Lifting up our hearts

O Lord,
How manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast
Thou made them all;
The earth is full of thy riches.
--Psalm 104:24
On my last morning at the Grand Canyon, after my previous day's exhausting but triumphant hike down to the Colorado, I wandered along the rim in the (finally!) warm sunshine, enjoying the views of the canyon.  As anyone who has been there knows, the views are breathtaking, the mind's response transcendent.  At "Lookout Studio," a little stone building with an interesting history, perched on the rim of the canyon, I looked down and saw a plaque with the excerpt from Psalm 104, displayed as quoted above.

My first thought was "Exactly!"  The beauty of the view, the vast distances involved, and the incomprehensible time spans evidenced -- endless eons, almost as impossible for the mind to grasp as the size of the national debt -- create an emotional surge that lifts you above the daily routines of our lives in 2012 -- at least if you're alone and silent, as was I, and not trying to keep track of three wild and noisy children.  But my second thought, being a lawyer, was "Hmmm.  Does the ACLU know that a psalm is being displayed in a national park?"

As it turns out, the ACLU does know.  The organization complained in 2003, the plaque (together with two others located elsewhere along the rim) was removed for a few days, but then replaced by order of the Park Service's deputy director, pending further legal and policy review.

That review seems to be still pending.

Legally, from a purely analytical point of view, I suppose the plaque should be taken down, although the Supreme Court precedents aren't totally clear.  Unlike religious symbols approved in other parks, these plaques have no particular historical value -- they were installed only in the 1960's.  But, from a common sense point of view, I feel otherwise.  The plaque enhances the experience of the visitor to the park, just as would a verse from Shakespeare, without putting the government's stamp of approval on any particular religious belief, or even on religious belief in general.

The psalms are literary expressions, as well as religious writings.  An atheist, secure in his atheism, would surely read the quoted excerpt as an ancient writer's heroic attempt to express  awe in the face of an ineffably magnificent  "Creation" -- even if the atheist personally felt that the Creation was not, in fact, literally "created."  I suspect, therefore, that he would have very much the same emotional response to the psalm as would a Christian or a Jew.  Or a Muslim or a Hindu, for that matter.  Very much the same response as I found myself experiencing.

Even Soviet officials, firmly atheist by doctrine, often resorted to religious imagery to express strong depth of feeling.  Some of our greatest poetry is religious in subject matter.  And the Bible itself contains poetic imagery that is unforgettable and that is part of the bedrock -- religious content aside -- of our civilization.

It's not a life or death matter, certainly.  The plaque can be removed, and the Grand Canyon will still be there to astound and stupefy.  But we shouldn't be so rigid and doctrinaire that we insist on  purifying our responses to nature of any language from our literary heritage that helps us to express those feelings -- often difficult to articulate -- that overtake us as we confront suggestions of infinity and eternity.