Long time no blog!
We spent some time playing and praying. Yesterday we snowboarded in 4 feet of powder – it was amazing!

I am reading a fascinating book called Desert Solitaire an amazing book by an ex-park ranger in Utah; he worked in Moab before it became commercialized. The book stirs me, here are a few of his and my reflections:

He reflects on an evening when he sat outside and enjoyed creation, after which he uses his flashlight to write a letter to himself.

The flashlight, or electrical torch as the English call it, is a useful instrument in certain situations but i can see the road well enough without it. Better, in fact.
There’s another disadvantage to the use of a flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate man from the world around him. If i switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can only see the small pool of light witch it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.

What activities am I engaging in that separates me from the world around us?
– the internet, books, movies, endless discussion about church and God instead of with God. Trying to discover my niche or target market!!!!! A vision that has very sharp and definite boundaries.
– oooohhh I have to confess.

He then uses the flashlight to turn the generator on, he reflects:

The engine sputter, gasps, catches fire, gains momentum, winds up into a roar, valves popping, rockers thumping, pistons hissing up and down inside their oiled jackets. Fine: power surges into the wiring, the light bulbs inside the trailer begin to glow, brighten, becoming incandescent. The lights are so bright I can’t see a thing and have to shade my eyes as I stumble toward the open door of the trailer. Nor can I hear anything but the clatter of the generator. I am shut off from the natural world and sealed up, encapsulated, in a box of artificial light and tyrannical noise.

What is my generator?
What produces artificial lights and tyrrannical noise?

A few days ago a few of us brainstormed (my brother has a variation called a blamestorm) on evangelism at our church. In our discussion we came to the obvious conclusion that we have to build relationships with people who are loved by God and don’t realize it yet. But, there always seem to be a but (and butt) – our lives are so filled with the program generator of numbers, activity and services for Christians, that we are shut off from the rest of the world. Question : Have you hung out with tax collectors and sinners this week? Listening, touching and loving them? I want to, but I will have to turn the generator off!

Edward Abbey continues:

Once inside the trailer my sense adjust to the new situation and soon enough, writing the letter, I lose awareness of the lights and the whine of the motor. But I have cut myself off completely from the greater world which surrounds the man-made shell. The desert and the night are pushed back – I can no longer participate in them or observe; I have exchanged a great and unbounded world for a small, comparatively meager one.

God, help me to readjust to the wild wonder of your Kingdom. Rip me out of my man-made shell. My stupid definitions of success, my preoccupation with myself, my meager attempts to save face,save me from myself. Help me to be wildly abandoned to your endless activity and reign. I love the way you love me. Amen