A story from my past came to mind as we were getting ready to go to Sunday School. Today’s topic? A lesson on the creation.
Waaaay back, exactly 40 years ago this weekend, I attended a friend’s wedding reception in Scottsdale. After it was over, I hopped in my car to drive through the night back to BYU. I was alone, which was good. I had a lot on my mind, and enjoyed the time to think “deep thoughts.”
My friend’s marriage hit me hard. Lots of my friends had recently gotten married or were in serious relationships. Not me. I was the proverbial “threat to society,” mid-twenties and single. (This meant more in 1986 than it does now.)
As I drove, I thought about life and love. What I was doing, where my life was headed, etc. I also spent a lot of time thinking about the Gospel Doctrine lesson I was to teach later that Sunday morning: The Creation.
I took the shortest route to Provo, which led me through Jacob Lake and Kanab. Before heading into the mountains, I crossed the Lee’s Ferry bridge. If you are unfamiliar with it, there are two bridges: A newer one and the old one it replaced. The old bridge is blocked off to traffic, and you can walk out on it to look at the beautiful canyon.
It was probably about 2:00 am, and I was tired. I figured that a little cold night air might help wake me up for the second half of my journey. I stopped at the parking area and walked out on the old bridge.
It was pitch black. No streetlights, no traffic, no moon. I walked halfway across the bridge and lay down on my back. The clear night sky was filled with millions of stars, occasionally interrupted by a shooting star or a blinking satellite.
The creation was already on my mind, and here I was looking at the vastness, the endless grandeur of God’s creation. The stars, the galaxies, the feeling of infinity. It was beautiful. In a weird dichotomy, I felt minuscule – yet seen. Tiny – yet important. It was a powerful spiritual experience that synced with Moses’s awareness of this dichotomy when he said:
“Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” (Moses 1:10)
“And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten.” (Moses 1:6)
I felt both insignificant and limitless at the same time. It was a deep, powerful spiritual experience.
Had there been any passers-by, they might have said, “What’s with the idiot lying on the bridge?” But they would have no idea what that “idiot” was experiencing.
It was too cold to linger, so I hit the road and made it back to Provo about the time the sun came up.
Later that morning, I taught one of the many Gospel Doctrine lessons in my life. I tried, but I don’t know if I was able to convey the depth and power of what I had experienced on that bridge in the middle of the night. But even if I didn’t, that experience was special to me, and I think back on it fondly.
—And now, “the rest of the story.”
In that crowded Gospel Doctrine class sat a young woman who had recently moved to Provo to attend BYU. I didn’t know her. It’s sad to say I didn’t notice her.
Thankfully, she noticed me – and liked the lesson.
She sat by me in Sunday School today, and is sitting next to me as I type this post, forty years later.
It may not have been the greatest lesson on the creation ever taught, but it turned out to be the most important lesson I ever taught.
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Always, when I see a clear night sky with stars it reminds me of psalm 8 where it says:
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.
It is in awe and gratitude that I see this miracle in the heavens above me.
That is a great one! Thank you
Thank you for sharing your experience, Brad. It reminded me of an experience I had when I was a student at BYU eons ago…(I was a student there from 1968 – 1973.) On a wintry weekend, my whole family home evening group decided to go to a shepherding cabin that belonged to one of my FHE “brothers, located in a canyon area around Fairview, UT. We arrived late in the evening, well after dark. After we had driven as closely as we could, we got out of our cars and hiked the last half mile or so, through the snowy dirt road. The night was pitch black, and yet there were more stars than I had ever seen in my life. It was amazing. And, like you, I felt a mixture of my “nothingness”, as Moses put it, in comparison to the vastness of God’s creations, and my yet my deep personal worth to our Heavenly Father, whose work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of…me, and you, and all of His children. An experience indelibly etched into my heart and soul.
Kindred spirits