09/06/2026
THIS IS MY CHURCH…
That’s me sitting there, high above the Grand Staircase, in a place I’ve always called God’s Eye. I don’t know what else to call it. When I sit inside that opening and look through it, I can see God’s beauty for as far as my eyes can see. No houses. No mining. No buildings. No traffic. No mankind trying to improve something that doesn’t need improving. Just mountains, trees, rock and sky stretching so far into the distance that eventually my eyes give up before God’s creation does.
Breezy and I are very spiritual people, and there are places on this Earth where you can feel something that is almost impossible to put into words. This is one of mine. I can sit right there without saying a word and feel more peace than I can explain. The world gets quiet. All the things I thought were important five minutes earlier suddenly don’t seem quite so important anymore. I look through God’s Eye at all of that country, and for a little while, I remember just how small I am.
And I love that feeling.
Because every once in a while, I think a human being needs to be reminded that we aren’t the biggest thing here. We didn’t make those mountains. We didn’t carve those canyons. We didn’t hang that sky above them. We were simply lucky enough to be born during a tiny little moment in time when we could sit down, shut up, and witness it.
But this photograph means something different to me today than it did yesterday.
Yesterday, I called the land beyond God’s Eye the Grand Staircase. Today, the land where I’m sitting is now BLM land. This is no longer protected, it can be mined now. And with that change comes something that honestly hurts me to even think about: places like this can become subject to decisions about mining, development and profit that could change them forever. The place I’m sitting can be bulldozed down, and mined now.
I’m not trying to start a political war because that has never helped, and I ban all political comments! (I don’t like either side!) Lord knows we’ve got enough people screaming at each other already. I’m writing this because I love this place. Nobody that claims to believe in God would destroy this that God has created for profit.
I’ve worked for what I’ve had all my life. I’ve stood on roofs when it was hotter than the dickens. I’ve sweated through my clothes, cut myself, bled, hurt, gone home exhausted, gotten up the next morning and done it all over again. And along the way, just like everybody else who works for a living, I paid taxes.
If you tell me that some tiny piece of those taxes helped keep the Grand Staircase looking like what you see through God’s Eye in this photograph, I have absolutely no problem with that.
Heck, take another penny.
I’d rather pay it than someday sit here and hear machinery where I once heard silence. I’d rather pay it than look through this opening and see a scar carved into a mountain where yesterday I saw nothing but trees. I’d rather pay it than have somebody make a fortune destroying something the rest of us will never be rich enough to replace.
Because that’s the thing about places like this.
Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
You can’t write a check and buy another ten million-year-old canyon. You can’t order another mountain. You can’t put millions of years of creation back together after you’ve torn it apart. There are some things money can replace, and there are some things money should never have been allowed to put a price on in the first place.
I know nothing lasts forever. I somedays feel old. Life has taught me that lesson plenty of times. People leave. Things change. Yesterday becomes a photograph before we even realize we were living in a moment we were going to miss. Maybe once in a while, we’re supposed to look at something magnificent and have enough humility to say, leave it alone.
That’s what God’s Eye does to me.
I sit there looking across the Grand Staircase, and I don’t feel rich because I own any of it. I feel rich because I don’t have to. I get to sit there for a little while. I get to see it. I get to feel it. Then someday I’ll be gone, and somebody else should get the same privilege.
So yes, this is my church.
And as long as these legs will carry me up there, I’ll keep sitting in God’s Eye. I’ll keep looking across those mountains. I’ll keep feeling small. I’ll keep thanking God for letting Breezy and me experience a place this beautiful.
And I’m going to keep hoping that long after we’re gone, another person will sit right where I’m sitting in this photograph, look through that same opening, and see exactly what I see.
Nothing for sale. Nothing being torn apart. Nothing needing to be improved.
Just God’s beautiful creation…
as far as the eye can see.
