“I looked out my window this morning and I saw a homeless man walking on the street. It struck me because I was in here and he was out there. I am traveling on these fancy busses across the country. And then I thought to myself how it is not normal that we get to do this. I hope that we don’t forget how special it is that we are here.”

— Chloe Debee, Day 2 bus worship

Chloe’s right, and I don’t think she knows how right. Because there’s a version of that thought that goes even further than “we’re lucky.”

Have you ever thought about how every one of us is really two people? Kierkegaard talked about humans as beings with the capacity to imagine endless worlds, to transmute ourselves into the minds of other humans and other species entirely, and yet remain physically bound to bodies that are weak and limited like every other living thing on Earth. Limitless mind, limited body. I like to take that thought and wonder if maybe that’s what God was thinking when they made us “in our image.” Our bodies, sure. But definitely our minds, and our potential for both creation and destruction.

If that’s true — and it probably isn’t, I’m no theologian — then the part of us that makes us different from every other animal on Earth is amazing. Beautiful, even. But we get used to it anyway, the same way we get used to anything. Even a God-nature can start to feel normal.

I hear living in the mountains is kind of like that. People move there because they get swept up by beauty that seems ready to surprise you around every corner. But like all people, whatever baseline we’re exposed to becomes the new normal, and those same people keep walking through their lives with the same problems they had back in the flatlands. The view changes. The person doesn’t.

That’s what this tour does, just in reverse. For a busload of Midwesterners, the views we’re taking in on the way up to Kalispell are anything but normal. This tour is great for exposing people who aren’t used to it to how beautiful this planet actually is, and how many secrets lie quiet, just waiting to be found. And there’s that dichotomy again: standing in awe with one hand, taking it for granted with the other.

I think Chloe was talking about not taking for granted the privilege of getting to go on tour, when plenty of people would trade places with us in a heartbeat. But I think her point cuts deeper than that. How unbelievable is it that God loves us? How shocking is it that we’re even capable of conceiving of that love? How easily do we normalize just being alive? It’s a good thing, hearing these singers make the exact memories I’ve watched shape so many of their predecessors — the ones who learned, out here, not to take any of this for granted.

Tomorrow’s a big one: Glacier National Park, then across the border into Canada. Get some sleep. Try to notice the normal that you walk by every day back in Missouri. Good night, everybody.

Love you all, Joseph