.: Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller :.

Truthfully… I had no stinkin’ clue what I was getting myself into when I picked this book up two weeks ago. The cover said that the author’s name was “Donald Miller”… and that was enough for me to pick it up… buy it… and read it. The journey that followed (from Houston through Oklahoma City to the Grand Canyon to California and finally to Oregon)  in a 1971 VW Hippie Van was one that revived my passion to experience some of the amazing sights that the United States of America has to offer.

Amanda and I have been re-inspired to speak some of our previously unspoken (or unfortunately underspoken) goals and plans to backpack, climb, scuba dive, explore, drive, swim, camp, surf, and travel all over this great country. I am sure that our adventures (and plans for adventure) will be well-chronicled over the next few weeks and years. Until those “Weaver adventure chronicles” start crankin’… pick up Donald’s journey… a re-write of his very first novel… and enjoy…

+ Weaver’s favorite “Through Painted Deserts” quotes:

     -”I could not have known than that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God’s way. All my life I have been changing… Everybody has to change or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.” (p.X from the Author’s Note)

     -”I went to Walden Pond a year ago, just to see and feel the place, just to walk alone around the water, and they’ve made a suburb out of it. It hurts to hear the traffic rolling through the trees. People commute from the land of Thoreau’s solitude to Boston, to work at banks, to work at law firms. And I wonder if Walden exists anymore. I am not talking about the real Walden, the one in Boston; I am talking about the earth God meant to speak before we finished his sentence.” (p.4)

     -”Trouble leads to question and question leads to prayer.” (p.70)

     -”We drive around in a trance, salivating for Starbucks while that great heaven sits above us, and that beautiful sunrise is happening in the desert, and all those mountains out West are collecting snow on the limbs of their pines, and all those leaves are changing colors out East. God, it is so beautiful, it is so quiet, it is so perfect.” (p.76)

     -”It confuses me that Christian living is not simpler. The gospel, the very good news, is simple, but this is the gate, the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsome labor. God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like birds, dress him like flowers, and befirend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last.” (p.90-91)

     -”These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise, but stand reverent, silent so that man’s weak praise may be given God’s attention.” (p. 253)

     -And I recommend that you just bust out and READ ALL OF CHAPTER FIVE… it is GREATNESS… and way TOO much for me to quote here. Read it in context of the journey that we are all travelling together… to God… and enjoy the love of His Light…

PRESS ON!!!

 -Weav