It has been eighteen years since July, 2006, when we had a three month sabbatical funded by the Lily Endowment. The program that benefitted us and the congregation we were serving, was designed in part to strengthen relationships between pastors and congregations. Research shows that long term relationships between pastors and congregations lead to healthy congregations. With the intensity of the pastoral vocation an extended break from day to day ministry combined with study and travel can provide renewal and increased energy for the calling. Lily also supports congregations. In the absence of their regular pastor, outside leadership that can focus on specific ideas and projects can give the congregation an emotional boost. New ideas and new programs often grow from ideas developed by the congregation with outside leadership. In the case of our 2006 sabbatical three different scholars each participated in a one month residency. An historian, a biblical scholar, and a writer helped the congregation explore hidden histories, fresh perspectives from the New Testament, and creative writing and storytelling skills.

Meanwhile, we focused our attention on sacred spaces. We sought out rural and remote places where there were congregations serving semi-isolated populations. The first month of our sabbatical focused on Lakota sacred places where we lived in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The second month we traveled across Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia seeking out communities that shared qualities with the place where we lived including beautiful scenery, significant tourist visitations, and places where congregations were far apart from other congregations of their denomination. Our family visited sacred sites in Australia including Uluru and Tasmania during our third month.

In July of 2006, as our congregation was being led by a visiting scholar we drove from my cousin’s river ranch, a place that is sacred in the story of my mother’s family, north into Glacier National Park, across the border to Watertown National Park, and continued north through Banff and Jasper Parks. In mid July, we camped in a large park on the outskirts of Jasper. Among other activities we drove up to Maligne Lake where we parked near Maligne Lodge and I paddled my kayak in the lake. I took pictures from my boat of Spirit Island as the tourist boats circled it heading back towards the lodge. It was a gray day with a bit of wind and I had fun surfing the small waves that formed as I paddled toward the glacier at the head of the lake. We also took a hike around the edge of the lake. Later that same day we hiked down Malign canyon and marveled at the steep gorge that water had carved through the mountains. I remember falling asleep in the camper listening to the rush of water in the river. Although it was mid-July, it was spring in the Mountains and the river was near flood stage with ice-cold snow melt. It was rushing so rapidly that we could hear the boulders rolling in the river bed.

I was just a tourist at Jasper and Mailgne Lake. We knew that we would never live in that place. But we were drawn by the same beauty that has drawn millions of tourists for a long time. We were touched by the same sense of awe that led indigenous people to see that area as sacred since time immemorial. Just down the Maligne River we paused at Medicine Lake, a relatively shallow lake surrounded by high mountains. Bathing in the icy colder glacial waters of the lake was believed to have healing properties. My body was not in need of special healing that summer, but our spirits were restored by the beauty of the place.

Looking back through the photographs I took at the time I am a bit surprised that I didn’t take more. I was relatively new to digital photography at the time and my camera was a bit limited, but the images from that sabbatical summer are precious to me. They remind me not only of what we saw, but of how we felt and of the importance of taking time to visit “thin places” where the glory of the Creator is evident and our spirits are lifted by the beauty of space.

Our thoughts about sacred spaces expanded over the years with a subsequent sabbatical invested in the study of sacred times.

Now, I look with sadness and horror at the devastating destruction of the fires that have burned through that sacred space. Malign Lodge is no more, destroyed by raging fire. It is estimated that half of the buildings in the town of Jasper have been destroyed. When the fire raced out of the Malign canyon the fire was so large and so intense that it was making its own weather. The rush of the fiery wind down the canyon propelled a wall of flames over 300 feet high. The most skilled and best equipped firefighters in the world were helpless to slow the onslaught. They fought valiantly to protect the hospital and schools, but private residences were reduced to ash and rubble in a matter of minutes.

Fortunately officials were successful in evacuating 20,000 tourists and 5,000 residents from the mountainous area without any loss of life.

Across the prairies and mountains of the United States and Canada there are many features that were identified by indigenous people as sacred. When settlers arrived they recognized the beauty and power of those places. Often, however, the settler’s language shifted the meaning of those places. Because the indigenous people were considered to be heathen and their religion was not understood, when they spoke of the presence of the Creator in particular places, the settlers thought that they were referring to false gods. Places with holy names were re-named “Devil’s” in the language of the settlers. My father grew up on the shores of Spirit Lake in North Dakota, which is called Devil’s Lake in English. Similarly, Mato Tipi, place of the Bear, in Wyoming, is called Devil’s Tower.

The raging fires that have swept through sacred places in British Columbia and Alberta this summer seem to deserve such dramatic language. The walls of flames that cannot be resisted are the stuff of descriptions of hell. While fire can kill trees and destroy buildings, it is powerless to change the dramatic geology of the mountains. The land continues to be sacred even in its fire-scarred state. I hope that one day I will be able to return and witness the beauty that remains. I pray for those who live in that place. May their resolve to rebuild be strengthened by the support of neighbors and governments as they seek new ways to live in a world that is so dramatically changed.