Today is my last day at the beach and our spending the week with my friends Tom and his wife, Casey. I have written before about how in certain friendships, despite long absences, you can pick right up without missing a beat. This has certainly been the case here in Edisto. In case you are wondering the beach has had its usual affect on me of soothing my mind, causing me to think and write. I have finished multiple books, and feel like my batteries are fully charged. So before y’all start sticking pins into voodoo dolls of me, let’s say enough — Hubbell.
Two Edisto parting thoughts. First, we all have a beach in our lives that offers to calm and realign us. It might be a beach, or a mountain side, or a lake, or a relaxing chair in a basement with a special reading lamp. Each of us needs to continue to seek out that place or places in our lives and return as often as we need. In reading the gospel, Jesus often would leave the disciples and go off to himself to communicate with God. Now whether it was a mountain side, a lake shore, or a desert as reported, I suspect that the gospel writers were affirming that aspect of our humanness that needs such a place in our lives.
Second, I have been a fortunate man in my life to have friends like Tom who when we get together it just feels right, like a comfortable old shoe. Many of you read this post regularly and know who you are. Time apart is not a factor in our friendship. God is like that as well. We may absent ourselves from him for a long time, we may not have even communicated for ages, but as soon as we get together nothing is lost in the relationship. We can just slip back into a mutual relationship without missing a beat. As comforting as the sounds of the Ocean washing ashore are, God’s comfort is even greater and always there, wherever we are. You don’t have to travel to a beach, a mountain, or a park to find him either.
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