Catching Up

All right!  Today is my catch up day for blogging, journaling, and Bible study.  We were certainly busy during our stay in LA!  I literally fell into our cloud-like bed utterly exhausted at the end of each day.  (Good thing we’ll be on the train all day today! This way I’ll have plenty of time to catch up on everything… maybe even sleep!)

Bekah and I spent all of yesterday exploring Disneyland, California Adventure Park, and Downtown Disney.  It doesn’t get much better than that!  We got to the parks early, and power walked to get fast passes for the long line rides, and got into line for the short line rides until we had pretty much conquered the entire park (by noon)! 

My favorite ride was Soaring Over California.  This was a simulation of parasailing over some of the most famous and scenic places in California.  We burst out of the clouds and soared over San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, glided over the ocean and surfers off the coast of Malibu, saw the Navy base and skyline of San Diego, and gazed at so many mountain and valleys that my head started spinning!  It was crazy to see so many diverse landscapes in just one of the fifty states of the US! 

My family moves around a lot, and I’ve lived in a lot of places, but too often I think that my world is small and confined to just what I can see.  The world is an enormously vast place full of new things to experience and enjoy!  I’m so thankful for this opportunity to travel through, and learn more about, my country and the things that the world has to offer.

This makes me think about that ride at Disney, you know the one I mean.  It has that horrible song that gets stuck in your head and torments you day and night, night and day, until you finally crack and start singing it—mimicking all those little voices that have been mercilessly serenading you for the past… wait, you can’t remember how long it’s been!  It just seems to go on forever and ever and ever…. 

Ok enough of being dramatic ;) (I never thought I would be saying those words!)  I’m sure by now you know that the ride I’m ever so subtlety alluding to is the It’s A Small World ride that they have at Disney.  The ride where you get in a little boat thing and it takes you on a tour of all the countries of the world while little ceramic people in ethnic garb sing, “It’s a small world after all!”  over and over.  All the kids love it, and it is good to illustrate my point.

No matter where you live, the world is bigger than your area.  No matter who you are and how many people you know, there will always be more people to meet.  No matter how far you travel, there will always be more to see.  Regardless of all that, our world isn’t so big.  The differences that seem to divide us and confine us to the familiar things in our lives are just a façade masking the similarities that we all share.  (Which, I believe, is the point of the Small World ride.)  The differences that seem too big to overcome are just hiding the opportunity to explore and learn new things.

Isn’t it wonderful that we can never stop learning and discovering things about our world and ourselves?  Life doesn’t have to be tiresome, there’s no need for it to be dull!  We never have to go far before we find someone with a different background or different values than our own.   In fact, we rarely need to go farther than our own street before we meet people who see the world in a different way than us.  That’s why there’s no way we can ever explore everything.  That’s why there’s always so much more we can learn!  Everyone has a story, and they’re just waiting for someone to share it with. 

So go learn, explore, and have conversations with people!  You don’t have to go cross-country in a train in order to have adventures and meet new people.  Don’t let me and Bekah have all the fun ;)

Speaking of trains, we are boarded and about to leave the station for Sacramento.  I have no idea what this city will hold for us, but I’m excited to get there and find out!  Happy exploring!

Rebekah