n ancient Philistine, Isaac, the son of Abraham, named a city Rehoboth because it was a "wide open space" where he and his family could live in peace.

    Rehoboth also was a place where God visited Isaac, reminding him that the wide open space was a sign of God's presence, a symbol of God's blessing.

    Throughout the Old Testament, God continued to summon the idea of Rehoboth, wide open spaces, to prompt his people to seek after him, to long for His presence. From his promise to the Israelites during the Egyptian exile to "bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces," to his answer to the Psalmist from "the wide open spaces," God longs to give us a place to stretch out in.

    But how do we postmoderns situate ourselves in this ancient metaphor? What are God's wide open spaces for us? The Apostle Paul tells the Romans that in this age after the cross, God's wide open spaces are His grace and glory through Christ. So, as we come to understand more about God's grace and glory, we find ourselves in the very presence of God, enjoying his blessing.

    For me, words have always been a crucial aspect of what it means to know God. Of course, God uses words to tell us about himself: through the Bible, His written Word, and through His Son, Jesus, the Living Word. But my own words, written in letters and journals, scribbled on the back of grocery receipts, published on glossy paper in a magazine, are the way I make sense of these marvelous revelations.

    Through words, I find myself in wide open spaces, experiencing for myself God's presence and blessings in my life.

    My hope is that as you make your way around this website, you might also experience it as another wide open space in your own life, as we all journey toward the widest, most open space of all: heaven.