Alright, so I gave another chapel lesson today and I surprisingly spoke pretty well for having been sick and under the weather-though it was all mental weather considering it was a very nice day that day. The last time I was really quiet and my voice was awful. But today I used voice inflections and added a lot of soul into my sermon. The talk was cooking inside my brain while we were in Southern Italy, staying on the majestic shores and watching the sun rise on the land of romance. Needless to say, I was inspired.

So here it is...

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I was walking along a road one day. It was an absolutely gorgeous road, made with yellow bricks and lined with emerald-green trees. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and my soul was just…happy.

Then, as night began to fall and the sun dropped out of sight, taking its warmth away with it, the road lost its yellow sheen and the trees became cold skeletons, surrounded by dead leaves.

The path became rocky and cracked, easy to stumble over and dangerous to cross. I fell so many times, but I continued to pick myself up, I continued to keep my eyes on the bright light at the end of the road.

But then the path turned from broken bricks and stumbling stones to red-hot coals, smoldering intensely before me, a stretch of pain and heat standing between me and Paradise.

I was already so tired, already so broken, already so tested, but I tried anyway. I took a step onto the hot coals, my foot and my soul screaming out in pain. I took another step, my heart felt ready to shatter.

I had already come so far, come so near. The prize was closer, but still so far. This was not the bed of roses I told it was. This was not the happy life I was told would be my reward for obedience. With every step I took, my faith slowly smoldered down to ashes.

Then I heard it, a soft giggle from among the trees, a clash of coins rolling into a golden pile, the trickle of delightful drink gurgling in a far stream, a sound of applause to the calling of my name, a whispered promise for happier tomorrows.

I turned my head and looked into the cold, dark, skeletal forest. I saw a beautiful woman in a red dress, beckoning me with a seductive smile. I saw piles of gold and dollars towering higher than the trees. I saw a stream of bubbling beverages, full of good times and no worries. I saw the flashes of paparazzi cameras, yearning to capture my face. I saw the promise for happier tomorrows.

My feet were scorched and tired, my soul was so tested, and my heart was ready to break, and I needed a reprieve, I needed an escape. This was not what I thought it was anyway, it was too much for someone I had never met.

So I stepped off the path.

I chased after the woman in the red dress. I grabbed at the money littering the ground. I drank in the delightful drink. I did what I had to in order to get my fame. I believed in the promises for happier tomorrows.
And for a time, it was blissful, it was happy, it was free. And the narrow, hard path was far behind, out of sight, out of mind. Life was good and I was living it up.

But the whole time I was empty. The whole time I was cold.

The lady in the red dress turned out to be nothing more than one night stands and dirty magazine pages. The money became dried leaves in my hands and was taken away when ever the wind picked up. The fountain of good times and no worries was a poison that numbed my brain and left me always dying of thirst. My fame lasted for only a few minutes and I was nothing more than so-last-year. I found that this forest of happier tomorrows was really a forest of guilty yesterdays.

And I was lost. I was cold. I was empty.

And so I wandered through my self-pity and sickly sorrow, waded through my mire of dirty pages, fake monopoly money, empty beer bottles, and own shame.

And I was empty. And cold.

And that is when I called his name. I called his name, weakly at first, then a shout at the end.

And he came. He was there in a flash. He was bright, happy, and warm. The cold fled away in his presence. The sorrow became happiness when he smiled. My emptiness was gone at his touch.

He pulled me out of my shame, out of my mess, out of my cold. He pulled me out with nail-pierced hands, hands that had been pierced for people like, for the ones who wander among the skeletal trees, who lose themselves within their own messes, for everyone else.

He guided me out of the forest and back to the path, back to the road of hot coals, and then he picked me up, put me on his back, and walked across the coals for me.

How many times have we heard this sermon? How many times have we learned this lesson? How many times have we heard countless other allegories?

How many times have we actually believed in it?

This walk we call Christianity is not always a bed of roses, or a yellow brick road. Sometimes it is a length of hot coals, ready to cook us alive.

And when the going gets touch, sin slips in, it offers us a break, a reprieve, a happier tomorrow. But once it gently takes your hand, flashes you a beautiful smile, it puts a noose around your neck and a black bag over head. And goes in for the kill.

Which is why we have to stay on the course and we have to be strong. Because tomorrow never comes and sin always breaks its promises.

Philipians 3:12-14 says…12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

We are living in a long-distance relationship with God. He is in Heaven, we are on Earth. And sometimes we forget that Jesus died to make that long-distance shorter, to help us be nearer, even if that means picking us up and carrying us across hot coals.

So live for him, not for a guilty pleasure or quick-fix fortune. Be like Paul and don’t look back, keep your eye on the prize, never look back, because there are only guilty yesterdays behind you. But in front of you, at the end of this road called Christianity, is a golden today that will last for all eternity.

So I survived free travel in one peace and my passport still in my pocket. I also managed to not completely burn off my entire account or get lost in the middle of Barcelona. It was a series of fortunate events that I still can't believe I got through without missing a train or forgetting something behind.

Basically, God was working overtime for our group.

Well I know many of you are interested in where I went and what I did, so I think I shall put a schedule of what we did day-by-day.

Monday Feb. 22
-Started the day off at the Villa by watching (and crying to) "Life is Beautiful". We then had to sit through a seemingly endless Humanities class. We left soon after lunch (my group consisted of four girls and two guys), walked down the hill, took a city bus, took the tram, then got on a train for Prato, Italy. It turned out that we had to take four trains just to get to a little town in Italy that a girl wanted to see. We took a train from Prato to Bologna, from there to somewhere else, then to Vicenza. We made it to our hostel at around 9:00 pm and since there was nothing to do in this town whatsoever except to see a theater, we decided to just chill in our room for the night.

Tuesday Feb. 23
-We checked out the hostel and went to the Teatro Olimpico, which is the first enclosed theater ever built (a theater major in our group really wanted to see it). After that we took a city bus for an hour to get to the train station, then had to wait another hour to get our train. From Vicenza we went to Venice, but only for an hour or so because we had to take a double-decker (yes a double-decker) charter bus to Villoch, Austria. We got to see the Alps and their snow-covered peaks on the drive. We made it to Villoch three hours later, then got on a train from Villock to Salzburg that took 2 hours. We made it to Salzburg and took a taxi to Germana Keppelar's, a sweet little bed and breakfast owned by this sweet, old Austrian woman, who waited up for us when we got in at around 10:00.

Wednesday Feb. 24
-We had a great breakfast at Frau Keppellar's and were picked up for our Sound of Music tour. The tour lasted for the first half of the day and was led by a really nice man who had some pretty corny jokes. After the Sound of Music tour we walked around Salzburg, taking in the scenery and looking for Mozart's home. We ate at great tavern, eating brautwurst and drinking Spetzy (coke mixed with orange juice and lemonade). After that we took another taxi back to our bed and breakfast.

Thursday Feb. 25
-Another great breakfast served by Frau Keppellar, we left Salzburg at 10:00 for Munich, arriving a half-hour later. We took another train to Rohrbac to drop off our bags with Curina (Katie's friend who was nice enough to let us stay with her). Katie and Natasha stayed with Curina, while Annette, Logan, Matt and I went back to Munich to catch a train to Fussen. Annette left to meet her fiancee at the airport and we ran into Sarah, Todd, Kathryn, Matt F., and Kendra (other people from our HUF group). We got on a 2 hour train to Fussen, took a quick bus ride up the hills, then a carriage ride up a Bavarian mountain, a walk on foot to Castle Neuchwanstein, the castle of my dreams! It was so gorgeous and majestic, as if it had been built purely by imagination. We walked down the mountain, got back on the bus, got back on the train, met back up with Annette and Jake (her fiancee), got on another train to Rohrbac, met up with Curina (who served a spaghetti dinner at her home), then took a drive to Tandem to meet Curina's friends and drink more Spetzy (I have no idea how to spell it).

Friday Feb. 26
-Left Curina's house early in the morning to catch a train from Munich to Hannover, then from Hannover to Osnabruk to meet Logan's family. Annette and Jake went to Prague, Katie stayed in Munich. Natasha, Matt, Logan and I were picked up by Logan's cousin Henning, who took us to his house and fed us a great dinner. We got in bed early after a long week.

Saturday Feb. 27
-Toured around Osnabruk, learning about Logan's heritage. Natasha, Matt and I got good food out of the deal.

Sunday Feb. 28
-Ate a great breakfast and a great lunch at Henning's and got on a train to Brussels, we got to ride first class on one leg of the trip there-I highly suggest you ride first class at least once in a free travel. We made it to Brussels at about 8:00 pm, grabbed some grape juice and made it to our hostel where we ate, talked and had communion.

Monday March 1
-Woke up late, met back up with Annette and Jake in the hostel lobby, and left to walk around the city. Brussels was blistering cold and all of the museums were cold, but we still had a great time. I had a waffle covered in nutella, then some Godiva chocolate and then some french fries covered in onions, ketchup and mayonnaise. That is seriously all I got to eat. We also saw the fountain of a little peeing boy called the Manneken Pis and went to see "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". We spent the rest of the night walking around and talking.

Tuesday March 2
-Woke up very early and met in the lobby at 4:45 to catch a bus at 6:00 on the other side of the city. We had to take the creepy metro, made it to the bus just in time, then got to the airport just in time. We then made it onto our flight for Barcelona! We got to Barcelona-Gerona airport at about 11-ish am, where we had to take another charter bus into town. We checked into our hostel at about 1:00. The rest of the day was spent just walking around the city. It was a great day and we saw the huge soccer stadium and visited the Picasso Museum.

Wednesday March 3
-Slept in a little late after our long Tuesday, ate a brunch at around 11 am, visited a modern art museum that reinvigorated my hatred for modern art, walked around the shops and markets (most of which were closed because of rain), then went to the coast and had a hot chocolate at a mall on the beach. We then took the metro to a big, ugly, yet awesome church built by Gaudi that just astounded me with its weirdness. After the church we went to several parks and tried to find the Olympic stadium, but never did, but got some great views of the city. We then went to a really nice restaurant dressed in wrinkled cloths and smelling like death, but didn't care because we were craving legitimately good food.

Thursday March 4
-Our final day we got up at 3:30 am (I didn't even sleep that night)-in order to catch a 5:00 bus to the airport. We got on our 8:00 plane to Pisa, got on another bus, then finally made it back to wonderful Florence!

In the great words of Dr. Seuss, "Oh the places you'll go!"

So I am currently in Brussels, Belgium using a computer in the hostel lobby. Due to the fact that everything (from museums to fountains) is closed on Mondays-which is the only day we are here-we decided to go see a movie since a movie theater is located right across the street. Somehow, I got my friends to see "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus". Yes, it is the same movie title that inspired the title of this blog.

For those of you who don't know what this movie is about, don't ask me because I still don't know. It was one of the strangest movies I have ever seen in my life-and I still don't know if I really liked it. The beginning of it was great and had all of things I loved in a good movie...then it went downhill around the middle-and by the end it was nearly unbearable. I do not think that I have ever seen a movie where I loved it in the beginning and hated it in the end.

Alright, so a little bit on what the movie was about...I think...

A thousand years ago there was a monk named Parnassus who led a brotherhood that constantly told a story every minute of every day and every night, and they believed that if they stopped telling this story the world would end. One day a dark rider comes to the monastery with a proposal for Parnassus. The dark rider turns out to be the devil who tries to kill Parnassus's faith by stealing the voices of all the monks. But Parnassus, even with the devil's tricks, is not swayed and is determined that the story is being told elsewhere in the world, just in another version. So the devil and Parnassus make a game to see who can sway more humans to stories and imagination or to vanities and feeble desires.

A thousand years later and Parnassus is still making debts with the devil, but living in a world where he is losing more than winning. Because of a deal done ages ago, any of Parnassus's children would belong to the devil once he or she reached 16 years. Parnassus's daughter, Valentina, is nearing 16 and the devil is ready to collect his due. But Parnassus is still determined to win the game. So he travels across the world in a make-shift stage and carriage, with his magic mirror that allows people to enter the Imaginarium, a world limited only by your imagination. Within the Imaginarium, Parnassus tries to point contestants in the right direction toward purity and fulfillment. But the devil is always waiting in the Imaginarium, ready to use the human's vice to deter them.

The Imaginarium is fantastic. But it is not a dream world seen in so many other movies where animals talk and wizards battle, this is a world where all of your hopes and dreams exist in surreal form, quickly followed by your nightmares and fears. It is a world of a human mind, containing both pure and impure thoughts, and sometimes you can't tell the difference between the two. Both the devil and Parnassus are able to manipulate the Imaginarium to their own ends, but the human decides to follow Parnassus or the devil.

The rest of the story unfolds when the theater troupe that travels with the mirror and Parnassus discover a mysterious man named Tony, who has many, many secrets of his own. Tony is a wild card that neither Parnassus or the devil expected, but use to keep the game going. As Valentina falls for Tony and her birthday nears, Parnassus must find a way to save his daughter's soul.

I enjoyed the surreal Imaginarium, which was full of amazing effects and wondrous scenes. But Tony ruined it all with his lack of imaginative skill and yearning to be rich and powerful, corrupting the Imaginarium-where the movie goes down hill.

While the movie overall was strange and hard to follow, and there were some subtle stabs at Christianity (film-makers nowadays have nothing better to do than make those sort of jabs-they think they are being different but just fitting a mold a thousand other filmmakers have fit into of the ages).

But the idea of a world where our imagination alone crafts the physics and limitations is amazing to me. It is a world where everything you want to happens, happens in a glorious instant. So, I think I'll keep the title.