The Wayward Bus is a novel by John Steinbeck about a troup of characters who find themselves on a bus in Northern California.  Some of them are there by necessity, as an answer to a business call, to make a sale, because they are with their parents, because they own the bus.  Others are there to find something other than what the Valley has provided: a way out, a ticket to fame in the Hollywood Hills, a temporary escape from the life that should never have happened upon them.  I’m not quite sure what they all find.  I don’t think that the characters themselves know for sure, either.  But the idea of the story speaks to me. 
The Word speaks of seeking and finding on many occasions.  The two go hand in hand.  But just as the characters in Steinbeck’s novel get more and less than they bargained for, so is seeking the Kingdom a dangerous and mysterious and wonderfully, beautifully frightening thing.  I seek through words, and I find in words.  Norman Maclean says that there is a river that runs through it all.  Beneath the water are the rocks, and underneath the rocks are the words.  The words have always been.  As I write, and as I seek, I know that each time I find the words that are underneath.  They haunt me, call to me in my quiet moments, and spread throughout all that I am, and all that I do. 
I do not know where the bus is taking me.  But I know who is driving.  And as I sit in my seat, with my ticket in hand and a bagfull of dreams, visions, triumphs and utter failures, I know that He will lead me to the words underneath.  They were there in the beginning.  They will always be.

Join me in the journey, and listen for the words.