I'm Going to Somewhere in My Mind

I just got back from a trip to Naples this morning. It was a great trip. I was able to check out Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii while I was there. What an amazing place. I arrived there right after my trip to Burgundy, France. Burgundy makes some pretty great wine and the towns there are so quaint and have such ambiance. The boat trip down one of their major canals was pretty fun. Yesterday I was up in Alaska and checking out one of the glaciers there that is slowly closing off a major river. Then I went snowmobiling with one of the state troopers, checking out a hunting party and one of the state residents who lives about 31 miles from their nearest neighbor. It looked pretty cold out there.

I've also been taking weekly trips to Ireland, exploring the country and meeting the people, many from Ireland but a number of them new residents to the Green Isle but who consider themselves part of the Irish clan.

Now, I bet some of you think I have lost my mind but rest assured, I have not, though certainly my mind was very much involved. The cool thing was, I never left my house. My butt never left my couch. I went there through the miracle of TV travel shows and travelogue books. I am addicted to these travel shows and books. I'm currently traveling throughout Ireland with Pete McCarthy ("MCarthy's Bar) and I have traveled with Bill Bryson, hiking the Appalachian Trail ("A Walk in the Woods"), exploring Australia ("In a Sunburned Country") , checking our Europe ("Neither Here or There") and several other places, all through their books. I record travel shows, some I keep. I rent videos, some I keep.

And I dream about these places that I would love to visit. There's a really good chance I'll never get to these places. Money, schedules, and the lack of money, seem to have a lot to do with it but it doesn't prevent me from going there in my mind. It was James Taylor who sang, "I'm going to Carolina in my mind," and since I'm already in "Carolina", I'll just go somewhere else in my mind instead. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, they say, so why not imagine hiking in the mountains, riding a train in the valleys of Alaska, biking in Naples, camping out on the beaches of Southern California, or rafting down the Colorado River?

I get itchy feet sometimes, meaning, when I feel really stressed out, or depressed, or bored, or just needing a break, I imagine my wife and I packing up and taking a trip. We don't get to actually do much "traveling" because our schedules are different - she works during the week and has off the weekends; I can take a couple of days to get away during the week but I have to be back at "work" on Sunday (being that I am a preacher and I only work on Sundays, Wednesdays and when someone is sick or in the hospital... so I have been told by some....), so it's hard for us to get our schedules in sink. Add to that a teenage daughter that is developing her own life and, well, staying around home is more often norm.

Anyway, there are times I want to get away, go for a scenic drive, take a couple of days and head to the mountains or the beach. That's one of the nice things about where I live, 3 hours from Myrtle Beach and Charleston and 2 plus hours from the mountains. But when I can't do that, a good book about traveling somewhere or a travel show, especially in high def, will tide me over.

I've found this really great spot near my church where I go and hang out for a few hours each week. It is a park that is on the lake. It is really pretty and calming. This last fall was especially beautiful. I've been blessed with such places at the churches I have pastored over the last number of years. I need places like that. It helps me step out of my ministerial role, out of my world, and reconnect with myself, my thoughts, my soul, and more importantly, my God. It's funny, and troubling, how quickly I can get disconnected and distracted. And when I do, it can take me several hours or even a couple of days to get back into that place of sacred space, holy peace, and spiritual calm. My wife doesn't always understand but she is usually patient and gives me the time I need. I know that I am a strange beast but she loves me anyway!

It has been two months since my last blog entry. It's hard to believe how fast time has gone and how busy and distracted I have been. My mind has been racing and filled with many things, like working out sermon ideas, ministry ideas and goals, worry and anxiety (something that ministers are not to be dealing with because we are God's ministers and shouldn't be struggling with such things, right?), busy schedules and so on. In other words, life. But for brief moments, I have been able to take a trip, dive into the crystal water of a stream in New Zealand, hike up the mountain that St. Patrick spent time on praying for the people of Ireland, explore a village in Vietnam, and, in real life on that rare occasion, sit in a hot tub on top of a mountain with my son and brother and shoot the cold rapids of the Nantahala with the Elder guys.(My brother David is in the back, then my brother Bruce in yellow, then my Dad on the left and me on the right, then my nephew Chris, David's son, on the front left, my son Jonathan, and just behind him is my nephew Jake, Bruce's son)

Of course, I always have the arms of my loving wife to fall into. And I have God's Holy Mountain to hide on and His amazing kingdom to explore.

God is good.