Written in Stone and God the Rock

A story of things written in stone and what does that even mean in the world's constantly changing landscape? Is anything permanent? 

My husband and I sling our day packs over our shoulders, double-checking for sufficient water and supplies. Mollie, our rust-colored mutt, leaps to the ground, tugging at the leash in anticipation of a smorgasbord of scents to savor. From the First Water parking lot, the plan is to take Jacob’s Crosscut Trail south to where it runs along the base of the Superstition Mountains before linking up with Treasure Loop in Lost Dutchman State Park and circling back to responsibilities and civilization.

The ground is hard, packed from countless days under the desert sun. We walk over the concrete-like imprints of mule deer and a horseshoe print in what was once softened earth. Time stretches out like clouds against the pale blue horizon.

“Is that a rock window?” my husband asks, pointing to a slant of sunlight shining through a rock formation in front of us.

I nod, knowing we are going to investigate.

Arches. Caves. Windows in stone. Forms of rock that can be climbed into and gazed from have always fascinated him.

We scramble up some loose scree to take photos from the three-foot rock opening, an absence surrounded by substance. Not content, he asks me to wait as he climbs down to the base to take a photo of me looking out at him, because isn’t that the way of relationships—the looking back, the looking out, and the gazing in the same direction together?

With one hour left of sunlight, the birds come out to anthem the day’s end. Doves. Quail. A crested black bird with white underwings—a phainopepla—flies ahead of us, leading us down the trail, toward a set of spires in the shadow of the mountain.

“Written in stone,” people say, referring to something that is permanent and unchangeable, but the stone formations before me speak of a sculpting done with a power larger than my human understanding, a reminder that everything changes on this earth and there is only One who is unchangeable.

“Trust in the Lord forever,” the Bible records in Isaiah 26:4, “For in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock (NASB).” 

We pick up the pace to get back to the car. Before stepping into a desert wash, I can’t help but take one final look back at the Superstitions, the spires, and rock formations as they blend into the twilight. I can’t help but think of God the Rock, who in His permanence left windows in stone as a reassurance that in seemingly unchangeable places—if we look—we will discover openings to light.

Because isn’t this also the way of our relationship with God—the looking back, the looking out, and the gazing in the same direction together? *

This article was published recently in SanTan Sun News, East Valley Tribune and Ahwatukee Foothills News