Let's look unto the hills, open our eyes and wonder

Estes Park, Colo. -- I write columns for an online magazine called Flatland. It's not based here in the Rocky Mountains for obvious reasons. Nothing about the land is flat here.

But it turns out that living on flat land can blind us to the astonishing diversity of the land and of the life that grows in (and out of) that land. Unless we are careful to pay attention, to be mindful, we can wind up not seeing the surprising varieties of plant and animal life that surround us. We seem to need trips to differently shaped lands to restore our sense of wonder.

Here in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, it's impossible not to see the jagged and verdant land that sustains humanity and the rest of life, from the common squirrels to the shockingly long list of wildflowers that call this home -- from the prickly pear to the columbine, the spotted coralroot to the fairyslipper, the elephantella to the parry primrose. And on and on and on.

Well, of course, you probably can live in the mountains long enough that your senses become numb and you no longer see all of this, just as we plains people fail to notice the richness of life on the flatland -- the butterfly milkweed and the narrowleaf coneflower, purple poppy mallow and the soapweed. And, as I've said, on and on and on.

As author Annie Dillard has written, the Creator simply seems to "love pizzaz."

One way we could learn much more about both the marvelous variety of life and of our obligation not just to notice it but to help protect it so that human activity doesn't kill it off would be to pay more attention to the way Indigenous residents of this land have learned to understand it and care for it. The book to read is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

The Indigenous approach to the land differs in essence from the approach that the first white European invaders brought to this land. That difference is this: We white people think we own the land. Indigenous people believe that they belong to the land.

I have been to the mountains many times -- the Rockies here, the Appalachians, the Catskills and the Himalayas, where, for a time, I once lived in my boyhood. In fact, from a hill above Woodstock School, which I once attended in Landour-Mussoorie, I was told that what I was seeing on the far horizon were the snows of Tibet. (It was a reunion of classmates from that school that brought me here to the Rockies recently.)

So I'm not unused to being in the mountains. But in between my time in the hills, I forget about their ability to speak of eternal things. Perhaps I should reread my friend Kathleen Norris's wonderful book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, to help me remember how the earth on which I walk is holy -- every bit of it. God told Moses once to take off his sandals because the ground on which he was standing is holy. Well, it's all holy ground. And, in the words of the title of a book by Kelly Nathaniel Hays, every bush is burning.

Here's an idea for the rest of the summer -- let's get off our screens now and then and be mindful of the gifts all around us that come from the generative land, which always and everywhere needs our help.

(I took the top photo and my artist wife Marcia took the photo at left, both at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colo.)

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AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE 10 COMMANDMENTS ON SCHOOL WALLS?

A wise rabbi argues here against posting copies of the Ten Commandments in Louisiana public schools, as required by a newly passed law there. Then, to have a bit of fun with the silly posting idea, he proposes instead posting the "Holiness Code" from Leviticus 19, which includes such rules as: "Leave the corners of your field for the poor. That is the commandment to engage in charitable acts that ameliorate poverty." That posting act, too, might be as unconstitutional as the posting of the Ten Commandments will turn out to be, but at least it might help create a better, more caring society.

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THE BOOK CORNER

Now and then I get asked to write an endorsement, or blurb, for someone's book. For instance, Catholic author Frances Etheredge recently requested one for his new book, The Word in Your Heart: Mary, Youth and Mental Health. Here's what I wrote:

Teenagers and other young adults today have become what author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls — in the title of his latest book — “The Anxious Generation.” Because of the extraordinary, disorienting and destructive pressures of social media and what Haidt calls the “great rewiring of childhood,” mental illness among such young people is growing in epidemic proportions. This new book by Francis Etheredge seeks solutions to this catastrophe by rooting itself in both Catholic tradition and the author’s personal experience of mental distress as an adolescent. Thus, it is another helpful tool for trying to solve a disaster that is robbing young people of their present and, at times, even their future.