I just got back from a two week work assignment in Ajo. It is a bleak little town that was originally a mining town. In 1984, the mine was shut down and since then the town has gone downhill. It's current population of around 4,000 (down from 10,000) is primarily made of retirees who came for the cheap housing and people who couldn't scrape up the money to leave when the mine closed down and now the primary industries seem to be social security, stealing, selling their prescription meds.
I stood alongside the Ajo mine on Saturday, which is a large open pit copper mine. Phelps Dodge continues to maintain a skeleton staff and maintain the barest elements of the mine. This is not so they can reopen it in the future. They are currently opening a new mine in the Safford area and the equipment and infrastructure in Ajo is so dated and the copper is a type that costs more to produce that is not considered profitable to open it. The mine is staffed so it can be considered "open" and "operational". Otherwise, P.D. would have to spend a fortune in environmental clean up and waste removal. It is simply easier to keep up the facade than it is to face the reality that the mine is closed.
As I stood gaping into this huge open pit, I thought, "How easy it is to mirror this in my life."
It often seems so much easier to simply maintain a facade of spirituality, relationships and even life itself. It is so much easier to pretend that I have it all going on than to really take a look at my life and see the areas that need to be torn down, cleaned up , re-done and even closed down.
Hopefully, as we come to Christmas this year, you will take some time to face the open pits in your life, get them cleaned up and find something to really celebrate.
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