"OH, THE WORLD, IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL"
It all happened several years ago when I was working in East Harlem in New York City. Located in the upper East Side of Manhattan, Spanish Harlem was home to about 200,000 to 300,000 people of Hispanic origins, mostly Puerto Rican.
I had been asked by our denomination to start an educational institute in East Harlem, South Bronx and the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. And I also served as Associate Minister of the Puerto Rican church at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 110th Street.
But one summer I was asked to direct a week long summer camp in the Catskill Mountains just north of New York City. The camp included inner city high schoolers from our Puerto Rican, Afro-American and Caucasian constituencies.
One tradition of the camp was to take our young people to the top of Mr. Denis to cook supper over the campfires, to watch the sunset and to witness the beauty and wonder of the emerging nighttime sky.
After the hike up the somewhat demanding trails and initial explorations of the top of the modest mountain, we cooked our supper over the campfires. Our teenagers made sure we had no left-over food to carry back down the mountain except in their stomachs.
After some campfire games and robust singing, darkness was descending and we moved to the edge of the mountain for a panoramic view of valleys and hills and sky. As we gathered at the vista point on that balmy summer evening, a reverent hush strangely descended on the otherwise robustly, noisy group.
We all took in the magnificent scene. Far below us the lights of homes and villages began to twinkle as if in a fairy tale. The earlier magnificent sunset was now giving way to a spectacular nighttime sky. The planet Venus, as is her custom, came early into view. Then the moon in its ancient glory, began slowly to rise over the Eastern horizon. And as darkness increased, stars by the millions displayed their dazzling array of glory.
As we all stood in unaccustomed silence, there was an unspoken sense of awe and reverence in the group. And then it came, the soft, almost prayerful voice of Lydia, a l6 year old Puerto Rican from the Bronx. In her Puerto Rican accent she said, “Oh, the world, it is so beautiful. O, the world, it is so beautiful.”
As with many of the group, this was Lydia’s first time in her 16 years she had ever been outside New York City. This was the first time she ever saw the glory of the nighttime sky not masked by the intensity of New York City lights. This was the first time the wide mysterious panoply of nature became so wonderfully amazing to her. “Oh, the world, it is so beautiful.”
In her own way, Lydia was echoing the Psalmist when he wrote:
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth! When I look at the heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou has established, what is man that Thou art mindful of him and the son of man that Thou dost care for him.” (Bible: Psalm 8:1, 3-4)
And probably many of us could say with the Psalmists and Lydia:
“Oh, the world, it is so beautiful”
“Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth. The heavens are telling the glory of God and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” (Bible: Psalm 19:1)
