Did you know that everywhere you’ve ever been you have made a little map of that place in your head? Literally, there are billions of little neurons in there, each one of them are solely dedicated to marking out a blip on the map. You reference everywhere you go and when the path is the same those neurons are reinforced and when something changes, one neuron marks the old way and another the new way. At least that is how I remember it; I’m not a doctor. But it is useful for my purposes today, so I’m going with it.
An interesting little thought experiment, to prove my point a little, is to imagine somewhere you’ve never been. What’s there when you imagine that place? I’ve never been to Australia, but when I think of Sydney, I can almost see the view of the opera house coming in from over the Pacific Ocean as we land. When I imagine coming in for that landing, I see a globe from my fourth grade classroom with kind of a trail mapped out between California and Australia. My brain has drawn the map to somewhere I’ve never been! How is that possible?
Perhaps you remember the time I mentioned that the night of the tour meeting we were all in Canada “in our minds”. We were either doing that in our imaginations, or we were doing it in our memories, but both of those things are just representations that our brain has made up. Another experiment: open your phone map (Google Maps, not that trash Apple Maps) and look at the map of Saint Joseph. If you point to it and ask someone what you are pointing to, most of them will just look at you funny and say, “Saint Joseph”. Now, look at them with a little smug superiority and say, “nuh uh…” Of course that isn’t Saint Joseph, you can’t put the real Saint Joseph on a map, you can only GO to Saint Joseph.
We live in a world full of symbols and we often forget that the map isn’t the territory. The symbols we engage in often create firm opinions and cause us to forget to go back to the territory that got us interested in the map in the first place. Can that apply to religion? Politics? Friendships? Marriages? It seems to be the case sometimes.
Tonight we sang at a nursing home in Billings, MT. In many cases, these are folks who are nearing the end of their journey and are hoping that the map they have used on their journey is going to get them to where they want to go. The older I get the more I’m interested in teenagers being exposed to people in the twilight of their lives. Regardless of the loss that our singers have experienced in their own lives, they are still at an age where “what’s next” isn’t really in view. I appreciate it when older people get to pour in a little, because even if they don’t know it yet the message they are getting is, “LIVE YOUR LIVES!”.
Reminding our kids about our finitude isn’t the point tonight. The opposite actually – I think we’re here to, in some way, remind a bunch of people who have been basically everywhere on the map that they are immortal. If it isn’t in the next life, then it’s in these kids. Bright, energetic faces that are ready to engage the world with an energy that many of the people in our audience haven’t had since before our singers were born, and who are going to carry on the adventure and keep exploring the territory of God.
After the concert tonight, I went and found Reyna Ramirez — first-year singer, first tour, still new to all of this. She was crying and I asked her what got her. She said that in addition to a powerful performance, it was watching how moved the room was. She said she didn’t think people at that age get to see kids like us very often. She’s right. You can’t experience that through hearing about it, you have to see it in person.
Well, four performances down and were in a hotel just outside Billings. It was nice because we got to the hotel early enough to go swimming, have a committee meeting, or order door dash for a late-night milkshake. Tomorrow we’re heading up to Kalispell, and it’s a day off to rest a little before a big day Wednesday when we’ll be going to Glacier National Park and crossing the border. Good night everyone!
