Excerpt: God Hides in Plain Sight

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Dr. Nelson's new book was released on September 1st, 2009

Dr. Dean Nelson is the founder and director of Point Loma Nazarene University’s journalism department.  His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Christianity Today, and Sojourners.  He has won several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his reporting, and has written or co-written 11 books, mostly on spirituality themes. Nelson is a frequent speaker at writing workshops and conducts retreats that focus on spiritual depth.

Dr. Nelson also hosts the annual Writer’s Symposium By The Sea, where prominent writers come to discuss the craft of writing.  His interview subjects have included Amy Tan, Anne Lamott, Ray Bradbury, George Plimpton, Kathleen Norris, Donald Miller, Bill Moyers, Jim Wallis, Barbara Brown Taylor, Eugene Peterson, and Philip Yancey, among many others, which you can view here.  You can find more information on Dean Nelson at his blog.

Burnside is proud to know Dr. Nelson, and pleased to feature the following: an excerpt from his newly-released book, God Hides in Plain Site: How to See the Sacred in a Chaotic World.  The book is published by Brazos Press, and can be purchased here.

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Leaving The Porch

Look again. There’s a great deal more. I know that narrow world by heart and I can tell you from here a few things you may not have noticed. – Walker Percy

One December night while I was in graduate school in southern Ohio, our elderly next door neighbor knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to see how she and her husband had decorated their house for Christmas.

“My husband made all of the ornaments for our Christmas tree. He carved a lot of other decorations, too, like a little pond with ice skaters on it. It’s very pretty. I think the kids will really like it.”

We practically leapt to our feet in assent.

The reason we were so excited was that we were bored out of our minds. At Ohio University, where I was attending, classes for the fall term had been out since before Thanksgiving. That gave me lots of concentrated time in the library for work on my dissertation, but for the rest of the family, it was anything but fun. It was cold, snowy, with a stainless-steel hue to the sky that made it seem like it was nearly night all day long. Plus, with school out of session, this already-slow college town crept to a crawl.

Blake was three and Vanessa seven months. With kids that age, in dreary weather, a little cabin fever sets in on everyone. A highlight for Marcia and the kids was to walk to the city bus stop, catch the bus, ride it to the end of its route, which was at a shopping mall at the edge of town. The mall was deserted, by and large, from the day it opened. Only about one-third of its available space had been leased to stores. The rest of it sat empty, like much of the town that month. When the bus driver was done with his lunch, he would turn the bus around and drive back. Often, Marcia and the kids were its only passengers.

So a chance to go to the neighbor’s house and see some craftsmanship? Woo-hoo! Maybe even stay for a cup of hot chocolate? Does it get any better than this? Get the nitro pills, dear – we’re going next door!

Marcia got Blake bundled up in his borrowed snow suit, hat, mittens, scarf and boots. I put heavy clothes on baby Vanessa and zipped her into the heavy wool, hooded papoose we had gotten in a baby shower. Her arms and legs were inside the cocoon, so all that you could see of her was this tiny oval where her face peeked out. Held upside-down she looked like a large, plaid raindrop with a face. Then Marcia and I quickly got on our heavy coats, hats and boots and headed out for the 20-step walk from our house to our neighbors’. We crunched through the snow and talked to the kids about how wonderful this was going to be. People in Athens had the time and talent to really do Christmas right, we told the kids. It wasn’t like lame San Diego, where they string lights on sailboat masts and parade around in the bay in 80-degree weather smugly singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

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