[Snake Pass in the Pennines]

Leaving Amsterdam was bittersweet, as I had mentioned last time. Upon leaving, I flew to the middle of the United Kingdom to spend a number of days in a town called Doncaster. My uncle has been living there for the last 6 years and it is rare that I get to spend any serious time with him. Before this, I can’t remember having so much fun and such close communion with him. When I look back on this track, it will be one of the highlights. Thanks, Uncle Forest, it was such a blessing to be there with you.

[Nesting swans on Keepmoat lake in Doncaster]

[Young Lambs in a field near Snake Pass in the Pennine Range]

Driving through the winding, slithery roads of South Yorkshire,where Doncaster is located, a flood of memories came back to me. As a Member of Parliament for this area, William Wilberforce spent much of his time in the area. We can be grateful to his obedience to God in ending the slave trade in England, which set the stage for ending legal slavery all over the world. Hudson Taylor, one of the first missionaries to China was from the region as well.

These roads were rich in history, around every turn were familiar signs and names… “That was here?” Even most of the important scientific discoveries ever were made on this land by brilliant (and sometimes not so brilliant) minds. When the Western Church was expanding, Benedictine monks came to its shores and established abbeys that were vital to the reading and translating of the Bible. The Roche Valley Abbey (monastery and cathedral) was erected from 1147 to 1149 and remained an active area of studying/worship for at least 14 monks and many others for 389 years until the King Henry VIII had problems with the Catholic Church in Rome. With the dissolution of all of the monasteries in England the Roche became unoccupied and fell victim to the looting of the treasures and even stones of the buildings. Even the largest Abbey in England, the Fountains Abbey in Ripon Valley was subject to the wrath of Henry VIII. because of his issues with divorce. He broke off from the Catholic Church and formed the Anglican Church, which is still the official church in England.

[Roche Valley Abbey near Doncaster, UK]

[Fountains Abbey near Ripon, UK]

Throughout history, especially in Europe and especially with Christianity, there have been divisions, wars, moral dilemmas, and intellectual supremacy that has kept Europe in much of a Dark Age. Many missionaries ended up coming out of England and Europe, but now in Yorkshire, less than 3% of the population considers themselves Christian? What went wrong? I think that many people used Christianity to fit their own actions instead of conforming to the image of Christ in word and deed. When the Age of Enlightenment came around, they no longer even needed to hide behind the façade of Christianity, but were now accountable to no one, neither man or God.

What happened along the way? Did science give us a reason to deny the existence of a Creator? In the academic course I am enrolled in, we must read an array of books by a myriad of authors. One of the books is called “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by a distinguished author named Bill Bryson. Throughout the book (which is lengthy and a bit difficult), everything points back to the absence of order in the universe, explaining scientific theories and their holes,but doesn’t explain possible reasons for the holes. What is evident throughout the book is that we really know very little, with gaps in conjectured (some solid) theories. However observant Bryson may be, he didn’t even allude to the possibility that there could be a Creator and Sustainer of the universe. I hold to the basic principles of naturalism and evolution, but know that it was God whom spoke it all into existence; He set everything in motion and continues to work in His creation – guiding it along. But for the majority of the scientific community, science gave a reason to question. [Maybe some day, I will dedicate a whole entry to my thoughts on creation, nature, science and evolution; this entry is for other thoughts.] To sum it up,in the minds of many, Nietzsche was right… We killed God. We have lifted ourselves up to a position of thinking that we don’t need God (which we obviously do) nor should we be accountable to Him (which is the basis for all morality).

I know that the I AM lives and I need more of Him… desperately – sometimes I just lose sight of it. The first week in Spain I had a dream; literally. My dreams seem to me as a movie in which i have the starring role. In most of them, I view myself from the outside as if I was watching but then participate emotionally and psychologically with what is happening… a little hard to explain. At the start of the dream, I was in the ‘missions field’ doing work, helping people, and feeling good about myself. The scene after that I was coming in through the front door of home. It wasn’t my physical house in Denver or anything, but it had the feeling that I had arrived at my real home… After placing my small bags down I walked around. There were a few people around, but ultimately I made it back to the dining room. As I walked in, I suddenly had to stop. There in front of me was a big table almost completely empty. At the head of the table was the Father God in physical form. I never saw His face, I just knew that it was Him. I did see his arms and hands, resting on the table on both sides of an empty, untouched plate. He had been waiting for me. I felt as though I made the most important date imaginable, but had forgotten about it because I was too caught up doing my own thing. I was instantly regretful, ashamed, and guilty that I was capable of doing such a thing. Then I woke up.
Throughout the morning, I came back to the dream, knowing that I am fully capable of doing good things for the wrong reasons. I am a selfish person. The dream made me examine my life and question my motives for doing anything at all. Do I live my life away from God, disregarding His willingness to have a relationship with me? Do I count Him out of my activities, unwilling to do what He wants me to do?
The Bible tells me that the driving force of my life should be loving God (Luke 10:27). There is nothing more important than that, and I know if from my own experience as well. There is nothing more fulfilling. Why then is it so easy to forget? I want to be in a position where I can love God above everything else, no matter what or where that puts me (even if it’s in Siberia studying lichen or in Africa working with HIV positive people). Nothing is better than my relationship with Him. He is still there, waiting to commune with me, to fellowship with me, to speak love to me. He has been there all along. One of the most beautiful things in existence is that He wants to have a relationship with all of us on an individual, unique, and intimate level.

Because He loved first
John Paul