Month: March 2020

A World Turned Upside Down, a Psalm, an Island, and a Clam.

~ beachbumpoppy ~ 2 Comments

Mrs.Poppy and I have vacationed on Sanibel Island since before we had children, now we are taking our grandchildren there. Regardless of the time of year we visit, I have a routine … a tradition that is religiously followed. After a quick run to Bailey’s or Jerry’s for provisions, I head down to the beach. It is usually late afternoon at that point. To the best of my ability, I try to mentally record everything before me, making a deposit of every sensory experience. When January or February comes in the Midwest and I’m faced with freezing rain and snow, I will need to make a withdrawal from that memory bank.

The late afternoon sun warms my back and highlights the waves with exploding sparkles. The perfume of the beach; saltwater mist, with hints of seaweed and sunscreen lotion delight my olfactory nerves.  The soundtrack provided by the breeze, waves, gulls and distant laughter of children, rise and fall in a pleasant and endless loop.

Standing at that magical spot where the gentle surf of the Gulf meets the land, I feel the sand pulled from beneath my feet with each retreating wave. At dusk or dawn, the horizon is a soft blurred line, the sea appears to bleed into the sky. At this time of day, the horizon is crisp, a razor-sharp edge of ultramarine blue.

Sitting down, I push my heels back and forth through the wet sand, creating a pair of miniature trenches. The lapping waves soon drag in sand and broken shell bits filling the gullies, leaving my feet half-buried.

I force my hands through the wet sand, lifting as much as I can hold in each palm, then flip it over to form small mounds on either side of my bent legs. Each handful exposes dozens of colorful, tiny coquina clams.  They lay there helpless on the beach until the next wave washes over them. That is their signal to right themselves and dig frantically back into the sand. I turned their world upside down, but the next wave restored order in their little universe.

The Coronavirus has turned our world upside down. Doubt, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety can become our constant companions if we don’t fight them off. The media provides 24/7 coverage without any answers. We worry about our families, our jobs, the economy, and we worry about toilet paper. It’s as if we were laying on the sand like the tiny coquina clams, directionless, waiting for a signal to right ourselves. We need a wave!

The wave for me was Psalm 139.

I was on a grocery run when this Psalm came to my mind. The premise of this Psalm is very simple and beautifully poetic. It does not promise a life of ease without trouble, but it lets us know that God knows us and is always present wherever we are (If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me). It provided a much-needed wave of peace,  grace and the reminder that God is always with me.

O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

Peace, Poppy

Signs of Spring (and Hope)

~ beachbumpoppy ~ 2 Comments

Spring has arrived and my weeds are coming back strong. Mrs. G is once again hunting field mice. Taking out the trash I may have seen the first mosquito of the year. God in his wisdom has given the gift of survival to the common, the ordinary, and yes, the annoying. This gives me hope as I often qualify for all three of those attributes.

In spite of our best attempts to destroy ourselves at times, I believe God has also given the gift of survival to humanity. This does not mean our journey will always be pleasant or easy. Viewed objectively we are a silly species. I can find no scripture that speaks to God’s sense of humor, but the evidence leads me to believe he must have a great sense of humor to put up with our arrogance, self-importance, and hubris. This may be sacrilegious but I have this picture of God sitting back with a big bowl of popcorn, laughing, as he scrolls through our Facebook posts.

The news today is filled with nothing but articles about the Coronavirus or Covid-19, often accompanied by this phrase or something similar, “We are in uncharted territory.” … Newsflash! … Every day of our life is uncharted territory. Humanities’ very existence is uncharted territory.

I’ve thought about my mom and dad a lot this past week. They were married during the great depression (the real one) and went through the turmoils of World War II. I’ve wondered how they would have responded to our current crisis. They were part of the “The Greatest Generation,” an attribute not to be taken lightly.

I know the first thing they would tell me would be to quote the scripture that defined their lives, “… seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” If I heard that scripture from Matthew 6:33, once growing up, I’ve heard it a thousand times. Putting God first was the North Star of their lives. It was a fixed destination that stayed constant as the world around them changed.

They would have told me about their life as newlyweds in 1933. They lived with my dad’s parents in a four-room house in Sherman, Texas. They had chickens and a garden and were thankful for their “riches.” My dad scraped floors before electric sanders were invented for 10 cents a day, and was thankful.

At the onset of World War II, my mother assumed that her husband would serve in the military and in a romantic notion became a volunteer nurse’s aide, thinking that if something happened to him, perhaps she would be able to care for him. My dad failed his physical and managed grocery stores during the war while my mother rolled bandages and gave sponge baths to wounded soldiers, not exactly what she expected.

Unknown to them at the time, on the other side of the world was a horror of unprecedented proportions … the Holocaust!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “What seems to us more important, more painful, and more unendurable is really not what is more important, more painful and more unendurable, but merely that which is closer to home. Everything distant which for all its moans and muffled cries, its ruined lives and millions of victims, that does not threaten to come rolling up to our threshold today, we consider endurable and of tolerable dimensions.”

What will roll up to our threshold with this crisis?

At it’s worst it will mean the death of a loved one and all the pain that accompanies that. At the least, it will mean a shortage of toilet paper and a lot of bitching and moaning. Yes, we are all in uncharted territory, but the constant is that we are God’s children, His love is unconditional … and spring is coming.