I recently re-read
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by my most favorite,
Don Miller. It's just one of those books that will make you cry (literally borderline sobbing on the El one day), laugh, and
dream.
I've always been a dreamer. It's a blessing and a curse, really. Mostly a curse, though, as much as I hate to say it. I dream and create in my head - but there is some sort of disconnect between my brain and my hands, and I end up never doing anything. I'm lazy and I'm incredibly insecure - so nothing ever happens in real life. And then I get anxiety about it. And then I can't sleep...
Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, Don was much the same way in the beginning of the book but by the end of it he had hiked the entire Inca Trail in Peru, rode his bike across the USA for wells in Africa, fallen in love and had a devastating heartbreak, and founded a dream-propelled nonprofit after finally having his first encounter with the father who abandoned him as a child.
All of these things happen in his life because he discovers the meaning of story. He learns and embraces a way of life in which everything is just like a story - and he decides to live an amazing story, one that everyone else wants to read and participate in.
The thing that is so beautiful about story is that it's so similar to dreaming. Except the big difference is that in a story, things are happening. Things are moving, people are meeting, life is happening. When you're dreaming - you're just dreaming. You're sleeping, wondering, hoping.. but nothing is happening. I don't think there is much to show for dreaming, but everything to be said about living a story. You can still live in the fantasy - in a world in which you're not afraid to embrace whimsy (which is defined in the book as the belief that magical things can happen) but be AWAKE! Awake and living a wonderfully painful story that is full of blood, sweat, tears, love and hope.
One of the most beautiful stories that Don tells is the one of hiking the Inca Trail in Peru. He compares it to life and the journey we are on toward something we are longing for. Don and his team hike for days, part of which is a seven-mile stair climb.
Stairs. For seven miles. Holy Crap.
They hike and hike and finally reach the city of
Machu Picchu and it's so beautiful and fulfilling. But the reason why it's so beautiful is because of the pain that they went through, the struggles, the exhaustion, the seven miles of stairs. There are other groups there who have taken the easier route, the shorter route, or just straight up drove through all the mountains. But, Don is sure that the other groups can't possibly be experiencing the same feelings that he is. Because he lived the pain, he lived through the struggle and the reward at the end is so much more fulfilling because of it.
Life is a story meant to be lived. The most important moments in my life so far happened because I intentionally sought out a story. Being in Mexico playing soccer with kids who lived in a trash dump, traveling to Israel because I couldn't keep living in heartbreak at home, moving to Chicago totally alone, embarking on a journey with the Father, road trips with my friends in college. These are the moments that have made my life joyful and worth something.
What I want most is to live intentionally and according to a story line. I want to experience and feel as much pain, hope, love, and exhaustion that I possibly can. In the end, when my heart is finally made whole again, those are the things that I want to remember because they are the things that will make the wholeness so much sweeter.
