(Composed after visiting Carlsbad Caverns for my birthday a few years ago.)
The mouth of the cave stands at the crest of a hill overlooking the wide, flat desert land colored dusty-brown and sunset rose with splotches of dark viridian green. The mouth yawns open, as sparrows circle above it, chirping and sending their small voices down into the dark chasm. A path snakes down and down further into the mouth and down the throat, where the ground levels, for a moment. Descending down the path, all remains lit by the light of the sun. Birds live here in ease, at the doorway of their neighbors, the bats. Their cheerful song and the flitting of their wings is your companion as you carry on further down.
Further down.
It is the theme of this park. Most of the experience of Carlsbad Caverns can be explained in those two words. Further down. It’s a cave system that pierces deep into the surface of the earth, penetrating layers and layers of soil gathered together and built up, forged and tightened into rock and stone. Except in those places where you now tread.
The light of the sun is diminished, but still there. Soon enough that will change. Down through a close arch, and then out into the first glimpse of the enormity of the caverns. A wall opposite the path stretches up to the roof, where the entrance still permits some light to enter. Regardless, man-made lights line the way, pointing out the greatness of the rock formations all around. Forward a bit, then, once again, further down.
It’s not long before the formations start to appear. Speleothems, the signs call them. Stalactites hanging like daggers from the ceiling, pointing downward to wonder below. Stalagmites shooting upward at the vaulted cathedral ceiling. Drapery, where rock flows like water over the walls, and what has been dubbed “popcorn,” which looks as if splashing water turned to stone mid-splash. And here and there, the stalactite fingers reaching down, and the stalagmite fingers reaching up meet each other in a column.
For the next hour you move down, weaving back and forth down the zigzagging path, surrounded at all points by unending complexity. The wall opposite the path stretches up and down, arching overhead and curving down into dim obscurity below. The cave formations flow and drip and rise up all around, like the stained glass of a massive natural cathedral, one fashioned long ago by God Himself. To think how this was made, with little more than calcite and water, and ages of human time. What sort of mind could have thought of this? What boundless, infinite eternality could regard it a small thing to use millions of years to stack up a stalagmite nine feet tall? This is a worshipful place, and as you look around, trying to surround yourself with reverent silence, you can feel your spirit soar in wonder.
Calcite and water. Seeping rainwater and acid solutions. The hammers and chisels of the Architect of Universes. It is just like Him to use such small things to create such awesome wonder. And it goes deeper still! Further down and further down and further down! How long did it take? How many eons were used with this one cave? Were the dinosaurs roaming during its infancy? How many feet down did it go when Adam was formed? And now, how many hundred or thousand years later, 750 feet down, construction is still underway.
All around you see the greatness and mighty power of the caves, as you still descend deeper and deeper, further down. This is good. You can feel it. Smallness. You are small, a small being inching down along the path into the deep, as the massive, silent rock sits and watches, indifferent in its size. Men should visit caves more often. All the usual metaphors for greatness, beauty, and majesty have been worn down. Mountains have been climbed. Valleys have been settled. Even the seas have been charted on the surface. But in caves, one is at peace and small. Surrounded by such majesty, you can see the greatness of God, and feel his handiwork all around, quietly chanting in deep tones, “God is here, God is here,” with every drip of calcite-rich water on infant stalagmites, “God is here, God is here.” All around, nature worships.
And yet. Nature can only reveal so much. The wonder and glory of the world will only go so far. Descend as deep into the caves as you wish, but you will never reach a personal knowledge of their Craftsman, just as you will never know an architect from the house you live in. You may see wonder and majesty, glory and might, but even these are not sufficient to draw the cry “God, be gracious to me, a sinner.”
The caves are God’s revelation, yes. But He has given another revelation, even more powerful, and far, far deeper than Carlsbad. He has made known parts of His mind in Scripture, in that Holy Bible at your home, on your shelf. There the powerful Maker of all this enormity has shown man what is good and right and true. There He speaks, through human words, and utters greater mysteries than those hidden in the depths of the Earth.
It is not enough just to see the expansive grandeur around you. You must keep going through it, losing sight of other concerns and cares as you move down to the bottom of the cave system. But there is more to see. Here in this aptly titled Big Room, the speleothems shine like stars and nebulae in space. Stalagmites tower, and here and there they have smaller children, running here and there throughout the room, almost laughing and pointing at the strangers who pass, not fixed to the ground but moving on two lower appendages. Further on there are soda straws, ultra-thin stalactites that drip downward in clusters like straws, or bales of thick, rocky hay. More popcorn speckling the walls. A lake that shimmers like the polished glass of a mirror. A pit which yawns downward, even further down, and further down. Man can never know what’s down there, and why should he seek to know? The mystery of it is what draws them back again and again, wondering, just how far does it go?
You have been lost in the awe of this world, this subterranean Eden, and wandered about drinking in its secrets, its treasures, its praises. It has given you a greater sense of smallness, a wondering humility before its majesty. But now the time has come to leave. This is as far as man has tread, and you must not go any further, for your own sake, and the sake of the caves, and the sake of those who will come wondering after you. You have come to love this place, and now you must leave it unmolested. Man’s inventions will carry you out. But part of you will remain here, still looking around, still climbing downward, and gaping, staring, and laughing, as the beauty of God’s design washes over you again.
You have seen Carlsbad, and now you must be on your way, as the next part of the journey beckons.
