It’s been a crazy, busy summer filled with things decidedly un-summery–summer school, football and band camp, and other scheduled events which made an escape to the beach this year impossible. But I have my memories of last summer to get me through. This is one such post from last year at this time.
It’s Thursday, late afternoon. I’m walking down the beach looking for shells and watching the waves roll in. Tomorrow will be the last full day here at the beach. I’m not ready to go home. I’m never ready to go home when I’m at the beach.
It’s been a fairly lazy week. Oh, we’ve been to Waterville and The Track, eaten at The Original Oyster House and Lulu’s. I imagine we’ll go to Flora-Bama for some fried oysters and shrimp before we leave because my friend Amy Sorrells said I needed to go, and y’all know I always do as I’m told if it suits me.
But truth be told, it would be enough for me just to walk on the beach every day. To dig in the sand and wade in the water. The crab catching, castle building, dolphin and stingray sightings are like extra gifts–unexpected and much appreciated.
I’ve often wondered if living at the beach would take away its hold on me. If knowing I wouldn’t have to leave would make me less inclined to appreciate it. I’ve said before I feel closest to God where the earth meets the vastness of the ocean. Here there is so much of Him and so much less of me. And while I know this is the case wherever I am, knowing it and knowing it aren’t necessarily one and the same.
I am never enough and God is always enough.
But here at the beach, there is peace in knowing that with Him, I am more than enough.
Now, if I could just find a way to bring that knowing home with me.
It’s Thursday, late afternoon. I’m walking down the beach looking for shells and watching the waves roll in. Tomorrow will be the last full day here at the beach. I’m not ready to go home. I’m never ready to go home when I’m at the beach.
It’s been a fairly lazy week. Oh, we’ve been to Waterville and The Track, eaten at The Original Oyster House and Lulu’s. I imagine we’ll go to Flora-Bama for some fried oysters and shrimp before we leave because my friend Amy Sorrells said I needed to go, and y’all know I always do as I’m told if it suits me.
But truth be told, it would be enough for me just to walk on the beach every day. To dig in the sand and wade in the water. The crab catching, castle building, dolphin and stingray sightings are like extra gifts–unexpected and much appreciated.
I’ve often wondered if living at the beach would take away its hold on me. If knowing I wouldn’t have to leave would make me less inclined to appreciate it. I’ve said before I feel closest to God where the earth meets the vastness of the ocean. Here there is so much of Him and so much less of me. And while I know this is the case wherever I am, knowing it and knowing it aren’t necessarily one and the same.
I am never enough and God is always enough.
But here at the beach, there is peace in knowing that with Him, I am more than enough.
Now, if I could just find a way to bring that knowing home with me.
There’s something cathartic about getting dirty.
Something uniquely satisfying about tackling a project you’ve never done before.
Last week, I shared some pictures of my newly improved front porch.
I’ve spent every morning since enjoying the new space. Some evenings, too. In the above picture, you can see part of the sidewalk leading to our front porch from the driveway. What you can’t see is its length.
You may have noticed all that beautiful, black mulch in the flower beds on either side of the sidewalk. You may have also noticed that the sidewalk is black. That’s because every time it rains or the sprinklers come on, that black mulch washes onto the sidewalk. Since I’ve been spending time on the front porch, I’ve grown tired of looking at the black sidewalk. Which is why I decided it was high time I installed some edging to keep the mulch where it’s supposed to be.
The installation instructions weren’t complicated: Dig a 4″ trench the length of the area you wish to install the edging (which was two 60 foot trenches), cut the edging to length using a hacksaw, place the edging into the trench, drive metal edging spikes in every 4 feet plus at the beginning and end of the flower bed, then compact the dirt around the edging.
You wanna know what’s more cathartic than getting dirty?
Driving 9″ metal spikes into the ground with a sledgehammer.
Actually, hitting pretty much anything with a sledgehammer is extremely gratifying.
Next on the agenda is firing up the pressure washer and cleaning up that nasty sidewalk. That should be awesome.
And here’s a picture of one of my new Gerber daisies:
Just like me: A delicate flower…
What’d y’all do this weekend? Do you like digging in the dirt?
Take a walk through my town and you’ll likely see more than one person who reminds you of yourself, if only on the inside—generally middle class, generally happy, generally a little worried about the state of things.
We walk the balance beam of prosperity here. Most have neither too much nor too little, and for the most part we’re good with that. We have enough to get by, enough to dream of having more, and enough to feel like we’re living our lives the way we’re supposed to.
There are exceptions, of course. Some have a lot of money and don’t mind telling you. Others struggle to make sure there’s dinner on the table. Me, I’ve always thought it was the rich people who had to be more careful about money than the poorer folks. The more you have, the more you want. That’s what I always say.
Money is a snare, Paul said in his first letter to Timothy. I think that’s true. I’ve seen a lot of people ruined by it. And not just the rich.
Enter Danny.
Danny lives in a modest home in a modest neighborhood, which is appropriate considering he has a modest family. Wife, daughter, son, and two dogs he takes hunting with him every year. Like most everyone else, Danny’s family has enough. More than enough, really. But for him, it’s always been too little. His job at the grocery store provides his family with the necessities of life. They have the shelter and the food and the clothing. But he’s always dreamed of having more.
The 1985 Chevy truck he drives to work can get him there, which is okay. But it can’t get him there in style, which would be even better. And his home, a twenty-year-old double wide with leaky faucets and drafty windows, is comfortable. But it’s not fancy. And if there is anything Danny wants in life, it’s a good dose of fancy.
Unfortunately for him, such a lifestyle cannot normally be gotten by stocking cans of chicken noodle soup and mopping floors. All Danny knows is groceries. Ask him where any item is, and he can tell you. A can of beans not labeled? Danny knows the price. Want to know how to tell a good watermelon from a bad one? Ask him. He’s given his life to the grocery store. Been there nearly twenty years.
But that’s where his talents end. Danny’s been given the opportunity over the years to climb the corporate ladder. Those grocery store managers don’t live in double-wides and drive twenty-year-old trucks, he says. But he’s found that some of the rungs on that ladder are missing, and he’s always ended up back where he started.
“I just don’t have much business sense,” he told me.
To him, he’s stuck. Stuck stocking shelves and emptying boxes and handling the cash register when someone calls in sick. And it makes him miserable. His is not a bad life, and he’ll admit that. But it is neither a good life, and that eats at him.
Still, he dreams of better things. He always carries around one of those free homes books so he can dream of where he wants to live and hate where he lives now. And the other day he got to sit in Travis Campbell’s new Chevy. Which just reminded him of how bad his own truck looks, of course.
I often wonder if what Danny would think if he lost what little he had. If he woke up one day and found his family and his home and his job gone. And I wonder, too, if I’m not a lot like him in some ways. I tend to look around at what everyone has and forget about all I’ve been given, too.
So I’ve made myself a promise. I’m going to be happy with what I have. No doubt I’ll still dream. Dreaming is good. But not when it keeps you asleep to your blessings.
And in the meantime, I’ll say a prayer for Danny. I hope he wakes up, too. Because as far as I can tell, he’s the only poor person I’ve ever known who was ruined by money.
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To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at at his website and follow him on the twitter at @billycoffey.
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P.S. – I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish my friend Wendy A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Now, y’all go over to her blog, Weight…What? and do that same, kay?
