There is a symbol found on t-shirts, bumper stickers and rocks here in Arizona: the Man in a Maze. I moved to a small desert community, seemingly by chance, a few years ago after spending most of my life in the great mid-west of the United States.
I've always been fascinated by place names. One of my first stops at any place I have lived is the reference section of the local library. What went into the making of this new place? What history shaped it? Why are things named "Lost Mill Road" or "Capstone Alley"? Names are important in that they tell you much of what people were thinking about at the time. I began asking what and where about Picture Rocks as soon as I moved here. The what was easy, everyone here knows there are pictographs on rocks in the Saguaro National Park. I live on the edge of it as I am writing this. It was three years before I found someone that could tell me "where" they are. Heck, they are at a picnic area in the park. Picture Rocks (the town)is a little like Green Acres without the hot babe living on the farm. My running joke has been: I moved to this little community in the desert a few years ago and felt like I didn't belong. After much thought, I bought an old truck from my neighbor, dragged it to my house, put it up on a fresh set of cement blocks... and now I fit right in.
These rock art drawings never fail to move me. Just as I am reaching out to my world through this blog, someone thousands of years ago was reaching out to me. My eight year old Justin and I have been to these rocks many times. This morning he asked me to go again. I have returned from our picnic with renewed wonder.
I have two "real" jobs: I am a pastor and an independent insurance adjuster. I'm the guy that takes pictures of your house after the pipe burst or the fire. I was on my way to a suburb of Phoenix last summer when my GPS did what my GPS does: got me good and lost. iPhones look flashy, but are often no trade for a map. I was looking for an address and the GPS guided me off the I10 well before the town I was looking for. Soon I was on a one lane dirt road that was knocking fillings loose and beating my poor car to pieces. The end result was almost twenty miles at ten miles an hour, only to find a very rusty barbed wire fence strung across the road. I had been in a national park for miles without realizing it. Why, you say, did I go down such a mess of a road in the first place? Because in Arizona, it is very common to find dirt paths pretending to be respectable boulevards. The road I live on in Picture Rocks is dirt. Unlike my beloved mid-west, roads are what you call them here, and not a standard you can count on.
All this bumping and jarring (while listening to Calexico, I love them) created a very spiritual desire to pee. I stopped in the middle of the road, no one had been on it in seventy-five years anyway, so what the heck. While enjoying my communion with nature, I looked up and saw the most beautiful pictographs I have ever seen. I reached for the accursed iPhone and snapped pictures happily for several minutes.
Three hours later I found the house I was trying to inspect. It was the next day while doing my insurance report that I looked closely at the photos of the rocks. The rock background of The Divine NOW logo is one of these rocks. I have thought of how the Spirit draws us into sacred moments. As the prophet John Lennon wrote "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." God finds us where ever we are.
I was in a New Age bookstore with Micquette in Sadona AZ last week. She loves that stuff. She was excitedly showing me some gadget and I smiled. She said "I know, training wheels." I am interested in how people connect with Spirit, whatever form that takes. Yet, for me, it has always been very easy: I just ask. She has heard me say many times that we don't really need Ouija Boards, Tarot cards, $500.00 prayer lines, Psychics or Prophets. All we have to do is ask. Those things may get the conversation going, but there is no need to hang onto training wheels forever. Just ask! Spirit is not hiding or requiring us to come through special people or through that item we just payed $200.00 for. Just ask and be willing to listen.
There, I just wrecked several million dollar business'. Man in the Maze is a representation of a person standing at a maze looking for meaning and Spirit. There is a center or goal and then there is another path off of that. This path is the after life. May you find the center of your journey and be blessed along the way. At the end of the day it's between you and Spirit and everything else just clouds the issue.
Mark Archambault
