God's Majesty in the Grand Canyon, Sedona

With our friends Maggie and Roxanne visiting from New York, I spent the past four-day weekend taking them to places I'd only briefly visited, or in the case of the Grand Canyon, had only seen from the air.

There were many spiritual moments on our trek, but two stand out. Our first look at the G.C. from the South Rim on Saturday morning was a breathtaking moment. No matter how many photos you take or even if you've seen it from a chartered plane like the one I took from Las Vegas, nothing quite compares to standing at the edge and looking into the colorful chasm for yourself. I felt dizzy at its vastness, and it made me feel that sense of God's creation in everything around us.

The second moment came on Monday after a day of riding in a jeep tour down and up a canyon to get a closer look at the red rocks of Sedona. After lunch, we then began a car-based search of the "vortex" sites where a special earth energy is said to be concentrated. That led us up to the aerie of the Sedona Airport, atop a peak, where the lack of parking made us drive by the idiots climbing up an enormous red rock to get closer to the vortex (which, of course, cannot be seen or even really reached.) Then we drove to another nearby vortex site, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a church organically tucked into the red mountain. We had to wait for a parking space, and as one car left, we were able to park and walk up.

We arrived just in time for a Taize service. We were the last ones there, taking the last seats in the front pew, and it just seemed as though the crowd was waiting for us to arrive to start.

I'd never been to a Taize service before, although I'd taught my church school class back in Northport about the Taize, France-based movement to simplify and unify Christian services, and to bring various denominations together. It was a service full of simple chants, a meditation on a verse, a reciting of the Lord's Prayer and a peaceful greeting to one another.

The most memorable part of the service was the candle-lighting ceremony. Each participant walked to the back of the chapel, lit a candle, then brought it to the altar, where a crucifix was laid, then they placed the candle around it and said a prayer. Since we were in the front, we were the first to light the candles and place them on the altar, and then we watched as children, their parents, and some very elderly people with the aid of their children or grandchildren, bent down to do the same. The glow was a reminder of how Christ's sacrifice brought a new light into the world. It was a poignant Lenten ceremony, and one that we all agreed was far more significant than some supposed New Age energy field. In that moment, we created our own energy within, lit by the Holy Spirit.