Yellowstone National Park (and a little bit of the tetons)

This week I got to chalk up two more national parks, Yellowstone and a little of the Tetons.  Both were amazing and I will be spending Saturday going deeper into the Teton's National Park, but Yellowstone was everything I expected and more. I can totally understand why so many come to that park every year, as I did my tour I had to laugh as it seemed to be a ton of national parks within the one.  

The buffalo were abundant quite amazing. I got to drive by a huge herd when I drove in and when I drove out as well as having to wait to get into my campsite because one had to check out the trash receptacles. But what amazing animals and probably smarter then people as signs are posted everywhere to keep your distance and I watch some folk go right up to them, crazy! I also go to see a herd of elk and other animals, but unfortunately no bears.

Before I did my doctorate I did a con-ed program with some clergy friends (Tim who I wrote about earlier was in that group) focused on Baptism as renewal. This would have been a great place to have visited for that project with the life emerging and dying and everything in a constant state of change. The Hot Springs were a reminder of destruction as you could see the land that they had claimed the burnt trees sticking out of the sulfur soaked ground but so were the waterfalls and rivers that carved the canyon. It made me think of a question I often get of whether this world is dying and in its last days or if it is still in creation. I am recognizing more that this is not a good question. While there are many traditions focused on the end of times, I am having a harder time to think in a binary way, in fact biblically, if one were to believe in the resurrection, an end is only a beginning and something that will not be the same. 

Nature teaches us this, all we need to do is see the canyons whose land eroded to create something new and amazing. I think this is important because with an acceptance of perpetual birth, rebirth. renewal and reformation we can focus on the lives lived and forego those heresies spouted by so many of what ought to be and living into the far of losing what was because what was already has been and is no more and what ought to be is merely based in the myopic perspective of one who cannot see beyond their own comfort.