Behind the Pages


EXCERPTS from Wonderlust

 

From Chapter 7, Journey Toward Communication
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Now I knew what a lottery ball felt like. I bobbed wildly atop a flat wooden plank balanced on the rounded back of a very large elephant. I carefully weighed the risk of taking a photo. A piece of jute twine, already threatening to unravel, was the only safety belt in place to keep me from toppling off of my perch and onto the head of the young mahout, the Thai elephant trainer, who was riding below on the beast’s shoulders. I doubted the twine had the strength to pull a tooth, let alone hold back the body weight of a premenopausal woman suddenly catapulted through the air by the jerky lurch of an elephant’s gait as it slogged across a craggy creek bed.

But I’ve always been an adventurer at heart. So I removed the camera’s lens cap with one hand as my calves tightly gripped the sandpaper sides of Big Bertha—or whatever the pachyderm’s name happened to be. The mahout had repeated it to me when we began our ride, but it, along with the mahout’s name and most of the other Thai words I’d heard so far, refused to form a repeatable syllable in my head. I could blame it on the heat, which was sweltering. I could blame it on my hearing, which at 45 was already starting to show signs of one too many rock concerts. But instead I chose to place the blame right where I felt it belonged, on God. After all, if it weren’t for that whole Tower of Babel thing the mahout and I could have been best friends by now, having carried on a coherent conversation for the last half hour, instead of lumbering along in silence...

From Chapter 13, Journey Toward Forgiveness
Casablanca, Morocco

An untimely dusk. The air cools as daylight fades. But the sun still hangs high in the sky. It’s only a shadow, you remind yourself. Not the hungry dragon the ancient Chinese believed it to be. Not a judgment from God. Not the end of the world. Just the moon cutting into the dance between the earth and the sun. But in a matter of moments, all you’ve come to accept about how day and night works is turned on its head. One small bite of night has overtaken the edge of the sun.

During totality you come to understand why the word eclipse was derived from the Greek word for abandonment. The ever-reliable sun seems to forsake the earth below. But even then, there remains a thin circle of light, a silver promise ring placed on the finger of night. The world holds its breath, waiting for the return of order, hoping things will go back to the way they were before. Maybe a sun-eating dragon doesn’t seem that far-fetched…

The hope of standing in the shadow of that dragon leads otherwise rational people to travel thousands of miles. In the early 70s, that dragon drew my parents and me to the coast of Africa. My scientifically minded father was asked to speak on a cruise ship about the wonders of an impending solar eclipse. Further business would lead him on to Cairo, Paris, Munich, and London.

“I’ll do anything to go with you. Anything…” Little did I know those words would haunt me for years to come…

From Chapter 6, Journey Toward Wonder
Montaña de Oro, California

Montaña de Oro…Mountain of Gold. The park was named for the poppies that blanketed its hillside each spring. But today that name spoke of countless golden wings. You’d think after years of finding myself dumbstruck by the beauty, creativity, and outright audacity of God’s world and His ways that I’d no longer be surprised when an ordinary day takes an extraordinary turn. But I’m a slow learner. That’s why I need to learn from the Boy Scouts to “Be Prepared.” We’re living in a world of wonder. We may not find God in the wind, in the earthquake, or the fire. But you never know when He’ll show up. You might find him in the gentle whisper of silky saffron wings.