Holy Ground

           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”   

Lake Manyara National Park
Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania 

Vespers at Camp Judson,
Black Hills, South Dakota