Sitting on an airplane, sipping ginger ale, listening to trip hop, I reflect... A week in Colorado is a beautiful thing. If you ever lose your sense of wonder, Colorado is the place to find it. Every time I go somewhere I search for the hidden treasure that makes the location unique. This time out I found the town of Manitou Springs nestled in a narrow canyon between the garden of the gods and Pikes peak. This is the last great outpost for the remnants of those who were both at Woodstock or conceived at Woodstock. I've never met such a group of liberals. Really wonderful people who (like the parents on Dharma and Greg) who ran so far left that they've come full circle and are, in many ways, more conservative than those on the far right. Hemp wearing children and blunt talking (and toking) grandparents bookend neo hippie 40-50 somethings who run the many coffeehouses, art stores, and knick knack shops that have kept the gold rush town alive. Just to the east of the cog railway to the top of Pikes peak is the only true Melodrama Dinner theater that I've seen outside of Europe. Were it not for the senior citizen busses taking up all of the parking spaces and good seats, I might have stayed. The asthetic highlight to the whole trip was taking a run through the garden of the gods. A stellar trail winds through massive red rocks that jut out of the earth hundreds of feet into the air, hence the name. Some appear to balance as precariously as an egg on a toothpick. Ok there is a point to all of this.
I walked into the lobby of the Park Plaza Hotel on the morning of my seminar and said to the man behind the counter, "Is there ever a day when you don't just stare at the mountain?". Pikes peak was cleverly framed for his viewing by the front windows of the lobby and is just majestic in it's perfection. He replied with a shocking, "Honestly I never notice it." The tragedy of the statement apparently caught him off guard and he conciously looked past me and out the windows at the mountain. A smile slowly crept across his face as he awoke to wonder all over again. He stared for a long time before he spoke again and said, "I've never driven to the top. I think I will when I get off work today." "Good show" I said and turned toward the seminar room.
There's such a sermon here. I'll give you the elements; the majesty of God, our apathy infected eyes, a reawakening to wonder, a desire to draw closer and go higher. You get the picture...

In case you don't know, my job includes a great deal of travel that takes me all over the US. I'll probably do this sort of thing until such time as my family and I call a halt to the whole deal for the sake of everyone's sanity. Actually I believe this is positive for my sanity. Until I was 18 and married I spent a great deal of time in an object that moved either with wheels or wings. I'm surprised that I've planted roots in one place and one church for so long. I may be selfish here but I never feel better than when I'm moving. I've come to terms with this sickness and have found the cure to be a long drive in the country on a day that's cool enough to crack your windows a couple of inches. There's nothing like coming home after a long trip too. Slow dancing by candelight to something by Dianna Krall with your bride who is wearing the perfume you've come to know... Being attacked by two children and a dog who don't care that they're wrinkling your Kenneth Cole suit, stepping all over your Kenneth Cole shoes, or slobbering all over your Kenneth Cole tie. It's wonderful to come home. That's truly the best part of leaving. I think the problem with alot of strained marriages is that nobody ever has the coming home moments because in order to have them you have to also have the going away moments. Even the Scriptures speak about those who are in covenant having a consentual parting for 'a time'. 1 Corinthians 7:5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again..." Now granted, the context here is sexual but the application goes beyond that. There is a euphoric joy in those black and white photos of soldiers coming home and wives being caught up in their arms. Old cameras and adept photographers captures those moments for all eternity and as I look at those I realize that some of those couples spent (as in spending money) two years of life apart for one moment of that kind of joy. There's a richness in togetherness and sometimes apartness is the only way to rediscover it.

After that last post, I'm not sure I've got the energy to write anything else. My writing is off these days. It's not that I have no thoughts. I just don't care enough about them to record them for posterity. I did do some study on Hebrews 9 this week. I noticed that everything in the ark is a type of Christ, the manna (bread of life), the rod (tree of life), the tablets (fulfillment of the law) etc... Also noticed that the various gifts to the overcomers in Revelation (to him who overcomes I will give...) match those things/types in the ark. The hidden manna, the tree of life, etc... Pretty cool book, the Bible. Anyhow, aside from that there is a section of Heb 9 that talks about blood. (NurseAudrey should get a kick out of this) In order to cleanse something or make it holy it had to be sprinkled with blood. So by the time the priests got done offering sacrifices and making things clean and holy unto God the entire room and all of its contents would be covered and stained with blood. It must have looked like a horror movie in there. Our response in coming into a room like that would be, "Man we've got to clean this place up." Where the priests would have said, "What meaneth this? We have just forthwith cleansed the place." I mean, we don't see blood as a cleaning agent. More of a biohazard. So I've been pondering the old songs like "Are you washed in the blood" and "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." Sometimes it's good to take an old truth learned long ago down from the shelf, blow the dust off, and look at it again with new eyes.