More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition

55A Matter of Perspective

When you’re in the desert, you look into infinity. It’s no wonder that nearly all the great founders of religion came out of the desert. It makes you feel terribly small, and also in a strange way, quite big.

—David Lean

It’s a chilly autumn morning in the desert. I am still in my sleeping bag, leaning against a large rock and sipping hot coffee as I savor the first of the sunlight, looking out into the canyon through the sheltering arc of a large alcove that has been my home for the last couple of days. The air is still. Not even a single leaf on the old cottonwoods below me is so much as trembling. The soft gurgle of water in the creek reverberating off the stone walls and the hushed chirping of a small flock of juncos ...