The Complete Parable of Sulfur Creek

I have been applying to high school English teacher positions. I would just like something more stable where I can save money and not live from pay check to paycheck. I feel that is a righteous desire. So I have been looking into alternative licensure through the State and applying to schools. I got an interview with Lone Peak, a great school with a great program. They told me they would let me know the Wednesday following if I got the job or not.

Wednesday comes and goes and I leave for a family trip to Capital Reef National Park. This is a beautiful little valley of green orchards and quaint old pioneer homesteads and a great campground. It is my favorite place in the world so far. We went with my brother’s In-Laws who are basically family to me. It was so great to be away and with people who really love me, but in the back of my brain I was constantly wondering about the job. On Saturday we all went on the Capital Gorge hike. It is in the washed out river bottom, the only sign of the way this amazing place was formed. There is a pioneer registry with names from as far back at 1859 on the same wall as ancient pictographs. It is a surreal place. Slot canyons feed into this wash and the hiking is a leisurely or strenuous as you want it to be. The kids had fun climbing up in the little wind caves on the walls. It was a good warm up for the hike that I have been waiting to go on my whole life.

The Sulfur Creek hike is not on many of the maps and is basically a journey through switchbacks following the course of Sulfur Creek. As the crow flies it is only about 1.4 miles—but it takes anywhere from three to five hours to do. When my mom told me about the trip in January I immediately began preparing. For years my brother and dad had taken various members of our family on this hike. I have never been healthy enough or strong enough to go. So suddenly I was determined to be able to do this hike. I began training so that the length and physicality of the hike would not be a deterrent. I have been walking 3-5 miles most days and doing some minor hill training. Because I have never been on the hike I didn’t know what to expect—except for the tales of mythic proportion that come out of that canyon.

When we got home from the Capital Gorge hike we made lunch and people took naps. I began to get antsy; I was worried about the job and worried that the hike wouldn’t actually happen. It was getting late. So to fill the time I drove out of the cliffs and checked my phone—still no word. So I had my friend Esther check my email. And there it was, “This is to inform you that the position has been filled—thanks but no thanks.” I had decided that if I didn’t get the job I would know that it wasn’t for me, that there was something better waiting for me. But it is never easy to get rejected.

By the time I got back , the hikers had been gathered. Everyone soon knew about the job and had offered their love and support, but I needed to get out and breathe hard for a bit. We began by being dropped off by Chimney Rock and The Castle and began the decent into the river bed—but there was no river. It was another wash for a bit. Red walls towered thirty feet above us, sage brush and Mormon Tea and cottonwoods clung to the banks the river had long ago abandoned. It was beautiful but desolate—kind of how I was feeling.
We finally came to the river and began the seemingly pointless crisscrossing of the creek—back and forth. At first I though my brother was just messing with us, but my dad acted like it was normal, so I just tried to enjoy the scenery and keep up with the break neck pace my brother had set. We had to get out of the canyon before dark after all. We would cut across the big goose necks of the bank to try and make better time and leapt across stone in the creek which started become bigger and flow faster. Soon it became apparent that the only way to follow a creek is to stay on the side that had enough room for us to walk along. So that was what my brother was doing—it was leading and could see where the creek was running. He knew where we needed to go long before I knew it. By the time I got to where it would matter I was on the right side of the creek, not walking in water up to my knees.

The river began to get louder, “Listen to the river, what is it saying?” my brother shouted back to me. When we were younger we had a youth leader who would take us on the Snake River white water rafting. He would always draw attention to the fact that the river always got louder when rapids were coming. I replied back to Aaron that there must be rapids ahead. “You have no idea,” he snickered. The canyon walls were getting closer and closer together. We had reached the first major obstacle—there were three in total. We began going downhill following the now madly rushing creek. The sandstone made ledges to walk on, but we still had to go back and forth for a while. And suddenly there it was—we were standing at the top of a waterfall and ten feet of plunging water hid where we were supposed to be walking. My brother decided that we novices should figure out how to get down. We all walked to the ledge and saw a huge dead tree trunk jammed in the slot canyon we were now in. How were we going to get down?

Staring down the cliff where this waterfall began, my thoughts continued to roil and foam like the water falling to the pool ten feet below. Everything felt like a dead end--and though I have been doing a find job of maintaining optimism--it was discouraging. Suddenly I thought of The Sound of Music because that is how my mind works. "When God closes a door, he always opens a window." I turned to look back at my brother and dad. They were standing on the other side of the creek--grinning like fools--and suddenly I saw it. On the other side there was an outcropping to the side of the water, making a nice little path. We all moved to this ledge and saw that by doing some hotfooting down the canyon walls we could get down--without even getting wet. Aaron went down, then Brady and Kristi, and then it was my turn. Brady and Aaron stood at the bottom letting me find my footing, helping if I needed it, and acting as a human net if I fell. But I didn't fall--I made it. As soon as we were all down we had to bend double to get out from under the walls of the slot canyon.

On the other side we were in the sun again and began the same process of crisscrossing the river. We made great time but ultimately we could just jump the river we had to get down into it. The water wasn't unpleasant--it was the sand in my socks that got to me. Aaron was still setting a break neck pace with Kristi and Brady, Dad and I were in the middle, and Joy and Joe brought up the rear. Dad and I walked companionably in silence. Joe kept hoping the river, picking up rocks, finding feathers. It totally explains his son Carter. Again the walls began to come back together and the river started talking again. We soon caught up to Aaron and the second obstacle. We had to walk in the rushing water through the slot canyon and then down a steep drop of another water fall. But again this time we found a side way above the water that brought us down to the side and down safely. Also again I found my way down with Brady ready to catch me if I fell. My shoes were soaked and the rock was slippery. But we made it.

Aaron started talking about how what we were doing was tame in comparison with what they had been through before. The old legends of Sulfur Creek were told as we continued weaving along the creek, in the creek, and around the creek. I began to relax. This was much more fun than brooding. I had made up my mind that if I didn't get the job that there was somewhere better for me. I knew from past experiences that the Lord would guide me, even when I felt like there was no where to go. And as always, He would bring others into my life to help me in case I fell, or to keep me from falling in the first place. I began to feel extremely blessed. And then the water started talking again.


We had to go through the slot canyon again, and the water was really fast. We soon realized that we were looking over an ancient bowl cut into the sandstone that showed evidence of being filled with a lot of water--a lake of water. This was the famous waterfall and lake from all of the stories. But this time the lake was a deep green pool surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of previous rainfalls. The drop was around twelve feet in some places. Joe went down first, much to Joy's chagrin. There were several place we could try to get down, all of them involved sheer drops off of smooth sandstone walls. Being wet, I had slipped down the channel cut by the waterfall and Aaron and Brady kept me from going over, but I was more wet than before. This made everything slippery. Kristi seemed concerned, but I figured that if we had made it this far, we would be fine now. The problem was we didn't know how deep the water was. In the past Aaron had to swim to get to the other side. Now we weren't sure. But Joe was already down and in an act of sheer stupid curiosity he started into the pool. He soon discovered that one side was much deeper than the other--we could come down on the shallow side and be fine. But how would we get down?

I find no shame in coming down anything on my backside. I had already slipped so I stayed sitting while the others came up with ways to get down. Aaron had rope--and while they were debating I suddenly began to slip again. Brady and Aaron were down already and reached up to catch me. They caught my arms and in a kind of controlled fall, I figured out the easiest way down. "I'm coming down" I laughed as we all reacted as we needed to--and I was down, standing in four inches of water. We all laughed and the other girls came down. In my head I snarkishly thought, "Boy am I glad for the priesthood". And then I realized how true it was.


My life is a controlled fall right now. I know where I need to go, I know how to begin, but I don't know exactly how to get there in the interim. I am surrounded by guides, and companions, and people to make me laugh. I will fall, I have fallen, and I believe that I will yet fall--I have accepted it. Just when I start to wonder about things I am taken to a lovely waterfall, or a huge cottonwood tree, or a shining path of water. All of these lovely things--like the kiva we found that was hiding at the end of the trail--are things that I don't want to miss, and I would miss them if the path didn't wind a bit. By the end of the hike I felt great about life, about the job, about the food waiting for us, and that other than some huge blisters from the sand, I was physically fine. Those blisters are just reminders that my footsteps are known. It will all be okay.

I will be okay.

" 'Why did the Lord ask such things of Abraham? Because, knowing what his future would be and that he would be the father of an innumerable posterity, he was determined to test him. God did not do this for His own sake for He knew by His foreknowledge what Abraham would do; but th purpose was to impress upon Abraham a lesson and to enable him to attain unto knowledge that he could not obtain in any other way. That is why God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge, for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But he tries us for our own good that we may know ourselves; for it is most important that a man should know himself' " (Prophets, Priests, and Kings p. 43).