Dear Jesus, A Prayer

Dear Jesus, a prayer.

Pardon me. Imma get nekkid in my heart.

I got a surprise check in the mail yesterday. Apparently all my Publix retirement money hadn’t been dispersed at once when I quit; the remainder only just now was sent. It was a nice chunk of change, and it will make a noticeable dent in my debt.

Yeah, debt. The lamest thing to spend a large amount of money on. Don’t get me wrong—I’m incredibly grateful for the money. My reality is that I owe money on a combination of school loans, car emergencies, bill emergencies, and general fiscal immaturity; and this check will be a good, strong whack of an axe at this sequoia I’m trying to topple.

But it has somehow managed to make me feel incredibly disappointed. I feel like a caged and muzzled lion being poked and prodded on all sides by sticks wielded by snotty, squealing brats, their parents standing apart discussing their tomato plants or their glory days on the high school football team or the merits of Sarah Palin. I see the zookeeper approach, and I become hopeful that he’ll chase the little beasts away and unmuzzle me and let me run around the greater lion display, if but for a moment. But instead I just receive a particularly sharp jab in the ribs and a harsh admonishment to stop thrashing about so much. The money just became a reminder of all the things I want to do but can’t do.

I spent a good part of yesterday evening daydreaming. I thought of all the places I’ve never been but long to see. It’s not enough money to travel abroad, but it could take me out west. I found that the cheapest flights to the Northwest were into Spokane. I could fly there, then rent a car. I could drive through northern Idaho into Montana, and see the city of Missoula, where I was born. I could visit Northwest Indian Bible School (which apparently still exists) in nearby Alberton, where my parents taught and where I lived the first four years of my life. There’s probably no chance the little trailer we called home is still around, but perhaps someone who knew my parents could take me to the place where it once stood. I could then drive up through Glacier National Park, which features some of the most astounding scenery in the contiguous forty-eight states. I’d spend a day meandering through downtown Calgary before driving through Banff and British Columbia to Vancouver. After a stop in Seattle I’d take a coastal route down to Portland, then cross the Cascades to return to Spokane. I could do all that with this money. It would pay for the plane ticket, car rental, gas, food, lodging (a tent under the stars when possible), and perhaps even the week’s normal bills.

But nope. Debt. Just another lesson learned about growing up.

Oh, the things I wish I could do in life. Everybody knows I love making music. I dream about being able to record a full-length album with a budget that would allow me to have expert recording, mixing, and mastering engineers make it sound like perfection, and that would allow me to have an orchestra at my disposal if I so desired. I dream of stage sets and lighting designs, a band behind me, and a small or large crowd before me. I dream of smelly vans and blow-outs on the highway and apathetic sound guys. I dream of dear friends who are strong in places I am weak, so that together we can make things happen. I dream of terrible days forgotten when one person tells me my song gave them a spark of hope, or a glimpse of God, or the sense that they’re not alone in this world.

…

I remember as a child lying on my stomach in the middle of the living room floor, a massive atlas spread out before me and a pencil in my hand. I would spend hours tracing lines from random town to random town in England or Africa or Arctic Canada, imagining I was planning out an itinerary for an upcoming journey. I knew nothing about terrain, or highways, or the logistics of travel. I just knew that each of these dots on the map represented places that existed nowhere else in the world, and that they were full of new people and interesting stories.

I remember being in the sixth grade and competing at a moment’s notice in a geography bee against seventh and eighth graders. I ended up in the final two with a girl named Alisa, an eighth grader who would go on to compete in the National Spelling Bee in Washington (she was eliminated by the word “balalaika,” a guitar used in Russian folk music—and a word I knew how to spell). I won the geography bee by correctly answering that the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits were in Turkey. I didn’t actually know that as a fact; I had just spent enough time staring at maps to know that Turkey was split into two parts by long straits, and I couldn’t think of any other European nations that fit that description.

I remember memorizing every African nation’s location on a blank map, as well as the name of each nation’s capital. I can still identify probably 90% of the countries on a map, though the capitals have escaped me. I can also list all fifty U.S. states and every province and territory of Canada from memory just by going across the map in my head. I’ve stared at maps that much.

I recount all this to emphasize how fascinated I am by all the amazing places in this world. I want to see it all. I want to lie on my back in Yellowknife, on the shore of Great Slave Lake, and stare up at aurora borealis, God’s pyrotechnics on display. I want to explore the brilliantly green, misty mountains and bamboo forests of central China. I want to travel the Andes from Tierra del Fuego to the source of the Amazon, then take a boat down the river to Macapá and stand with a foot in each hemisphere. I want to hike the mountains of New Zealand and pretend I’m Frodo on his quest to Mordor. I want to relax on a beach in Madagascar and wander ocean-side villages in Nova Scotia. I want to see the volcanoes and geysers of Kamchatka, a place most people don’t even realize exists. I want to set foot on Antarctica, just to say I did. I want to carry a guitar out into a windy field in Iceland, like Sigur Ros, but have to set it down silent in awe of the beauty of that land.

But here I am, in Nashville, working a job I hate less than the ones before and dreaming about being someone different, living a different life. Could I be that person? Only God knows, really. He knows the desires in me, and I suppose all I can hope for is that they’ll be incorporated somehow into his plans for me. But realistically….

…

I don’t think about heaven much. That’s probably because I’ve grown up with the notion that heaven is just an eternal church service with all of us squatting on clouds and plucking a fucking harp. (Nothing against harps—they serve unique and necessary roles in orchestration. But if I were to pick a single instrument to play for all eternity, it wouldn’t be a harp. It’d be a piano. A grand piano, black with gold trim and genuine ivory keys.) But some people believe the Bible indicates that there will be a literal new Earth, and in my imagination, that’s what heaven will be. It’ll be Earth, with its majestic mountains robed in forests and crowned with snow, with its vast oceans teeming with the weirdest and brightest fish, with its canyons and buttes and tundra and fjords. The mighty cities will be there, with their brilliant skylines and smoky bars and manicured parks. But it all won’t be screwed up by greed and pollution and sin. Everyone met will be a new friend, and transportation and food and lodging will be free. I can go anywhere and see everything and not grow weary or get lost. And there will be a fully-equipped recording studio whenever and wherever I need it. I think I could be quite happy with that for eternity.

Dreams are torture. Tie my hands and feet to four horses and spook ‘em; dreams feel like that. But they’re in God’s hands, and that’s where they’ll stay.

Amen.