Looking for a View

I’m spoiled. Spoiled by the views I’ve been allowed to see. Our years in Washington and Colorado were filled with the intoxication of creation. We have been given the extraordinary honor of gawking at bald eagles in southwest Alaska, slithering through slot canyons in the San Rafael Swell, backpacking on glacial moraines in Banff National Park, sitting mouth agape on Chinook Pass staring at the massive hulk of Mt. Rainier, reflecting in an unmarked Anasazi fortress on Cedar Mesa where some apparently made their last stand, clinging to the sides of monster peaks that threaten to throw you off in order to see something that not a dozen other lucky people will see that year or maybe ever. You see, I really am spoiled. Sometimes, on low days I cry because I miss belonging in that world of views.


In contrast, I had never found a view that came remotely close to this in the Midwest, where we now live. I had gone off excited for daytime adventures in many directions from Kansas City, returning sad and lonely and discouraged from many. . .no, most of those attempts. I couldn’t find a view which made my heart beat fast and filled my eyes with tears because what I was seeing was so filled with glory that I could hardly bear it.



But I found one. I found a view in the Midwest.

A year ago this month, after studying the Buffalo National River guidebooks and maps for a year, I got up one day at 4:30 AM and drove to Arkansas. I picked my way through Harrison and traveled winding roads up into the Ozarks. I hiked to the Hawksbill Crag, which, I must say, was a disappointment. I hiked on a meandering loop trail for several miles to caves and waterfalls and, honestly, it was better than city streets. . .but I’m confessing to you that I’m a snob. I’m SPOILED, okay?! And finally, as the sun was dropping, I sped down the Center Point Trail to Hemmed-in Hollow (only in the Ozarks, eh?)to get as much mileage as I could before dark, in search for a little side trail called Billy Goat Bluff. Because I had a hunch that something might await me there.

After finding the turnoff, I proceeded to move further and further across the face of this limestone face, until the Buffalo River, with greens and blues and silt showed down to my right and ahead of me. And then, all of a sudden I was seized by joy and sat down in wonder and took the picture you see below, looking straight down through my feet. . . at a view. A really, really great view. One that made me cry for happiness, one filled with such glory that I could hardly bear it.


It all reminds me that there is another, far more important view that we are to long for and to seek. David said, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD” (Psalm 27:4, ESV) The apostle Paul said, “Remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened. . .” (Ephesians 1:17) Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40) We are to long for eyes to see. To see what really matters, what is the true, the good and the beautiful. That is, to see God and, by gazing upon Him, to see everything else around you through His eyes.

So, when we look at our neighbor we might remember, “that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . There are no ordinary people. You never talked to a mere mortal.” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory). Do you see people as God does? And that includes yourself?

And when you look at the desperate wreckage of the circumstances surrounding you, do you see the possibilities of God? “[A person] who does not know the rhythm of desperation and deliverance must have his sights only on what man can achieve.” (John Piper)

And when you stare stunned at the awe-full realities of creation, are you so impoverished that that is all you can see? Or is there more? “The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter. . . There was a man who dwelt in the east centuries ago. And now I cannot look at a sheep or a sparrow, or a lily or cornfield, or a raven or a sunset, a vineyard or a mountain without thinking of him.” (G.K.Chesterton)

Now, that’s a view.