Oh Carl Caldwell...

. . .you consistently amaze me. Well, I rarely interact with you and so I guess in this case the phrase should be "today, you amaze me"

Chapel like normal right? I'm running on about 18 hours of sleep in the past 4 days. So I assume that this hour will be a great time to curl up in my theatre chair and take a small siesta. But no, you Carl Caldwell, with your Ewan McGregor movie clips in chapel, you entice me and I find myself unable to close my eyes.

But what got me today wasn't Ewan's beautiful eyes or the melodic sound of his voice, it was his outlook on one of his circumstances during the filming of Long Way Round, his motorcycle journey around the world. You see, they came to this river, and they had themselves and the motorcycles of course, and then they also had these vans, and men, and 1000s of hours of filming that they had been doing for this show. And all of it had to cross this river on the Road of Bones. There was no bridge, this was old time fording like in Oregon Trail, only no oxen and no man to pay to take you across. No no, Ewan and his men loaded up these vans and then these mammoth Russian trucks towed, no- more like yanked, them across. And I know, it doesn't sound as dramatic on here as it actually was. I mean, as one of the containers of expensive cameras/film/what not fell of the van and into the river, Reardon Auditorium did a collective *gasp. I haven't heard that room more alive in awhile. Okay, but I digress.

His point, Ewan's that is, was that too often in our life, we come up against obstacles that we avoid, or find a way around, or ignore, etc. all because we are privileged enough to have that option. But on this trip, with the bikes, cameras, and men, they came to this river and there was no way around. There was absolutely no other option. They either figured out a way to go through or they turned around and went home ending this trip across the world and ultimately, the show. So it wasn't a matter of if, it was purely a matter of how.

I can't imagine that type of thinking. Do you know how many times a day I talk myself into and out of things. I am so privileged to have that opportunity, we all are. To live a life where we face trials and have choices, options, ways out. To live a life of such stark desperation that when facing a trial all there was was the chance to look directly into it's belly and dive right in. It literally makes me shake to think about facing life like this. No way around. To be asked to be ultimately real and deal with whatever may come, escaping nothing. What a true and real existence.