Last month, Lisa and I took a vacation to Arizona and California. We rode an RT1200 BMW motorcycle through the hot winds of the southwest. The expansive landscape alone was healing, but the Grand Canyon took our breath away as it does everytime we visit.

How long did it take for the Grand Canyon to assume it's current form? Answer: About 17 million years.

I found myself staring at the stars in the evening. The desert is a great place for astronomy.

How big is the Milky Way? About 100,000 light years in diameter, containing 100-400 billion stars.

While on our staff retreat with the Deans of conferences, I took the staff for a visit to the Madison boulder near camp Calumet.

The Madison Boulder was deposited about 25,000 years ago, when the glaciers retreated and left it behind.

All of this has been a part of a spiritual experience for me in recent months. The end result, for now as this is an ever unfolding process, is a reminder that we live in vast arenas of time and space. The ground of all being and life, the God of the Universe, has a perspective on life that in my prayer and meditation I am seeking to enjoy. Yes, this mystic side of my spirituality is very much rooted in a cosmology that is very expansive and eternal. Infact, it's giving me a new perspective on eternity.

Yet in our day to day living, it is easy for us to forget the vast scope of time and space. In many ways, we human beings have been recovering from Copernicus discovery some 500 years ago, that the universe does not revolve around us.

Knowing that I am a very small part of something much much larger is actually quite helpful when I get wrapped up in the small insignificant problems of life.

"I lift you high in praise, my God, and I bless your name into eternity." Psalm 145