Millions of years ago, there was no such thing as a “Grand Canyon.”
The story goes like this: the plates underneath the Earth collided and lifted a chunk of the ground, creating a massive plateau. This allowed the Colorado River, a rather small river at the time, to brush up against this chunk of dirt and begin breaking apart the rocks, cutting a massive dent into this even larger body. The river does this enough, and that once strong standing rock is now broken apart, eroded after constant pressure from an outside force. It is a scar embedded deep into the Earth.
The rock didn’t ask to be this way, but now it has become an entirely new thing, and that canyon brings roughly 5 million visitors every year. As I grew up in Arizona, every science class had a lesson on the canyon, and the effect that erosion had on it.
This is the lesson: if enough time passes, anything can break.
I grew up with the thought of Heaven shoved into my head. I had not lived a full year before I was told about a time where I no longer would – that there was this “other place” that we were to arrive at, one much better than the one we live in now.
I did not find this odd or concerning; it was simply reality. Obviously, this life is evil. There’s storms and war and other gangling beasts that tear us apart with no hope of putting us together again.
And so, before I was able to take a step in the world I found myself in, I was taught to resent it. I was taught to look at the wounds this world has and see only the scars: unchanging, permanent, not worth the time to fully heal.
And it’s not like we can close up the Grand Canyon.
Heaven is a beautiful place. Heaven will have a long dining table, and friends and family will eat from it all the foods of the world. Heaven will be a rock concert with a room just outside to decompress every once in a while. Heaven will be the words unspoken finally given sound.
There is nothing wrong with loving Heaven. It would be illogical not to.
But where does that leave us here?
The story goes like this: we are born with visions of heaven thrust on us. We are told of the evils of the world before we have a chance to see them. And when the waves of the world push at us, the love we have for this life begins eroding, until eventually, we are left with scars on our own hearts.
And it’s not like we can close up the Grand Canyon.
So what do we do? We cling onto Heaven. We cling onto that long table and banging music. We hold those words we should be saying in our lungs, waiting to say them for some other time. And after the scar tissue has finished developing, we refuse to let ourselves be broken again.
We do not engage with our world. We simply wait for rapture. And in doing so we neglect to accept every instance in which we could make our Heaven here.
Another lesson from the Grand Canyon: change is beautiful, and our world is full of it.
Millions flock to the Grand Canyon every year. A massive gash in the middle of the Earth attracts families, and their families, and their families. Inside the Canyon is a system of plants and animals who have lived in there for generation after generation. This imperfection, this deep scar, is regarded as one of the most beautiful things our world has created.
And our hearts are full of scars. We have been cut and sliced and broken by the creeping beasts of the world. And we will continue to search for every imperfection, every blot, and every heartbreak.
In this we have a choice: do we wait for Heaven to come another day, or do we search for beauty here?
And there is nothing wrong with loving Heaven. It would be illogical not to. But if our hearts are to be scars anyway, we must find it in ourselves to tend to each other. In this way, we can find a slice of Heaven here.
Connor Geroux Writing 