Left to right clockwise: Hatch, New Mexico; Marfa, Texas; Barstow and Essex, California; Tremonton, Utah; Big Bend, Texas; and the center is Death Valley, Texas.
Ephesians 3:7-9
7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this
Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all
the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had
no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the
available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be
sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way
over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is
to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in
the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along.
— The Message
When Devita Parnell and I came upon a wedding on top of a mesa at
Big Bend. She ended up performing an impromptu wedding renewal
ceremony for the couple standing beside us watching the wedding.
They had come on a Valentine’s Day trip to create some special
memories. I hope it fulfilled that hope; it did for us, as well.
Dropping my truck into a ditch on a deserted road at night and having
two tow truck drivers come searching for me without a GPS signal,
when the 911 operator told them I would be OK until morning
Going to Hatch, New Mexico, for chili and peppers and finding a
parade of huge fiberglass statues lining main street
Taking a route I had not planned and finding Carlsbad Caverns. The
quietest and darkest place imaginable.
Taking the road to the Golden Spike Historical Park and coming
across a NASA compound that makes missiles.
Huge Roadside signs of James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor to
commemorate where the movie Giant was filmed
Going by the Opera House preserved in the desert by a retired
ballerina on our way to Death Valley. I remembered seeing it featured
on CBS Sunday Morning a decade before.
An expression of beauty with huge boulders painted neon colors and
stacked on each other in the middle of the desert
The sign in Barstow, California, that reminded me that Wilmington,
North Carolina, was just 2,554 miles away.
Renewing old friendships all across the country and the wonderful
hospitality that was shown to me by some people I had not seen in
twenty years.
Finding friendly people wherever I went. The wonderful conversations
with wait staff, the guy at the Discount Tire who was concerned about
my safety and the funny man at Walmart who changed my oil and
made me laugh.
I could not have written these reflections much sooner than now. It took
a year for me to sort through my memories, find a sense of order and
purpose for the journey, then catalog the images that continued to show
up in my mind like slides on an old carousel projector.
As I ruminate on the four thousand mile journey, it makes me pause and
take into account some of the surprising things that happened. Things
like…
I could go on. The list is extensive, but I want to leave room for you to
explore the surprises in your life. A trip through the desert alone seemed
unnerving to many, enviable by some, and a shared memory for others.
As we approach the end of this Lenten Season, let us look back on the
footprints we have made in the sand. They will tell a story. When did we
rest? When did we veer off the path? When did we stop to help someone
else along the way? As we look ahead at the unmarked sand, may we
spend time with our hopes and realities that lay between us and the
horizon.
As we remember the compressed events that define Jesus’ last days here
on earth, take time to absorb the whole story. Do not skip over the
parade, the betrayals, the confusion, the mundane, the extraordinary,
and the suffering. It is ALL part of the journey.
One of those hopes is, as Jesus-followers, the journey leads home, We
walk up to the cross, but Jesus took it from there. It was one of those
tragic moments that we cannot look away from. In His willingness to take
that last step, the survivors are left with an almost inconsolable sadness.
Live for a moment with that pain but just rent the space, because the
surprise of Easter is coming. Thanks be to God.
Prayer:
God of innumerable surprises, give us the eyes to see, the heart to feel
and the hope and will to persevere. Thank you for Your love and strength
that accompanies the unexpected and even the undesired.
Thank you for being our tour guide through the vast wilderness of life. For
providing rocks and paths to help us mark the journey. For sunrises and
sunsets to bookend the day; for the intense silence and the nature
produced sounds; for the snow cooled water that comes from the
mountains and the intense heat that validates the cacti; we give you our
thanks. Peace and Grace, Amen.