"Stand in the place where you live, now face north. Think about direction, wonder why you haven't before." -R.E.M.

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The Lumpy Places

05/15/2008 02:43 AM Filed in: Personal

jeep

So there's this book, and it has several wonderful conversations contained within its pages. One conversation goes something like this:

“Where will you go?”

“America.”

“We’re in America right now, Don.”

“Yeah, I know. But there are other parts to America. I’d like to see the other parts. I was looking at a map the other day, you know, and Texas was sort of brown with some green, a few hills, but then there were other places that were more green with big lumpy mountains. I'd like to go to those places.”

“Do you think God is out there somewhere? Out there in the lumpy places?”

“I think God is everywhere.”

“Then why do you have to leave?”

“Because I can’t be here anymore. I don’t feel whole here. I feel, well, partly whole. Incomplete…..Something got crossed in the wires……Do you know what I am talking about, about the green lumpy places?”

The conversation went on like this for about an hour. I went on and on about how the real me was out in the green lumpy places. I wasn’t making any sense. I can’t believe my pastor didn’t call the guys with the white coats to take me away.

The last couple of months have been absolutely dizzying. After an enormous amount of prayer, counsel, and discussion, Emily and I have decided to accept an offer to come as lead pastor of a church that is not in the Chicago area. We're extremely excited about the opportunity and I'll have a lot more details to share with all of you in the coming days.

In the meantime, I'm headed to the "lumpy places." Me, my beautiful wife, and my friend Josh Carnes have decided to take an amazing road trip to finish off this chapter of our lives and help us prepare for the next. We'll be driving through Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Washington, D.C., Ocean City, Atlantic City, Trenton, New York, Boston, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, and a host of other places. We'll be seeing baseball bat factories, Hershey chocolate plants, Dinosaur World, the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls, and a host of other stuff.

And we're leaving tomorrow. But wait, there's more...

We'll be blogging, photographing, podcasting, and filming the lumpy places. You can check out our trip website at www.LumpyPlaces.com.

I may be posting updates on both sites, and thanks to some cellular wizardry we'll be able to publish new entries from the comfort of the official Lumpy Places Jeep (which, sadly, just received $1,200 worth of repairs...sigh). Check in often for tales of amazement and wonder (as well as embarrassing snapshots and humiliating videos).

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