Reality Check

The Grand Prismatic is one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing on our family trip to Yellowstone National Park. It’s like I had to see it to believe it was real.

This is not an uncommon sentiment when it comes to this magical place.

The early explorers who came back with stories from Yellowstone were written off as crazy people. Surely a loose screw, an overindulgence in booze, or insanity caused by being alone for too long was easier to believe than the tall tales that returned. Upside-down waterfalls? Boiling rivers? Bubbling mud? Twenty-foot beasts?

Please.

Well, if you’ve never seen a geyser, hydrothermal activity, or an angry grizzly bear reared up on its hind legs, you’d deem these reports as unbelievable, too.

I have been to Yellowstone, and in the words of Han Solo when speaking to Rey and Finn about the Force, “It’s true. All of it.” (Even the grizzlies, although I didn’t experience an angry one.) The place is filled with the unbelievable.

But of course, now it is believable. Because we’ve seen the pictures and millions of us have visited, having driven through it on roads that weren’t there 150 years ago. And so the amazement has dimmed.

Just like it has with all the wonders of this world.

We are surrounded — besieged! saturated! deluged! — by the unbelievable, but because it’s familiar, we treat it like an afterthought. Every day becomes ho-hum.

But pretend with me for a moment that you’re from Mars, a barren red wasteland, and you’re hearing about Earth for the first time. What if I told you it was a place where…

Food grows right out of the ground.

Water comes from a sky that regularly changes color throughout the day.

Sometimes that water turns into trillions of tiny crystals that cover the ground and shine like diamonds when the sun hits it just right.

Small flying insects use flowers to create a delicious, sweet liquid called honey.

The people living there are created when two microscopic cells meet under just the right conditions.

The majority of the oxygen those people depend on for survival comes from a vast army of invisible sea creatures.

The people can fly across a vast ocean in a matter of hours.

They burn ancient sea creatures to fuel their vehicles.

They can significantly improve their vision by applying small slips of soft plastic to their eyeballs, and they just throw them away at the end of the day.

They have small handheld devices that allow them to listen to any song ever recorded, communicate across continents by video, tell them how to get anywhere on Earth, and share cute photos of cats.

And yes, there really are rainbow pools in this land that once teemed with animals bigger than a house.

Balderdash! you say?

Well, I’ve been there and it’s true. All of it.

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that most of the people who live there take it all for granted. It’s all familiar. Ho-hum.

Now that’s balderdash. Today, my friend is not just another day.

Keep your eyes peeled. Don’t miss it.

The unbelievable is everywhere.

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🤔 I wonder…what was a part of your week that someone who lived on Mars might have a hard time believing?