July 27, 2008

I'm a little late writing anything here this week because I'm constantly traveling and falling into sleep and repeating. I find myself in DEEP Texas as I write this. I suppose this is as deep Texas as one can get since I am perhaps two miles from the border with Mexico.

In the last 48 hours I've been in the swamplands of Louisiana, the coast lands of Texas, the Texas hill country and now, on the edge of the desert I'm poised to enter into some of what I love best.....wide open spaces.

The wide open places are always what I long for. Big sky, stars so vibrant and clear that they feel like they are collapsing in on me, a horizon that allows the sun to burn it's way into the earth itself for the evening. This is what my heart almost always desires and I have a reservoir of memories I've collected over the years from which to draw when life is pressing from all sides to suffocating proportions.

When I consider the times that I go in search for God; when I feel the Holy Spirit summoning and inviting me away to regroup and re-connect I've found that these are the richest moments in life for me. The paradox is I have a hunch this is how we are supposed to feel most of the time. I'm not talking about vacation here. I'm talking about peace, joy, openness and truth. A reality that is real and not filled with relatively meaningless activity. The evil one is The Great Counterfeiter and when we start looking over our lives it's staggering. We exchange wide open space for a wide screen TV. We trade the stars for glimmering commercialism. We trade an open, free life of faith for the chains of obligation.

This is what I'm contemplating this week. I've thought it over before many times trying to find the balance between the life of faith with the realities of living human. It's no easy task. Or is it? I have a hunch I'm close to a breakthrough here. Really close. As close as I am to Mexico. Here's hoping I stumble into it. Here's hoping the allure of the Holy Spirit's beauty pulls me past the point of no return. I love you all.

Onward Comrades,

Brian