Beach envy

So...the adult daughter of one of our members is visiting Ohio from California and has been a delight to have around! This week, she's in South Carolina visiting a friend while she's "out east." First of all, having a daughter in CA myself, I understand that once you've already come 3,000 miles or so to visit home, what's a few hundred more to visit someone else? Second of all, I find myself deep into beach envy.

I suddenly realize how much I've missed vacationing in the far southern reaches of SC myself. For several years, I went with my partner and a friend every year in the fall when it was off season's cheaper prices and yet still warm enough to wade in the ocean and spend oodles of outdoor time. These hard economic times have made it necessary to do "stay-cations" the last year or two and so I'm deeply into beach envy.

I'm remembering all the deeply spiritual moments that time on the beach has to offer. Some of my best Margaret's Minutes for the church newsletter have come from insights gained at the beach. Some of my greatest healing has come from insights gained at the beach. There's nothing like the changing details brought by high and low tides to remind one that no matter how bad or wonderful things seem right now, the tide is going to turn and a million little things will change - so what are the big fixtures that you can focus on even as you allow the small stuff to come and go? Some of my greatest delights have come on the beach! Like the first year we took Radar (a lab mix) and he dug and dug in the sand - sending a spray out behind him that looked like it should have come straight from a cartoon! Or the first time he went body surfing in the ocean and loved it while the other dog, Bradley, stood shyly on the shoreline.

Oh, yes, I have beach envy and I have it bad. I just posted a message on Kim's Facebook page, encouraging her to watch a sunrise over the ocean, eat some grits, look for shark's teeth and shells...all the things I would do if I was there. I keep looking up from my desk to view the decorative jar full of tiny, tiny shells on the shelf just above my computer monitor - some smaller than a grain of fine rice, yet perfectly intact. The largest shell in the jar is still only about the size of a sunflower seed! I remember marveling at how such small things can make it to shore, get walked on, be blown around and dug through and still be unbroken.

Here's the thing - what is it about going to the beach, or on any vacation, that makes it so much better than our "regular" life? Why do I (and maybe you on some days) fail to notice all the same sorts of lessons and fail to take the same sorts of joys from the world that is right in front of me? Why are we in such a rush through our normal days that we fail to see the miracles, the joy, the majesty around us? It's there - just last night, Radar tried to catch a lightening bug. I'm glad he missed - it would have tasted nasty! - but it made me smile with the same joy as watching him dig in the sand. Was I lucky to be there when he did it, or was it just that I was paying attention for a change?

Mindfulness - paying attention - being fully present - call it what you will - is a key component to healthy spirituality. Being present in your own life and body; being mindful of the consequences (for both good and ill) of your actions/words/thoughts; paying attention to the movement of the Spirit in your life; being aware of the "love that will not let us go" - these lead to balance. They lead to the shalom of our Hebrew cousins. They lead to the Peace that passes all understanding. They lead us into the heart of the Divine.

So, who needs a beach? Or a mountaintop? Or the Grand Canyon??? There are wonders all around you and all around me. Take a 5 minute vacation once or twice a day to pay attention, to rest, to really see/hear/smell/taste/touch your world. Try it for a week or two and then notice if your ability to notice things all day long doesn't shift and change. This is your summer spiritual discipline - take two, five-minute vacations every day and watch what God reveals to you, reveals in you, and blesses you with. I dare you!