The God of All Travel
by JVS on Apr.29, 2009, under 2009, Sermons
Sunday after church a highly motivated and energetic young woman came up to me and asked, “So now what? I’ve read the book and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next.” Earlier this month I assigned some homework to our community; read The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton, and try to figure out where God is revealing himself in the text (in the book itself and in the phenomenon of travel)…
The whole idea of God speaking through creation (and the cultural products of creation like travel and good books on travel) was relatively new to this woman. She’d recently started attending our church, and came from a different Christian faith background. She was having a bit of trouble understanding her homework. I briefly explained the process again. There are three questions you need to ask yourself;
1. What makes travel so good? Try to identify the good human passions and desires that travel evokes. Be specific.
2. Why do you think God made you with those passions and desires? Can you imagine how these same yearnings might operate in relation to him?
3. Given the fact that we’re made in the image of God (in a way made like him), what do these yearnings teach us about what God is like?
She nodded as I went on about the process, and then said, “But where do you start?”
It was a good question; because the book is brilliantly written and filled with all kinds of good, godly truth in this regard. So much so that it would be a bit confusing. The day before our conversation I’d read just one chapter of the text and got so excited. I figured there were four sermons in those few pages alone.
I told her to pick the point that was most numinous to her and work with it. “If it really matters to you,” I said, “Then you’ll have the heart to read it right. I think part of your confusion comes from the fact that this book is really quite brilliant. There’s so much God-truth there that it’s hard to sift it all out and choose just one part.”
Then it hit me. The truly brilliant products of human culture – the best books, theories, entrepreneurial ideas, pieces of art, or sporting events – are like those ‘thin places’ the ancient Celts used to talk about. Certain monastic islands, church ruins or Irish causeways were understood to be places where the veil between our world and the other world was thin. Earth and heaven were understood to be very close in these holy locales. The legends of old affirmed their mystical provenance. The Spirit lingered there.
And it’s true. When I read the most eloquent literature, you are there God; the pages seem thin. During the height of an NHL hockey playoff run your presence seems so passionately close; my sense of being alive illumines your life. When that most brilliant idea comes to my mind I sense your mindfulness, your creativity, your immanent imagination. The best of what humanity has to offer – those times when we most fully live up to what you made us to be – becomes holy cultural ground. Thin places are not just geographical.
“Find that thin place for you,” I told the woman.
