Living Inside Out, Even on Vacation by Erin Kirkland

My work is to travel within Alaska. Here, there, and everywhere, most weekends our family is packing up and taking off to one destination or another.

We are committed to living "inside out" as members of Trinity, our community, and the world; this filled-up/poured-out value system existed within us even before we began attending church at Trinity. I will say, though, when we travel it is rare to come across others in the biz who hold the same consciousness. Not just a sense of caring for others; I see that all the time. After all, people normally do not make it in the tourism and travel industry without a genuine sense of feeling for people. I'm talking about something different. "Everybody has an angle," Bing Crosby said to Danny Kaye in the movie White Christmas. And in my industry, working the system by being charming often trumps genuine compassion, so sometimes I'm never sure who is being nice because they want something.

Up north in Denali State Park sits a lodge owned by one of the state's premier tour companies. Invited to stay for two nights and review the lodge's family-friendliness, we trucked up Thursday for a few days of relaxation and came home today with a bit of awe at how God sometimes puts people in our lives when we least expect it.

Acquainted with the manager of the lodge by name only, we were greeted warmly by staff and offered the usual amenities a travel writer would expect for "good ink" later on. In person, Manager was warm and pleasant, insisting on a tour of the property and goodies for the entire crew. It wasn't until about halfway through this tour and our resulting discussions that I realized he and I had gone to the same college and shared many of the same management styles and perspectives about things. Nice enough, but in Alaska the "small world" concept happens all the time. I had an agenda and didn't delve too far into the personal side of things until he invited my husband to tour the employee area and talk HR (my husband's passion and profession).

Not until this morning did I come to understand the nature of the discussion between my husband and Manager as they shared similarities in each other's lives and the connectiveness between them as fathers; Manager is a step-parent, as is my husband, and both were feeling the pull at being away from their children (our oldest is away in a residential school, Manager works 7 days on, two off at his job). Manager was in need of support and insight from someone, my husband was there, and vice versa.

Suddenly, my part in this seemed so, so small. Good for my career, this weekend may have been, but it was even better for us as followers of Jesus.