Airplane Disturbances

Disturbance #1: There is a distinct culture on airplanes that disturbs me. It's as if our sense of entitlement is contained into a small space and you cannot escape it's foul aroma. Because you can't open a window and air out the stench, it sits with you and becomes annoyingly normal to the point where you begin thinking and speaking it. In this case as I flew to visit my parents, I found myself thinking the same sort of entitlement thoughts that my co-flyers were uttering. We had just landed at Washington D.C.'s Dulles Airport and headed towards our gate several minutes earlier than scheduled. Most of us, including me, were heading to another terminal and another gate to catch our connecting flight to our final destination. We pulled up to our gate only to find it occupied, which usually means we sit on the tarmac for 5-10 minutes until the departing flight pulls out of the gate. Instead, as we found out from our flight attendant, our gate was switched to a completely different terminal on the opposite side of the airport. A vocal and quite unified moan echoed throughout the plane. Internally I wrestled with the inconvenience of the situation due to my short time to get off of this flight and to my next one: "Why couldn't the pilot have communicated to the airport staff before we taxied to the occupied gate? It would have saved us so much time!" We slowly got to the next gate and after quickly exiting, boarding a shuttle to a different terminal, walking the length of that terminal to the gate for my connecting flight, I made it with only a few minutes to spare. Phewww, that was close.

As I boarded the next flight the absurdity of the prior situation entered my mind. We just traveled 600 miles in a little over an hour and we are complaining about an extra 10-15 minutes in the plane. I'm openly admitting that my consideration that this was inconvenient equals pathetic. I should have been more concerned with the nature of my fast-paced lifestyle that exploits the earth and treats anyone who interrupts or slows me down with disdain rather than respect and love. Or maybe I should have been considering how flying is a club that values the "haves" (those who can afford to fly) and excludes the "have-nots" unless a generous person purchases their ticket. My/our sense of entitlement from the "have" club demands efficiency and comfortability above all else. It's a slap in the face to the way of life that values loving God and loving others above all else. I was convicted of this and vowed that I would enter my next flight in a posture that attempted to value love over and above entitlement. This admonishment led me into...

Disturbance #2:
I was one of the last on the next plane to Raleigh that is barely half full. I noticed that there was only one man occupying the exit row of 10 seats in total, so I took a more spacious row to myself despite the fact that this wasn't my assigned seat. I didn't think twice about it because it was obvious that 9 more people were not going to board the flight and all sit in this area. I was right, and nobody sat in my row or any of the exit row for that matter. As we were about to leave the gate a man who appeared to be of African descent left his crowded row in the back of the plane to sit in the exit row across from me. The flight attendant quickly approached him to inform, "If you want to sit here you have to pay $40 so I would suggest moving back to your original seat." He responds, "Well, I don't want to pay $40 so I will move back." He packed his bag up quickly and moved back to his more crowded area.

This angered me. What the flight attendant failed to recognize was that I never paid the $40 to sit in more comfort, so I was committing the same offense as this man. I want to assume that she thought I belonged there and it was obvious that he didn't because he moved from his original seat. At the same time I thought about how he was black and I was white, he had to move to the less comfortable seat in the back while I remained in comfort towards the front. My heart of justice cried out at this moment but my mouth did not utter words of injustice to the flight attendant nor the man who faced this. I watched him move and her walk away and wrote this down: "I am asking, you, Jesus, right now what you would do or what you would say in this situation, while being treated like a have and watching another be treated as a have-not. Would you say something regarding the injustice of the situation? Would you fight for the man to remain seated there or quietly move yourself back to your assigned seat which was more crowded and strike up a conversation with those seated next to you? I have to say that I'm quite content only writing about it, and not, I'm not going to say something or move. I'm quite content in my indivudual row of comfort - and there was just an announcement that I am now required to stay in my seat with my seatbelt fastened, so I would be breaking the rules if I was to move to my assigned seat."

I'm disturbed by my reactions to two disturbing situations. Certainly they were not life or death, but my reactions reflected death more than they did life. What I am slowly learning is to have eyes to see and ears to hear like Jesus did and like Jesus does if I am to listen to the Spirit. It's not comfortable, but I'm beginning to recognize that the way of Jesus is quite uncomfortable and disturbing most of the time.

Pilgrims in Toronto Part 1 – To Be (Un)Known

One week ago today I returned from Toronto, Ontario that commenced a new beginning for me. For those of you with whom I haven’t talked in awhile, I’ve committed the next nine months to the “Kingdom Living Training School” through Common Ground Christian Church, a sister church to ours in Indy. This is a school purposed to nurture and hone the gifts that God has given us through dialogue, prayer, teaching, serving, retreating, and engaging in missionally-minded trips to Toronto, Ontario and Tijuana, Mexico among other local places. You can find out more by visiting the website at http://www.cground.org/Training_School_89e1e19be358e148.html/. KLTS also includes part-time work here in Indianapolis where we can use our gifts practically. Ultimately, I believe that this training will allow Jesus and others to impart a further understanding of who I am created to be, I will walk with others in that process, and because of this we will be released together to radically alter the spiritual landscape of the Church of Indianapolis. Hit me up with more questions about the school and about the direction my life is going.

So as for Toronto…After a long day’s drive we settled into our simple accommodations, only to later be unsettled by the reality of homelessness in what I believe is the largest city in Toronto. It’s not that any of us didn’t expect to have encounters with those without homes; in fact, we were anticipating these to be frequent. Allow me take you to the scene of our first encounter: There’s a quick passageway from Dundas Square, aka Toronto’s small version of NYC’s Times Square, to a quiet rectangle adjacent to the gorgeous church building of Trinity Church (forget the denomination but should we care?). The passageway is through the Eaton Centre, which is the shopping mall central of downtown Toronto. Although the beats of music from Dundas can be heard faintly, there is a calm and silence over this refuge. Our guide, Larry, begins to tell of Trinity and their mission, and my eyes wander for a moment to an advertisement on a building’s north wall of an overly made-up woman promising that if we purchase the product she is wearing that we will be as attractive as her. Chuckling inside at the absurdity of the ad and its juxtaposition to our current locale, I refocus my attention to the conversation.

Larry brings our attention to a small bulletin board with glass covering the front. On this board are numerous sheets of regular paper, the first a two- paragraph description from Trinity indicating that this is a memorial for all the homeless people who have passed away since the 1970s. The other sheets are filled with years, specific dates, and names of the specific homeless man or woman who passed away. Several people stayed and read the memorial while others of us scattered around to seek moments of solitude after a day full of conversation and noise. Adequate time passed for me to quiet my heart and mind before I entered into the memorial, which I approached with a somber curiosity. Two things jumped out and grabbed me – the first being the amount of John and Jane Doe’s that were listed indicating that some died without a name to the people who found them dead and no family or friends to know that they had died. The second was a divine nudge I had to seek somebody out who had passed on my birthday, September 26th. I started in 1984 when I was born and browsed until the year 2000 when I found someone who died on my birthday.

His name was James Haine. Here’s what I wrote about James and the John and Jane Doe’s after I left the memorial with grief and leaned myself against the concrete wall of the Eaton’s Centre’s north end:
“James Haine, you died on my 16th birthday. You died homeless while my friends, parents, and grandparents celebrated my further passage into adulthood. I was showered with gifts by many while you, probably unknown and disregarded my most, fell out of this life into another. What is it like to be unknown? As we walked the streets of Toronto today, I’m disturbed by this disparity between the known and the unknown. I am known, the members of this group are known by many and becoming known to the group while we pass person after person who are unknown by most. It is a fundamental longing for a human to be known. Not just a longing but a genuine need and a fundamental one at that. How did you, James, and your brothers and sisters without a roof over your heads, live knowing that you would die unknown?”

This question brought me much grief. Because I listened to this grief in Toronto, I was able to more genuinely enter into solidarity with the people for whom I believe Jesus had a special affection – the homeless, addicted, poor, prostitutes, disregarded, disenfranchised, and unknown. I was reminded by Larry and now that I reflect on my experience my memory is evoked of the posture Jesus took toward the unknown and disregarded in comparison to the religious. It’s painted for us clearly in John 8:1-11 – Jesus is teaching outside the temple and the Pharisees drag in an adulterous woman. They cite their laws that require them to stone this woman to death, yet Jesus challenges them, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” They all leave yet Jesus remains, comforting her in the reality that she is not condemned, but forgiven and given another chance. As they leave the scene, I imagine Jesus looking into her eyes with great compassion declaring, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” While the religious desire to end this woman’s life so they don’t have to live with her uncleanness, Jesus sees into who she is and exemplifies a new way of life that I like to think is about knowing – her knowing Jesus while being known by Jesus more intimately than her husband or the other men she gave herself to sexually. This knowing is what Jesus asks of us – for us to know him, to be known by him, and know others in that way as well. It is a fundamental need of humanity.

Post Canyon Reflection #2 - Danger!

DISCLAIMER: In writing this post I by no means am attempting to put myself up on a pedestal, saying “Look at me, I’m dangerous! I just hiked 60 miles in a desert canyon and survived the elements with ease.” If after reading this you sense otherwise, for example an unnecessary pride in my reflections, then please don’t hesitate to talk with me about it. What I’m interested in primarily is having an inner reflection that will hopefully lead to some dialogue about our culture’s idea of danger. My overall hypothesis can be found in these steps: a) Our culture has become preoccupied with danger, therefore we create safe havens to protect ourselves from danger; b) These refuges provide supposed protection from dangerous weather, people, activities, ideologies, and other dangerous things that we feel will harm us; c) Because of the walls built up around us we feel on the surface safe, protected, and comfortable, but we don’t experience life in the fullest sense because we are not exposed to the elements of sorts. And let’s be honest, most of these strongholds we build are figments of our imagination anyway because they tend to implode with relational conflict, non-conformists, fires, and tornadoes (both literal and figurative I might add).

All these thoughts came to me because I ran into somebody during my daily activities the day after I returned from trekking the canyon. We got into a conversation and he found out where I had been for the previous week. He had particular interest in the Utah area because a friend had asked him to do some lighter hiking with him in the fall in some backcountry areas. As he was asking me all sorts of questions about our trip, I began to notice a look on his face that I interpreted as “I can’t believe you would do something like that and you’re certainly deterring me from going to Utah.” My interpretation was accurate as he commented, “That’s really dangerous!” after finding out we were enclosed by canyon walls and had meager opportunity to hike out to “safety,” escaped the wrath of a flash flood by just two hours, and faced challenging stretches of being parched between natural springs to refill our water. I’m not trying to be difficult and claim that what we did was not dangerous; what I am claiming is intrigue of his reaction that represents for me our culture at large. And I can honestly say that when we were hiking, my reactions to the three things I mentioned were far different from this man’s.

So, “what were your reactions to these situations, Dan?” is probably what you’re asking. To respond to that I think you need to enter into the stories of this adventure. First, for the flash flood: we were perched on a sandy hill ready for slumber on our second night, when Andrew noticed the sound of rushing waters and yelled to the rest of us to listen and watch. We stood on the hill overlooking the river as the flash flood waters deepened and widened the Paria River, which in a matter of seconds was transformed from a glorified creek into a rushing river. My first reaction was excitement as Aram and I rapidly descended the hill to watch it more closely. Our trip down the hill raised our awareness of the proximity of Graham and Angela’s campsite to the rushing waters, so we quickly helped them move camp up the hill and away from the risk of their gear and food washing away. Finally, as the waters died down and we settled into our shelters, our final reaction was one of thankfulness to the Creator for protecting us. We had exited the narrow pass of the Buckskin Gulch just hours before the floodwaters furiously passed through, and they would have been fatal or injurious floodwaters if we’d been present. Instead we were able to marvel in the majesty of mother earth and her Creator.

So what was it like to be surrounded by the inescapable walls of the Paria Canyon, which at times in the beginning were only two feet from each other? My first response that I believe was echoed by our group was that of awe. At times while walking through the narrow sections there were trees suspended between the red rock walls; trees that had been washed out by a mighty flood and stuck high above because the walls’ pass was too narrow for it to fall to the muddy ground. How can you not enter into amazement of the earth and the processes it goes through to suspend a tree sideways, while the floodwaters paint the walls different colors and shapes? I posit that you cannot cease to be amazed. Sure, the curiosity of what we would do if one of us got injured certainly passed through my mind, but those thoughts were quickly replaced by the awe of a new sight to take in or another moment to listen to the sound of silence. There was also a profound element of companionship and community that helped minds exit a potentially claustrophobic situation and enter into conversations about the sights or heart reflections evoked by the retreat from our culture’s clamor.

Finally, the piece about dehydration –when you’re relying on springs, have the potential of carrying a maximum of one gallon of water, and on the brink of summer in the desert, you’re going to be thirsty. And yes, we were constantly thirsty. At one spring when I was feeling more hydrated than I had been but not overly hydrated, I thought it would be good to drink a half gallon of water in a few minutes and then fill my bottles up to last for the next 24 hours. After the instant onset of a stomachache I felt more hydrated than I had for most of the trip. This was until the last day where we were hiking through pure desert back to our vehicle, all hikers starting with 3/4 gallon of water at 9 am. By 3 pm or so most of us had depleted our water supply, felt severe thirst, and still had 2 hours to hike through the hottest stretch of our 60 miles. Desperation sunk in as we came to a crossing in the muddy river and all of us proceeded to sit or lie down and drench ourselves with the waters of the Paria. It felt like true refreshment as I was transformed from hot and thirsty to cool and soaking wet! To top it off, Graham pulled out his super water-treating pen and began treating muddy river water with which several of us had filled a Nalgene. After the treatment was over, we tasted our water that Kristin described best as tasting like the bottom of a pool – chlorinated with a touch of sediment. Not tasty, but at least it was wet as they say. This carried us to our parked van where we were met at the ranger station with technology – spickets, sinks, and water fountains.

Returning to this man’s reaction of “That is dangerous,” it’s almost as if he was asking, why would you do something like this to yourself? Why would you spend your vacation escaping flash floods, being enclosed by canyon walls, and facing severe thirst in the desert? The answer that’s coming to my head is that I weighed the cost of going on such a trip – I knew I was putting myself under the mercy of God and creation, the mercy of friends and other people along the way, and the mercy of my body to stay in one piece despite the beating it has taken over the years. But the benefits far outweighed the costs – we reaped the benefits of the barely touched wilderness, its solitude, silence, beauty, and presence of the One who created it. In this desert place we experienced renewal, rest, companionship, dialogue, reflection, silence, solitude, prayer, pain, conflict, hurt, soreness, blisters, childlikeness, fun, and joy, among many other things that make up life in the fullest sense. Because we gave up our culture’s danger complex, we experienced the above to a fullness that you just can’t experience when walking on the eggshells of safety and security. We could have instead used the resources and time it took to go on this trip to sit on a beach, sleep in a comfortable air conditioned room, and have 1-2 meals cooked for us each day. Instead we chose the path less traversed, and reaped the blessings accordingly.

Oh the immense gratitude I have for being able to partake in such an experience! What do we take home from such an experience? We take home a rejuvenation that came from the detachment so that we can participate energetically in the attachments in which we find ourselves. We bring back the need to find that desert place of solitude in our days and throughout our weeks so that we can drink from the living water that doesn’t cease to quench thirst. We return with a prophetic voice to the false fortresses of safety to proclaim that their existence brings more harm in the long run than good. To base one’s life on protect oneself or one’s family from the imminence of danger, pain, or hurt will instantly lead to lifelessness and eventually lead to implosion. To open oneself to the danger that’s inherent to existence is a life lived more fully under the grace and protection of the One who created life! So, I beg you, tear down your walls that were constructed due to the imminence of danger, hurts and wounds from the past, or closed-mindedness. Receive the light of forgiveness, new life, and utter joy that peeks through those broken strongholds and let it soak you in its warmth and splendor! You will never feel the need to go back. Amen.

Post Canyon Blog #1 - Exposure

We’ve been back from hiking the Paria Canyon in Utah and Arizona for a couple weeks now. Our bodies were weary after hiking 60 miles, especially since I chose to ride 65 miles on my bike and play a brutal match of Ultimate Frisbee the weekend after we returned. However, the rest of my mind and the awakening of my heart from the canyon trump all those feelings of weariness. My emotions in return have been that of shalom despite the busy work and social schedule that bombarded us. However, these sentiments were somewhat inarticulate until I spent some time processing them. In times like this in the past, one help for me to articulate what I’m feeling has been people who ask profoundly direct questions that dig into what was inarticulate before. Sure, I’ve received a lot of questions about the trip, but most of them have been questions about the who what where when why how of the trip. Those questions are enjoyable to respond to up to a certain point, but after I’m tired of the certain point my heart cries out for connection with others in the deepest part of my humanity. All in all, the point of this post is to begin that process of connection in the E-sense of process. You can trust that my face-to-face and telephonic process will happen, hopefully with some of you who read this.

Maybe it would help you who haven’t experienced the trek that I’m describing or another similar trek to give you an overall statement to convey the experience. It feels fairly impossible to sum this up but I will make an attempt: I joined fellow pilgrims to discover the essence of the Creator in the quietness, solitude, and pure splendor of the Paria Canyon. As a result of this, I found true rest, joy, freedom, and shalom as I soaked in the presence of the Creator, the beauty of the canyon and its flora and fauna, and my core humanity and that of my companions.

So to give a face and a name to this statement, here's an undergirding reflection: When you hike with all your clothes, food, and equipment in a backpack for 6 days in a barren, empty, and quiet place, there is a stripping down effect. By stripping down I don’t mean we were walking around naked, but have fun with the image of 7 friends walking naked with large backpacks in the desert! What I am trying to convey is that we have become comfortable covering ourselves up - with clothes, make up, false identities, busyness, addiction, among many other things. When all those are stripped down, we see and hear the Creator with more clarity, we more clearly see and hear the core of others, and the same goes for ourselves. There is a beauty, ugliness, and inherent danger to this. It means (and it meant for us) that people see the real me, the real us. They see my impatience, my lack of trust, his pride, her shame, her wounded past, my idols, or his frailty. But they also see his incredible service to others, her resilient body despite soreness and threat of injury, my ability to make others laugh, and her willingness to listen for hours. The lie that we have been fed and started feeding to others and ourselves is that it’s worse to expose than it is to hide. We see more danger in exposing our weakness than hiding it from our spouses, friends, and family. This is a lie and the canyon helped me to uncover and unpack it further.

There is a reason the Creator was frustrated with the first man and woman he created when they covered themselves up with fig leaves because of their shame of their own nakedness. God had made them to be fully exposed to Him/Her, and exposed to each other, and they covered themselves up. Please take this as an anecdote and not my advocacy for more nudist colonies. The anecdote is telling us that it’s more dangerous and I would go as far to say lifeless to cover up our inner core than it is for it to be exposed.

Over dinner on the third night of our trek, I was mentioning how in tune I was with my weakness to the rest of the group. We had walked a good distance before we made it to the first spring, and boy was I thirsty! My mind, body, and heart revealed its frailty when the miles continued to be walked, my water dwindled, and on that only was my focus for some time. People resonated with this, but a trip companion, Lauren, spoke of how much inherent strength she felt in making it that far, especially with the rough terrain and meager supply of water. I could have interpreted this as an opposing voice to my statement, but instead I saw it as the harmony that made the song come alive. When we are exposed to God, the elements, and each other, our frailty can be blinding to the point where we can’t see past it. Concurrently, there’s an inherent beauty and strength that’s uncovered when we stare our humanity in the face. It’s in the marriage of the two where life in the fullest sense exists. It reminds me that I’m made in the image of that Creator, and the exposure of my weakness and strength allows me to become more rooted in that image.

Metaphorically speaking, what I’m describing is like a photograph, and no, not the digital kind. A photographer practicing the old and somewhat lost art of darkroom processing must take their negative prints into the darkroom to process the images before exposing them to the light. What I understand from my photographer wife, Kristin, is that this process is time-intensive and meticulous, using specific chemicals, paper, and trinkets to complete the job. Once this process is over, the photo is fully exposed to the light, its weaknesses, strengths, beauty, and/or ugliness. The photographer is unable to see the true image until it goes through this process.

It’s for the exposure of my image and the images of others that I give thanks to that God for the journey in which I participated. And it’s for these things that I have returned with a newly rejuvenated energy for connection with the Creator despite my concrete surroundings, with others created in the image of God, and the earth for which we were endowed to care. More reflections to come...

Hitting a Brick Wall

Kristin and I were on this kick of physically preparing for our 55 ish mile canyon backpacking trip. I was biking 40-50 miles per week, playing ultimate frisbee with friends every Sunday, Kristin running 2-5 miles every day, and joining forces to hike several times, once with our pack. This was along with doing some workouts our friend who is a trainer gave us. And then the brick wall came and knocked us on our butts. Here's the brick wall I'm describing:

-I dislocated a rib after moving my back funny following an ultimate frisbee match. Didn't know what the pain was until a chiropractor did his magic and popped the rib back into place one week later.
-Kristin had a weird fall onto some rocks near a creek while doing some photography. She deeply bruised her shin and knee and has been icing it 3 times per day.
-I pulled a muscle in my lower back.
-I got poison ivy after a forest hike. Because I sleep in the same bed as my wife, I transferred the poison ivy to her.
-I got something in my shoe or stepped on something barefoot and punctured my foot.

So now we are feeling all battered and bruised and departing tomorrow morning for our long journey to get to the trailhead. We hope that when you think of us you will offer some prayers and thoughts of healing!

The Art of Detachment

My wife and I are headed to trek the Paria Canyon later this month with four dear friends and the brother of one of the four. You can look back at posts from February and March of 2007 to see pictures of this place that is becoming a cherished place like it has become for many people. If I need a reason for this 6 day backpacking trip in the desert of Southern Utah/Northern Arizona it would be what Richard Rohr describes here:

"We have to pull back and learn the great art of detachment; which is not aloof, but the purifying of attachment. Our religion is not pure detachment or pure attachment; it's a dance between the two. Another set of images for this reality is the desert and the city. Jesus moves back and forth between desert and city. In the city he feels himself losing perspective, love, and center and has to go out to the desert to see the real again. And when he is alone in the desert, his passionate union with the Father drives him back to the pain of the city... We go back to be purged by God's mercy and re-grafted to the vine; we go back to the well until we know what the real is, and then we return to the city. The work of the soul is attachment; the work of the Spirit is often detachment. Without the art of detachment, the culture becomes addictive, and we have massive codependency. We have people enmeshed in one another who do not know their own identities. They have nothing to give because there is no "I" there. Without attachment, however, there is no risk, no passion, no compassion, no social justice, no holding the tension and collision of opposites."

An attached person I am - attached to my wife, community, my family and Kristin's, neighbors, coworkers, and the people of Indianapolis, especially my clients at work. Not perfectly by any means do I relate to these attachments; nevertheless, I'm working toward a more profound, genuine, impacting, intimate, and loving connection with all mentioned. Essential for me in these relationships is as Rohr describes, the art of detachment. It is an art in this day and age because we can always be connected - even when we don't think connectivity is possible one is accessing the internet with a hand-held device and another is dialing home on their satellite phone. But these are only superficial scratches of the surface of why detachment requires much intentionality and creativity. We're wired and taught to do everything we possibly can to not "be in touch" with our inner core, which is incredibly spiritual and creative because the one who made us embodies that. There's always an incredible amount of mental noise that crowds our hearts and spirits from connecting with that divinest part of our being. If we allowed ourselves to strip this all away we would begin to see the REAL us, and it would inform, enlighten, and empower our ability to attach. And by attach I mean to love accurately the world, others, and God.

My friend Larry Mitchell couldn't have found a better place for detachment than the Paria, unless everyone who reads this goes and trashes it and someone installs a monorail inside to move the masses through this place of sheer solitude and beauty. So if any of these thoughts cross your mind or anyone else's mind, be sure that you will have many enemies in Indianapolis. And you can consider yourself retched.

Inspiración de los nubios

I'm obsessed with the band Cloud Cult because of many reasons, one of the top reasons being that their lyrics cut straight to the chase about the detriments of U.S. culture. One song is called "Alien Christ" and is about a supposed rocket crash that people confuse as the second coming of Jesus (in an UFO nonetheless). When no one is able to find the Alien Christ, Craig Minowa sings the following stanza:
"And the days they came and went with no sign of the mystical
So they all went back to the daily drone of the practical and predictable
And Farmer Johnson built his rambler house upon that rocket hole
As if to prove man's domain over everything unknown."

I can easily associate myself with a person who has tasted and tastes the mystical on a daily basis, but frequently spends hours, days, and weeks regressing to that daily drone of the practical and predictable. And that confession comes in conjunction with a proposition to you U.S. readers that this reality is a pandemic in our culture, our government, and our churches among other avenues where the course of our lives are lived out.

I am identifying this in the same breath of a profound desire to imagine that we can correct this. I'm currently experiencing the scratches and deep wounds of enculturation being patched as I re-imagine what life, vocation, relationships, community, kingdom of God, and marriage can be when I don't take my eyes off the mystical. My hope is that you will experience this too. This may seem vague to you, but what I want you, the reader, to take from this is an admonishment to invoke your imagination and see what comes from it. Life is rich, yet the vivid and hidden forces of our culture have impoverished our hearts, imaginations, and creativity among other life-giving entities.

Cloud Cult ends it's song talking about Farmer Johnson's daughter who didn't talk until she was eight years old, and the first thing she said was about the rocket crash "Someone as God came, and ran his fingers through my hair." This sparks my memory to say that the mystical or God if you may doesn't come in the pre-fabricated way that our culture or the people engrained in it want us to think it/She/He comes. Again, I exhort you as I'm exhorting myself when it comes to this to take the road less traveled by and that will make the difference - Credits to Bobby Frost.