Urge, Instinct, Energy?

Last night while flying in from Ft. Lauderdale, we approached from the southeast into the Dallas area, swung around the airport and glided in from the north. I had a window seat and watched as the ground below turned from an occasional sparkle of light to concentrated towns and 'burgs, then the slow and inevitable wash of solid lights from under the plane to the far horizon. An impressive amount of light, lined up in rows in some places marking streets and thoroughfares, at other times buildings and commerce. Light rising from under my vantage point marching outward into nothingness on the horizon. My thoughts turned from the number of lights to the number of people that this man made phenomenon represented. It is even more stunning to fly into Los Angeles and to realize that the plane has carried a vista for more than 30 minutes at the rough speed of a .45 caliber bullet leaving the handgun. Millions of lights..millions of people.

A quote popped unbidden into my head. I have no idea where I read it. "Every time I see a huge gathering of people in a football stadium or any other event, it occurs to me that every one of those people are there because two people had sex." I will pause a moment and let the little gasps stop, to allow the Beavus and Butthead snickers to subside. There, done?

Now think about the incredible power that this one aspect of our human nature represents. There is simply no way to quantify the magnitude of it. It is at once incredibly personal, intimate, and private; and yet it is also undeniably forceful, an incredible force that simply cannot be stopped.Evident in the lights and scurrying activity of all the metropolises in the world. Even as I fly west towards the left hand coast I fly over miles and miles of desolation, but not empty. A few sparkling lights that indicate that even where there is no water, no industry, a moonscape of rock and sand..there is still a few hardy souls that have outposted an unforgiving existence and have managed to repopulate, to extend the force into inhospitable locales.

This simple sole-focused activity is so powerful that it can only be the desire of a greater power. To allow this power as a force on earth over the centuries indicates a collaboration of flesh and divine. I have always wondered if in the moment of release if we are not experiencing the closest thing to heavenly rapture we know here on this plane. Perhaps this is, in some way, a preview of the rapture we will experience in the future.

You might say that the American culture is too focused on this power, too much in our secular lives. But I tell you the power exists in every culture and in every moment in time, unyielding in its presence and always marching forward. God built a powerful engine when he developed this in our DNA, it is even more powerful than governments, nation-states, global economy, or military might. And it is held in the hand of the creator, the ultimate power.

Godspeed, every once in while these moments overwhelm me for a few seconds.
Don