Skip the Light Fantastic

Skip the light fantastic.

That’s what Tennessee Williams wrote to describe the actions of the family’s vagrant father in the play “The Glass Menagerie.”

I don’t know why it has stuck with me. I like the odd arrangement of noun and adjective, reversing it so it has the romantic Spanish ring so familiar to every Spanish clause. Not “fantastic light,” like we would do in English; however, in Spanish, the fantastic would still be describing light. This new 1920s-bopper phrase makes fantastic a noun, and light its adjective!

Sometimes I want to skip the light fantastic, too.

I want to jet out of here on the jet I bought and learned how to fly on. I want to fly up to the stars at night when I have nothing else to do. I want to fly across the ocean and be the next female Charles Lindberg to land in Yei, Sudan instead of Berlin, Germany. I want to deliver food to starving enclaves and villages inhabited by missionaries able to fairly dole out the resources. I want to supply all the malnourished regions of the world with food. I want to re-network the food supply system so that all the food produced each year—statistically proven to be enough to feed every person on earth—reaches every city, town, village, and belly. I want to free all the child soldiers. I want to educate all the ignorant contractors of HIV. I want to raise all the AIDS orphans. I want to free and un-brainwash all sex slaves. I want to see everyone who crosses my path given the opportunity to understand emotional healing and experience God’s rest and see who they were always meant to be.

I want to go to Narnia and take all the ignorant, shallow-minded people I know with me so they can meet Aslan.

I want to dress up like a man and fight alongside Eowyn, slicing off the head of the ringwraith next to the “foul dwimmerlake.”

I want to return to Cuba and see the church explode all over that island.

I want to see disgusting strongholds of witchcraft and tribal mentalities blown to smithereens by the power of God and His angels.

I want to dance every moment for the rest of my life, and I want to see that dance bring freedom to every life who witnesses the powerful movements.

I want to be healed in the deepest, innermost parts of my being.

I want to be free of all baggage.

I want to raise whole, secure children who know who they are.

I want to be clean so that I walk in utter humility in every relationship and human interaction.

I want to understand my personality so that I know where my best fit is.

I want to prophesy over every life that I touch.

I want to preach and teach and live and breathe ministry to young people.

I want to visit all the friends I have ever made all over the world for at least a month each.

I want to marry a good and humble and self-aware man who takes his place with me so that I do not feel the need to take control.

I want to have an epic wedding that draws people into the mystery and goodness of God like nothing they have before experienced.

I want to raise boys in the forest in a log cabin next to a creek without a TV or videogames and close to the mountains so they can go hiking and canoeing and kayaking and rock climbing and camping forever.

I want everyone in my life to live in utter freedom.

I want to live on a self-sustaining organic farm.

I want to lead people down the ancient paths.