The Utah—Dad Connection

By Andrew R. Duckworth

Utah reminds me of dad somehow. We never went there as a family. But the rugged landscape that screams adventure at every turn tends to remind me of the hard work and sacrifice he put in for family. There’s that quality to the terrain—the mountains, the canyons, the uneven ground, the red sand, the orange sand, the forests, etc. In a way, the old west hasn’t died out there, the stretches of land with next to nothing but God’s craftsmanship. The terrain often whispers a few things in my ear: ruggedness, grace, and opportunity.

Ruggedness, it’s not a bad thing. Often times, we might hear that word in the negative. When we read it, it might conjure images in the mind of impossibility. At the best, it might stress harsh qualities in a person. I don’t read it that way, not anymore. Ruggedness might mean “imperfection” for some. But I seem to find more perfect quality in asymmetry. Symmetry, in my mind, is boring. When I hear “symmetry,” I think of the soulless quality of modernity—the perfectly square buildings, the overly patterned plannings of cities, etc. I see a profound lack of character in symmetry. Ruggedness, in my opinion, is a solution—a way of life long discarded for patterns, data, precision. The landscape of Utah has a different precision, one brought by nature and the natural world before the interstates, the gargantuan cities, the pitstops at every corner. Utah has cities also, but also has a large swath of untouched land, thankfully a bit of it protected from the ever-encroaching hands of big tech and others who would proudly and happily bulldoze it all for data centers.

While some of the land is unforgiving, it is the unforgiving portions we often seek out. It’s in this seeking and finding that we also find forgiveness, not necessarily forgiveness from sins—how we might think of that term, forgiveness—but the grace we need to retry, get up from our fall and keep going. Does the mountain-climber land every step correctly? Does the hiker never get lost or turned around? There are always difficulties. But ask any mountain-climber or hiker and they’ll tell you there is peace within the difficulty. In today’s world, often we do whatever we can to find peace within our busy lives. And for some, we find peace in nature, the thing that we were attempting to find solutions to for centuries. Now that we have the shelter we need, the food on the table, the clothes on our backs, we have relinquished nature’s hand in the saddest fashion. One of the greatest teachers we have is vanishing fast under the weight of our need to expand. Dad loved nature. Camping and fishing, that was dad’s happy place. He got to go fly fishing only a few times. Even in that, there are challenges. Nature is unpredictable. Perhaps you don’t catch a thing. It never stopped him from continuing on. Instead, he sought to master it.

And then, opportunity. It goes hand in hand with ruggedness and grace. In fact, one could say, it’s the liminal space between these two, ruggedness and grace. Grace does not come without opportunity and there is no ruggedness that does not contain opportunity. And, just like ruggedness and grace, opportunity can be discarded or embraced. Every time I view the orange rock of Arches, every time I see the mountaintops beyond Salt Lake City, every time I see the endless rolling hills and mountains beyond Park City, I see opportunity—the opportunity to live and learn and be forever changed by what the land itself can offer. I can often hear my dad’s words telling me that the choice is mine, that if I truly want something I must reach out myself and grab it. Little is freely given in life. The most meaningful life requires hard work and perseverance. That was dad’s philosophy and he lived it. I can’t think of one greater.