WHAT WE OWN

Just a little more than a week ago, Maureen and I were walking along a beautiful beach in Connemara.  The beach was practically deserted.  Only two other people were strolling along a thousand yards away or so.  There were no houses near the beach, only farmer’s fields and a stunning backdrop of mountains.  While we were there a little group of three cows came by.  I’d never seen cows on a beach before. 

Now I’m not recounting this just to make you all jealous (although that’s good too), but because, while we were walking, it was hard not to think about how different the scene would be anywhere in our country.  Any unprotected beach this beautiful would have been bought up long ago and would be lined with cottages and houses worth millions of dollars.  Access would be restricted, parking would be impossible.  Keep in mind, this beach in Connemara was not a state park or a nature preserve or some other public space, the area all around was just comprised of several farms.  But in Ireland, you can’t own a beach.  You can’t develop the shoreline.  You can’t put up a fence or a no trespassing sign or restrict the access.  The sea and the shore belong to everyone, and so it’s never crowded.  The wealthiest people don’t get to buy the most beautiful places and keep the rest of us out.  Even the farmers are required to leave all of their gates unlocked so that walkers can pass through and freely trespass on their land.  Every ocean view is open to anyone who wants to walk there.

I bring up this difference because it is a great teacher for our spiritual lives.  Like ocean front real estate, most of us want to possess the things we love the most.  For so many people, life is about acquisition.  We spend so much time buying things and filling our houses with stuff.  We want our own plot of ground around our houses that is ours alone.  We want to own.  We are generously willing to loan things to others, but only if it is very clear that something belongs to us and will have to be returned.  We even get possessive about our families.  We want spouses who belong to us forever.  We want kids who are “ours” and spend all of the most important occasions with us.  We are possessive.  Many very rich people spend all of their time trying to get richer, even as their wealth already exceeds what they could ever spend.  And wealth, more than anything else, buys privacy.  It buys a separate section on an airline flight.  It buys a bigger chunk of land that is off-limits to others.  It buys “exclusive” resorts, and “exclusive” restaurants, and all the trappings of a life lived separately from the rest of us.

This is a spiritual disease.  It makes all the world a poorer place.  It is a truer joy to feel connected to everyone else by feeling like we are all in this together.  The adventure of life is about the people you meet and the unlikely encounters that change us and enrich us, that you can’t have behind the walls of exclusivity or the fences covered with “no trespassing” signs.  Spiritual maturity is about learning to love, appreciate and enjoy the gifts of life without having to own or possess or control them.  It is about learning to walk through this world as a pilgrim, without having to dominate it, or tame it, or control it, but only to experience it and take it in.  Can we love others fully without trying to control them?  Can we appreciate beauty without trying to buy it?  Can we live our lives in spaces that we share with everyone and find the company to be the enrichment that it is meant to be? 

I will never own a piece of that beautiful beach in Connemara.  But it was ours for a couple of hours one beautiful afternoon and maybe will be again someday for another few magical hours.  That’s enough.  I will hope a few dozens of other people will make it theirs each day in the interim and that sometimes it will just belong to the cows.  For I will trust that God will continue to fill this life with gifts that I don’t ever have to grab or hoard or buy, but just enjoy.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”

In Faith,

David

Recreation

I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow and so I’m in a terrifically good mood, even though the weather is cold and rainy.  Of course, Maureen and I are heading to Ireland, where the weather is always cold and rainy and yet we still go back there again and again.  But, the terrible weather not withstanding, spring is here.  I can go on vacation here in late May because the church is already beginning to slip into our summer semi-hibernation mode.  Our early services are done for the year, chicken pie dinners are taking a break, committees aren’t meeting very often, there are no adult education classes, no Originals, Sunday school is over, youth groups are done, most activities are on hiatus, and soon, church attendance will drop like a stone. 

Ministers that I talk to who are not from New England are amazed by this pattern.  In no other part of the country is church life so completely seasonal.  But here in Maine we take the spring and summer months very seriously.  With a long and brutal winter behind us, recreation becomes the theme of the season and church becomes a secondary concern for many.  People go to camps or cottages, travel, head for beaches and lakes, or simply garden and spend their time out of doors.  A fewer and fewer people go to church. 

While it would be easy to feel like this is not a good thing and that people should continue to want to be in church each Sunday, over the years, I have learned to appreciate this time.  All of our summer pursuits are indeed “re-creation.”  This is true Sabbath time in our lives.  While it is sometimes discouraging in the summer to preach a good sermon and realize that 80 percent of the congregation will never hear it, I believe that something sacred is happening in all of the lives in our church who are not gathered here.

There are holy moments to be had watching the sunset from the end of the dock, or walking through the deep woods, or gazing out at a restless ocean, or plunging your hands into damp soil, or playing charades with the kids around a campfire.  We “re-create” ourselves with such moments.  We are reminded of how often the spirit of God speaks to us beyond the confines of our church sanctuary, as we find “sanctuary” in some quiet corners of the world around us.  Worship is not just about sermons and prayers and organ music, it is about being mindful and open to the glories of creation and the rhythms of nature and the way our own souls long to take it all in.

So, please drop by to worship here a few times in these next months (especially when we are all in the Treworgy Gardens) but even if you don’t, I know that your spiritual life goes on and is in fact more alive and responsive in this “churchless” season than ever.  Keep your eyes open for wonders, wherever you go.  Keep your ears open for the sounds of God’s grace.  Keep your imaginations open to the spirit all around you.  And keep your hearts open, for God is in your midst wherever you go.

On my way out the door,

David