David Jenkins and George Handley’s excellent op-ed published on April 11, “Let’s keep the Creator in our national monuments,” hit home deeply. Who among us, with the good fortune to gaze upon Utah’s magnificent landscapes, has not felt both humbled and inspired? Pause in Red Rock Country, and the spirit grows still, allowing the soul to expand and the mind to explore the mysteries of the universe.
Perhaps this is why the Department of Interior received more than 100,000 public comments regarding sharply increasing entrance fees to numerous national parks; 98 percent rejected the proposal, and the department wisely chose to implement a more modest fee change. Strange, then, that when 98 percent of the 1.2 million public comments submitted to the same department last fall asking that boundaries to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments remain unchanged, our voices were ignored.
It is not too late to let our political leaders know that we revere nature as we revere the Creator. As Jenkins and Handley quoted, “Love of nature is akin to the love of God; the two are inseparable.” If this does not ring true for you, I challenge you to stand beneath Jacob Hamblin Arch in Grand Staircase’s Coyote Gulch. Then, listen to your soul.
Marjorie McCloy
Salt Lake City