Outside the Balloon

Maybe it was a vision. Or maybe it was the key lime ice cream we ate before we went to bed, I don't know. Coming out of a sound sleep, it's hard to say if it was Narnia or that time when you see the wardrobe but you're still in the Other Country. Whatever it was, I don't want to let go of it--a clear sense of a world that truly was perfect and good (that big thing we take by faith), but all of time and history being lived out in the inside of a balloon. Inside there, the air is stale. Little people like me, from the beginning of time, have been living and dying inside thinking life inside this cramped space is all there is and running around, trying to get all the stuff they can to help them make it through life in the balloon. One day, God will take His big fingers away from the neck and let out all that stale air, releasing all those who dreamed of real life outside into the expansive freshness of His perfect world. All He asks is that we pay attention to the Message He left inside the balloon before the whole thing inflated.

Breathe deeply.

Read the Book.

Look forward to better days ahead.

Funny about those mirrors...

It's Thursday night before our 4th of July holiday and I'm feeling rather free to just do what I want to do. I was just going to go to bed but decided to check the blogs I follow. What a phenomenon blogs are--a virtual mirror into what drives people's passion and reflections! I find myself reading my kids' friends blogs and wishing I could sit down and drink a Sonic cherry limeade with them and continue the conversation.

My stream of consciousness leads me to reflect on mirrors--OK. A pun intended. John and I recently accompanied Hayden to a most remarkable workshop recently where we learned to tell stories. As storytelling goes, I proved to be the least of these. In fact, my first experience with a "story" from James 1 about mirrors was a total disaster. It really wasn't much of a story--my excuse for drawing a total blank when I got up to tell it, but darned if it hasn't stuck in my mind like glue. I've probably thought of it every day for the last couple of weeks.

You likely have heard about the curbside disaster recently where John's 2002 Ford Escape decided to commit suicide, as John likes to tell it. Last Saturday, we spent the day standing in asphalt parking lots and test driving several potential replacements trying to find just the right one. By mid-afternoon, we were heading down College in one we really both liked and I made the comment: "I love this one on the inside, but I can't remember what it looks like on the outside." Oh look, those mirror thoughts are back: something like when you're inside your own skin, looking at yourself only from the inside, you can't remember what you look like from the outside. Everyone else can see what you look like as they watch you come and go but you may have forgotten. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror, for once he has looked at himself and gone away (or retreated inside), he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. I acknowledge this isn't a scholarly thought or maybe not even inspired, but I say this to provide evidence that those stories really do act like the velcro loops on our grey matter.

Thanks, fellow bloggers, for the reflections. Sonic happy hour is 2-4 every day. Maybe I'll see you there.