Painted Deserts

I was headed out for a road trip and thought it would be a great coincidence to finally begin reading Donald Miller's book, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road since it's also about a road trip, and a personal journey. However, I was forced to pause early in the author's note pages as I already found these quotes that required time devoted to deeper pondering.

"I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently."

"It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave. Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

Our road trip is complete, as is my reading. I didn't realize this when I started the book, but his story ended in the same city our road trip ended in. Perhaps it was meant to be that this was my chosen road trip book, and perhaps I needed these reminders.

During his journey, Donald ponders a good deal about the idea of security and the feelings created by society and advertisers. His travel companion Paul seems to take things in stride and live unaffected by others and this intrigues him. He questions how does a person stop caring about the opinion of others, how does a person stop caring about money to pay rent, where food will come from, do I sound like an idiot when I speak in public, do people like me and a host of other things. Donald's questioning resonates with me. 

Life can be about the panic of having the right things, knowing the right people, etc. or it can be about the beauty in the sunrises, the glory of leaves changing colors, fresh air, people. "Paul had become a human who no longer believed the commercials are true, which, perhaps, is what a human was designed to be."

Two options: 
1. "You will feel what you were made to feel if you buy this thing I am selling."

2. "Feel what a human is supposed to feel when he stops believing lies. And maybe when a person doesn't buy the lies anymore, when a human stops long enough to realize the stuff people say to get us to part with our money often isn't true, we can finally see the sunrise, smell the wetness in a Gulf breeze, stand in awe at a downpour no less magnificent than a twenty-thousand-foot waterfall, ten square miles wide, wonder at the physics of a duck paddling itself across the surface of a pond, enjoy the reflection of the sun on the face of the moon, and know, This is what I was made to do. This is who I was made to be, that life is being given to me as a gift, that light is a metaphor, and God is doing these things to dazzle us."

Maybe this pilgrimage we're on really IS in God's hands and He is simply waiting for us to let him take control. I believe that. Go watch a sunrise or sunset. Go stand where the ocean meets the sand. Go stand in the rain. Go stare up at the trees...and let go.

All quotes in this post are from Donald Miller's book, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road .