Growing Something New in a Desert

Our local airport (LYH) recently got rid of my second favorite thing about flying out of there: walking across the tarmac to the plane. On the cold, rainy morning of my birthday, that choice seemed benevolent. And I know it helps people with physical limitations or disabilities. But—man!—do I miss pretending I’m a VIP ducking out to my private plane to leave for an adventure.

Bob Goff invited those of us who’d attended his past Dream Big Framework retreats to a reunion—the first of its kind. When the invite arrived in my inbox, neither he nor his staff had an agenda planned. They told us they’d figure something out before we guinea pigs arrived at The Oaks Center. Bob, his family, and his friends renovated the old Young Life camp to be a place where creatives, leaders, and dreamers could find clarity about their ambitions. This was the view from my room right after I checked in.

When the Dream Big Framework staff learned that it was my birthday, they filled my room with balloons.

Throughout my four years of college, my nickname was “cowboy.” That’s a story for another day, especially since I embody next to nothing of the cowboy spirit. It’s also ironic because of the embarrassing number of attempts it took me to get a lasso around this stationery “bull.”

Right after Bob bartered YoungLife some undeveloped land for The Oaks, COVID-19 hit. This year hasn’t been good for retreat centers. Thankfully, the horse-racing business needs their steeds boarded regardless of shutdown, and this part of The Oaks has provided sustaining revenue to operate the full facility. We got to watch a jocky training one of the racehorses. When he took the governor off his steed, the power and majesty of the horse glistened in the warm glow of dusk.

I’d never in my life considered eating a fancy dinner next to thoroughbreds. On this night, I wished Crystal could be here. It felt romantic.

This horse had arrived from France on its own private jet. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear in my life.

This is just one of several blurry selfie attempts with the horse that acted as my table’s chaperone for dinner. He tried to nibble my hat at one point. Handsome dude, though.

This Dream Big Framework group proved significantly smaller than the one I had attended at Onsite Workshops in Nashville. Not sure why, but I struggled to connect with my fellow participants like I did in Tennessee. Still, I made new friends and came home with some clarity on my ministry and a couple passion projects. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to have been part of the first group of dreamers to go through the program at The Oaks.

Sheetz gave me a free donut on my birthday, and I brought it with me all the way to the high desert of Southern California. I waited for a moment ripe for ceremony. I found it on my last morning there. In the dark, I hiked with this donut and a wool blanket to the top of the hill overlooking The Oaks Center to listen to some worship music and watch the sunrise. I get a lot of energy from hanging with friends. I overstay my welcome regularly because I enjoy conversation. But I have also found sweetness in solitude—and not just when I’m licking my fingers after chomping down some complex carbohydrates.

There’s a picnic table about 15 vertical feet from the top of the mountain back home where I hike several days a week. I carry takeout breakfast up there for sunrises or dinner for sunsets. After the session that proved most impactful during my time at The Oaks, we were given a couple hours of solitude to go process the content. I hiked with a Gatorade, a pen, and a legal pad up to this table and got to work. I couldn’t write fast enough. I mapped out relationships and motives, ministries and adventures. I hiked back down to a patch of grass under shade tree, where I processed it all with Scott Schimmel. Scott helped me see where I wasn’t taking the advice I have given others. He welcomed me to wrestle the tensions between ambiguity and ambition, between being drawn and being driven.

On my last night at The Oaks Center, I hiked alone in the dark up to this circle of chairs. I re-listened to my theme song of the trip: “Open Space” by Housefires. Comedians and critics mock how modern worship songs repeat mantras over and over, but that inundation of the same thought implants it better in my soul. Alone under a dark desert sky and its stars, I let my shoulders drop. I talked to Jesus about my hangups and dreams. It felt like an exhale. I walked down the dusty road back to my cabin, crawled into bed, and fell fast asleep.

For a place to live, I prefer the greens of the Blue Ridge Mountains over the browns of the American West. But I keep finding myself in deserts, tundras, and arid places ironically for indelible moments of refreshment. It happens in local creeks, too; but that’s not ironic to me. For whatever reason, I’m drawn to places with obstinate and hardy vegetation, crunchy soil, and extreme temperature changes to hit the reset button on my internal hard drive. The Oaks Center definitely offered that environment.

I came to The Oaks Center because of a dilemma. I wrote a book that no publisher wants until I have a platform. Acquisitions editor after acquisitions editor and agent after agent have turned me down as a client. The one publicist and agent who thinks I’ve got a shot wants my pending podcast to show four to six months’ worth of a growing listener base before she shops my manuscript to her publisher connections. So, I found it fitting that my bedroom sat across the wall from this library. I perused the shelves of books and thought about all the work inherent in them. Writing my book was relatively easy compared to creating demand for it. Editing my book with the notes from a fantastic editor has been real work but doesn’t’ scare me like the prospect of promoting a podcast and supporting it with social media engagement. I could self-publish this winter and get the book out of my system, or I can lean into this challenge and multiply the impact of my words. The easy way lets me still say, “my second book” when I’m insecure. The hard way will get me on these shelves and in the hands of people who might need to hear what I have to say.

All of the books on the shelves came from Bob’s personal library. As a three-time New York Times bestseller, he gets a lot of new titles sent to him for endorsement. It was wild to see books with this sticker on them—a sticker I dream of being on my book someday. A good number of them held personal inscriptions inside about why they wanted Bob to read this or why they were grateful for his inspiration and friendship. Someday, I hope to write notes like that in the front of my “Uncorrected proof copy” to send to people who’ve influenced me.

If you know the story behind the book, Suffer Strong, you’ll understand why one of the co-author’s inscription has this penmanship. I don’t suffer well. I don’t suffer often. A lot of doors for me have been open before I walked up to them. I’m wrestling with the challenge of getting a book published by a trade publisher (and my motivations for doing so), and that’s an embarrassingly-privileged “problem” to have. I’ve rarely pursued goals in life so far past reasonable attaining. Finding God in Odd Places is proving a worthy challenge to stretch and grow my will and perseverance and to help me dive introspectively into both my personality and insecurity. Seeing this inscription inspired me to throw my shoulder into a daunting challenge.

Bob told us he’d be sitting in this room with his coffee a little after 6am. I rose early, grabbed a decaf mocha, and luxuriated in an hour of conversation with a hero in the faith. Bob’s not a pastor, but he drops sentences that hit harder than sermons. Bob’s not a missionary, but he’s built schools in conflict zones around the world. Bob’s not my mentor, but his books, interviews, workshops, and availability have coached me for years. From the chair in the foreground of this picture, Bob let me know that he endorses only books written by his friends, but that truth was good for me. It steeled my resolve for chasing a dream the hard way, the traditional way—the way that’ll leave me with more satisfaction if I achieve it.

The next morning, I wrapped myself in a blanket and chatted with Bob around this fire pit. He asked me questions that showed empathy and a desire to understand. He listened to my stories. What a gift that was! Every interaction I’ve had with Bob has only reinforced the content of his books and his talks at big events. He’s the real deal. I watched how he talked to his employees, his partners, and his customers. It was consistently overflowing with respect and whimsy and curiosity, and I aspire to his grace and kindness.

Over the course of our 43 hours at The Oaks Center, only about three hours were didactic. The rest of the time was intentional space to talk to each other, to contemplate alone, to absorb live music, to revel in the work of an illusionist, and to sleep. Illuminated picnic tables dotted the landscape. So did rocking chairs and picnic blankets and wooden swings. It stood in stark contrast from the leadership conferences and conventions I’ve attended. Maybe instead of always trying to get exciting new content, we need to sit more with the stuff we already know and with people we don’t.

Bob said none of us remembers the fifth day of school, but we often remember the first day of school. He said there will always be something special about our weekend together because it was the first of its kind in this place. He said he didn’t just want The Oaks Center to leave a mark on us. He wanted us to leave a mark on The Oaks. So, he handed us saplings and trowels; and he asked us to plant a small oak on the property.

Planting this tree put a lump in my throat. It was a tactile experience that made me consider what I’m planting back home in the lives of my siblings, my friends, and my community. This variety of oak tree grows only one vertical foot a year. I won’t know the height or shade of my contribution for decades. As much as I want to grow a platform for my book and podcast, I don’t want to pursue that at the expense of my contributions to the lives I already touch. I need to be content with a quiet reputation, a simple legacy, and even a relatively-small platform. Maybe my book or podcast will never amount too much. I’m growing more content with the possibility—because I’m growing more fulfilled by the fruit I’m seeing grown in the lives I touch.

My sunset paragliding flight in Torrey Pines didn’t happen. I would’ve been the eighteenth person on the waiting list for the one or two remaining spots. So, I headed down to this harbor. It’s the same one about which Bob Goff wrote his story, “Ryan in Love.” That story came alive for me while seeing where it happened: the sandy path, the harbor, the boats. I try to be known as a Ryan in love—someone known more for what I’m for than what I’m against, someone who uses my against-ness on behalf of others and not for my comfort and convenience. In the words of We The Kingdom in their song “No Doubt About it” … “I’m not yet where I’m going, but I’m a long way from where I was.”

I went to California to find some clarity, to get some direction if not some answers. I didn’t arrive back in Virginia with my motives and future all tidied up. No, I came home with a lot of mystery. I brought home tensions to be managed instead of problems to be solved. As my commuter jet got ready to land in LYH, we danced along the tops of these clouds. I couldn’t see the ground, let alone where we’d land. The mystery was beautiful, and I was struck that I need to embrace the same wispy opaqueness in my daily life.

This was my first time ever playing with a confetti cannon. Look how high the confetti was above our heads!

We didn’t come to The Oaks Center for a series of seminars. We came for Bob Goff. Because of past encounters with the humanitarian, peace talk negotiator, and author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, we knew we’d get moments like this. Precious minutes with Bob on his knees, on our level, asking questions instead of doling already-copyrighted advice. This picture reminded me of the 30-40 minutes I got alone with him in an old barn a couple of autumns ago. I’ve been running off the fuel of that encounter for two years, and I got refueled at The Oaks.

Bob roamed the dining room, as we waited for dinner and introduced ourselves for the first time to other attendees. In passing, he overheard me mention that we had an adoption hearing coming up the following week. The tall attorney came over to the table and inquired about my journey to this moment. He utterly engaged with wonder. I’ve been very pragmatic about the process. His questions and genuine interest made me consider the story I’m writing with my life instead of just the stories I’m trying to transcribe.

I came off the top of the hill to drink some dawn hot cocoa around the fire with Bob. He asked some questions about my family that nobody has ever asked me. Again, as I tried to talk about my adventures, he kept taking me back to my relationships. The other thing I remember from the conversation photographed here is that when I asked him a question about managing the tension between responsibilities and passion projects, he blurted an answer and then wrote it on his hand to email to himself later. He does that multiple times a day and emails himself scores of emails each day. He then copies and pastes all of those thoughts into a master document. Every so often, he peruses it and then searches Scripture for what it has to say about the thought—to find life principles that resonate. Sometimes they become Instagram posts, sometimes book chapters, sometimes curriculum, etc.

While we ate down at the stables, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Bob had slid up unnoticed and let the weight of his large hands rest on both of my clavicles. Just as silently, he lifted them and walked away. He didn’t do this as a liturgy. He didn’t do it around the table. He didn’t say anything, let alone explain anything. I knew from a story he told years ago that he prays in those moments. I don’t know what Bob prayed during that moment. What I do know is that I felt seen and known and cared for—by someone who will probably never see me again. It was a surreal moment.

Bob wears that Boston Red Sox hat to fulfill a dying wish of a former neighbor. He struggles as he energetically teaches to keep his mask from sliding down his face. He wears a plain Carhartt hoodie and OluKai shoes. He’s not an influencer in the Instagram sense. He’s well-spoken and polished from experience more than for the camera. He doesn’t tell you he’s got it together and how you can, too. He’s just Bob. This moment, when Jen was sharing about a pain in her family, he just stepped closer and lent silent support before asking us to cheer her for her vulnerability in sharing. He’s a storyteller—the kind I strive to be. But he sits in moments and invites others to tell their stories. I need that example. I absorbed his example.

When Bob invited us guinea pigs to The Oaks Center for his new venture, he didn’t give us a planned itinerary. There was little in terms of curriculum. When we finally did gather, he just queued wonder and imagination and wisdom. Then, he invited us to share our stories with other attendees or sent us out to get alone somewhere on the 240 acres for hours of introspection. This picture of my new friend, Enrika Greathouse, encapsulates what this time felt like inside my rib cage.

I’m a sucker for close-up illusionists. I was so thankful to be on the front row for the first of several shows by Taylor Hughes.

As we said goodbye to Bob and The Oaks Center, he asked us to Sharpie something on this old Jeep with our names.

These ceremonies stick with me. The words I wrote weren’t profound, but the moment was the point. Writing new words on a Jeep older than me in a place where I met with Jesus made me instantly sentimental. If you’ve read the book, The Power of Moments, you’ll understand why.

There’s a better shot from this vantage point shown on the home page of The Oaks Center’s website But this was shot while I was there, and this is how I’ll remember it.

I’ll probably never sit next to Bob again, let alone with the decaf mocha for which I became known by the staff. My memory of this moment will be from the distance between our two chairs. There are several men in my life whose example I chase and whose words land heavier than those from others. I’m not sure I can call any of them mentors, because the profound moments are sporadic at best. And hero is probably too strong of a word. I’m influenced by many voices—close friends, father figures, and strangers alike. But there’s a special place Bob has in my heart and life, and I’ll treasure the short hours I’ve had with him for many years to come.

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Photos not taken by me were provided by Dream Big Framework’s professional photographer.