THE BADLANDS ARE NOT SO BAD

       It would be wrong of me, and very dangerous too, to say that the devil made me do it, made me go off the beaten and rather-straight path from Spokane to Cedar Rapids two weeks ago. The devil had nothing to do with it. It was all my wife’s idea, temptress that she is; and I succumbed and I enjoyed every minute of it even as the minutes were too short and the trip was made longer.

     To explain: almost to the minute the movers had loaded the last box onto the moving van and locked the doors and set off for Cedar Rapids, my plane arrived in Spokane. Arlena picked me up at the airport and we spent the night at a local motel, as there was no home in Spokane to go to. The next morning we set off for Cedar Rapids . It is a beautiful drive through northern Idaho and western Montana at almost any time of the year, and this year was no exception: beautiful but long. We spent the night in Billings , arose rather refreshed and headed to Sioux Falls .

     We never made it, not that day anyway. The temptress pulled out our AAA map and booklet and found Devil’s Tower as we headed out of Wyoming into South Dakota . She kindly noted that it was only thirty miles off the interstate and since we were going to be so close, we should at least drive up to see it so she could get some pictures. Well, of course we did. Sioux Falls still seemed manageable. Then we stopped for gas at Wall, SD, and noticed that the road right by the service station led right through the Badlands . You know the rest of the story. We never made it to Sioux Falls that night.

     I for one am thankful we did not. The Badlands were breathtaking and they and Devil’s Tower were sights to behold. As they say, you had to see it to believe it. And what I believe, if I had had any doubts, is there is a God. When you encounter the wonders of creation firsthand, how can you not believe? The Badlands were beautiful. Granted, they were and are bad lands to farm, as many pioneers discovered to their dismay and destitution, hence the name. But, wow!

     We stopped at all the viewpoints, took pictures and read all the plaques describing what we were seeing. One noted that some of the rock formations all around us were relatively “young,” only five million years old. Devil’s Tower, by the way, was an acre in circumference at the top, at the top! We have the pictures.

     With so much bad in the world, one is tempted to wonder about the existence of an all-good God, about a God who loves and cares for us. But the good and the beautiful always outweigh and outdistance whatever is bad and ugly. That does not lessen the badness or the ugliness or the need to make the world a better place to live. It simply means that this good and loving God of ours who created and continues to create so much beauty will help us make the world even more beautiful. We will have to go out of our way, often go off the beaten path, to do it, but we can. The devil will never tempt us to do so, but God will. We should give in to those temptations.