Thoughts on ....Immersion...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

And I ain't talkin' about baptism...

Last week was a Big Family Vacation, and we spent it at a 50th anniversary celebration...

All the parks, Cirque du Soleil, fireworks shows, prix-fixe dining, and an average of  21,873 steps per day.

It was first mentioned back on Thanksgiving 2020, sitting socially distanced around the front porch, with the two-week old  grandson. 'What about Disney in 2022?' someone asked, and from that moment the planning was afoot.

We thought then that we'd be through the Covid threat, surely.  Then about eight weeks before we were gonna leave...omicron loomed.  The girlfriends both caught it...one works in food service, the other in a day care.  One didn't test negative until the day we left; it was that close. The rest of us got our boosters, did our best to avoid gatherings and wore face masks when we had to be out. Did that help?  Who knows.

I am going to confess I was really conflicted about the whole thing.  I hated that we were deliberately cutting back...doing the church at home thing...just so we could be healthy for a trip to see the mouse.  It seemed kinda frivolous, like we weren't focusing on what is truly important.

But just before we left, with all this ambivalence swirling around in my head, I felt like I heard 'Stop downplaying this.  It's not about a fun trip...there are connections to be made.'

So...what connections might have been made kind of remain to be seen, but it did change my perception of the trip a bit.

We got home Sunday evening and I hit work full on yesterday...swamped with vacation recovery, I didn't even get to eat lunch. But I think I'm pretty much caught back up to where I was when we left...and I have been thinking about the trip.

And, you know, the word that keeps coming up over and over is 'immersion'.  Because if you head to the home of the mouse and stay in one of his guest rooms and ride the buses to the parks it is a very immersive experience.

And it is somewhat seductive.  Oh, not in a sordid sort of way...in a cheery, family-friendly, welcome friends to the happiest place on earth sort of way. Which is even more of a temptation for folks who would never stumble into something clearly sinister.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that the mouse and his domain is sinister or evil or even wrong.  I'm just saying it's...seductive.  It kinda needs some resolve to resist the siren song that seems to make it a good idea to make life about either going to visit the mouse or counting the days until the next visit.

Because it is immersive.  It can dull the pain of real life, for a price.  It's a whole 'nuther world that welcomes all travelers with open arms...so long as they abide by the rules, lol. 

And I am contrasting that with my every day life; how immersed am I in the true Kingdom?  And what would my life look like if I were to get out of just busy and get into that pursuit?

I do know this...the folks who truly make a difference in THE kingdom are the ones who are immersed.

Food for thought.  And a personal challenge.