View from afar

This will be short, as a result of several things. I am on vacation at my mother's in Florida, I am about to go to bed, and I have had one too many Yuengling.

I am always troubled by just how much the strength of my faith relies on those around me and not on myself. This becomes strikingly clear whenever I venture out and away to some distant place. Lacking the support of my "church family"; my Christian friends who I often converse and fraternize with, I become lazy and apathetic towards my relationship with my Creator. It is as though this world I have created, this self-sustaining circle, is there merely to keep me afloat. Venturing outside of this saran-wrapped existence, I find the air too thin to breathe. Engaging in conversations with the self-proclaimed atheists I call my biological family, I begin to believe the words from their mouths. Seperate from any Christians, it becomes easy to believe I have been led to believe a lie. Somehow, this religious wool has been pulled over my eyes so deviously that I have failed to notice. Contrary to what my heart sings, I once could see, but now am blind.

And then it hits me as I stroll outdoors for an evening clove. A driveway, seperated into six seperate large concrete squares, meets in the middle and forms a cross before my eyes. You may count it as coincidence if you like, but in a world where it is realistic for a man to die and rise three days after the fact, there is no room for silly occurences such as these. It is a message that I feel inclined to share with all of you. This religion, this walk of faith that we call the Christian life, is everpresent. No matter the distance and time, both the physical and metaphysical makeup of this life is the same. It lies there before us; as simple and as solid as that driveway, as complex and beautiful as the trees and skie beyond it. Amen!