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July 15 - August 28, 2024
it was pretty special to be in this place, surrounded by mountains, all together, talking about life and what it means. To meet one another in this way. “These are my favorite conversations,” she said. And we all agreed.
The scripture says, “Come let us reason together,” but this is code for “yes, you can share your thoughts with us, by all means, but if they don’t fit what we believe Scripture says, then those thoughts will have to go.”
If you don’t believe, sadly, you’ll spend eternity in hell. So you’d better believe that Jesus loves you. He loves you so much, or else.
“Saying I am Christian doesn’t make sense for me anymore. But saying that something else is right or that there is nothing doesn’t make sense either. I have found more comfort and have felt a greater faith in something bigger than me, I have felt a bigger hug from the universe by rejecting the obsession to call it something. To name it. Maybe there is life after. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe it’s Jesus. Maybe it’s a giant oak tree. Maybe it’s energy. Maybe it’s stardust. Maybe we just shut off. But not calling it something certain has opened my heart more than when I was Christian, feeling like I
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“Yeah, mysticism is when you don’t have intellectual certainty about stuff, but experientially you do believe in things, like beauty and mystery and the universe as a force for good. You move beyond the dualism of good and evil to a more unified whole, a sense that everything belongs.”
Even as I said it, I felt suspicious of the wishy-washy language we were embracing. Energy. Stars. Universe. It felt man-made, self-absorbed.
The priest rechristened him Francisco, Pizarro’s middle name. Then, acting quickly for fear Atahualpa would change his mind, they strangled him to death.
Some kind of understanding had died. And something new was taking its place.
Traveling alone, you get to be whoever you want. I don’t mean lie. I mean you get to be a blank slate.
The invisibility. It made me realize how much of decency is built through community, through other eyes.
I had hoped I would become the most nonmaterialistic human of all time, so at home on the earth that Andean poverty would no more affect me than New York City wealth. I wanted to be zen above it. Floating above the trappings and hardships of human life. Well, that didn’t happen. I was sick and tired of all the poverty. I felt bad for the thousands of souls that lived in mud. But the charm wore off, and I knew I could bike away and enjoy my good fortune of being born white in the world’s richest country. I still don’t know what to do with all that. The hardened soul of reality, dividing rich
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I imagined being a writer someday.
I wanted to understand who lives and who dies, but I didn’t. I just believed that I would always be okay.
If our shittiest actions can lead to beauty, what does it mean to do right and wrong? Is it about avoiding hurting others?
As much as our relationship confounded me, I always wanted to celebrate with her. I couldn’t put a finger on it, but I knew that my deepest wounds were the place of my deepest meanings. And she was ground zero. My salvation was somewhere inside her.
When you’re sitting alone on the porch with a beer, a book, and a friendly face, almost anyone will talk to you. This has been a common experience for my whole life. Something about the way I hold my face, or my mediocre good looks, my unintimidating stature, my curious and friendly eyes, always leads strangers to talk to me.
made for a world so idyllic that I sometimes felt overwhelmed, even defeated by it. I couldn’t take it all in. The photos I took turned out dumb and dull. Nothing captured the colors or scale.
An awareness of my own hypocrisy stung me. I hadn’t noticed this in myself. And from this thought, it spread in me an empathy for my mom, for the people in my church. If I, being in a category of oppression, could still mock another who is laterally the same as me, then how common must that hypocrisy be? And in being that way, they are not intentionally evil or bigoted, but groupish human beings wired to question difference.
Exposure to human stories reminds us that we’re all human. I mean real exposure. Listening, hearing. Not pointing from across the room. Engaging. And most of us are just trying to make it day by day without hurting anyone else.
Of course, goals help us get a lot done. But they often remove our attention from the experience to the achievement. When we arrive at the goal, we think, then we will be happy. When we finally get there, we can celebrate and have fun. When I get that job, I’ll be fulfilled then. When I get married, I will be happy. The Eden we pine for is not under our own feet or bike tires, but over the next mountain.
The sheer scale of it reminded me of the Old Testament God, a God who struck fear in the hearts of men. A humbling, respectful terror. For me, only mountains and canyons have this effect on me. The ocean, much bigger than any mountain, lies flat to the horizon. The flatness doesn’t have the same effect on me. But seeing a mountain, I am frightened by the giant standing over me, looking down at me with indifference or maybe love. Or with a canyon, I am frightened by the cliff, the ease with which I could lose my mind and jump. Experiencing those things leaves me properly reduced. I think it is
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I was there. The trip had dismantled me. But I didn’t feel lost like I had been. For the first time in my life, I felt that my only allegiance was to the truth. Not to tradition. Not to safety. Not to what I had been taught. But to whatever was true. And that made me feel strong.
