Adventure is Out There!

Adventure is out there!

The well known line from the endearing Pixar movie, UP. 

Adventure really is, in fact, out there. The movie UP, I think, paints a beautiful picture of what adventure is and should be.

It's not necessarily the sights or wonders a house suspended by balloons can bring that creates adventure. God knows my fear of heights will keep me from ever being involved with such a thing.

The adventure is driven by the blend of characters who experience the fear and wonder of traveling to unknown locations. These characters are all different in nature and whim, but they are all the same in that they need one another.

When I paint a picture of life with people in my head, it is orderly, colored in well, and clean looking. I like the idea of having people in my life who fit well with me, who are similar to me, and who have my best interest in mind (aka people who serve my own selfish need).

Yet a life of adventure driven by a community with others is far from being clean cut.

When I consider the best stories, the characters paint a beautiful picture. It is not a picture of perfection and order, though. Rather it is a picture that would resemble an abstract artist's flinging of the paint brush at a canvas from a distance. Lines would be all over the place, colors blending, a single image unclear.

When you involve real human beings in your life, you'll find no person fits your life the way you want them to. You'll find that their pain makes your life messy and weird, and you'll find your own pain making a mess of their lives. You'll also find your joys lighting up someone else's face, and another's joys filling holes in your heart you somehow couldn't fill yourself.

You'll find a truer adventure.

God created humans to live courageously and outrageously.

He created them to do it together. Somehow, I think, in the infinite grace and knowledge of our Creator, it was made intentional that humans interacting with each other would create a natural chaos and disorder.

No law, will, or self help book can make relationships happen perfectly.

Adventure is not a seeking of the perfect. It is a seeking of that which is beyond our selves ending with a God who died on a cross (outrageously). And guess what? When you invite that one friend to coffee and ask them how their life is, you have taken the plunge into the world that does not revolve around you.

There must be more than my own anxieties, fears, and desires.

There is. It lies in every person that lives with me, around me, and as far away from me as possible.

Invite people into your life. Let them know you and find adventure in you. Even more, discover others and the adventure they have to offer.

Bring Yosemite Home.