theFurnace just spent a week on the road doing nights of prayer and worship across the country. I went with a group of thirty college students to tour the west coast. We started in Roswell, NM, travelled through Arizona and California, and ended in my home church in Ogden, UT. It was an incredible experience, and we saw God move in magnificent ways. Once I write my ramble about our free day on the ocean, I may post it here. In the meantime, here are a few other rambles tapped out in a fifteen-passenger van on the freeway...
On the Desert
The road through New Mexico and Arizona is beautiful. It reminds me very much of the drive through certain parts of Utah. Especially as the sun drops in the sky and the shadows grow longer, the light casts a sparse, romantic beauty on the desert as it lies on either side of the highway.
This more than anything explains the unique charm of this country: the desert doesn't flow as the coast and its ocean; neither does it grow in the way of the plains. It simply lies with its dusty greens and dirty yellows, serene and a bit predictable surrounding four lanes of asphalt, without presumption or extraneous aspirations. Even the rocky growths that are repeated again and again in the view from the car windows seem to roll in and out of the ground in which they are planted, unlike the boldly stated mountains or the sheer and sudden precipices that can be seen elsewhere.
Our movements have fallen in with the rhythm of this land. They are paced and recurring. We listen to songs that flow in and out of each other. There seems to be something natural and familiar to this place.
Perhaps the desert is a faint echo of some plainer existence to which we feel an indefinite drawing. It evokes a memory of a life that is content with strength and tenacity, not caring for embellishments or handiwork to display. The desert is a life without trophies on its shelf, a life that is more interested in lying in quiet expanse than momentarily leaping from the earth: one that is deep and interior and silent, one whose power lies mostly in the unseen.
On Happy Jack
Making a drive across Wyoming is one of the less enjoyable experiences of my life, and one that I have undertaken many times. The landscape from I-80 is barren and notably indecisive. Even in colour, the topography refuses to commit to any shade or hue and instead muddles about in a dreary grey. After several hours of such a view, my eyes grow weary of constantly gazing on dustiness and endless horizontal lines.
Then comes the glorious moment of the trek shortly outside of the city of Laramie. One rounds yet another grey corner and is suddenly greeted by bright reds and greens shouting cheery platitudes from either side of the winding road. Pines are stacked up above the grooved face of the rock like an evergreen ensemble marching through a wilderness. The sign for the nearest exit reads “Happy Jack Road.”
Cheers, friends.
