The other night I was going to go to this concert but felt this nagging that perhaps a get-a-way was in order. I had been going all week and giving away thoughts as I typed at a computer, giving away energy all the while not feeling to great. And so I panicked feeling trapped by the ticket I had purchased and perhaps lamenting the feeling afterwards when everyone would be talking about how great the concert was that I missed, but I had to go. Literally I felt trapped not only by the ticket but this town and even by myself on deeper levels that I will not explore in this thought. So a friend picked up my ticket and I road my bike out of the city-racing toward a nearby mountain town as the sun fell behind LA. I have been in the consistent habit of driving off to the beach, be it: Nordhouse, Holland or Sleeping Bear for the past few years and just getting away for a night or two. This isn’t rooted in some exscapist type mindset-I simply know from my story that sometimes God invites me out to remote spaces so that he can fill them. I had a similar experience last quarter around Halloween and now that I reside in California I ventured up HWY 1 to a small coastal town and missed what I heard was a great Halloween party. I missed the Superbowl this year too.
But I was eating dinner with a friend catching up on life the other night and I got a call. We were going to meet someone to hang out on their porch that evening and so I picked up but before I could say hello a shooting star blazed across the back drop of the half lit LA sky and hung on for what seemed a solid minute. It was probably two full very healthy seconds but I had not seen a shooting star in months and was savoring each of these seconds as my friend on the phone was trying to figure out if I was getting murdered based on the screams. She put together quickly that I had just witnessed something beautiful and joined in on the star gazing as best you can from the phone. This was a moment with people in the common times that was conformation that you can’t escape the wonders of the heavens. The spaces God wants to fill and narrate with beauty. You may miss the seemingly big moments but perhaps God is snagging our attention toward those moments when a star goes unseen or another human being listens well. Or the midnight bike rides and the moments you spent making that scarf.
