Give Feedback on book…

I have been writing a book over the past several months. Below is the intro to the reader and preface. I would love feedback, it would be a great help.

– To the reader:

Before we go any further, it is very important for me to explain what you are reading, and why it has been written. This is not a textbook, but the journal of a traveler. If you are looking for an intellectual masterpiece or a complete “How to” manual, please turn around and run away. Fast. It is not written by the hand of an expert professor, but rather by one who is trying to make it through the journey.

I must admit that even the attempt to write has been something that I have been avoiding for quite some time. It has seemed like an “unclean thing” to me, that the thought of writing flies in the face of what we’re trying to do. After all, as soon as you write something down, aren’t you presuming that someone will want to listen? Aren’t you assuming that you have something to say? I don’t want to be presumptuous or self-serving, but nevertheless I write.

 

Why? There have been words of encouragement and words that have been said to prompt me, but the real reason is that I want to obey. Right or wrong, I have sensed for some time that I needed to relay some of the stories of the people that we have encountered, and how God has used these encounters to shape our lives. This book then is really written as a traveler’s journal. The journey is shaping me and the team that I am traveling with. So far there has been plenty of laughter, and more than a few tears. We are learning about life on the trail, the sharing, the struggles, the trials and the triumphs. It is all a part of our journey that is leading us to the center of His heart.

 

Preface: On the Road with Grandma

When I was a boy, my grandmother used to drive me crazy. We would be in the car on a trip and my heart would be full of passionate longing. I was a simple man at the age of 6. I was not asking for much, just a happy meal from the next set of golden arches. My face would press up against the window of the car as I would watch the arches come and go. With the slightest whine in my voice, I would question the wisdom of passing up the goodness of McDonald’s. My grandmother would say in a somewhat delusional tone. “Imagine, you are in a covered wagon going west.”

I had no idea what she could be talking about. I wasn’t in a covered wagon and I was someplace in eastern Ohio. What did any of this have to do with stopping for a happy meal?

Of course, this would not be the only time that I heard the “covered wagon” line. It was a part of traveling with grandma. (We once drove 50 minutes off the highway to find a picnic table so we did not have to take the time to eat at a restaurant.) As I grew older, I began to understand her point. There were no McDonald’s for the covered wagons to stop at. There wasn’t even a 7-11. As I matured, I wondered how those poor pioneers had survived the struggles of their journey. Why would anyone intentionally go someplace that didn’t have happy meals?

I also wondered why my poor grandmother couldn’t understand that we weren’t in a covered wagon going west. We were in my grandfather’s conversion van. Why was she stuck in in the 1800’s?

Things came to a head immediately following my graduation from high school. My grandparents had come to Wilmington, NC from Pennsylvania to attend the commencement ceremony. The day after graduation, my grandparents, parents and two sisters headed out for a 3-day trip to Savannah, Georgia, in my grandparents conversion van. We had an amazing time and to my surprise, there wasn’t a single mention of covered wagons. Until the last day. We had spent the morning finishing up sight seeing and then we were to have lunch and hit the road. Now, my taste had matured quite considerably since I was six. The desire for a happy meal from McDonald’s had given way to a more manly longing for a bacon cheese burger from the Wendy’s the .99 menu. From where I was sitting, there was no reason not to stop. I had loads of cash from graduation. I would buy for everyone. Here was a Wendy’s, right on our path. As I began to sing praises to the Sovereign God of the ages, my grandmother spoke up and said, “Brad, save your money. I am sure we can find a grocery store and a road-side rest just outside of town. We can have a picnic!”

I was devastated. Here I was at the pinnacle of life. I had just graduated from high school. I was at that rare place in life where the thought that I might actually know everything, seemed realistic. I had not started the downward spiral of adulthood yet. I was standing at the peak of my delusion, about to bight into a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. I was inwardly angry at my grandmother. Why would she deprive me of this perfect moment?

I pressed my face against the van window as the friendly marquee from Wendy’s disappeared out of my sight. So long, .99 value menu. I will see you soon, as soon as my grandmother goes back to Pennsylvania.

The van traveled north upon alternate U.S. highway 17. Just outside of town, there was not a picnic table to be found. As we drove further and further away from civilization, I tried one last time to bring reason into our circumstance. “You know, it wouldn’t take that long to turn around and go back to Wendy’s.” My grandmother turned and said, “Just imagine you’re in a covered wagon going west.” I could feel my face changing colors. How could she say that to me. I wasn’t six anymore. I was an adult. With the slightest whine in my voice, I pleaded for someplace with a drive through.

Hours passed, still no grocery store, still no road-side rest. Some where near the Georgia – South Carolina border, we came into a small town. It was really nothing more that a blinking traffic signal, a set of railroad tracks and a general store. We stopped. Everyone in the van was irritated…except my grandmother. She acted as though it had only been a few minutes since we had passed God’s will back at Wendy’s. We piled out of the van and into a place that seemed like a set of an old movie. You could almost hear dueling banjo’s in the background. The aisles in the store were stocked with pickled pigs feet and pork rinds. The store did carry any name brand soda and the deli was a scary place. But this was where lunch was coming from and I was just happy that we weren’t going die of starvation on the wagon trail.

My Grandmother asked the clerk, “Is there a roadside rest nearby?” Did you know that there is a slight difference between a north Georgia and western Pennsylvania accents? That store clerk looked at my grandma with mouth open and no idea. It took several minutes and a small team of translators, but we learned of a “rest area” just a few miles away. When we arrived, my thoughts immediately went to the opening scenes of “Little House on the Prairie”, when Pa and Ma are in the “covered wagon going west” and they stop and look down the hill at all the grass that there going to be responsible for cutting. No one had cut the grass at this rest area in at least a hundred years. It was knee high, and the park ranger had evidently decided to hire a flock of mosquitoes to serve as the welcoming committee before he went on vacation in the 1940’s.

By this point, I was thinking, “Let’s just get this meal over with.”, but Grandma was happy. She seemed completely unaware that the rest of us were less than happy. All she could think of was how much more fun and adventurous it was for us to have eaten outside instead of in a stuffy, old restaurant. On the way back to the van, she said, “Now wasn’t that nice. It was just like we were . . .” I interrupted her. “I know, I know. Like we were in a covered wagon going west.”

I don’t travel very much with my grandmother anymore, but over the past year I have thought about, even meditated on her “covered wagon” philosophy. It seems that God is calling in the Spirit for pioneers who will go where there are no McDonald’s. I am learning that there are no cruise buses going on the wagon trial. No recreational vehicles, just covered wagons.

This book is about pioneers and the call to go someplace that is ancient and new all at the same time. It is about pathways that need to be cleared and highways that must be built for the generations to follow. It is about life in a covered wagon and about making it all the way to our destination. The world is waiting for those who will not settle short of our goal. We must go all the way into what God has intended for us. We must stop settling along the way, and go until we reach the city whose builder and maker is God.

~ by bradriane on June 12, 2007.