While hiking in the Grand Canyon, I stayed two nights with my family at Phantom Ranch, a small lodging camp at the bottom of the Canyon near the Colorado River.
The day before our hike out of the Canyon on the South Rim, we decided to hike up the North Rim trail to see the Ribbon Falls. It was a 6 mile trek one way along a stream that ran through a deep ravine with majestic towering walls of rock above, then open spaces, cactus patches, dry desert, rock and sand. It was a harsh environment for plant and animal life to survive in the torridly hot summer months.
When we got to the falls, what a surprise! In the middle of this vast and harsh desert climate was a small ribbon of water dancing out of a mountainside and sprinkling onto a flourishing lush growth of green moss and plant below. It was a stark contrast to the high and dry desert all around.
I stood in awe of the greenery and soaked in the spiritual lessons.
One lesson I saw, was a reminder that it is possible to flourish in places one would not expect to flourish.
How often does the human mind feel overwhelmed by odds stacked against it? Perhaps neighbors are coming down with a contagious disease, and the threat of catching the disease appears to be all around. Or perhaps the economy is poor and the threat of financial lack and loss looms. Or maybe everyone seems incredibly materially minded all around, and it’s hard to stay spiritually minded in the face of it all.
But as I saw at the Ribbon Falls, it is possible to thrive independently of what is going on in one’s surround. It is possible to “Come out and be separate,” as the Apostle Paul admonished.
We all have our “stream of water” to feed us. It’s spiritual inspiration coming from divine Mind through spiritual sense.
So, if you ever feel like you’re standing in some type of harsh and forbidding environment, a type of barren desert, tap into that stream of inspiration coming from divine Mind, and let it bless you. You can still flourish. The environment around you physically doesn’t affect what you can demonstrate spiritually.
Choose to thrive!
I love this illustration, and the photo! Thank you for sharing your insights.
Yes, the spiritually barren beliefs and dreams that constitute mortal mind
can be…impressive, but “…why stand aghast at nothingness?” as Mary Baker Eddy
asks in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, page 563.
How lovely and true!! Also something to think about is ‘why should we stand aghast’ at something ness? Isn’t everything in Gods creation normal and natural?
Beautiful photographs! Beautiful metaphor.
Thanks, Evan! But, I don’t understand……didn’t you mean to say at the end: “The environment around you physically doesn’t (instead of “does”) effect what you can demonstrate spiritually.” ??? Please respond and let me know if I’m mistaken….Thanks!
Oops. Typo! Sorry about that. It should have read “doesn’t.” All fixed now. Thanks for telling me.
Another wonderful inspired start to the morning!
Thanks, Evan!
Big lesson, great thought to keep in mind. Beautiful pictures. Everything works together for good in this spirit view.
It’s almost May and suddenly snowing again here in Muskoka, Canada! We are SO looking forward to “soaking up” some sun, but you made it more clear that what we really want is to soak up some “son” – the warming spiritual lessons that can never be separated from us by a brief spell of cold air!
Thank you for once again clarifying truth and reality.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience, the great photos and the inspired thoughts.
This has always mixed me up and thank God for all the websites that the C/S Church has given us. JSH ON-LINE has been so helpful in the many articles that has and is helping us all in dealing with wrong hypnotic thinking that’s all around us trying ever so hard in taking us away from the spiritual right thinking that would heal.
Nice. I really like that thought of come out and be separate. Sometimes one does feel alone when all around you are talking about disease or a crime that’s happened.