The Seattle Times just came out with a hilarious article called "A giant litter box: Our favorite 1-star reviews for national parks". (click here to read it). You'd think that all national park reviews would be 5-star reviews, right? Well, for the most part they are, but Amber Share, author of NY Times bestseller: Subpar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors, has put together a book of reviews written by people whose expectations were not met in the least when they actually encountered our national parks. Take a gander at some of these 1-star reviews!
Here's one for Yosemite:
“A real dud. A real Wally World as we had to turn around.”
And Yellowstone:
“Everywhere you go, there’s this lingering smell of rotten eggs. You’d think for the $35 entrance fee the park people could install some Air Wicks or something.”
And how about the Grand Canyon:
“It’s too big. Also, my wife decided to divorce me while we were there.”
And my favorite: The Grand Tetons:
“Could be better. Mountains were blocking the sunset.”
As I was reading this, I was thinking what some of these critics might have to say about God. I have a good friend whose been a pastor for over 30 years and he shared with me that he has stopped talking about God in the superlative. As he puts it, “If I have to listen to another over-excited lay person get up and tell me how God just turned their life around ‘just like that’, I think I’m going to puke in the pulpit!”
His point was that sometimes when we push the miraculous so hard, people can get really disillusioned about how God really works! I suppose that’s kind of the point of our Lenten series this year, “Learning to reconnect with and unhurried God.” In a sense, we are trying to say that God tends to move at a different pace than we do or than we want God to move. We tend to turn to God in these emergency moments, and in those moments, we want God to act NOW!!!!! And when that doesn’t happen, we can really get discouraged about this journey with God. When we are desperate, we end up looking for a God “up there”. We lift up our eyes to the hills and scream, “God! Get down here right now!” And when that doesn’t happen, we totally want to write that 1-star review! (For some of us it might even be more like a .0001 star review!)
But what we don’t realize is that this God we think is up there, is really already here, with us. The task is not to scream up to God in desperation, but to calm our heart down and breathe. The task is to slow down and open our eyes to a God who isn’t up there, but right here next to us.
Another point these 1-star reviews remind me of, is that fact that I think this world has lost its capacity for wonder. We’ve gotten so “adult-ized” and “desensitized” to what truly is remarkable in this world, that we no longer have the capacity to go “WOW!” All this reminds me of a marriage retreat Cyndy and I went to. The presenter stood before us all with this absolutely junked out violin. I mean there were a couple strings broken, and missing pegs. It was a piece of junk. He then asked us to hold it for a couple seconds and pass it around. And we did. But after that, he stopped and said, “Now let’s do that again, only this time let me share with you that this is one of the oldest Stradivarius violins in the world and that it valued at 1.4 million dollars.” Man, what a difference! He went on to share that this is often the way we look at our marriage or our closest relationships. We have lost the ability to see the “awe and wonder” in them.
How about you? Have you lost your capacity for awe and wonder? As I look out the window, guess what I see…the sun! The brilliant, amazing, life-giving gift of God’s light to the world! And guess what? God is speaking to me through it, telling me to join her on a “wonder walk”! How about joining us?
Your pastor and friend, strangely inspired by this world’s “1-star” point of view, Brook
PS: Next Sunday, March 3rd, we are having a Sunday Morning Stretch after worship. And for this stretch, Cyndy and I are inviting you to go on a “wonder walk picnic” with us at the Redmond Watershed. Our plan is to arrive over there about 11:45, take a shorter walk and then pause for a picnic lunch together. After lunch, some might decide to go on a longer excursion, or go home. The lunch will be provided by Cyndy and I. Come join us!