Journal, September 8, 2002

A tribute to God as the Journey:

In small and wide, as silent as the sunset last night or as bold as the cigar and discussion with Bill, the Journey is in relentless pursuit of me. Even though I claim Her as my lover I often walk away. No, worse yet, I stay where I am and fail to met her where she often waits patient and wild.

 
As wild as the storms here with lighting at our door, she shouts for me with every thunderous roar. So I have come and met her on our porch or in the front room where once again I'm moved and life is born again.

I find it strange the smallest scent or faintest sound greets me with the same response; a smile on my face and two arms stretched up in victory as though I see her on the horizon. Oh, I'll never forget that first wild run when I reached the dirt road with open rolling grasslands as far as my eyes could see, and so many times after; or the night I went for a walk and found myself in a field of lightning bugs….hundreds or thousands of hovering, drifting fireflies illuminating the world I had entered; or the day I discovered the BLM Wild Horse Refuge and felt the ground shake violently under my feet as the horsepower fled from me, and there I found a secret hideout which made me as wild as those majestic beast.

And how could I ever forget that Saturday morning when I rode the 15-mile loop around the horse refuge, through the game preserve and across the stream, never once touching a paved road. Then a few weeks later when I was dying within for lack of adventure from the Journey, I explored the rock quarry and swam wildly across to the other side, discovering the joy once again.
Even my beer-drinking construction compadres at work have revealed, in part, the Journey. The sunroom, or back deck, or maps hanging on the wall are all in part leading me to the Journey, my God. Yet, I never realized how gracious the Father has been to my plight in all these trips until I walked down the road from the house. I don't even remember His voice that evening I just recall heading south with the sun setting on my starboard side as I trudged through the thick prarie grass on this "private property." I'd come here before and felt the wild take over but never attributing it to the Almighty's provision.

But this time it hit me. He was sustaining me. He was the Journey of my desire. He knew I mutinied from His Bold Spirit to protect my insecurity. He knew, I knew my crime. But He also knew if He did not intervene I would die. And yes, there has been so many times I've felt like dying but then the Journey comes and I am sustained for yet another day.
There is still so much I want to describe about my encounters in life that draws me back to The Journey: the wild flowers growing thick and tall along the road where I walk, the hairy tarantula that waited for me to walk across his path, the deer leaping with bionic bounds through the waist high grass, the hawks that carry my thoughts away, high up on the wind, and of course the wind it's self which is an adventure all on it's own.

Oh, how I could go on about the turtles, frogs and fish, the butterflies and leafs, the wasps that went to war and the doves that made love, the skunk that sneaked trough the yard and the squirrel that was attacked by the blue jay. But it's not just what's around me, but what is inside me. Jesus, the Nazarene said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father (the Journey) except through me." The Gospel of John chapter 14 verse 6.
I've been an Indian with my bow and arrows, an explorer with my maps, an Olympic athlete on my runs, a circus freak on my bicycle, a poet with my coffee, and a writer with my journal, a philosopher at sunset, a botanist with my plants and a chef in the kitchen, a jazz musician on weeknights after 9 pm and a scholar before 7am. But because of the Journey I can be a child of the Most High God. And so I see Him now and feel the touch, and know that there is a journey waiting for me. Truly, "[I] don't take trips -- trips take [me]".

 

Imagine how great the Journey is just waiting to take us if only we would show up! Thank you God, for Bill. Thanks for all the "Bill's" on the planet. Where would we be with out Bill? All and all, I tribute these journeys to the One Who is All in All, both small and wide, sensed or silent...

the One Who made me…to journey.