A friend recently returned from a fantastic vacation. As he shared the details, seemingly minute and endless, I realized that I was not listening to the facts. I was listening! I was listening to the experience and the emotions. It was a far more interesting. I have seen crystal water, just not this way. I have had incredible to-die-for food, however, in this story everything was refreshingly different. I had been away with friends, yet in this story it seemed to be something greater than anything I have experience. His heart was lead storyteller while his mind filled in the missing pieces.
I continued to be vicariously on vacation through my imagination with this story as the backdrop. I also hear a Psalm repeated like a cliché; “One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.” (Psalm 84.10)
Really?
I am not sure which part I was unsure of. When I think of the person parroting the cliché, I could only hear his mind repeating familiar words. Actually I know why I was unsure; there was no heart in his voice! The silence of his heart’s voice was screaming in another way; do not bother, do not waste your time, do not go where I have not bothered to go.
As I struggled to come to terms with what others were saying, Life took me to the great encounters in my past with beauty, awe, and wonder. While some were in exotic places with people close to my heart, there were others that I can only describe as encounters with Divinity. In those moments, time as I know it stopped. In those moments, the peace and hope of the moment consumed and overwhelmed me from the inside out. I could see the extraordinary in the mundane. Even now, as I relive the encounters a shiver ripples through me.
I know where I want to be today.
