Walk around smiling in wonder at your surroundings, As if for the first time.
Take way too many pictures. Don’t be ashamed. Be on the lookout for all the beautiful things you hope never to forget.
Drive slowly, and take in the sights. You will piss off people who are in a hurry, but that’s okay. Because you are a tourist, enamored with your great privilege.
After all, and anyway, we are all just tourists on this floating bed and breakfast we call Planet Earth.
My friend, Lane, sends occasional texts with links to cool things, and the latest was an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast. Lane shared his caveat on Rogan himself but called this particular interviewee “fascinating,” so you can imagine my surprise when discovering that it was my favorite professor way back in 1990 at the University of Arkansas!
Dr. Elliott West is a retired history professor and is 78 years old now, which meant that he must have been around 45 when I sat mesmerized by his lectures in a course titled, History of the American Indian. I have told three Dr. West stories many times since: First, he would interject ridiculous things in his lectures to make sure we were paying attention but said that he stopped doing that with freshmen the day he was going on about how President Lincoln would wear a negligee in public, waiting for someone to interrupt, when one freshman finally raised his hand and asked, “How do you spell negligee?” Second, the day he brought the wrong lecture notes to class, shrugged his shoulders, then proceeded to deliver a seamless, fascinating lecture without missing a beat, which had quite an impact on a future educator. And, finally, and most memorably, the time I arrived to class to discover a note on the door that class was canceled that day—and was disappointed—which immediately signaled that to disappoint a 20-year-old by canceling a history lecture is the sign of an uncommon professor.
I spent two hours last Thursday evening listening to Joe Rogan interview Dr. West, and it was a beautiful trip down memory lane. Dr. West is known as one of the greatest historians of the American West and has recently published a 700+ page book titled, Continental Reckoning (that I will be purchasing and devouring), so you can imagine that there was plenty of interview material. I’ll just touch on one part toward the end—the movies known as “the Westerns.”
Dr. West explained to Rogan that Westerns aren’t really about the West: instead, much like what you see on the movie screen is actually something that is projected from a contraption behind you, the Westerns as we came to know them are projections, too—much more an idea than a reality. When you think in simple North-South-East-West terms from the perspective of the United States as it existed at the time of westward expansion, North-South were areas engaged in terrible conflict, the East represented where the young nation had been, so the West became a unifying and romanticized idea as to where the nation might could go. It became both an exciting, dramatic, hope-filled idea and, tragically, an opportunity to create a shared villain in the native inhabitants. The Western on the big screen projected all that and more.
On Saturday morning, Jody and I spent a few hours hiking in Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks, where many classic movies and television shows were filmed, including a crazy number of Westerns such as The Rifleman, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, just to name a few. Well, maybe I’ll name one more just for the name: the epic movie titled, How the West Was Won. As we hiked the hills, picturing stagecoach robbery scenes, I kept hearing Dr. West’s voice explaining what the West was really like, and “how the West was (really) won,” and remembering how fortunate I was to have had the chance to learn directly from him. I’m glad that he is still teaching, and I’m glad that others have the opportunity to listen.
Me at Wildwood Regional Park in Thousand Oaks (PC: My sweet wife)
Today is All Saints Day, and as I reflected on this special day on the Christian calendar, I came across a prayer inspired by Oscar Romero. Romero, as you may remember, was an El Salvadoran priest who stood in solidarity with the poor and was assassinated in 1980 just after delivering a sermon in a church-run hospital that cared for the terminally ill. This prayer was not written or spoken by Romero but is inspired by his words and composed in honor of his life and teaching. I think it is beautiful and appropriate for any day, but maybe especially today, on All Saints Day.
A Prayer of Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
Starting to Look Up 