Silicone Boone’s “The Reaches” is a lauded concept album about exploring space and alien contact. Much has been written about how this ex-Amish songwriter came to love this topic, and we’re honored that he took some time to discuss it in this And Sons exclusive interview.

Everyone has a story. Everyone has heartbreak; everyone has deep desires that have shaped them into the man or woman that you meet today. To love someone well and to partner with God in their restoration and with God’s vision for their life requires you to understand that story. Without knowing someone’s story, interacting with them is to meet the sum of a life incomprehensible, to navigate without sextant or map.

The Copper Triangle is a route that weaves and climbs its way through the Colorado Rockies, from the Copper ski resort up and over Fremont Pass to Leadville, then over Tennessee Pass and Battle Mountain to Minturn, and finally skirting Vail and the 18-wheelers blasting along I-70 to the top of Vail Pass, ultimately, like any good triangular shape, back to the dirt parking lots of Copper. It’s beautiful, sometimes terrifying, certainly punishing on the underprepared, and our chosen way to spend the day.

My diploma was still in an unopened Manila envelope on my apartment desk when I stood in front of a crowd of 300 sets of smiling eyes to tell them about what I’d committed to doing for the rest of my life. Though I didn’t say it in so many words, at 22, I knew I wanted to change the world for God.

As the wind kicks up, the footprints ahead of us wash away in a matter of seconds, and the lone alpinist ahead fades into shadow. His footsteps are all but gone by the time we reach them. The feeling is eerie—we walk on the spine of the mountain, a drop-off to the valley below on our left, white void of a slope to our right, and in front the ever-rising face of all that is yet to be done.

Jonathan Tremaine Thomas is an actor, activist, pastor, producer, social entrepreneur, fifth generation “preacher’s kid,” and the grand-nephew of the legendary civil rights artist Dr. Nina Simone. He’s also the founder of Civil Righteousness, an organization committed to racial justice and reconciliation through Jesus. In this conversation, we sat down to talk about Jesus’s unique justice agenda, and the way we play our part.

During our second year of marriage, my wife and I lived back to back. We had moved to the Twin Cities so she could attend her Masters of Nursing program, and I picked up a job tending bar to pay for our (then) small monthly bills.

The program was intense, demanding late nights of study and long days of classes and practicum, which left us little time together. That and my meager income didn’t allow for many dates, since even grabbing takeout would blow our budget. Between the two, it seemed that our lives were a recipe for stress and anxiety, which isn’t exactly the best thing for a young marriage.

“How long, oh Lord? Will you utterly forget me? How long will you hide your face from me?” - (Ps. 13:1)

We’ve all felt it. Or at least those of us open to the movements of our hearts have felt it. That deep, heavy ache that sits like a 500-pound gorilla on your soul. I call it “The Longing.”

My life feels cluttered, or, rather, my brain does. You know that feeling when you borrow your friend’s iPhone and their apps are cluttered with unread notifications? You were only trying to use their Google Maps, but you can’t help but notice that they have 2,365 unread emails, 73 notifications from Instagram, Strava, and Podcasts combined, and now you can’t remember where you were trying to go with the maps because you’re so distracted by the notifications. You just want to go in to each app and click everything and clear it all out. Just me?

Have you ever witnessed something so profoundly beautiful that it actually wounds you? A holy moment so breathtaking that you want to simultaneously pause it forever, as well as fast forward through it because it’s just simply too much to take in? These are the times where the boundary between Heaven and Earth seems to momentarily shatter, overwhelming our broken souls with the glory of God.

Arousal is normally a source of great shame for many, yet the response of being aroused by beauty is a stunning act created by God, calling us to the beauty of heaven. Pornography has caused us to demonize something potentially glorious. When arousal controls you, the problem is not your arousal itself; it’s your choices. We must learn to enter into our fear of beauty with integrity, boundaries, and courage.

When facing my deepest shame and terror, I had to answer my deepest question and greatest fear: Am I a good man despite the evils I have perpetrated?

As anyone who works in the service industry can tell you, it’s hard work—spending the day on your feet, navigating the stress of rushes and the frustration customers take out on you. But I had finally mopped my last floor. I was done with the feeling that my college degree meant nothing. I was done with the service industry. But as I locked the door and walked away from my last closing shift and a story three years in the making, one year at this specific job, I felt no gratification, only loss.

If you want to nourish your soul, adopt simple, real practices and do them. I love cutting firewood. The tools are straightforward and the motions are simple. Most guys can split a block without hurting themselves. And there’s still plenty to know because, like learning to kiss or throw a punch, you’ve got to get the basics down or you’ll get yourself in trouble.

Halfway up the verdant mountainside of the Sentinel by the Sea (a hill by comparison to the Rockies, but glorious by Irish standards as it rises from the North Atlantic) my wife Susie looked back at me, and I saw a familiar gleam in her eyes. Though she was raised in a flat place, Susie has the soul of a peak-bagger—a term we use in Colorado in reference to those people who aim to reach the summit of as many mountains as their legs will carry them up.

Very few people are fantasizing about heaven. And I get it. C.S. Lewis said you can only hope for what you desire, and frankly, most of our images of “heaven” just aren’t that desirable, so they don’t fill our souls with hope. I’m glad Stasi named it as a crisis of imagination because that is exactly what it is—not a crisis of doctrine, not even of belief, but of imagination. We can’t conceive of it, so we simply don’t think about it. Vague ideas do not awaken fantasies.

Body art is more acceptable now than it has ever been in the West. A well done tattoo is a badge of prestige on a university campus. But like the ink itself, tattoos go far deeper than simply being “in.” Something else is going on here. Why the popularity of the tattoo? I think it has to do with permanence, with beauty, and with identity.

How do we interpret circumstances like “open” and “closed” doors? What do they really mean? Because as we are pointing out, simply the open or closed may mean any number of things. Circumstances are simply not enough to tell you what is right. Which brings us to this: How do I interpret what is going on in my life? I’d call that a $6 million question.

We’re living in a stressful time where the people and systems we trusted to save us are being shaken and many of us are wondering what, exactly, we’re supposed to do. How do you fix humanity? How do you change the human heart? How do you change the world? The answer may surprise you. At least, it’s surprised saints throughout the ages. Love Jesus. Fall in love with him again. Let him seed a change in your heart that will indeed transform the world.

Our buddy Dan Allender and his friend Tremper Longman III wrote a book on sex called God Loves Sex. We do too, and we love the book. So we asked Dan to write the first “sex” article for And Sons. Better him than us.

I mean, really. Sometimes I think our digital environments are an experiment—designed by a misanthropic robot—sprung on the West to see how much hatred people will communicate before they give up and sign off. Online, you are not a person. Consider, for example, your Facebook feed. When people talk there, what are they concerned about?