Brought Out by the Shore

Hold on to the thread  
The currents will shift  


Glide me towards  
You know something's left


And we're all allowed 
To dream of the next


- Pearl Jam / Oceans



From the the age of 8 until about 18, my entire year revolved around the last week of July. My grandparents and some extended family took me down to Paradise City. Well, technically, we drove six eternal hours from southwestern PA to kitschy, crowded, overpriced Ocean City, MD. 

Every day was like awakening on Christmas morning, but this was a seven-day festival of doing, mostly with my good friend and cousin Jason, and the gifts never quit. We had our fill of go-carts, wave runners, water slides, and boardwalk prattle. Yet the best moments occurred during times between the scheduled touristy amusement. I wouldn’t call it waiting, but more like joy.

We outran hundreds if not thousands of breaking waves, hordes of gremlins lunging after us and withering into the sand. The building we stayed in featured a pool and parking garage for skateboarding. It had elevators, 11 stories of open balcony with close proximity to soarable items like grapes and balsa wood airplanes. We sat on the boardwalk, crafting (mostly) harmless pranks of anonymity. 


Our late teenage years at the shore where definitely a let down from all the castle building, boogie boarding, wiffle balling, sand crab catching bliss of our younger years. Jason and I became concerned with the things that young adults should be doing, too busy and mature for simple fun. 

What compelled us to move beyond the wonder of child hood and early adolescence? Was it the new responsibilities and freedoms? Too little sleep? Certainly, there’s something beneficial about boundaries and your grandparents vacation fund to help you through the week. 

One mistake was trying to recapture the same joy and feelings of the old days.Vacation fun became manufactured, more in the atmosphere and reflection on the past.  C.S. Lewis wrote that you have to be surprised by joy. Joy is never found by directly searching for it, but rather happens while doing other things. And that's exactly how pure, remembered-like-it-was-yesterday joy came upon us as children.

These days, a different set of my extended family makes a yearly visit to the east coast, just north of Ocean City MD. I stand, watching my children playing with their cousins. I reflect on the past as I witness real -time joy unfolding all around me. I'm thankful for the chance to genuinely do the simple and fun horseplay that I've been after all along.

The beauty and enormity and power of the shore make me feel small and humble.  Yet at the same time, with the land behind me sloping down to the sea, to the left and right the coast converging upon me, and the ocean rising up and out all the way to the sky in front of me, my place on the waters edge appears to be at the center of a universe.

Joy by reflection and surprise. A sense of smallness and importance. Both perspectives are true, I think, brought out by the shore.

simple small

The wear pattern in the tread of a shoe tells a story. Deciphering soles is part of my job as a physical therapist, but the truth is that I've marveled at them for fun, for quite a while. Amy rolls her eyes, "There he goes shoe gazing again."

I think she knows of the place barely above the corner of her mouth. It speaks volumes about her condition, so I study it while listening. I've tried reading that place on casual acquaintances and clients at work, but it doesn't seem to say much about those you don't love.

These are but a few small places that are good to notice. There are many others, like the cow licks in my children's hair, the blemishes all over our kitchen table, and the areas in my back yard where grass slopes gently into crystal stream.

I've been noticing these things for a long time. It always seemed that some people have an eye for it, or just care to notice more than others.  I didn't know that the simple, the small, the commonplace hold special revelation of God. I didn't know it was cool.

Some of my favorite writers, like Ann and Gordan and Billy, to name just a few, are constantly reminding me that it's good to notice the simple and small. They are relaying ancient wisdom from prophets and mystics.

And it's true. God is in the small things. Noticing it is good for you. Appreciating the meaning and beauty and complexity is like a magical formula for gratitude and goodness. Really. Try it.








"Do you find something unique in one leaf, pulled from a tree full of leaves that any reasonable person would say are identical? Or did you want to be a reasonable person?"

every other tuesday

Do you know that thing where Christians are big mouthed, ego driven hypocrites and charlatans who enjoy judging others while doing nothing to give feet to their delusional beliefs?  

I don't actually know anyone who believes all this about Christianity (or is honest enough to express that to me). I'm just going by the internet, where there seems to be a lot of awful talk about Christians.

I'm sure there will always be people who justify their deception, their manipulative use of fear, their hatred and small mindedness and plain stupidity in the name of the Lord. Jesus himself talked about wolves in sheep's clothing. And I'm just not buying all the Anti-Christian Internet Hero talk.

Take every other Tuesday at Lighthouse Church, for instance.

Every other Tuesday, a small army of people from our modest church wake up and put in an 8 hour work day, then drive through hell (route 83 rush hour traffic) to get to the church by about 5:00 p.m. There they prepare dinner for at least 30 kids, many of them too small to feed themselves. So they feed them, clean everything and everyone up, and even put the little ones into their jammies before the parents return from Bible study/kid respite at about 7:30.

What's the pay for the miracle of the feeding and the chasing and the entertaining of 30-some  children who aren't even relatives? With the bonus of leaving the church between 7:40 and 8:00 in order to prepare for work the next day? I'm sure you can guess.

Lighthouse values life. We value families, which are good for parents and for children. Many of us prefer the much harder, quieter, soul saving work of our beliefs to the loud spouting about them.

Lighthouse has given thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations that support and serve children. You want to talk commitment? Members of our church have adopted. Others have provided foster care. Others have regularly, painstakingly supported families who have done these things with none of the glory of being an adoptive parent.

 And by painstakingly, I mean wall poop scrubbing. I just don't see any ego involved with scrubbing poop off walls. That's some of what goes on at our little Lighthouse, just like thousands upon thousands of churches across the face of the earth.

So the next time you read of bad or self serving or stupid Christian behavior, please give a nod to all the stories about small acts of kindness and huge acts of crazy love offered in the name of the Lord, each and every one of them being plain hard.

Writing good and bad things about Christians will always be easier and less rewarding than the kind of stuff that goes on every other Tuesday at Lighthouse. 

"...for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

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