Yeah, when you watch enough movies you figure out that there are like 15 components that are familiar amongst all

Heroes journey movies. There's always this character, there's always that test, there's

always this kind of enemy that you have to overcome, there's always this internal thing

that you wrestle with then really

most movies that we just love and cherish are rearrangements of those 15-ish

elements but likewise I think if you sit and talk with people, and you really listen and you really get to the honest place, you'll figure out that people's big stories have maybe 10 or 15-ish familiar elements as well. They're not the same as the

hero's journey and as an aside frankly when we try to cram the 15 elements of the

heroes journey into an actual human life story we get kind of weird and twisted around and

depressed. That's not a healthy thing. No, the human story is more nuanced and

complex and weird than that, but one of the elements that I noticed that almost everybody has is the trial, the difficult

period, the desert period in their life.

And everybody can kind of point to a different one. Maybe it's a

geographical thing. Maybe it's a job. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's an

era of personal struggle or even failure. But for me, that moment in time is actually something that literally

physically occurred in a desert. Lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for about a year after seminary.

And at this point in life I had been raised

a pastor's kid I had done my undergraduate work and history philosophy with a minor in

biblical studies I I behaved very, very well. Married to another

pastor's kid. I went and did church ministry for several years and then I went to

seminary at a nice seminary where I was the dumbest person in the room, unfortunately,

but I learned a ton, great experience.

I go and get my first job at a seminary and guess what?

...