A Day At The Beach

Beach People, oil on canvas by Melissa Grimes

For many years, Pastor John Hudson at West Concord Union Church wrote a weekly column in the Concord Journal. When John recently left Concord to answer the call of a church in Sherborn, the Journal invited a number of pastors in town to rotate authorship of a column titled Voices of Faith. I'm grateful to Gary Smith, pastor of First Parish, and Cheryl Lecesse, editor of the Journal, for working out this plan.

This past week's edition of the Journal carried my first installment, titled, A Day at the Beach. Some of you with good memories may recognize that I used some of the vacation vignettes I've reported in my bulletin letters last summer and more recently"

No cell phone pictures here, just a few prose “snapshots” from afternoons on the beach at Herring Cove in Provincetown.

Snapshot one: A boy and his father approach the spot they’ll stake out as their territory on the shore. As dad spreads the blanket his 6-year-old, facing the water with hands on hips, announces, “Dad, today we are going to play in the OCEAN!” Dad looks up from his chores and cheers, “Yes! We! Are!”

They head towards the water, hand in hand, and I wonder at the boy’s joy and his dad’s pride and the gift this day has offered them, and they each other.

Snapshot two: On warm sand, a young girl stands some 8 feet from her grandmother who leans on a crutch extending from a brace on her left forearm, her right hand gripping a paddle. They play a simple game of paddleball, volleying back and forth with occasional misses on both sides. Pretending interest in the shore’s sweeping beauty, I try not to stare … but the ocean will be there tomorrow and these two may be gone before the tide comes in again.

I marvel at the patience and love paddled across a sandy court with no net to break the serve, no lines to fault the server. But who’s the server? And who’s being served? And who am I to keep score of a game that’s all love?

Snapshot three: A group of five women, one older than the others in their 30s, claims the space just in front me. From their open conversation I pick up clues of relationships among the four while the older woman seems to be a guest. After a while, one of the four reaches over to massage her elder’s back and neck. Enjoying the touch, the older woman turns and smiles a silent thank-you for the comforting connection.

I wonder who she is, this older woman. Whose lives have touched hers over the years? Whose lives has she touched? What memories do those fingertips on her sun-warmed neck make new?

Snapshot four: A father and young son walk the water’s edge, the boy bubbling over about baseball. Stopping in his sandy tracks he exclaims, “Dad — the thing is, I think YOU are the best baseball player ever!” With just the right amount of amazement, dad says, “Isn’t that funny? I was just thinking the same thing about you!”

Hanging just a few seconds on their mutual admiration, they dissolve in laughter they can’t contain and pad their way along the shore. I wonder when next will these two share so great a gift.

Snapshot five: A mom, dad and daughter are enjoying the shade of an orange-sherbet umbrella: mom in a beach chair, dad and daughter on a blanket. The girl asks, “Dad, are you going in the water?” “No,” he answers, “I’m just gonna hang out here with you.”

A smile as broad as the shoreline breaks on the girl’s face and I wonder if there is any greater joy on the whole beach. Quietly, she settles into her father’s company and he into hers.

These “snapshots” are simply glimpses of God’s grace: offered, shared, received, celebrated, touched and at play in our lives. I pray no tide or storm erase what I saw written on hearts and in the summer sand at Herring Cove. As August ends, lets watch for a glimpse or two of God’s grace along the paths we walk.

Austin Fleming is pastor of Holy Family Parish. He blogs at www.ConcordPastor.blogspot.com.

To any and all who may have linked to this blog from the Journal piece, a very warm welcome!

Voices of Faith