you can't go home.

Everything about this universe is expanding. And those who know, I trust, now tell us that it’s increasing in its expansion. And those who know, I trust, now tell us that the expansion is increasing faster than we thought!

I could go into all the details - and others have at various times - but here’s the gist as I understand it: The place we live, the things we’re made of, surrounded by, sustained by, the cycles, the systems, the, everything, is getting bigger. 

Because, if you read the story of the Bible as a big story, which we sometimes forget it is, it’s a story of people getting bigger. Of growing in their understanding of God, their tribe, of each other, of themselves, of the universe… 

If you look at Jesus, Jesus came to keep the momentum, and more than likely, increase it towardbigger. Yeah you thought you shouldn’t include them, I do. You thought you shouldn’t believe that, I do. You thought God was in that box, no. You thought you had it all figured out, you don’t. 

This is, and always has been, about getting bigger. Expanding our views, our experiences, our hearts, our souls, our love. 

There is bigger and there is home. And, as much as home sounds great - I mean it is safe and known and certain - if you’ve ever moved, like I have, you find something really interesting about home. And this has become a cliché because so many have experienced it.  

It’s so small. You go back and visit the camp, the house, the backyard, the pool, the amusement park that seemed so overwhelmingly large, and, after you’ve grown, it seems so small and, tiny, and almost claustrophobic. 

The goal is childlike - as grown adults. Children are constantly changing... learning, asking, seeking, adapting. 

But you can’t go back to the places you once lived. Home was great and got you to this point. But you’re grown up now. Paul said something similar when he talked about the fact that we aren’t children anymore and therefore should be happy with what that means - we do live a little differently. The walls and boxes and rules that once offered safety, now offer stagnation and incarceration. 

There is a common thread among fundamentalists of every kind: they want to go home. Home was safe, home was comfortable, home was where it was good. 

Besides things like hindsight bias, which make us always remember the past as better than it was - because we’ve now lived through it and seen that we make it - there is something else about the past…

It doesn’t exist. 

It’s no longer that home. That place. That sidewalk and tree and you. Those who insist on going back and taking the world with them will find it very frustrating. Fundamentalism is always frustrating. 

It’s not the movement of the universe.