Lessons Learned in the Wild.

I'm a subscriber to Netflix. It's an on-line service that delivers DVD's to your door.

For the last two weeks I've had Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" sitting beneath my tv, waiting to be seen. Sometimes I hesitate to watch "tough" movies, and this story about a troubled young college graduate who runs away from his difficult family, into the wilderness of Alaska, was supposed to be pretty "heavy."

Last night, though, I took a deep breath and put the DVD in and watched the film. It's a good film. Well-directed, well-written, and well-acted.

It's the story of a boy born into a family where the marriage of the parents is troubled. Christopher has everything, graduates from Emory, and then heads west. He gives what he has away, burns every piece of personal ID, and refuses to have any contact with his parents. The young man works with a harvesting crew in the midwest, goes down the Colorado River, ends up traveling up the West Coast with some middle-aged hippies, and ends up deep in the Alaskan wilderness. All by himself. Living in an abandoned bus.

All along the way, he runs away from people who offer him love. There is an older man, an Army veteran played by Hal Holbrooke, who offers to adopt Christopher. The young man keeps moving. Because his own family has had turmoil and conflict, the young man keeps moving.

Finally, as he dies alone in the wilderness, Christopher writes something like this on the page of a paperback: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

Running is a pretty common way of responding to disappointment, sadness and heartache. I see that all the time in people's lives, as a pastor. We don't usually end up living in an abandoned bus outside Fairbanks, but we run away. It's like if we can get far enough away from other human beings, we'll be well...free of the sadness.

But running rarely works as we had hoped it would.

The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, spends a lot of energy telling early followers of Jesus that we were created to be a part of a body. We were meant to share life with others. We were not meant to do life on our own.

That is the lesson he learns in the splendid isolation of the wilderness: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

If you're running, I think it would be a good idea to stop. I wouldn't pretend to know what your next step should be, if you stop running, but I think you should stop running.

What Happens in Las Vegas?

I'm a new kid on the block. Never been to this city before. But here I am - babysitting for an 18-month old granddaughter while her parents attend a national convention of photographers.

Let me tell you what I've noticed. The hotels and casinos have the largest signs in the world, I suspect. The staff of the first-line resorts are extraordinarily hard working and gracious. The mountains in the distance are rugged and have snow on them. All sorts of people from all over the world find their way here. Last night, in an Italian restaurant in the MGM Grand, we met a couple from Denver who are aerial dancers - acrobats. He is a pastry chef for his day job. Like I said, interesting people.

Good moments? Watching the dancing fountains at the Bellagio thunder and turn while beautiful music played. Running into friends from New Haven United Methodist Church on the street. Getting out into Red Rocks State Park and seeing amazing sandstone that was once sand dunes.

Two last observations. I've wandered through one of the best casinos. I've studied people playing the machines and the "games." Passing row after row of people seated in front of slot machines, I turned to Sharon and said, "Show me one person whose eyes are alive...who looks like they are within shouting distance of joy...of fun." There wasn't one! Every single person looked half-alive...half-here...and sort of alone. Tonight I stood next to a man, wearing a worn looking sweatshirt, who bought $500 worth of chips, and then last them in the next seven or eight minutes. I watched the sweat beading up on his forehead as the chips disappeared. Most of the folks I see around here look half here. Half alive.

One last observation: on "The Strip" there are people wearing brightly colored sweatshirts that say "GUARANTEED GIRLS TO YOU IN 20 MINUTES." There are hundreds of these folks, standing up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, with these small cards -about the size of playing cards- with pictures of half-naked girls and a phone number. It is an awful thing. Every life reduced to a card...that lists what services can be purchased. The people on the sidewalk try to hand these cards to you while you walk by. By the end of the day the sidewalks of this city are littered with hundreds of thousands of these cards...and every one represents a broken life. A life used up by a desperate, seedy empire fueled by lust empty of love...sex with the soul removed.

I thought of those girls and what is happening to them, the other day, and began to cry. I remembered how Song of Songs (it's a book in the Bible) celebrates the gift of sexual love when our partner cherishes us...loves us. Each girl whose number is being handed out on the streets of this city deserves to be cherished...valued...loved well...as a child of God.

Okay...I'm looking forward to seeing Cirque's show, KA, before heading back to Indiana on Wednesday. And I'll remember the delight in Ella's eyes as we watched the fountains at the Bellagio. But I'll be unable to forget the lack of life I've seen in so many eyes...and the sidewalks littered with cards that each represent a life used up in cruel and desperate ways.

Viva Las Vegas?

Today is going to be a first for me: I'm headed to Las Vegas.

It's not the usual haunt for a Christian pastor. Although I knew a wonderful United Methodist pastor who, once a year, came to Las Vegas and spent one whole week playing cards. And I don't mean euchre. It was one week when he did something crazy...and then he went back to coloring between the lines the other 51 weeks of the year.

What wild and crazy adventure calls me to this interesting city? Babysitting. Yep, babysitting. Our son and daughter-in-law are attending a national convention for photographers, and so they need someone to watch beautiful Ella. Those three -along with Grandma- are already out here.

I don't know what to expect. People who have been here tell me it is fun. And sad. Entertaining. And depressing. Others say to look beyond "the strip" to see the places where ordinary people live their lives.

One of the things I am puzzled by is the allure of gambling. I'm not sure what the draw is. What is it about this activity that makes people feel... what? More alive? What is there about the risk that is so attractive? Maybe -and I am just speculating, here- there is this sense that ordinary time will get turned upside-down by an extraordinary thing. Or maybe it is the chance that something unpredictable and unexpected and good might happen to us. Or is a part of it about people who don't have the resources they wish they had, and they imagine one moment that could give them
-once and forever- everything they could ever need. Instead of uncertainty, they would have more than enough.

I don't know what it is, but the people keep coming. Gambling has become a huge industry. And beneath the stories of the winners there are all those losers. I wonder how many fly home having been entertained, delighted, and refreshed in good ways. And how many go home deeper in debt... more desperate than ever.

But this trip isn't about gambling. It isn't about going to shows. It is about hanging with part of my family. And babysitting with beautiful Ella.