Brian and I have been really fortunate to travel a lot this year. Quite a bit of it was work-related, but some for fun, too. We’ve travelled a lot over the years, but our trips the last few months have involved such spectacular views that there are days I feel like nothing is real. I swear I’m not becoming a conspiracy theorist but … am I living in a simulation? Here are just a few examples:
In April we were on a ferry boat cruising through the Aegean Sea, traveling from mainland Greece to Mykonos. We passed smaller islands that were densely populated with the white stucco houses and blue roofs that are typical of Mediterranean islands. I turned to Brian and asked, “is this a movie set?”
In May we were in NYC and the view from the top of the spiral stairs outside our hotel room made me marvel at the architecture and craftsmanship of people who were working before all the advancements in technology that automate so many of our creative tasks.
In June we were in Hocking Hills, a place many of us have probably experienced. The two mile hike was worth it when we got to a waterfall that had carved its way into existence over tens of thousands of years.
In July, we were in Pennsylvania on a vast tract of land that belongs to my family. It has been strip-mined for coal and limestone in the last few decades, but nature has already started to reclaim it.
Last month, we were in Denver to play for Angie’s daughter’s wedding. We had Saturday morning free and went to Garden of the Gods. It was breathtaking. It felt like we could have walked for hours and never gotten close enough to touch the rock formations we were looking at. I remember asking Brian how this could be real. I was so inspired I wrote myself a note to write a blog about it.
It’s easy to joke about living in a simulation when the world around us looks rendered by an artist with an impossible budget. But the deeper truth beneath that dizzying feeling is about perspective. Each of us walks around with our own little lens—our personal perception of reality shaped by our routines, our stress, our narrow vantage points, and the four walls we occupy day to day. We look at the Aegean and think "postcard." We look at Manhattan and think "history lesson." We look at scarred earth slowly turning green again and think "resilience."
Our individual glimpses are so small, so fragmented. Yet they all point to something vastly larger than what our eyes can digest in a single glance.
In our Lutheran tradition, we talk about a God who is incarnate—not distant or abstract, but woven deeply into the very matter of the world. Creation isn't a digital backdrop or an elaborate stage set designed for our entertainment; it is an ongoing, living expression of divine love.
There is a connective tissue underneath it all: an unfathomable reality that holds the Aegean waves, the ancient stone, the scarred hillsides, and the human hands laying brick together in one continuous, sacred story. When we encounter beauty so vast it makes us question our senses, maybe that isn't an illusion at all. Maybe it’s the rare moment our narrow perceptions finally crack open, giving us a brief, humbling look at the true reality God is constantly sustaining.
We don't all see the world through the same lens, and our experiences of daily life can feel worlds apart. But the grace of the Creator is that we are anchored in something much deeper than our own viewpoints. We are held together by a reality so wide, so patient, and so generous that even when it looks unreal, it is the truest thing there is.
Yours on the journey,
John Johns, Director of Music
