God’s Country

Day 4 of cycling the Erie Canal Bikeway found us in Palmyra, southeast of Rochester, about 100 miles and a third of the way along the Canal.

If that name rings a bell for you, it may be because you are aware of enough American religious history to know that Palmyra -- named for a village in what is now Syria -- is where Joseph Smith found the golden tablets from which he translated and printed the Book of Mormon. At the end of today's 28 miles, we participated in a guided tour of the local print shop which took on the massive job of publishing 5000 copies using 1830 technology from two new, 19-year-old female missionaries whose delight in the book's creation and meaning was palpably contagious.

Biking through the lush farmland here, it is easy to feel its inspiration as a source of revelation. From giant black walnut trees whose thick, low arms reach out in broad embraces to hummingbirds sheltering in visible nests and an orchestra of songbirds to the sheep and lambs roaming the verdant hillsides, it is easy here to feel the abundance, generosity, and awe-inspiring beauty that is creation. How blessed we all are, however we choose to make sense of our place in cosmology.

Smith was a determined and highly successful religious visionary, and the first and only home-grown American one. Mormonism is very particularly American in its belief in America and this nation, its citizens and Constitution as exceptional and chosen peoples. These beliefs, as much as the revelatory beauty of the world surrounding Joseph Smith, continue to inspire millions around the world to follow the Book of Mormon and Smith's other published teachings.