Moving into the new place

We have a new place. Jami found us an apartment surrounded by Duke Forest. The apartment is as big as our house, but it is laid out differently - in our house (which we're selling) you can get to any room via a central hallway (almost a circular layout); the apartment is laid out linearly - you have to walk back through the living room to get to the bedroom or study. I like the apartment. It is surrounded by quiet woodlands. As Jami said: there are no buses and cars and people. But we do miss being three blocks down from our church. It's unlikely that we'll find a church like Oakhurst in Durham. We like living in a neighborhood near stores and parks, but we'll try this for a while.
Of course I couldn't stay up there (not yet). I drove back to Atlanta to return the rental car. I drove in the rain all the way. All the way I listened to satellite radio's NPR and BBCAmerica stations. There's something comforting about listening to people have reasoned conversations as I drive. I remember when I lived in New Mexico: I would be driving at night, 90 miles between towns and absolutely nothing in between, and listening to people have conversations about aliens and paraphenomina. I know that that doesn't sound reasonable - but this was reasonable for New Mexico, and it was entertaining. CS Lewis once remarked about Charles Williams (a Christian writer of occult romances) that you sometimes forget about how peculiar another human being can be underneath appearances of respectability. Hearing people talk about anal probes and ESP, normal people, people who if you saw them on the street you'd say, "there's a normal person, clean cut, well dressed, not over eating and exercising, probably possessed of moderate political opinions and believing that Church shouldn't interfere in the state and vice versa," gives me insight into the the weirdness that is humanity. Take any person, no matter how rationalistic they might seem, and at some point, I believe that you'll find the numinous center, that place that they may not admit to themselves (much less anyone else), but a place of unfounded belief - that is belief that relies on personal experience, is unverifiable and non-duplicable, but is nevertheless a belief in something other, something strange, something unknowable. For some people this center is nearer the surface; for some people this center pokes out. This center doesn't necessarily express itself in religion. Religion may cloak this center in fact - especially where religion is considered a social norm.
I find drives such as this, 370 miles, SUV chugging along at 19 mpg, with a mild drizzle to light rain, to be wonderful for thinking, conducive to the creative juices; indeed, the car becomes my monastic cell, a vehicle of prayer and meditation. The broken white lines become the beads of a rosary. Each intersection is a cross.
I made it back to Atlanta, dropped off the car, and took MARTA back to Decatur. I'm back in our now catless near empty house and I can't wait until I'm able to make it back to Durham - the place that I increasingly feel like is home, the place where the most wonderful woman in the world lives.