scriptures, Augustine, John Calvin, Caspar Olevianus, Zacharias Ursinus, Julian of Norwich, Abraham Kuyper, and of course, many others in the Reformed train.  

I was taught that the Holy Spirit enlivened readings of the scriptures and made them “living and active.” The generations of theologians were applying the scriptures to the issues of their day and offering fresh interpretations, helping the Reformed community to hear Jesus, the Word made flesh, and to embody the Spirit of Jesus: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. At their best, they wanted the church to be a place where people beat the sword of violence and greed into plowshares of serenity and generosity, a place where people engaged systemic evil in the created order and worked for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation.

Now I have grown old in the Reformed tradition and find fewer and fewer people looking back, fewer reading the scriptures, fewer drawing from the Reformed tradition, and many churches dropping the name “Reformed” from their signage. Believers today see the tradition more as a weight dragging them down than a life-line. They are, I am afraid, adrift in the sea of space-time without a life-line and grabbing for any piece of flotsam that floats their way. 

I am a bit stunned and confused by this collapse of the Reformed tradition. I am unsure what my role is in all this. I can only witness that when I am attentive and patient in my reading of the scriptures, I find a beauty and freshness that moves me and suggests to me that the Spirit is present in the world despite my fears of divine abandonment. My heart feels promptings, and I have an inkling of what I might say to both a tradition and a created order collapsing around me. Adrift in the sea of space-time, I am not grabbing the flotsam from the wrecked ship of Western culture, I am grabbing the life-line.