I am at 33,000 feet, on the way home from the last seminar...I have spoken to over 1,500 people in 17 cities in 6 weeks--three cities per week...and I am exhausted, spent, fatigued, and charred...and the microorganisms that assault my head (as they always do in times like these) are having a riot in preparing--Lilliputian Style--to bring me crashing down tonight.

I have so little feeling right now--all the adrenaline expenses of these seminars left nothing for the immune system (see above) and nothing for the brain (and so the depressed affect)...but my heart is well, and I will yet produce tears within minutes--from where I do not know; neurobiology won't let me, but neuro-plasticity (loosely speaking) will--upon simple reflection of larger patterns in my life and of precious hearts I have known, and of privileges of closeness I have experienced with the Nail-scarred One.

I sense deep, deep changes in my character--one's I have waited for and hoped for, for 25 years. I sense changes in my life, enabled by the changes in my character, and I am mindful of Romans 5--that proven character provides hope.

I have worked on tough issues these weeks of travel, and have outlined significant articles for the Tank: on the canon, on hell, on the soul in the modern sciences. These are not simple issues--but then, who ever promised me this life of faith would be otherwise, eh? ;>)

The God-made sunset outside my plane window flies faster than this man-made plane, so the blues grow darker and the yellows thinner, and the clouds less boastful. The parade of effulgent shapes below me lays down to rest for the night and will dream of the coming sunrise that will debut them afresh into a new day of glory and strutting about and dancing with the heavens.

I go home to my kids--such awesome gifts and over-against-me persons. They will be glad to see me, and sunrise will break on their faces, and hugs will be warm, and no one will be taken for granted. They are older now, and so their respect and warmth are thoughtfully given and are gifts of their hearts. No longer automatic, their responses measure their depth--not mine.

I am amazed at the power of family--one of the basal models of the trinity, the historical church, Christ and the Church. It can take a heart like mine--so conditioned through youth to self-protective coldness, denial, escape, and withdrawal--and lead it into tropical rainforests with flowers so much bigger and brighter and celebratory than the wildest hopes and dreams of my childhood. It can take a theology as clear as ice and twice as cold, and infuse it with erosive and invasive grace and giggles and tears and even change...

You know how your memory of rooms when you were a kid were so much bigger that those rooms look now? I have found something opposite to that--the older I get, the bigger my God gets. The wider His richness, the more subtle His actions, the more solid His quiet power. I wish I could paint the "invasion of color-bursts" the Cross represented.

As I boarded the plane home tonight--mind cluttered with technology lifecycle issues and management strategies and organizational behavior issues--a little 3-year-old a few rows back emptied that cauldron and filled it with a high-pitched and monotonic childsong: "Jesus loves me, this I know...for the Bible tells me so...little ones to Him belong...we are weak, but He is strong"...And I took my place, sitting quietly in my heart, looking into the heart of my Father...

I hope this summer finds you choosing to walk in the sunshine more, and groveling and despairing in the dark less...

warmly,

glenn miller, 6/26/97
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