Well, I arrived in San Francisco last Saturday and today (Saturday) arrived to San Diego. I’ve been making my way down through the week. Highlights have included buying a double cheesburger for Mike in the Mission district of San Francisco (Mike has been living on the streets and was really hungry), speaking to the faculty and students at Westmont College in Santa Barbara about refocusing on people instead of just careers, having a beautiful day off in Santa Monica, and now being here. I have been anticipating my visit to Mission Gathering for quite some time as I had such a wonderful time when I came in the spring with Brian on the Everything Must Change tour.
By the way, the events with Richard Cizik in Colorado Springs were wonderful. I was really excited to be involved. Here is a poem I wrote for the event at Colorado College. I offered it as a spoken wor piece between songs.
You can’t help but be inspired, when you catch just the right angle, and see the bold red rock jutting up from the earth, framing a blue, and purple and white, snow dusted Pikes Peak…a beauty that imparts truth that sets my mind at rest for just a moment. There are songs and stories about this place that go back hundreds of years. And we live here. You can’t help but be inspired.
The Ute people used to make camp here. They would come from the northeast through Templeton Gap and then across Monument Creek near where Fillmore Street now paves a wider and faster, but somehow less majestic, passage. Then, they went over the Mesa, descending to Camp Creek, an easy incline to walk and they passed through the Niobrara Ridge over the natural saddle that is now filled by the Chambers dam. Their trail branched in several different directions so they could reach other places like the sacred springs in Manitou.
I, am a Colorado Native. There is a pride that wells up in me, every time I say that…not because I follow any of the sports team but because I have witnessed first hand, the beauty and sacredness, of space and color and mountain and plains, and I think everyone should come and see; there is just nothing else like it…and the desert and the alpine communicate a harmony and balance I wish we could find in the city.
You can’t help but be inspired. When I was a girl, my parents would drive me from Boulder up I-70 to summit county and I remember seeing the hieghth of the snow, perfectly perpendicular to the road after being plowed. And the evergreen trees were so strong and tall and green, contrasting with the soft white snow, perfectly perched on every single branch and needle. This is a desert climate, but there is a lushness here. A Colorado fullness.
But now, I drive and I see mountainsides of dead, withered, rarefied tree skeletons. Biblical pestilence some say…but I know its getting warmer, 2 full degrees since the 19070s and the pine beetles thrive in warmer, while the trees struggle to maintain their hydration. And the battle is ugly; the battle is fatal. And the image haunts me, and turns my stomach as the sobering reality of what has already come to be, sets in my mind.
And I pray, people are inspired…not just for beauty’s sake, or the landscape of a state, but for the people who live in it, adjacent, around the world from it…I believe we can reframe, and rethink, and set something in motion, that leads to life…That leads to life…
