Even the Rocks Cry Out

“You are beautiful beyond description,
too wonderful for words,
too marvelous for comprehension,
like nothing ever seen or heard;
who can grasp Your infinite wisdom,
who can fathom the depths of Your love,
You are beautiful beyond description,
majesty enthroned above.

And I stand, I stand in awe of You,
I stand, I stand in awe of You,
holy God to whom all praise is due,
I stand in awe of You…”

God shows Himself to me (us) through nature and His creation:

“Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:19-20

I thought about how His creation worships Him:

“When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:37-40

I felt as though the “stones/rocks were crying out” the rocks were worshiping Jesus with all their beauty and majesty.

I thought about Matt Redman’s song “Shine”

“Lord we have seen the rising sun, awakening the early dawn,
And they’re rising up to give You praise.
Lord we have seen the stars and moon, see how they shine,
They shine for You,
And You’re calling us to do the same.
So we rise up with a song, and we rise up with a cry
And we’re giving You our lives.”

The rising sun is rising up to give Jesus praise, and He’s calling us to do the same. The sun worships Jesus, all creation worships Jesus. Jesus created what makes Him happy; He created what’s beautiful in His sight.

“You make everything glorious; I am yours—what does that make me?” David Crowder.

Jesus created the sun, the beautiful rocks and both are crying out to Him, praising and worshiping Him. He creates what He loves; He creates things for His pleasure, so He can enjoy them. Just as humans create things that give them pleasure, things they like…

Jesus created me! I give Him pleasure; He loves me and enjoys me! I was crying out with those rocks, I was worshiping right along with them and I thought maybe they were doing a better job than I was. I was left breathless, awe struck with these thoughts. I was speechless and humbled and had tears in my eyes…the thought of worshiping my Lord along with the rocks and sun that were worshiping Him too!

What a wonderful day with my Jesus!

Making of a Leader

I recently read the book 12 Ordinary Men and I especially liked the chapter on Peter. From the life of Peter, we can learn what God looks for and how He creates leaders. In this chapter I learned some things about myself.

RAW MATERIAL:

These are things that God has put in you in your mother’s womb. You cannot get these things from training.

1) Inquisitiveness: Someone who asks a lot of questions. Curiosity is crucial to leadership. People who are content with what they don’t know, happy to remain ignorant about what they don’t understand, complacent about what they haven’t analyzed and comfortable living with problems they haven’t solved – such people cannot lead.

2) Initiative: Drive, ambition and energy, someone who makes things happen. This person is a starter. It is hard to try to motivate someone who is always passive and hesitant. It is much easier to tone down a fanatic than to resurrect a corpse. Some people have to be dragged tediously in any forward direction. Not Peter. He always wanted to move ahead, to understand what he didn’t understand. I think of this as someone who is self-motivated.

3) Involvement: True leaders are always in the middle of the action. A true leader goes through life with a cloud of dust around him. These leaders go where the action is, they are not content to sit on the sidelines and tell everyone else what to do.

LIFE EXPERIENCES:

By life experiences Christ refines us into leaders. True leaders are made, not just born. Experience can be a hard teacher. The Lord dragged Peter through three years of tests and difficulties that gave him a lifetime of the kind of experiences every true leader must endure. These experiences, even the difficult ones were all necessary to shape Peter into the man he needed to become.

Some of the lessons that Peter learned were: crushing defeat and deep humiliation often follow hard on the heels of our greatest victories. (Peter got commended by Jesus for his great confession of “You are the Christ the Son of God”, right after that – Peter got rebuked by Jesus “Get behind me Satan…”) Peter had just learned that God would reveal truth to him and guide his speech as he submitted his mind to the truth. He wasn’t dependent upon a human message. The message he was to proclaim was given to him by God. He would also be given the keys to the kingdom-meaning that his life and message would be the unlocking of the kingdom of God for the salvation of many. Peter fell victim to Satan the night he denied Jesus 3 times. Satan was sifting him as wheat and Peter was learning just how much chaff and how little substance he had in him. He learned how watchful and careful he must be to rely on only the Lord’s strength. He learned that in spite of his own sinful tendencies and spiritual weaknesses, the Lord wanted to use him and would sustain him and preserve him no matter what.
I’ve learned much, but do I apply it? Peter learned the first time he was presented with the issue, he learned in 3 years—I took 30.
CHARACTER QUALITIES:

Character is what makes leadership possible. In spiritual leadership the great goal and objective is to bring people to Christ-likeness. The leader himself must manifest Christ-like character. God’s been working with me on this one.

Submission:
Leaders must be in submission to God and to any higher earthly authority placed above them.
Jesus modeled this by paying temple taxes when he really didn’t need to because he was the son of the God worshipped in the temple. Just as the king’s sons didn’t pay regular taxes.

Restraint:
Self-control, discipline, moderation and reserve don’t necessarily come naturally to someone who lives life at the head of the pack. We need to learn these and also to curb anger and out of control passions.

Humility:
People in leadership tend to think more highly of themselves than they ought. Stay out of pride. A true leader loves and serves those he leads. Leaders tend to see people as a means to their end. Leaders are usually task oriented rather than people oriented. They often use people or plow over them in order to achieve their goals or their agenda, plan for the day, week, year or life.

Compassion:
With compassion we are equipped to strengthen the brethren. Leaders tend to be short on compassion, lousy comforters and impatient with others. They don’t stop very long to care for the wounded as they pursue their goals. After being sifted by Satan, Peter was well equipped to empathize with others’ weaknesses. He could strengthen others in their ordeals.

Courage:
Not the impetuous false kind of courage that caused him to swing his sword so wildly to cut off the man’s ear in the garden, but the kind of courage that is mature, settled, intrepid willingness to suffer for Christ’s sake. Lies are set against the truth. Satan is set against God. And demons are set against the holy purposes of Christ. Peter would face difficulty wherever he went.

Peter was not perfect, long after he learned these lessons and was “the rock” of the church, preaching, leading and bringing people the message of salvation with courage and insight, he still goofed up. Paul had to correct him in the presence of everybody when Peter left the Gentiles to eat with the false teachers. (Galatians 2:11-14) BUT…to Peter’s credit, he responded to Paul’s correction. When the error of the Judaizers was finally confronted at the full council of church leaders and apostles in Jerusalem, it was Peter who spoke up first in defense of the gospel of divine grace. He introduced the argument that won the day.

Reading through these I realize how far I have to go. But, I also realize how many of these traits I have; I just have to keep focused and allow God to mold, shape and grow things in me.  It’s a life long journey. None of us will be perfected until we reach heaven.

Why Me?

Years before I retired I began dreaming and wondering what I could do for Jesus after I retired. I started praying for Jesus to prepare me for what He had for me and then to place me there after retirement. When my retirement time came, I continued to pray for Jesus to use me and to place me where He wanted me to be. Several things happened as a result of these prayers.

First, nothing happened. But, I wanted my first year off anyway so that was expected; it was part of my plan as well. I used that time to be in women’s bible studies, journal, read, study, write, set up my web site and to just rest, watch movies, do things around the house, etc. I applied for and received a backup receptionist job at my church about 5 months into retirement. Then, about 8-9 months into my retirement, things really started to move. I received an email from church asking if I was interested in being part of the recovery ministry that they were starting. There were several positions to consider. I went to the meeting and after the meeting my husband Bill and I signed up to be small group leaders. I prayed about it and spoke to a spiritual director at a retreat I attended about it, and it seemed to be from God and the way He works in my life.

Very shortly after (10+ months after retiring) one of the Executive Leaders at church offered me a job. I met with him and found out all the details, he set up a job interview and I accepted the job on an interim basis. This started me thinking—why me? What is it about this job that I am the one to be filling the position? It was very clear to me that this came from God; this is where He wants me to be, but why?

I don’t think it’s because what I have to bring to the job – although that’s certainly part of it, but there are many other people with the skills and talents to lead this ministry, so why me? If it’s not just what I have to bring to the ministry, then what else could it be? It could be what the ministry has to bring to me. Somehow I am being refined by this ministry. I am being changed. God has something here for me, something that I need to receive and become.

This ministry is stretching me, I’m not good at recruiting and coming out of my shell to meet, know and lead people and this is something I have to do. There are teams of people I need to team up with; I need to know them, not just their names. I need to find others who can come into these teams and welcome them and help them feel like they belong, like they fit. I can no longer hide and think people don’t like me; that they don’t want to talk to me, etc. I need to be the leader.

At Passion ‘07 there were two leaders of our section of the Touch Team; one was shy and wishy/washy, a people pleaser type; the type that probably thinks people don’t want to talk to him, etc. The stronger leader who spoke clearly and told us the way it was, directed us to what we had to do, he was the better leader. I could clearly see the better leader from the follower’s point of view. Now, I have to be that type of leader, not just be someone who’s in the background, not wanting to speak up and direct; being afraid that people won’t like me, that I will sound stupid or be a bother. I have to be a direct, sound, outspoken leader.

I can be this, I have it in me and God is calling it out of me.

Feelings

At aerobics today, as the teacher was leading us she was talking about going to the doctor yesterday with her son. She said her son needed a procedure that would hurt. What she did was she bought him a bag of licorice (his favorite treat) and gave him half before the appointment and told him if he didn’t cry, he would get the other half. Now, I don’t know how old her son is, but it got me to wondering. Why do we do these things with our children? Why do we teach, especially boys not to cry? Is it discipline they’re learning or are they learning how to stuff their feelings? I know that as adults we can’t go through life crying every time we’re hurt, we have to learn to manage our feelings, but what is the healthy balance and how do we teach it to our children?

As usual, I have more questions than answers. I do know that Jesus cried and He cried in front of others. He felt and showed all His feelings (compassion, hurt, joy, grief, etc.) not just some of them or the ones that were considered “good”. I believe it’s good to feel and express feelings; however, we must not be ruled by them. We must learn to manage our emotions and feelings. There are appropriate feelings and appropriate times in which to express them.

When I was very young, I was taught to stuff feelings, the bad ones anyway. Some of the bad ones for me as a girl were: anger, hurt, disappointment, frustration, depression, sadness and grief. When I would feel any of these, the feelings were minimized and I was told “the person who hurt me didn’t mean it”, “don’t think about it”, “don’t worry about it”, all of these types of messages. I got rewarded if I didn’t cry when I got a shot at the Dr’s office when I was very young. When I was older 12 or so, I got a dollar every time I went to the Dentist when I had to have a procedure requiring several visits. When I was 13 or 14 my mom thought I was pregnant from fooling around with the boys at the farm in the hay loft. When in fact I was just smoking cigarettes with them and escaping my cousin in the house so I wouldn’t get put to work. After the Dr’s appointment that required a pelvic exam (my first!) and a pregnancy test that turned out to be negative, my mom didn’t say she was sorry, she didn’t say anything really, she just brought me to the mall and bought me a pair of moccasins (my favorite shoes) from the expensive store instead of the discount store.

As an adult those rules of “bad” feeling verses “good” feelings still linger in me. I used drugs at a very young age and I kept using them for 23 years. Now, 10 years later, I still have a very hard time naming, recognizing and expressing my feelings. I also have a hard time having conversations around uncomfortable topics or when I need to humble myself because I was wrong, those types of things. I tend to want to buy people that I’ve hurt presents and reward people for doing hard things.

My original question remains: Why do we teach these things to our children?

All for Him

I’ve been doing much wondering lately. Our Pastor gave a message and challenged us to wonder about how God wants to change us. We were to pray and ask God the question: What can we work on together (me and God) that will create newness in me by this time next year? God wants me to be continually changing. I am not to be stagnant, I am to keep growing, moving, being refined and transformed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. In prayer I asked God to give me a picture of what He wants to do in me.

What came to mind is how different I am when I volunteer; I seem to take on more of my (earthly) father’s personality. My dad was really loving to all people, he was outgoing and would hug people, laugh with them, be present to them; he really would work the crowd. What I mean by that is he would try to speak with each person, love each one and give each one time and attention. He was very social, giving of himself and serving people. He is the one I think of when I think of examples of being Jesus in the skin.

In noticing myself, I see that when I’m not volunteering, I tend to be withdrawn, I don’t initiate conversation, I think people don’t want to be bothered with me. But, when I volunteer-especially at a place that’s not my home church where people know me, I tend to take on the servant’s attitude that my dad lived in front of me. I purposefully give myself and my day to God.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1

This year I had the privilege of serving at the Candlelight service Christmas Eve at my church. When the candles were being lit on the main floor, I made my way to the balcony to start the lighting of those candles. When all the candles had been lit, we continued to sing several songs. It was so very powerful to me to have that viewpoint of the service. As I stood there and saw all the candles below, heard the songs rising in the air; I knew this was all for Jesus. It was all for Him, about Him and because of Him. I will hold that moment in my mind for a very long time.

A few days later, I traveled to Atlanta, GA to serve in Passion ’07 conference for college students. I served on the “touch team” as an usher. I was so aware of how each day I woke up and my prayer was “today Jesus, is all about You, I give this day to You, I give myself to You, this day and all that it holds is all for You”. I put myself aside and was a servant for the entire day. Whatever I could do to serve Jesus, and to serve the students (His children) attending the conference, that’s what I did. My entire day and my entire being was all about serving. I put myself on the altar each and every morning and gave myself as a living sacrifice to God and to His Kingdom work.

It occurred to me; why do I just do that here? Why do I just put myself on the altar when I’m serving as a volunteer at a special event? Why don’t I live this way every day of my life? That’s my prayer, that each and every day I put myself on the altar and give myself as a living sacrifice to God and to His Kingdom work; to serve His children and to love them. I want to make each and every day all for Him, about Him and because of Him. Along with this, I want to have the personality, the character of a servant as my dad did; the one that’s outgoing–loves and laughs with all people. I want to take that on and to drop the one that I’ve had—being withdrawn because I think no one wants to be bothered with me.

So from this day forward my prayer and my goal are to each and every morning set myself on the altar as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. I want each day to be all for Him, about Him and because of Him.

We’re Fighting a War

God speaks to me in and through people, whenever I hear the same message from a variety of sources; I know it’s from God. Here are a couple of things I’ve been hearing lately…

We are Spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are in a spiritual war, everyday we are in this war. When we are tempted to not forgive someone, give in to our addiction, be angry, impatient, believe we’re a victim, we’re not worthy, whatever it is; these things are the enemy playing us. We are being played and it’s part of the war, if the enemy can distract us, or get us to do something that’s wrong for us to do, then he either gets us on his side or at least gets us to not be as effective for God’s side.

How the devil gets us to believe; is first the thought enters our mind, then we start to believe it and we develop a mindset, outlook or attitude. Then we feel it-it gets planted in our hearts and becomes an emotion. Finally we act on it, it’s a behavior, and a behavior can become a habit.

We can develop coping skills that are necessary for us at the time, but later in life they don’t serve us anymore. These coping skills are things that can lead to addictions. They become habits and addictions we need to break free from. From the outside viewer, these habits and addictions seem like really poor decisions, (maybe we’re stupid, etc.) and that brings shame to us, so we hide them. We put on a false self—we are really a “normal” person. We play this game that says we don’t have bad days, we have it all together, we are in control—this is really denial. These “bad” decisions we made to develop these coping skills are not bad choices at the time; they’re normal responses to abnormal circumstances. Once you know someone’s story, what they’ve done all makes sense. The choices they’ve made are all understandable once you hear where they’ve come from and what they’ve been through.

All of this comes back to warfare, we are being played and sometimes, others in our lives are the players. The people that have neglected or abused us in the past are all players in this game. Just as God uses people to accomplish His purposes on earth, Satan uses people too.

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

How to break free? Well, that’s something I don’t believe can be done alone. We need Jesus, our healer to come inside of us and help us. He alone can deliver us from these things. The Fruit of the Spirit includes self-control which means following the Spirit and allowing the wind of the Spirit to drive our lives. We can tell our flesh “no” or “wait”, we can fast from things, and in these actions we learn discipline and how to run to Jesus instead of giving our flesh what it wants. If we quit feeding our flesh and allowing it to rule us, it will die. That’s what the Bible tells us we need to do; to die to our flesh. This is self-control, it really isn’t “self” at all, it’s our self; powered and controlled by the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit and running to the Spirit with all of our “stuff”.

“For if you live according to [the dictates of] the flesh, you will surely die. But if through the power of the [Holy] Spirit you are [habitually] putting to death (making extinct, deadening) the [evil] deeds prompted by the body, you shall [really and genuinely] live forever.” Romans 8:13 (AMP)

Another way to fight this war is with worship:
“15b This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s… 18 Then King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground. And all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping the Lord. 19 Then the Levites from the clans of Kohath and Korah stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud shout. 21b The king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they sang: “Give thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!” 22 At the very moment they began to sing and give praise, the Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves. 23 The armies of Moab and Ammon turned against their allies from Mount Seir and killed every one of them. After they had destroyed the army of Seir, they began attacking each other.” 2 Chronicles 20:15, 18, 21-23

This works, God will fight our battles for us; we need to do our part which is walking with Him, being led by the Spirit, and trusting totally and completely in Him. We can be delivered from all of the things we are in bondage to. He died to give us the abundant life.

“For the enemy comes to steal and destroy, but I have come to give life and to give it in abundance.” John 10:10

I am so very glad to be living the life of a person walking with Jesus. I have more work to do in killing my flesh but—thank God I’m not where I used to be!

Applauding Jesus

I got fired from the job I had for 25 years. I had counted on, made my life plans and my retirement around this job. Now, I was fired. I was a little over 3 years from being eligible for retirement.

After filing a grievance with the union and an arbitration hearing I got my job back. It took over a year and during that time, I had received unemployment, but my employer contested it, there was a hearing and I lost. I was ordered to repay the money I had received (over $10,000.)

Returning to work was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life. I went back to the same job, same department and same management that fired me. The good news was that I could retire in a little over 2 years. I knew in my heart that to humble myself and return to work was exactly what Jesus wanted for me. I had spent over a year praying for the situation. A few other employees that had been fired close to retirement had been allowed to retire without returning to work; that was the result I had begged Jesus for. But instead, I had to return to work. It was very hard and I was humbled, feeling as though I was being watched, etc.

Still other employees who got fired and were rewarded their jobs back; when they returned, they were always arrogant because they had won their case. They were bitter, doing just enough work to get by, slowed down their production to the bare minimum; they bad mouthed the management and the company as a whole. They became real “problem children” after their return. But I was different, I was not bad mouthing, I was not acting angry and bitter, I increased my production and was obedient to the management and the authority over me.

I did have anger however toward the individual people who were involved in firing me, my direct supervisor and several others above him. I didn’t express this to them, but in my mind I thought of myself as being a victim. I replayed different scenarios over in my mind that my superiors could have done to resolve the problem. It didn’t have to be a disciplinary action/firing. I thought they fired me so they could make an example out of me to the others, to rattle the cages so to speak. Years after being fired I was still replaying these things over in my mind-sometimes several times a day, always several times a week and I was getting angry every time I did. I see now that I was in bondage to these feelings, I couldn’t shake them.

In a bible study at my Church by Beth Moore called Believing God there was a video regarding our identity in Christ. She used the analogy of coats we put on having labels on them that we see ourselves as. For instance: do we wear a coat labeled “divorced”, “fired”, “ugly”, “unlovable”, unworthy”, “no good” or something else? How we see ourselves affects how we relate to others and to God. We need to take off these coats and see ourselves as God sees us. We need to put on coats that have labels that are more appropriate and true: “loved”, “beautiful”, “masterpiece”, “friend of God”, “worthy” those kinds of names.

“And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, (Godlike) in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:24

Beth said in her video that maybe if we would give Jesus applause once in a while, He would be more apt to do an encore. So, all the way home that day in my car I clapped, I applauded Jesus and I thanked Him for allowing me to be fired, for working into me humbleness and refining my character. I thanked Him for all the work He had done in me through that experience, I learned to trust Him more, to rely on Him when I had nothing else that seemed solid in my life; I learned that I make plans, but He directs my path. I thanked Him and applauded loudly, my hands were red and sore, tears were streaming down my face and I was beaming in a broad smile at the same time! I thanked Him for the experience and told Him I wouldn’t trade it for anything! I thanked Him for my retirement and offered it up to Him to use me as He sees fit.

This was the day the anger broke, I no longer replay this over and over in my mind. I am not upset and feeling victimized by this event in my life. I know that Jesus used this for my good.

A Father’s Love

If God is everywhere, why is it so much easier for me to see Him in nature? In nature, water, trees, rocks, animals; God’s fingerprints are all over! I hear His voice as it rustles the leaves in the trees, I can hear the wind coming from a long way off and it travels across the woods, getting louder and louder and finally it reaches me and my hair starts to blow and I feel the wind on my face. I know it’s God. The sun as it dances on the water, the sparkles it makes; I see God. I hear Him in the cry of the Loon as it echoes across the lake, the splash of the water against the rocks on shore. I see Him in the deer that comes out of the woods to the water to drink in the morning or when it’s standing along side the road. I feel Him in the canoe, gliding silently across the water. I hear Him in the silence. I see Him in the ferns that grow in the woods, the wild flowers along the water and the road. I see Him in the huge trees reaching up to the sky, the awesome rocks that are everywhere; the sky so blue, really blue, the white clouds huge and puffy floating along the sky, the blue of the water. The stars at night, so many yet He named each of them and He knows their names! He holds them in space and doesn’t let them fall or run into each other. I gaze and see stars and then look deeper and there are more, deeper still there are more, there are so many some are bright and twinkling, others are so small, some are so close to the tops of the trees, they look as though they are just hanging in space; and they are! I can see the galaxies, the milky ways where the stars are so close together, yet so far away; it looks like white is smeared across the night sky. I think about so many centuries ago people studied the stars and found the big dipper, little dipper, north star, etc. and today we can still see those same constellations, they haven’t changed! God keeps them, He made them, He put them where He wanted them to be and He keeps them. Just like us. He knows my name! He made me, He put me where He wanted me to be; in this generation, in my family, with my parents, the City I live in, it was all ordained and pre-planned by Him when He put me here; and He will keep me. What a thought!

I’ve been observing my husband Bill and how he wants to share who he is with his daughter, Stefanie. It reminds me of one of the first thoughts I used to have when discovering something new or visiting one of my old favorites, was the desire to share it with Tanya’s (my niece) kids. I wanted them to know me by knowing and experiencing what has formed me, what I like, what I consist of, what moves me at the core of me. They even caught on to it when I brought them to Duluth, Matthew looked at me and said “you just like to show us stuff that you like, don’t you?” Out of the mouths of babes! Yes, that was exactly right! So, I’ve been seeing Bill do that. Nature, seclusion, beauty, canoeing, hiking, etc. is a big part of who he is at the core and he wants to show it to Stef and share it with her, to have her experience it. It means so much to him.

I think God is like that; He loves me and wants to share with me who He is, what He consists of and what He loves. But, He is so big and since I’m human, I can’t possibly wrap my brain around all that He is and all He consists of. But, He shows me who He is at His core, His beauty, by showing me the part of Him I have my eyes open to. He shows me through the things I love, like nature and animals, seclusion, simplicity. And when my eyes are open, I see! It’s so true when we seek we will find. When I look, I see. He wants to show me who He is and wants to share Himself with me, but He can only do that when my eyes are open. Like with Bill and Stef, her eyes aren’t open to what Bill wants to show her, she just sees the surface of this and is bored; trees, rocks, water, gravel roads, all of them look the same to her and there is no drama here, it’s boring. It’s all the same. She doesn’t see what Bill wants to show her, she doesn’t see her Dad in all of this, and she doesn’t see God, her eyes aren’t open. But her eyes are open elsewhere, in the City, the concrete jungle. That’s God too, it’s just harder for me to see Him there.