3,038 soul-stretching minutes

Two nights and two days. 50 hours. 3,038 minutes. A blip in the scheme of things. But so many lump-in-the-throat, teary-eyed moments I won't soon forget and will need just as long to sufficiently get words around. Maybe it's because I've been missing intense spiritual and intellectual input for the last couple years, maybe it's because of the pain I'm witnessing in the lives of people I care so much about, maybe it's because I've been churning so many questions and thoughts around in my mind in the last few months, maybe it's because I spent nearly the whole time with my cousin Megan, a kindred spirit who has been one of adulthood's greatest surprises - whatever the reason, this year's Festival of Faith and Writing knocked the wind out of me, over and over again.

From Michael Chabon who made the beautfiul and freeing statement that imagination is key to morality (because if we can imagine what it's like to be like someone else, we're less likely to hurt them) to Kathleen Norris and Scott Cairns who reminded me that "knowing" is such a wrong word to use about God ("Thinking isn't believing," Cairns said. "Christianity isn't about what you think, it is about becoming the person you're meant to be. And that only happens bit by bit.") to NPR's wonderful Krista Tippett who was so full of incredible insights and thoughtful perspective I couldn't scribble fast enough but ultimately left with this: When we grieve in the places the world does not forgive and rejoice in the places the world does not notice, then we are loving like God does.

But, for me, the culminating moment of the whole event was in the last five minutes of Rob Bell's interview. He recounted a recent encounter with Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama. Bishop Tutu told the old testament story of how Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace by the king and when he came back to look into the furnace, not only were the men alive and untouched by the fire, there was another person in the fire with them. The Dali Lama then said to Bishop Tutu, "How blessed you are to have a God who does not stand at a distance, but to have a God who stands with you in the fire."

Memoirist and poet Mary Karr, explained the experience of God's undeniable, unconditional loving presence in her life like this, "Being snatched out of the fire is to wake up to what was there all along."

This promise of a God who stands with us in the fires of life is what I want to pass on to my children. Not the fantasy that there will be no fires or that living a pure life will ensure avoiding them, but that when they are thrown into the fire or when they make poor choices and willingly jump in themselves, there is a loving God who will be there with them. Waiting. Enduring. Arms open wide. They will never, ever be alone.