I am occasionally amazed at the way music can transport us back in time. I don’t simply mean that music can remind us of the past; rather, I mean that it can actually take us there.

These are not the same things, mind you.

Music can most certainly work on this first level, this level of reminding us of the past. In fact, it nearly always does. And, to be sure, there is joy and nostalgia to be found on this level. For instance, when I hear Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” I often reflect on the summer following my sophomore year of college, and when I hear Mr. Big’s “To be With You,” I remember car rides with the nice senior girl who drove me to school my freshman year of high school.

And don’t misunderstand; these memories are nice and always make me smile.

But sometimes—and this could just as easily happen through “Drops of Jupiter” or Mr. Big, though it never has for me—a certain song will grab me and actually take me back to that moment. It’s not that I’m remembering the moment (even though I am); it’s that I am actually living it. This can happen at any time and with any song; and as far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason for why and when it happens.

I say all of this because it just happened to me this afternoon while on my way to my buddy’s house.

I was only in the car long enough to hear one full song, and that song happened to be Live’s “Lightning Crashes.”

I’ve heard this particular song approximately seventeen billion times. I was (and am) a huge fan of Live. I consider Throwing Copper to be the best album of the 90s to never get mentioned in conversations about the best albums of the 90s (along with The Score by the Fujis and Sixteen Stone by Bush).

All of that said, I have never had “Lightning Crashes” grab me and transport me into that second “realm” about which I speak; however, today, as soon as Ed Kowalczyk’s first E-major came through my speakers, I, without realizing it – because when this happens, one doesn’t realize it’s happening until it’s over—was in Ocean Isle Beach, NC and I was fourteen years old.

And that’s the beauty of music: for three and a half minutes, I was walking with my friend Carson to the post office to mail a friend a letter. My entire conversation from that day with Carson was as alive to me as it was when it really happened. I could feel, smell, and hear everything around me just as readily as I could when the moment actually took place.

And then, just as quickly—and here’s the curious thing about music’s power—it was gone.

As soon as the trip into the past is over, it’s over. You can’t go back, even though you try like crazy to force it to happen.

Case in point: When “Lightning Crashes” ended today, ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” came on, and though I have countless memories that involve “Sharp Dressed Man,” I couldn’t go beyond recollecting them. In other words, I couldn’t put myself inside those recollections like I had just experienced through “Lightning Crashes.”

And here’s the other thing: this will never happen for me with “Lightning Crashes” again. Just as the wardrobe was a temporary portal for the Pevensies into Narnia, so is a certain song a temporary portal for us into the past.

C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles, touches more on this idea in some of his nonfiction books (most notably in The Weight of Glory), and I plan to reflect on his thoughts in a coming post. (After a year-long hiatus, I hope to begin blogging at least 4 times a week).

Before diving into Lewis and getting all pseudo-theological on it, though, I am curious to hear from some of you on all of this. What is your experience with music transporting you back to the past? Is it just me? If not, what songs have done this for you?

And what 90s albums never mentioned in conversations about best albums of the 90s should be?

In my bedroom, secure in a box on my dresser, is a watch my grandfather left to me when he passed in 1991. It’s a fine device, a Universal Geneve, and from what my mother tells me, my grandfather left the watch behind with explicit instructions that it be given to me after he passed.

Being a nice watch, and I at the time just a boy, my mother kept the watch in a dresser in her bedroom for safe-keeping. Over time, she forgot about the watch, and only when my parents moved four years ago did she find it and pass it along.

Receiving that watch as a grown man, learning that my grandfather had left it for me, was, much like the event from Friday’s post, as if my grandfather had reached out and spoken to me from the grave.

As I said, I was given that watch four years ago. Since then, it has remained untouched— save for the few times I’ve felt the urge to look upon it— in the box on my dresser. Being a writer and speaker, I’ve spent most every day the last five years in gym shorts and ratty tee shirts. My life, outside of the occasional book signing, has not necessitated dressing nicely, and it certainly hasn’t required the assistance of a timepiece.

That will all change next week, though, as I am pleased to announce I’ve accepted a teaching position at a local public high school, and will begin in-class instruction next Thursday. I will continue working on my next book in the evenings, and will still manage a speaking calendar, however, the majority of my days this coming year will be spent introducing high school students to friends like Fitzgerald and Faulkner and teaching them the beauty of the English language.

And as I turn over this new page in my life and career, I am both thankful and proud that, as I walk through those double doors next Thursday, on my wrist will be that same timepiece my grandfather wore the day he, some twenty-five years ago, retired from his medical practice.

This weekend, on the way to April’s parents’ house in the mountains, April and I discussed which Bible passages we might want read in our wedding ceremony.

Granted, three weeks out, this is probably something we should already be settled on.

People like me—and by that, I mean people who grew up in the Christian evangelical subculture—are often asked What’s your favorite Bible verse?

Whenever I was asked this as a kid, I always replied Romans 8:28 for three reasons: (1) It’s a very uplifting passage, and (2) when I was a kid, my friend Travis Parsons’ father wrote a song based on Romans 8:28 for my dad after he’d lost a job, and (3) because I’d heard Travis’ dad’s song so many times, it was one of the only verses I could recite from memory.

So, when April asked me about Bible passages the other day, my natural inclination was to immediately think Romans 8:28.

Then, though, I remembered a recent church service where, as my pastor read this scripture below, this scripture I’ve heard and read countless times in my life, I felt an intense quickening in my spirit. Having been exposed to the Bible quite a bit in my life, I don’t typically have verses sneak up on me like that. But the sheer beauty of these words, drinking them down and knowing, perhaps for the first time in my life, that I really believed them, did something to me:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, nether height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This scripture happens to be ten verses behind Romans 8:28, a fact which, until arriving home last night and looking it up, I’d forgotten.

Therefore, about fifteen years late, I realize I finally have a real answer for what my favorite Bible verse is: the whole chapter of Romans 8.

Meanwhile, I’d like to ask you folks: any suggestions on good scriptures to have read at our wedding in three weeks?

I write in High Points and Lows of how my grandfather, Dr. Cy Gray, was my first hero, of how as a child I believed he, the first radiologist in my hometown of High Point, was more brilliant than Einstein. I write of how he was the quintessential Southern man, of how he chewed Red Man tobacco and drove a beat up Chevy Silverado. I write of how he was a hunter and a fisherman, a gentleman and a scholar, and, most important, of how he was a darn fine human being.

My grandfather passed away in 1991 and, to this day, I still reach out to my memories of him, even though many of those memories have, like the photograph above, begun to yellow a bit at the corners.

Last night, I received an email from my cousin Nathan. Nathan is one of the most creative people I’ve ever known. He is a set designer on many television shows and movies and, meanwhile, has a knack for finding and selling used and antique items on Ebay.

Nathan emailed me to say he’d recently, on a lark, bought several old postcards in hopes of selling them on Ebay. He said when he got home from purchasing them, he decided to check the status of completed auctions to see if old postcards were indeed fetching decent returns. He said he sat at his computer, searched “North Carolina postcards” and, as the screen filled with images, the photo above caught his eye.

Now, while these six men—captured sometime around 1940 and frozen in time— may be of no consequence to you, for me and Nathan, they represent the way life and love can transcend the grave.

I say this because the man in the middle, the man third from the left— that young boy-man grinning confidently and ready to take on the world— is our grandfather. And it’s a picture no one in our family has ever seen.

There he stands, a young man unaware how he will soon sire four children, four children who will provide him nine grandchildren, nine grandchildren who, to date, have already produced seven children of their own. Unaware how his loving wife will have her life cut short by heart disease, how his own life, at the age of seventy-nine, will one day be snuffed out by cancer.

There he stands, unaware how, as he smiles, as he takes this photograph, two of his grandsons— two nonentities, two beings he’s never even imagined— will, seventy years later, accidentally stumble upon it.

Unaware how they will both study it, savor it, cherish it.

Unaware how they will feel, if only for a moment, that he— he who’s been dead twenty years— is still right there with them.

There he stands, unaware how, as sure as those two grandsons know he’s not right there with them, this picture— this picture he, in this moment, likely believes insignifcant— will one day remind them both, perhaps when they need it most, perhaps three weeks before one of them is getting married, how he is always right there with them.

I have been a Chicago Cubs fan since I was six-years-old. Growing up in central North Carolina, I didn’t have the option of a “home” team. Therefore, my choices were simple: the Cubs played each day on WGN, the Braves played each day on TBS.

One afternoon I watched Rick Sutcliffe, the fire-throwing fire-headed ace of the 1987 Chicago Cubs, pitch a three-hitter— and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Much to my interminable torment, I should add.

For those of you who don’t follow sports, allow me to explain: the Cubs are awful. Always. Even when they’re not, they are.

The Cubs have not won a World Series in 102 years, and, with one of the lousiest records in professional baseball, they most certainly will not win one this year, either.

I typically would not write about baseball on this blog as, truth be told, my interest in the sport has waned over the years. I seldom pay close attention to a full season, and there are some years, especially of late, when I can’t even name the Cubs starting lineup.

However, with the retirement of Cubs manager Lou Piniella on Sunday, scuttlebutt surrounding the team and who might become its new manager has me so excited I can scarcely wipe the glee from my face.

It is being reported that my boyhood idol— my all-time favorite baseball player— Ryne Sandberg, is one of two primary candidates for the job. I can’t begin to express how much I loved this man as a child. What’s more, I can’t believe how giddy the mere suggestion makes me that he might again don a blue and white pinstripe jersey.

The facts:

Sandberg, a hall of famer, has paid his dues over the last four years as a manager. He started out managing the Cubs single-A club, then moved to its double-A squad, then jumped to its triple-A club in Iowa, where his team is currently 20 games over .500.

The man is one of only six Cubs players to have his jersey number flying from the Wrigley Field flagpoles, and, most importantly, HE IS MY BOYHOOD HERO.

I suppose what strikes me most, the reason I’m using this as fodder for today’s post, is how childlike a man (me) can become when he is reminded of special things from his youth. It proves there is no greater era than one’s childhood, no greater time: a period when everything is new, when something as simple as a baseball game contains so much meaning and consequence.

I’ve written on baseball before—even have a whole chapter called “Baseball and the Rhythm of Life” in my book—but this is different. More than simply examining why baseball is a metaphor for America—for its capitalism, its democracy, its resilience, its beauty—Ryne Sandberg allows me to write about what makes baseball great for me, personally: it reminds me what the world looks like when one really believes life is big and beautiful and full of endless possibility.

Which it is.

And always is.

And always will be.

I wrote last Wednesday of my dog Sadie, of how she is the first dog I’ve ever had. However, after painting such a cute picture of Sadie in Wednesday’s post, I feel I ought to mention something else about her:

She’s a monster.

There are times—more times than I’d like to admit, actually—when I envision myself tossing Sadie off the apartment balcony. She requires so much upkeep: take me out, daddy; I just crapped on the rug, daddy; I just chewed the rug, daddy; I just chewed the rug and the crap I left on it, daddy.

Meanwhile, atop all of the walking and feeding and crapping for which she demands my attention, she’s a piranha. She, while I’m writing—though these periods are punctuated by silent, blissful hours of her sleeping at my feet—gnarls my ankles like a rabid beast and then, should that tactic not suffice, pushes her snout an inch from my face only to issue the loudest, most annoying, foulest-smelling barks of all-time.

Ah, but I love her, though.

I love her because she’s sweet and she’s loyal and because, the truth of the matter is, the only reason she bites and paws and barks is because she wants my attention, wants to know I love her, wants to know that she’s worth something to me.

As I type this, she is asleep on the couch behind me, and I’ve stolen this opportunity to post this because, just before drifting off, while I was folding clothes in my bedroom, she did something irresistible: she came and stood between my legs, nuzzled my calves, and then braced herself there.

She does this often, and it’s perhaps my favorite of her proclivities. Because in those moments, Sadie is communicating so much to me: her trust in me, her dependence upon me, her love for me. Most important, she’s reminding me how she trusts me to keep her safe.

In my book High Points and Lows I write about a time I was stressing how to handle a certain relationship issue with April, something to which my brilliant friend Shane responded: “Just ask her how you can make her feel safe.”

I looked at him curiously.

He simply responded: “That’s what we all want, bro. We just want to feel safe.”

And he was right: as human beings, everything we do is designed to make us feel safe.

I was reminded of that moment, of those words, as Sadie stood under me just now, communicating to me how she felt protected simply because I was there to cover her.

Looking down at her, feeling such love for her, I, of a sudden, wondered at how similar it must be for God when I come to Him with prayers and stresses and concerns.

Though most of the time I am, I imagine, somewhat of a monster to God—constantly doing things that equate to barking in His ear (mad because life isn’t going my way) or chewing His rug (exploiting Him for my own creative purposes) or crapping on His rug (accepting praise for how I’ve creatively exploited Him)—I depend on Him to make me feel safe.

And when I, time and again, exhaust myself chasing life’s false infinites: all the alluring things of the world which I wrongly believe will bring me peace and joy, I always find myself running back to the same place: resting in my belief that He loves me unconditionally, that He is always there to protect me.

That, above all, He will keep me safe.

There are countless reasons I love my church, but chief among them is my pastor, Greg Farrand. How many other pastors will (or, what’s more, can) cite a passage from a mid-20th century communist poet to impress upon his congregation the furious love of Jesus Christ?

I want to do with you what spring does to the cherry trees.

These are the words of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, and Sunday, as Greg talked about prayer, about the skewed view most of us have of prayer—of how prayer, which is meant to be enjoyable but is something most of us consider drudgery, is really an invitation into the very heart of God— he went on to explain that these lines are how God feels toward us, that God wants to lavish His love upon us in such a way that our spirits will bloom like cherry trees in spring.

An arresting image, no question.

I wrote about prayer in my book High Points and Lows (an excerpt of which was run on Relevant.com), discussing how enjoyment in prayer is enabled through a comfortable friendship with Christ. I considered this again while Greg was talking Sunday, and I wondered at how beautiful prayer was in light of the image of cherry trees.

My best friend Patrick and his wife, Lindsay, just had a baby Saturday. I’ve known Patrick since we were kids. I introduced Patrick to Lindsay. I was in his wedding; September 18th, he will be in mine. I found my church because of Patrick. Patrick is one of a select few people I would do absolutely anything for.

And so it was with much eagerness I went to see his son for the first time on Sunday.

When April and I entered the hospital room to find Lindsay sitting upright, a tiny boy fast asleep and cradled to her chest, I almost lost my breath. I’ve had friends who’ve had children, but this is the first of my boyhood buddies to sire (that still live nearby, that is). Consequently, this kid will always be special to me; I already know it.

Beside them, Patrick looked on with a mixture of pride and fear and joy and exhaustion. I went to him to offer the triple slap (what functions in our group as a handshake) but somehow, in the presence of his new child, this suddenly felt childish, immature.

We sat and talked with Patrick and Lindsay for about an hour, an hour in which I was eventually allowed to hold the little guy for a few minutes. Then, as dinnertime began to loom, in effort to give them a break before the next onslaught of visitors arrived, we made to leave.

As I stood by the door and took one final look at the boy, I noticed Patrick watching me. As I caught his eye, he—accidentally—smiled; I could tell by the sheepish look on his face that he hadn’t intended to do it. The joy at watching me admire his newborn son, the excitement, the pride, it was simply too much for him. When one is full of joy, it is impossible for him to hide it. And I realized in that moment, watching Patrick beam over the birth of his boy, here was the practical application of the cherry tree metaphor. Patrick was the cherry tree, and he was in full bloom.

I thought about this again last night as I sat down to pray. I wondered at the notion of God being so giddy to hear from me that he was like Patrick in the presence of his new son. And as I began praying, all I could think was how God wanted to do to me what the spring does to the cherry trees.

A couple months ago I was going through a somewhat curious period in that, outside of the Sundays I was actually speaking in them, I wasn’t very interested in going to church. It’s not that I was bitter with faith or anything; I’d just been, well… tired.

So it was that one Sunday, instead of going to church, my fiancé April and I threw our dog Sadie in the back of my truck and took her to a wooded path down the road from my apartment. It really is a lovely little place, trees lining the path, old wooden bridges carrying walkers over the lazy river that skates under and around it.

April and I hadn’t been to this path in months, not since Sadie was a puppy. Now, though she’s still just a puppy, Sadie is big. The last time we’d visited this path, she had to fight to keep up with our pace. This time, Sadie, a strong little monster, was quite literally pulling me along behind her. Finally, after about a mile and a half, we reached the spot in the river where April and I had, last visit here, unleashed Sadie to first introduce her to (non-bath) water.

This day, as Sadie bolted for the river, April and I carefully followed her out onto the rocks, bracing one another so as to prevent slipping on the moss and algae. We found a comfortable seat on a long, flat rock, and with nothing other than the running river making a sound, we watched our puppy experience the joy of playing in nature—with no reservation—for the first time ever.

Now, I should quickly break narrative to say: Sadie is my first dog. At twenty-nine, I have never, not even as a little boy, had a dog. Everything dog-related is new to me. Moreover, Sadie was an accident, as I had no idea I was inheriting a puppy. January 28th, the night my book High Points and Lows was released, I drove home from the bookstore and, entering my apartment, found April sitting against the couch, a hopeful smile on her face, a ball of black fur cupped in her palms. The cuteness of Ape’s smile and the cuteness of the little furball—those searching, pleading black eyes—rendered me incapable of saying no. Today, Sadie is, to steal the old cliché, my best friend. Each morning she rides to the coffee shop in the back of my truck, where I park in a shaded spot and sit at a window-table so I can watch the customers pet her as they come in. Then, we ride together to the bookstore and, finally, when it comes time for me to work, she naps at my feet while I write. When she knows I’ve hit a snag or that the words just aren’t flowing, she’s nice enough to take me for a walk. She’s a part of me now; I’ve officially become “one of those” people.

Anyway, back to the woods and the river:

As April and I sat sweating in the hot sun, watching Sadie splash across the river to the other side, I began noticing the beauty around me. The spot is a nook of the river tucked away under towering oaks and sycamores that throw shade across the rocks in dizzying directions. The river moves with a quiet urgency, working over and around stones that, like curious children, peek their heads just above surface.

Because it was so hot, I eventually decided to follow Sadie’s lead, and I took off my shoes and waded in. I splashed water on my face and chest and doused my hair. Excited to see me, Sadie sprinted across a long rock and dove in after me, as if to say, hey dad, isn’t it great? Minutes later, April followed. Soon, Sadie got tired of nuzzling our legs and took off after an invisible friend she spotted across the river. April and I then, who can’t afford luxuries such as massages, found that by rubbing the soles of our feet over the smoothed contours of the river rocks, we could experience the next best thing to visiting a spa.

After a couple more minutes, we made our way back to our sitting rock, April’s hand in mine, both of us quietly recharging our batteries after a long and stressful week. As late twentysomethings who don’t make much money and are preparing for a wedding in a month, we are often scared and stressed about both the wedding and the future. Consequently, this chance to recharge our batteries was a wonderful, welcome thing. And as we sat there, I began reflecting on how, even though it was a Sunday morning and we weren’t in church, this feeling of peace and tranquility—this recharging of batteries, so to speak—is precisely the point of going to church in the first place. This very feeling is grace.

I remember my pastor giving a sermon a couple years ago where he likened grace to a day in the sun, a day when the temperature is perfect and one can bask in the warmth, no need or desire to be anywhere other than here, in the moment.

I pondered this as Sadie ran back our way, her eye trained on a butterfly hovering nearby. Angling after it, Sadie, for the next couple minutes, gave chase to the butterfly and as I watched, I suddenly remembered a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. In it, a young man, on his deathbed, says that if he could do it all over again, he would take closer attention to the holiness of nature. He says:

“[In life] there was such a glory of God all about me; birds, trees, meadows, sky, only I lived in shame and dishonored it all and did not notice the beauty and glory.”

About thirty minutes later, April and I dried our feet and put Sadie back on her leash and began the trek down the path toward the truck. While I had been lethargic on the way to the river, I now, on the way back, felt my spirit revitalized, buoyant. It was a welcome change, one brought on by accepting God’s grace, by noticing the beauty and glory in the nature all around me.

I wrote about joy the other day, and to follow up on that, I’d like to mention a very touching thing that happened at my church (Spring Garden Community Church) on Sunday. My pastor, Greg Farrand, who I refer to in my book High Points and Lows as “Pastor McDreamy” (sorry, Greg), gave a great sermon on the joy of Christ.

Toward the end of Greg’s sermon, he asked us to raise our hands if we were willing to tell of the last time we’d experienced a moment of pure joy.

Beside me, a young guy—who, when arriving late and taking the seat next to me, flashed me one of the friendliest, warmest smiles I’d seen in weeks—raised his hand. When Greg called on him, he answered: “When I started painting again after my dad died.”

Which, turns out, was just a couple weeks ago.

This beautiful answer further impressed upon me the restorative, redemptive power of art, which is something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit the past few weeks.

I’ve been anxious lately. I suppose this has something to do with getting married in a month and wondering how I’m going to contribute financially (as I mentioned in Monday’s blog post, being a writer is wonderful but doesn’t bring in much money).

Being anxious is a strange feeling for me, as I’m seldom stressed.

Of late, though, I’ve been waking in the middle of the night and finding it hard to fall back asleep. Come morning, I tend to focus on the fear of the future rather than the promise of today. (Again, very unlike me.)

This has been going on for about two weeks now, and it’s been miserable. I’ll be fine one minute and then, bam, freaking out the next. It’s left me at times incapable of looking people in the eyes. I’ve even found myself ducking calls from best friends.

I know my anxiety comes from a fear of change (and a childish impulse to not confront that fear), but even though I know this, it doesn’t make it any easier.

About a week ago, though, I was at a used bookstore and I stumbled upon an old copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I hadn’t read it in years, and it was only two bucks, so I bought it. I’ve always said (even on this blog) that books choose us, not the other way around, and I think this book chose me. I say this because there is a passage early in Leaves of Grass (Song of Myself) that has spoken an eerie calm into me these past days:

I have heard what the talkers were talking…
the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never anymore inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be anymore perfection than there is now,
Nor anymore heaven or hell than there is now.

Since reading those lines last week, I’ve revisited them— along with other passages from the poem— each afternoon. While it’s not a magic elixir that makes all my anxiety go away, it does quell the intensity. It reminds me that, in focusing on the fear of the future or the things of the past, I am robbing myself of the gift of now.

Life really is a blessing, and while that’s cliche, I find it very easy to forget when I’m living in fear and anxiety.

Thankfully there is so much art around me– so many words and images and sounds that are born of other people’s hopes and fears and pains– that I am constantly reminded of the joy of living in the moment.

So, if you’re like me and are currently stressed and/or anxious, perhaps pick up a copy of Leaves of Grass for yourself. Or, like my friend from Spring Garden, perhaps pick up that old brush and put it to the canvas.

Whatever your chosen medium, don’t delay. The world is waiting to hear from you.

I finally got around to reading C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy recently. It’s strange that, seeing as Lewis is my favorite author, the only of his books I’d never actually read was his memoir. I spoke at Liberty, my first college, while on tour for High Points and Lows, and the mother of an old friend of mine came and listened to me talk. I’d recently written an article on how much Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia had inspired me, an article in which I admitted that I still imagined Turkish Delight— the candy with which the White Witch seduced Edmund— to be little pieces of Butterball turkey. A couple weeks after my talk at Liberty, I received a package from her containing a copy of Surprised by Joy along with a box of Turkish Delights (which, for the record, taste nothing like turkey).

In SBJ, Lewis suggests that “joy” is a rare and fleeting sensation, one often found in obscure memories, and is proof that we yearn for something deeper than this world can provide. For Lewis, his first encounter with “joy” was the memory, as an adult, of a tin of flowers his brother collected as a boy. Remembering those flowers, Lewis immediately felt what he later described as, “the stab, the pain, the inconsolable longing.”

Not long ago, I had a similar experience. I was somehow reminded of being a kid and finding a large, hardback book called Jericho in a wicker basket in my grandparents’ living room. The cover was of a wooden rowboat in an otherwise empty sea. I have no idea what the book was about, and it doesn’t matter. The point is, when I saw it as a kid, even though I had no idea what or where Jericho was, I knew it was something Biblical, and I knew the Bible was what my family believed in, and I knew my family was what I believed in, and consequently, I now understand that I felt, more in that moment than I ever have since, that I was safe. But I didn’t know I felt this then. It only occurred to me the other day when something randomly took me back to that day, to that room, to that book, when I felt it: that “stab,” that “inconsolable longing.”

Like Lewis, though, just as quickly as it came over me, it was gone. And no matter how hard I tried it get it back; all that remained was the memory of it.

Years later, I would be invited to serve as speaker for a Korean International School’s Spring Break Retreat in Indonesia, and I’d find myself alone in the Indian Ocean in the late afternoon, a hard rain about to fall, my spirit screaming inside because I felt like everything I was saying about Jesus to these kids might be complete BS. I was wondering aloud if I even knew who this God I was talking about was. Take it from me: there is no more crippling fear, no circumstance that can make one feel like more of a hypocrite, than teaching kids about God when you’re not even fully convinced of what you’re talking about. I remember praying in the ocean, the rain beginning to fall, quite literally begging God to show me that he was real, that I did love him, that it wasn’t all my imagination. It was a moment of wrestling and yearning unlike any I’d ever before, or ever since, experienced, and, at the time, I felt no resolution. I went on with my talk that night, speaking emphatically and then later nodding my head at the kid’s questions and, later, accepting the compliments and praises of the teachers. It was among the most miserable nights of my life, even though no one but me knew it.

Today though, whenever something randomly jogs my memory to that moment in the Indian ocean— say, a hard rain, or questioning some element of my faith— I sometimes feel that same stab, that same fleeting burn. However, before I can grab it, it’s gone. Joy comes and goes like a flash of lightning, like the burn of a firefly.

But when it passes, it leaves an inexplicable peace in my spirit.

Augustine once said that to look for God is to find him, and I believe he’s right. Like Lewis, I believe I am pining for a world beyond this one, one whose depths and beauty I can’t understand, one where I will finally find the safety and security I’ve been trying to find my way back to since I was a child.