Getting Away From It All

Rumbling along a forgotten highway beneath a full moon, stars twinkling vividly in the sky above my desert home, could be the beginnings of another poem. It also could signal the start of a deep longing that few of us ever give voice to, that ancient desire to know what is really out "there." We are fascinated by the mystery of space for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is a hunger that each of us is born harboring. Nights such as this my heart longs to run free in the moonlight and dance by the fire, expending every last ounce of physical energy that is left in me, until I quite literally collapse on my back staring into the depths of the universe. I can shout my questions at the top of my voice as I listen to the pounding of my heart as it, also, awaits a reply. There are no walls of rock to throw back an echo, no living persons within earshot to shout back at me, and so I linger there on the ground, filled by the solitude of the moment praying for a response that can only come from my Creator. God probably thinks me silly, but I know He hears me, and I know that if my cries are persistent He will send some of His angels to minister to my spirit. He always has, and He always will, that is if I don't fall asleep before they have time to arrive. I can hear them conversing about it now, "Well, that was a waste of time. We beat our wings to the bone getting down here and he falls asleep, again. How many times do we have to go through this?" They'll probably get a good laugh out of this when they get to the big locker room to slip out of their work wings, and they will probably tell all of the other angels about their "uneventful" journey to find that eccentric preacher sound asleep on the desert floor. There is one thing of which I am certain though, if they stick around for just a little while they will hear me mumbling in my sleep about the children that are lost, and the inhumanity of man, and the injustice of the world, and the hunger that so many face each day, because they are always with us, even when we set ourselves apart. In Christ's Love, Preacher.