Paha Sapa. A
land long considered to be sacred by the Lakota who once called the
pine-forested hills home. Since
the age of eight, I have known the land in the Black Hills is holy, even if I
didn’t always understand why. The
Black Hills were revered because of Camp Judson, my church camp, ironically
nestled five miles away from a desecrated granite face carved with the faces of
four white men. At Camp Judson I
learned how to worship among the lichen-carpeted boulders and towering pine
trees. I came to expect God’s
voice among the wind and discovered I could serve God by healing nature. Because of the foundation I built at Camp
Judson, I have been able to explore new territories, learn from other
landscapes, and expect God to be present everywhere.
The
sun tiptoes to the horizon signaling in this place, time for Vespers. As a hundred students march up the
eroded trail, some scrambling over the boulders along the way, voices begin to
quiet. At the summit of the hill,
a staircase made from the rocks leads into an amphitheater, carved into the
hillside. The amphitheater is
surrounded on the sides and back by large granite boulders, shaded green by the
lichen. In the front, is a steep
hillside that overlooks the lake.
When facing the front, one’s face looks to the west, to the
ever-lowering sun and to the vast bald cliffs in the distance. Tufts of grass sprout up around the
area and coniferous trees grow between cracks in the rocks and wherever else
their roots can anchor. The rows
of the amphitheater were constructed with granite and quartz from this very
location. They are dust and soil
speckled with mica that inevitably stays on ones person for days and fallen
pine needles. The alter in the
front of the amphitheater was built by placing one slab of rock on top of
another until it was tall enough to hold a Bible for a speaker. God is here, not because of the
songs we sing or the words of the pastor.
He sits on the sloping boulder to the right, legs outstretched, hands
behind him, his face lifted as if drinking in the last warmth of the sun.
I
always wanted to remove my shoes at Vespers for I felt the words “the place
where you are standing is holy ground” reverberate through my chest. I felt these words again as I sat on a
boulder a half a mile away from Vespers, listening to the wind. It was on this boulder that I realized,
listening to the wind, that God still spoke. It wasn’t just Vespers or the boulder that was sanctified,
it was the entire landscape; the hiking trail to Horsethief Lake, among the
reeds of our small lake (which is more like a waterhole than lake) where we
would find turtles and snakes, Goat Ridge, the rocking chairs where we would
watch stars. This land was not
holy because of our doing or the camp’s mission statement. The land was holy before we
arrived. It was probably holy even
before the Lakota deemed it Paha Sapa.
It is sacred because God dwells here. All land is sacred, but I stopped long enough here to
notice.
I
didn’t understand all land is sacred until I traveled to East Africa. I figured Camp Judson was holy because
that was where I met Christ for the first time. I traveled to East Africa with the expectation that I would
see some fantastic flora and fauna but not really with the expectation of
stumbling across holy land.
Because my study abroad program in Tanzania and Kenya focused on
wildlife management, we visited five different national parks in the two
countries. The first national park
we visited was Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania, about twenty-five
kilometers from the village we lived in.
I had forgotten temporarily about meeting God and sacred land until our
first day at Lake Manyara.
As
the car passed the visitors center and entered into the park, it was like a
curtain of trees and vines was suddenly dropped, separating the stage from the
audience. The landscape quickly
turned from thick Acacia forests to a small creek to scrubland and finally to
grassland. As we traveled between
these different ecosystems, it became apparent that though East Africa is known
for its mega fauna, the birds were just as diverse and colorful, all singing
their own melodies. The
lilac-breasted roller was a smattering of lilac, sky blue, brown, and green,
the superb starlings had chests of orange and bodies of cobalt blue, and the
weavers in their bright yellow. Of
course, we saw more then birds.
When an elephant passed by our car, my breathing ceased and I felt my immense
smallness. When we first saw a
giraffe pop its head from behind a tree, I instantly thought of dinosaurs. The wildebeest and zebra languished on
the grassland, making calls like donkeys.
As we drove through the cathedral of yellow-barked acacias, the scent of
the blossoms became the only perfume I wished to smell again. After being confronted with so much
splendor, I couldn’t help but lift my hands and face in worship. And that’s when I saw Mungu.
Mungu
was walking amongst the trees, caressing the bark and speaking to them. He was dressed in the traditional
Maasai attire, several red sheets of cloth draped around his body, beads on his
wrists and ankles, holding a wooden staff. He sprinkled out soil and seeds from his hand, whispering a
blessing over the plant’s growth and the animals that would one day eat the
plant. He led his goats and sheep
to fresh water pasture and I understood Psalm 23, “The Lord is my
shepherd”.
When
I saw Mungu walking amongst the trees, I realized my folly in forgetting this
land was also sacred. I may not
have known it for long or with the intimacy that I did Camp Judson, but Mungu
dwelt here just as he did in the Black Hills. The land was sacred because the very soil, trees, and
wildlife that populated the Tanzanian countryside came from the hands of Mungu. After I saw Mungu in Lake Manyara, I
opened my eyes and found him everywhere in East Africa; on Moyo Hill, the
Serengeti, along the Noolturesh River, and everywhere in between. The land exists in itself for the
pleasure of God who drinks in the last sunlight and knows the animals by
name. I am merely allowed to enter
the holy ground where God already dwells to share in the delight and
glory.
* Mungu is the Swahili name for “God”
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| Lake Manyara National Park Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania |
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| Vespers at Camp Judson, Black Hills, South Dakota |
