A Grand Design

I just returned from a trip to South Dakota. We have always wanted to see the monument at Mount Rushmore, and also the Crazy Horse monument. So we visited both, and were not disappointed.

It’s really an amazing site and I was surprised at how close you could get those guys!

The Crazy Horse monument is only partially finished after decades of work. It’s likely that not even our children will see the completion in their lifetime. It will be multiple times bigger than Mount Rushmore, which is….well, really, really big.

I thought a lot about all the years of arduous work that scores of men endured to make these spectacles happen. The original visions for these massive projects are obsessions I cannot relate to. But everyone who had and still has a part are to be commended. The endless toil and remarkable determination must have worn some of them down, and possibly killed them.

The thing that struck me most about what I saw in those few days is the comparison between man’s struggle to create and God’s wave of his hand. This country has so many vastly diverse and majestic sites to see – it boggles my mind to think of how creative our God is.

Yes, the geologists will tell us exactly how everything was formed, but I know in my heart that no matter how or when it happened, the grand Designer was and is the energy behind it. I have done enough traveling that I can say without a doubt that the pleasure the landscape of America brings us, we owe to a creative force far more powerful than an eruption from earth’s core.

Our history as Americans is short, yet we celebrate our beginnings every year. The 4^th of July holiday is upon us once again, and I wish everyone could see and enjoy this land we live in as I have, and will do as long as I can. It makes me humble and proud at the same time to see the handiwork of it all – a gift.

It’s important for our children to see this handiwork, and learn some history at the same time. There are lots of inexpensive ways to do that. We need to bring back the days of road trips to see America without electronics to distract us.