Remembering in the Desert
Scripture Reading: Psalm 105

Today’s Treasure: “Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, O descendants of Abraham his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones” (Psalm 105:5-6).

I’m writing you for the usual reason. I have an overabundance of feelings. Some people take an aspirin. Others throw up. Others shoot baskets. I peck madly on a computer keyboard. Sometimes I do something with it. Other times I erase it after I write it. Time will tell what I do with this one. I’m sitting on an airplane returning from spending the better part of four days in the Canyonlands of Utah. My buddies from the LifeWay video team and I have been shooting brief introductions and benedictions to bookend the recently taped, updated sessions of my first Bible study, A Woman’s Heart, God’s Dwelling Place. There I go again. A lot of feelings.

With the exception of several who we’ve gladly welcomed to our crew and a dearly loved producer who recently retired, we are the same group who began this video Bible study adventure back in 1993. Fast forward all these years to the revised and renewed version of that maiden voyage. All the sessions were done last semester so all we had left were finishing touches. We worked from morning till night for three days and completed our task last night with a celebratory dinner at the Stagecoach Inn in Smalltown, Utah. We’d been invited by a delightful woman dressed like a pumpkin (it was Halloween) who, upon seeing us in the Starbucks line in the grocery store, somehow discerned that we six were not locals. She told us just how to get to her family-owned restaurant and, that if we came that evening, she’d likely show up late. Her husband is the sheriff of the town and he was judging a chili cook-off at the local Baptist church. “It’s election time,” she explained so endearingly that I nearly hugged her. Baptist that I am, I was delighted that our differing beliefs did not keep us from sharing a bowl of chili, even if we did tend to judge. Her name was Cheryl and I loved her to pieces from the moment she—pumpkin clad from head to toe—stopped to say hello. Homemade pie. That’s what won us. “But do you make your own crust?” I inquired. She swore she did.

That did it. My crew and I followed Pumpkin Cheryl’s directions and pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Stagecoach Inn. It was a local joint, I could tell. Everybody stopped what they were doing, including the waitress dressed as a gypsy, to bore a hole through us. I will admit we look weird. Oh, heck. I admit that we are weird but I’ve never seen a group of patrons onto our peculiarity any faster. The gypsy-dressed waitress broke the silence when she suggested we seat ourselves then sauntered off, coins jangling to beat the band. I knew I was going to love the place the minute we walked in the door. The booths around the edge of the one-room restaurant maintained the western flair, but the tables in the center had that delightful seventies’ dinette look with a single paper napkin wrapped around each set of silverware. Yep. It was love at first sight.  

We’re non-drinkers (I think. I can’t say I know for sure. At least we are publicly) so we’d hoped to work out that wild hair we were all feeling on a few rounds of karaoke. Alas, we learned that Earl only comes on Saturday nights and he alone can work the contraption. We suggested that our resident techs could give it a shot but they were sure only Earl possessed the expertise. They asked us to come back in three days. As much as we wished we could, we bid them farewell after a few of us signed our names—per their insistence—on the karaoke-booth wall with a permanent marker. I added the reference “Phil. 3:10” just under my name in hopes that a searching soul might look it up and be forever captivated by the words, “I want to know Christ.” The last one to the van as usual, I hopped in with tremendous satisfaction, victory fists waving in the air, suggesting that perhaps we’d just made huge inroads in Mormon territory. They laughed their heads off and so did I. But it could happen.

I just hugged the crew goodbye as they went one direction and I prepared to go another. I’m the lone Texan in a mass of Tennesseans. As I walked toward the A Terminal to catch my Houston-bound plane, I could have cried if I’d wanted to mess up my eyeliner. I didn’t. I’m just saying I could have. If I’d gone ahead and cried, I wouldn’t be writing whatever you call this because I’d have dealt with my overabundance of feelings. Vanity won out. Hence, the imposition on your patience. It’s just that I love that Bible study on the Tabernacle so much and the team that brought it to living color. I caught an incurable virus right there in the pages of Exodus fifteen or so years ago and, God be praised (I could bawl now), I’ve never gotten over it. I became like a pirate digging silver out of a bottomless treasure box. Scripture became my Ark of the Covenant and every time God blew the lid off, He set my heart on fire.  

Speaking of the Ark of the Covenant, my buddy Steve Fralick, who for years has been building sets that I dream up in my blonde head for the studies, built us an Ark for the taping and brought it to the desert. In case you’ve been wondering all this time why on earth we were in the deserts of Utah, where else on American soil do you think we’re going to find a wilderness you could wander in for forty years? We needed a look-alike for our on-location intros and outtros, as we call them. If you use your imagination, you can look past the stunning rock arches and picture the Israelites grumbling, complaining, and, graced as they were, beholding the glory of God.  

“What are we going to use the Ark to do?” I asked Rick, also my buddy and producer of the Utah project. (Sounds important, doesn’t it?) In a customary cheerfulness— among all the people I know, unique only to him—he answered, “I thought we’d recreate some scenes. I brought some robes from Walmart and, with proper treatment in the studio, they’ll look completely authentic.” I nearly died. Since there were only six of us on the crew, we knew right off the bat that the less fortunate were going to be the actors. The dramatic recreation of priests carrying the Ark in the desert was slated for our final night of taping at sundown, so we got to live with a morbid sense of dread for three solid days. Just the thought of it made me take another swig of Starbucks from my thermos. My hair, particularly in the dry climate, seemed a bit poofy for a priest and my stature a bit small, so I consoled myself with the thought that I might be among the last choices. The thought occurred to my good buddy, April, who I affectionately call my Rent-a-Friend, that I might be spared because I had worked hard on countless takes of intros and outtros all week. With the realization, she began to develop somewhat of a palsy. April is one of my favorite people on earth. Actually, everybody on the crew is a favorite but Ape and I spend the most one-on-one time together.

A number of years ago, the good folks at LifeWay came to the decision that I needed a personal assistant on the shoots away from home and paired me with one of the most delightful young women I’ve ever met. At first glance you might say that, except for our common faith, she and I fell off different planets. I, the Southerner, with my well-coiffed hair, and her, the Northerner, with her, uh, not as well-coiffed hair. It kind of sticks out in all sorts of happy peaks. On purpose, of course. My buddy, April, is what we used to call an avant-garde sort. Artistic to the bone. And undoubtedly the funniest person I know outside my family of four. She is so talented that I should be working for her, but she humors me and takes vacation from her own demanding production job to come along and amuse me. She gets paid an embarrassingly paltry amount which is why I call her my Rent-a-Friend. The three things we have in common are enough to keep us bound for life. We both love Jesus, we’ve both been pulled out of the pit (she calls hers a mere divot but I know better and so does she), and we both laugh easy. Particularly at each other.

So you can imagine that I almost dislodged a kidney when Rick had her roll up her jeans then dressed her up like a priest and positioned her alongside the Ark. He did the same with two of the others but at least they were the right gender. Rick only brought one pair of authentic lace-up sandals so he made Dale, my print editor for the last fifteen years, put them on. Fralick had agreed to put on the robe but drew a line at the sandals. Tall man that he is, his robe was a bit short which only proved to emphasize his running shoes and sports socks. Still, I’m not sure Dale was the right choice for the sandals, considering his black toenails and all. Even at fifty-four, he runs with the best of them and has the feet to prove it. I could see the discoloration all the way from where I sat, splitting a gut. But as they say, God uses willing vessels. Dale was willing.

April, on the other hand, was not. Which made it all the funnier. I think her hesitation had something to do with the photography club—at least fifty strong—perched on the big rock surface a few hundred yards from us. They had come for the sunset but when they saw us carrying an Ark back and forth in the distance, they turned their tripods our direction. After all, it was Halloween. They surmised we were a cult and that at sundown we would kill something. April thought it was a good idea, too, and volunteered as long as she got to kill Rick. My good friend, Bill Cox, has been directing our shoots almost from the start fifteen years ago. He’s the straight man (I mean that in the comedic sense). The hardest to please. The one with the pony tail. You’ll never meet a finer man. I’m simply saying he stays pretty controlled while most of us bounce off the walls. He also doesn’t feel the need to share every thought he has like the rest of us. I love to see Bill lose it. I’m happiest if he loses it laughing but I’ll take it anyway it comes because he’s the consummate anti-gusher. “Admit you’re having fun, Cox.” Nope, he won’t do it. “Admit we’re some of your favorite people.” Nope, he’s not about to say it. But he keeps coming back for more torture. Me, I like emoting. And I love seeing people emote that don’t like emoting. At first I thought I saw his shoulders shaking but, after all, it was cold as an angry woman out there. Then I heard it. Yep. He was laughing. Hard. And, all the while, trying to get the perfect shot. A soul couldn’t help itself. The scene of one editor with blackened toe nails, one sizeable sound man with hairy legs and tube socks, and one Rent-a-Friend all dressed as priests carrying a makeshift ark was entirely too much.

So, why in Heaven’s name do we do all this? Well, for starters, Kathy. She walked up on us at one of our locations hiking with her family. She does the Bible studies. She couldn’t believe we ran into each other in a desolate national park. She hugged me and told me what they meant to her. What Jesus meant to her. I knew we must have had a pretty long relationship together with God and His Word because her young daughters started giggling like they knew our meeting was a big deal to us. She said, “My daughter really likes you.” Of course, I squeezed that child and her sister and her friend until I nearly broke them in two. We had our pictures made and I had my day made. I’ll never forget them. Nor the two women who hiked up on another location and told us they were taking Beloved Disciple at a neighborhood church in Salt Lake City. That’s one reason with a few thousand faces that I love like there’s no tomorrow.

Then there’s the other reason. We do all this because God apparently likes for us to. As messed up as we are. As lacking as we are. As bizarre as we are, for crying out loud. He just keeps sending us out there again. Who in Heaven’s name knows why? I’ve said a million times that God either has a lot of grace or some pretty poor taste. When I still had remnants of caked mud from the pit behind my ears, God used that first trip into the Holy of Holies to totally ruin me for a life spent on anything else but His Word. The sentimentality of getting to re-tape and re-teach the Tabernacle all over again etched this experience in the stone of a Utah desert and in the mush of this human heart. When we loaded up the van, God painted the most glorious colors across the sky I’ve ever seen. Mainly in my favorite color. Pink.

“He’s happy.”

“What did you say, Beth?”

“I said God is happy. He’s writing it in the sky. I think He’s gotten a kick out of us tonight. Right this glorious second, the God of the universe is happy with us. Take it in, y’all.” And we did.

That’s a hard thing for an insecure, self-condemning, low self-esteeming girl like me to say but it was so unmistakable that we’d have insulted God not to acknowledge it.

God nearly kicked my tail about something last week so don’t get the idea I feel that way all the time. But I felt that way last night. And I reckon I want you to feel it when it comes your way, too. God smiles. God even laughs. I heard Him just last night…right through the vocal chords of one Bill Cox.

Beth Moore © 2006