The Christian faithful are being encouraged to attend special seminars while on a cruise in the Caribbean, Mediterranean and the Pacific aboard luxury liners. Its a kind of meet the Lord on the Lido Deck moment. According to one of the brochures, you can get intensive leadership training, worship training, apostolic instruction and prophetic insights without the normal pressures of daily life and the familiar surroundings of the home church.

Another brochure reads, Throughout your cruise with us, attentive cabin stewards provide discreet, unobtrusive service replenishing ice and arranging fruit, turning down beds and delivering pillow chocolates. Anticipating your every wish, our gracious crew members dedicate themselves to providing you the best... As an out of church guy, the idea of luxury (Luxurious: definition. 1. lecherous - 2. Marked by or given to self indulgence.) and religious training cohabitating seemed incongruous. But I suppose with no viable alternative even the most ascetic among us would have a hard time turning down those pillow mints and iced diet Pepsis.

What we need here is another option more in the stream of real spirituality, yet keeping with the theme of getting away from the routine and pressure of daily life and the familiarity of the local church. I want to help people dodge the bullet of self-indulgence, which seems the main focus of luxury liners, and be able to truly have a life-changing experience. Now of course, to keep us on an even spiritual keel and economically conservative, we would have to forego expensive face time with religious celebrities, those who ride free on our collective dime. They may still want to join us, but I doubt it. That unobtrusive service and those seafood buffets for free might be hard to resist, but such delectable perks wouldn't be part of my alternative solution.

So what is the alternative to the luxury cruise? It is Go Greyhound, or as an urban friend of mine called it, ridin the dog.

One cruise in particular caught my attention: Join our prophetic Cruise Team on Holland America to the Caribbean. Why do we need a prophetic team on a luxury liner of notable predictability? Instead, the team might want to reconsider their Caribbean adventure. On the cruise ship everything is already scripted. There isnt much need for them, since the folks that run these ships pride themselves in having taken care of all the details. Maybe they are there for other reasons.

But for sure they would be needed on the Dog. There most of the passengers are living lives of notorious unpredictability. On the Dog, youd be ridin with the folks that turn down your sheets, those minimum wage people trained in discretion and unobtrusive service. The housekeepers, bus boys, short order cooks and janitors. The invisible people. They could use a bit of prophetic assurance, and you could use a bit of prophetic practice, away from the predictable, the vain, and the pretentious. Isn't that what drives most people to escape the familiar surroundings of their local church?

I remember ridin the Dog many years ago. I met a man on his way to a VA hospital. He was in a foul humor, drinking from a bottle in a brown bag. We were across the aisle from each other.

You know you lay down your life for your country, and what do you get? His voice rose. Before I could answer, he continued. Ill tell you what you get, you get this piece of sh*t. From down around his right side suddenly a long prosthetic arm appeared in the air. The bolts were loose and the cables limp. He turned to me, rattling the plastic arm in front of my face. Here, give that cable a pull.

I weakly protest, No I shouldnt.

No, go ahead, he said rattling the arm again. So I gave in and gently pulled on one of the cables. The claw at the end of the arm squeaked open and then squeaked closed. See what I mean? G*ddamn government, he muttered, turning and taking a pull from the bag.

That is what was great about ridin the Dog. I got a lesson in politics, war and the handicapped in about one minute, one that I will never forget. On the Dog nothing is contrived. It is gloriously unpredictable. You probably wont meet people like that on the cruise, well, because the boat really doesnt go anywhere. And one armed, disappointed vets cant afford it. The purpose of the cruise is to suspend reality. In contrast, the Dog travels low and lean on the highway and is notoriously slow but very real. A trip on the Dog will wean you from the spectacle, the narcissistic and ritual drama found frequently in contemporary Christianity.

Because kindness and attention are sold by the ounce on luxury liners, they are probably in short supply on the Dog. But small kindnesses that are expressed will go a long way. On the Dog you are the ear of God, listening to troubles most likely beyond your capacity to help, where lunch is on you, and where everyone is truly going somewhere. Except you of course; you would be there because of a desire to get out of the familiar routine and escape the pressures of churchianity.

So if you want to relax, go on a cruise. If you want to do something meaningful and potentially spiritual, go Greyhound.

Copyright Tim Honan - All Rights Reserved 2006