At church this morning Kallie and I found ourselves in a discussion about hope and sight. A friend said something that ignited in me thoughts about Fueled By Rice: he said according to statistics we* spend between 60 and 90 percent of our time indoors. Indoors is a world of our own construction. We build houses, engineer buildings, plan the space conveniently for our needs and wants—plenty of bathrooms, plenty of counter space, plenty of electrical outlets… It is a world we can control. As Cat Stevens says, “You can switch on summer from a slot machine.
These thoughts started cooking a question in my mind: What kind of people are we becoming? And what kind of people do we hope to be? If we spend such a large portion of our lives in an environment we create and control, how do we sustain an imagination for anything beyond our control? How do we experience wonder and discovery? In the worse case scenario we are all busily becoming unimaginative spoiled control freak brats who can only think to complain if something about our situation is not to our specific taste.
What I hope for myself and others is to find ways of becoming more and more full of wonder—experiencing discovery and surrendering control as one might surrender to the beauty of a sunset.
In short, lets get out more! Let’s see more in the created-not-by-us world around! And this is where Fueled By Rice connects. On a bicycle a person is outside. We feel and see an environment we didn’t create, we discover in our bodies the contour and resistance of landscapes we enter, and we surrender to sunshine and rain, wind and heat, allowing the rhythms of nature to pull us into a response—to be significant factors in our journey
One thing I’m looking forward to about this upcoming FBR journey is being outside. We will no doubt have to suffer cold, ache, fatigue, wet, wind and sun. But it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to experience wonder.
Andrew and Kallie, I wish I could go with you! You would not wish for me to go with you, though, I promise. But I resonate so much with what you said, Andrew (and what Peter said, I’m guessing) that we need to put ourselves outdoors and give up the control we seem to so desperately need. I’ll be living vicariously through you this whole trip, so please keep the posts coming! We love you.
Curiously, as we become more apt at life inside as a society we seem to also become dull of hearing the Voice without speech and the Telling without words . . .the heavens are declaring the Glory of God and the earth speaks of his Handiwork . . . Yes, get out to the field, the garden, the bike paths and appreciate the sound of creation singing and wooing all who have ears for such language!!