Another Post about Sunrises

Ok I know I posted a long time ago about how I dig sunrises and sunsets. I am going to repost why I enjoy them:

Sunsets/rises are one of the great equalizers in our society. I derive this partially from one of my favorite books, The Outsiders and partially to my own thought. If you have read this book or seen the movie you may remember how Ponyboy and Cherry and later how Pony and Johnny talk about sunsets. During Pony and Cherry's discussion Ponyboy talks about how he likes to watch sunsets. After ranting about all the breaks rich kids get Cherry says something like, "Pony things are tough all over." Ponyboy disagrees and she asks, "Can you see the sunset on the southside?" Pony replies, "yeah." As she leaves she says, "Yeah, you can see them real good from the north side too." Later on in the narrative you have on the run criminals Pony and Johnny hiding out in an old abandoned church in the country on a hill. One morning they wake up early and see the sunrise. It is the first time Johnny has ever taken the time to notice one. He says that it is golden. Then Pony recites a poem by Robert Frost, that to this day after reading this book so many times I have memorized:

Natures first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf a flower
But only for an hour
Then leaf setside to leaf
And so Eden sank to grief
As dawn goes down today
Nothing gold can stay.

As sad as it is, these moments of the true granduer of God are fleeting and are at an apex for such a limited amount of time that it is so easy in the hustle and bustle of modern day life to miss it. That is what makes Johnny's request of Pony at the end of the book to stay gold so poignant because the ability to stay gold is so universal, so tangible, but so often and easily missed that one needs to be reminded that "things are tough everywhere," but the ability to overcome lies in all if we allow it to. If we choose to stay gold.

I have not been to a lot of places in my life but the few places that I have been are tantamountably different. One common theme in all is that they all have killer sunsets/sunrises. Whether it is watching the sunrise over a snowcapped Mt. Ogden from under a blanket on my parents deck to watching the sunrise over Lake Michigan and the city of Chicago. Or watching it set over the cornfields of Indiana,or from the twelth floor of a fenced off balcony of a housing project in the inner city, or watching it set over a lake in the serene mountains oustide of Cedar the common theatric visage is possible to see everywhere. Echoing the true physiognomy of God, that he is there and the silenced plea to stay golden, to endure well, is echoed in the chromatic hues so effortlessly spread across the sky.

So sunrises, the one thing that we all got to remind us to keep on keepin on.

Two weeks ago I went down to visit ASU Law School to check things out and on the drive down me and my friend Christa stopped by the Grand Canyon to watch the sun rise over the natural wonder. We were the only two people there in that part of the park that early. Here is what transpired:























Once the Sun was up this is what we were able to see















This experience was easily one of the most incredible things to ever happen to me. We got there when it was pitch black, only the moon and some stars to light the path to the edge of the canyon. Then the sun slowly began to rise and every minute illuminated on something new. New colors blew up across the sky in front of us and it slowly painted the most incredible background behind us. It reinvigorated me, physically and spiritually. Physically it opened me up to new senses and visages that blew my mind. Spiritually it confirmed to me that God is there. I had a moment sitting there on the ledge. A moment where I felt very connected, connected to something so real, so tangible. It was incredible. It reminded me who I am, what I should be doing, and that life is for lack of a better word, good. I was reminded of what it is like to be golden, or at least to feel it. Ponyboy and Johnny's conversation hit me hard. Nature's first green is gold. And that gold can come and go so easily. This whole experience lasted for less than an hour. Then the sun was up, the gold was gone, people started to enter the park. Life was back to normal. But I still have that moment in my mind's eye. Where things were golden. I have gotta stay gold.