There was something haunting about it.
Hearing those states put side-by-side in a sentence. "Wyoming; Montana; the Dakotas."
It struck me. I paused.
I tried to remove from my mind what I know about the United States. For a moment I was able to forget the political landscape, the social landscape, the manmade landscape... and I just considered the natural landscape.
These parts of America were wild once, and there are wild places there still.
Who knows the full mystery of these places? How many hidden gems glisten in the hills of Wyoming? What beasts lie in the reeds of Montana's meandering rivers? How does it feel to inhale the humid air of dusk in deepest South Dakota?
As I considered these things, a phrase echoed deep in my bones: I was made to explore.
These places - even just by the very mention of their names - call out to me. “You’ve never been there”, says the voice. “They are far, far away." It's a quiet voice, one that can easily be ignored. But these days I try to listen. "Could you even make it to that distant land? And even if you did make it, would you be brave enough to go where nobody else has been? Would you be mature enough to understand the land's secrets as they are whispered to you?"
Therein lies the haunting, the enchanting. These are places I’ve never been. Places I might never fully know, even if I found a way to get there. Beautiful, blank slates, that wait to be known. From the way they call out to me, it seems as if they want to be known. The mention of a few American states. It was a small thing, really. But it was like a small door at the back of a farmhouse that leads to the biggest of gardens. Because hidden in the mere mention of these states is the promise of a land that I long for. That distant Heavenly Country that knows me, though I don’t yet know it.