I love the feeling of having a few hours behind us before the sun even comes up. I love tracking the slightest shift in the darkness, the inching toward pale twilight.
This car is a flying house. You’re in here with me. I’m having so much fun with you.
Oh, what wonder. Somehow there’s room for everything in your world. Every detail jumps out at me - rich in vibrance, your mise en scene. I can smile so big at the stuffed dinosaur in the gas station, can tell the clerk good morning with joy in my voice. I can laugh at the fly that fell in the toilet. I can sing with you about the day that’s drawing near, and can look out at the road and see blood rain. I can sing and invite you to commune, in your raw fullness, with every part of me - I can sing, let it be terrifying, let it be mystifying.
There’s room for it all. The billboards show me. In Dallas they read:
END TIMES?
FENTANYL KILLS
JEW BELONG
CAN YOU SEE ME?
COME FIND YOURSELFS
As I drive west, leaving the skyscrapers behind, they read:
WORLD’S LARGEST BOWIE KNIFE
SCOOTS HAMBURGERS
WAY MORE THAN JUST PECANS! COME ON IN! LAMP SALE!
BUDGET INN GOD BLESS
When we get to Kremmling, there won’t be any billboards at all.
Rain down
Can you hear the earth is singing
I’m such a child all of a sudden. I feel like we’re driving to the library for summer reading. I feel like we’re gonna pull into a water park and put sunscreen on. I want to watch Star Wars. Somehow the smaller I get, the bigger we get together - is this part of what you meant by “I must decrease, but he must increase?”
On the drive, and up in the mountains, the air filter suddenly disappears. There’s no pollution at this altitude. I don’t need you to filter out the world. I just sit here, knowing that it’s you talking to me, and not having to wonder.
I never thought it would be this way. I swim through this life I now live by faith in the son of God, constantly remembering how small my world used to be, like a tiny box behind my forehead. Now it’s all changed. There’s no telling what’s next.
The rescue from that tiny box feels as real as a rescue from addiction and slavery. I used to be as hopeless as the girls selling themselves on the streets of Deep Ellum last night. Whether it’s sin or religion, the kingdom of darkness is the same.
I just splash around with my jaw open now in the kingdom of light.
How did you do it? I asked you. You just smile. I didn’t do anything, you said. This is who I am.
Your works have been finished from the foundation of the world. The script is ready. You are the light, you are the camera, you are the action.