My Jesus-Greg WORLD
Many Exoduses
Many pilgrimages. Many departures from the Shire.
My life is not one Exodus.
It is many exoduses. Many pilgrimages. Many departures from the Shire.
Again and again, Jesus says, in effect:
Come. We are going somewhere.
Sometimes the journey is enormous.
I was born in Provo, Utah, in 1963. From there begins the great arc of my mortal pilgrimage—birth, childhood, adulthood, conversion, wandering, discovering, creating, aging, dying, and ultimately, I trust, being born again into the great Promised Land beyond death.
That is the 30,000-foot Exodus.
But the same pattern appears all the way down.
Every morning I wake up and leave the little promised land of my bed.
One scene ends. Another begins.
I cross thresholds.
I open doors.
I travel hallways.
I sit down.
I stand up.
I leave.
I arrive.
And because My Jesus-Greg WORLD is becoming an improvisational opera, these movements matter.
My life is becoming a musical line upon line, song upon song, here a little and there a little. The scenery changes. The music changes. Characters enter and exit. One number concludes and another begins.
Movement itself becomes part of the liturgy.
Life is a succession of nano-Exoduses.
A succession of micro-pilgrimages.
A succession of moments in which Jesus invites me to leave one place and follow Him toward another.
This is why so many stories rhyme with Exodus.
Dorothy leaves home and follows the Yellow Brick Road: We're off to see the Wizard.
Frodo leaves the Shire.
Neo takes the red pill and leaves the reality he thought he knew.
Israel leaves Egypt.
Lehi leaves Jerusalem.
The disciples leave their nets.
Abraham leaves his country.
Every one of them crosses a threshold.
Something familiar is left behind.
Something unknown lies ahead.
And somewhere within the movement comes the invitation:
Follow Me.
That means my Groundhog Day is not really static repetition.
It is pilgrimage.
Morning to evening.
Wake to sleep.
Scene to scene.
Room to room.
Song to song.
Understanding to understanding.
And then tomorrow morning the curtain rises again.
Another Exodus begins.
Until eventually comes the largest departure of all:
I leave this mortal world.
And, if the promise holds, what looks from here like the ultimate Exodus becomes the ultimate arrival.
Home.
The Book of Zion Coalition
Five major movements
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