Living in a tourist destination means we frequently get company, friends and relations who count on us to show them the sights. The trick, of course, is to intuit which sights they want to see. We recently hosted two sort-of-adult nephews in a month. Separately. (I cooked more than is my custom.) We wanted to show them around, but these six-footer-plus brothers are not so alike that the same Far West Texas tour would serve to satisfy both.

For wannabe writer Daniel, the elder of the two young men, hiking and the nature tour followed by lots of hearty food sufficed. Dan, a recent graduate of Texas A & M University was en route to Terlingua to report for temporary employment as a guide for river raft trips on the Rio Grande. (BBRT: Big Bend Raft Trips, pronounced "Be-Bert". Ask for Daniel Nammour, and please, tip him generously. Hurry, though. before he bails in search of new material to write about.)

We hadn't been around younger nephew Steven as much. What could we find to do with him? What would we even talk about? Steven (sometime actor, sometime scholar, still searching for his niche but rather convinced it he won't find it on the river or living in a tent outside Terlingua, TX like his brother) required structure.  We hadn't been up to MacDonald Observatory in awhile. We did the day tour. No star party, but hey, we didn't expect to see stars at noon. They do a great sunspot and solar flare show, though, and the drive up Mount Locke is worth the time and diesel spent getting there.

That still left the evening to fill. We bundled man and beast into the truck, then drove the Scenic Loop into the sunset. Somewhere around the old Rockpile, it was getting dark so we U-turned back, then took 505 to Marfa. (Actors love Marfa.) Which inevitably led to, "Let's go see the Marfa Lights."

I've seen these unexplained "ghost lights" several times. When I was a girl, we'd all bundle up (the high desert gets pretty darn chilly after all those solar flares retire for the night) then drive the lonely highway between Marfa and Alpine to see if the lights felt like greeting us. Daddy always knew where to pull off the two-lane road. He'd park, then my sister and I would crane for a view out the car window. "There!" someone would say. And sure enough, colored lights would be dancing and floating across the dark mountains. They'd disappear. Or they'd split. Sometimes, lights approached as if to chase us. Ooooo.

Seeing the Marfa Lights wasn't a given. Sometimes, the night remained dark. On those instances, Daddy would finally, reluctantly turn the key in the ignition. But usually, there were lights. I don't know why they appear. I just know they do. So do many other people who've driven that road.

Native Americans reported the ghost lights of the Marfa plains long before highways and airplanes came into play as explanations. Today, it's important to remember there's nothing man-made out there. Lights appear, and just as mysteriously, disappear. And that stretches even a child's imagination: neither Mommy nor Daddy can explain away those lights. Nor can they summon them. We often saw the lights. We didn't know why they appeared or why they refused to. Where they came from. Where they went.
 
Scientists haven't been able to explain the Marfa Lights. But as a girl, I saw them more than a few times.  I wasn't sure what I was seeing, but even as a kid, I never once thought the lights came from ghostly fires. (Why would ghosts need campfires? Do people think they toast s'mores out there, or what?) And I don't blame the mystery lights for never showing their colors on nights my favorite skeptic, Jim is along. (I think he's actually beginning to hope for a sighting now, but so far, no joy. He's never seen Big Foot, either.)

Since I've reached adulthood (a state of being which spans slightly more than one decade) The State of Texas, in all its wisdom, has alloted bags of money to build The Marfa Lights Viewing Station. It's lovely. There's this big wide pull-off, a motorhome mecca. And a building. Brick walls, a viewing scope, restrooms. The real kicker is the sign. It states (I kid you not) that the lights are better seen after dark.
 
Oh, my. What if they hadn't erected that sign? Picture multitudes of tourists crowding into the designated area (sticking to the brick walls, hovering near the rest rooms, dodging rattlesnakes), all shielding their sun-glassed eyes from those pesky solar flares. All hoping for a magnificent high noon light show.
 
Thank goodness for that sign. Heavens, that stretch of highway is 22 miles long. Without that sign, how would we know where to park to view something that doesn't always appear, a sometimes subtle phenomenon no one can explain?

Perhaps I'm being too hard on eager tourists and the helpful highway department. But we West Texans grow up assuming that lights can best be seen in the dark. And my Daddy, who wasn't even known for his navigational finesse, never needed a sign to find the best location to park and view the Marfa Lights. He didn't Google it.  He spent a fair amount of time talking to other people and a few evenings, searching.

Perhaps, in our continuing, insatiable quest for definable truth and concrete knowledge, we are losing something valuable. We are wandering less on our own, seeking more adventures under bright lights and surrounded by crowds of strangers who read the same informative signs we do.

Are we losing our respect for mystery?

Far West Texas was originally mapped by Spanish explorers as "El Desplobado", the unexplored. This was the Texas map-maker's version of those charts of the deep Atlantic that noted "Here be Monsters". No one suggested the bravest of sailors shouldn't go there, just that they should keep their eyes open and accept that they might spy a sea monster or two. No one back then supposed that photographing or analyzing a sample of sea monster DNA was the determinate factor for confirming a monster sighting. You saw monsters, or you didn't. Who's to say why the monsters were or weren't swimming that day. It was a mystery. It remained a mystery.

Our highly educated friend and pastor Matt Miles (Fort Davis Presbyterian Church) frequently answers some of the intellectual puzzles we Presbyterians ponder by saying God is bigger and smarter than us (okay, Matt says it better but that's the gist of it). He sometimes assures us we don't have to know such and such. Or, possibly, aren't meant to know. Even, Can't know. (Ouch!) I find that freedom not to know both comforting and challenging. Take, for instance, the Marfa Lights. I know they exist. I vaguely want to know why. (What if there really are a bunch of ghosts out there toasting marshmallows over campfires?) But I also savor the mystery of not knowing, and of not caring why I don't know.
 
I don't need a sign to tell me there are lights out there anymore than I need someone to tell me there is a God.

Glimpsing mysterious lights, the mossy fins of sea monsters, the grace of God in daily life is what differentiates Life from all the tourist attractions we've constructed. Half the fun comes in learning just where to pull over and park. And then, the trick is to be very still and to watch for what happens next. Even if you don't see what you're looking for, you'll inevitably see something you didn't expect to see. Something that isn't on any sign.

We didn't see any lights that night. But we laughed a lot, and we got to know our nephew Steven a little better.



CATHEDRAL OF THE WEST   a 12" x 18" pastel by Lindy C Severns   $1900 SOLD at auction
                    donated to Museum of the Big Bend's Trappings of Texas Auction 2008

Another day: We pulled off the road at the Marfa Lights Viewing Station to take pictures.
It was daylight.
No lights appear in this painting, no matter how long you look at it. But I know they exist. There may also be fossilized sea monsters embedded in those cliffs, but I can't vouch for that. Maybe you should check it out for yourself? And bring marshmallows. Just in case.