My husband’s family takes a yearly vacation on the shores of
Lake Erie. The week is spent fishing,
playing games, and playing on the seashore.
Family members come and go throughout the week, but there are normally a
few days when most of the McCue clan gathers for what I fondly call wonderful,
organized chaos.
I find great peace by the water. The sound of the waves meeting the shore; the
smell in the air; the way the sand feels under my feet; the incredible view of
the sun rising over the water . . .these physical, tangible earthly experiences
remind me of the awesome power of our God.
I love doing yoga on the beach as the sun rises and having my morning
coffee with a good book in hand while the sound of the water and birds play a
symphony to sooth my weary soul. And
then the house starts to awaken and the air is filled for the rest of the day
with laughter and constant chatter until dusk when we tend to walk the beach
again as the sun sets over the bay then play games or work on a puzzle as the
house quiets back down and I am lulled to sleep by the sound of the water
meeting the shore.
Last summer a dear friend of mine loaned me the book “Jesus” by Fr. James Martin, S.J., the
same Fr. Martin who wrote “This Our Exile”
which I spoke about in my blog last week.
Fr. Martin shares with the reader his spiritual journey as he embarked
on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I have
secretly (well, now it’s not a secret) always wanted to travel to the Holy
Land, so the more I read “Jesus” that
longing pierced my heart in such a way that I actually could not finish reading
the book! No surprise, but it was the
moment he started to talk about walking along the Sea of Galilee that got
me. I remember closing the book and
crying . . . the longing to walk that same shore was too intense for me. I took out a notebook and jotted down the
people with whom I would want to share this pilgrimage. One of those people was my mom!
We have been hearing quite a bit these past few weeks of
Jesus getting into the boat to seek rest from the crowd. Hearing these stories has been making me
think that perhaps it is time for me to pick up where I left off and continue
my pilgrimage to the Holy Land through the eyes of Fr. Martin. I have been thinking quite a bit lately of
salvation and what it means to have eternal life. My mother’s journey to heaven has shed new
light for me on St. Paul’s call to the Ephesians to “put away the old self of your
former way of life” and “ be renewed
in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in
righteousness and holiness of truth.” She has made the journey to
the Holy Land, the new and eternal Jerusalem without me. The peace on my mother’s face as she left
this earth to join God will be forever engrained in my mind, for she literally
put away her old self and put on the new self as she left this world.
So,
as I pack for the lake, I am going to bring “Jesus” with me so that I can be reminded as I walk the shores of
Lake Erie that Jesus can just as easily be found in the footprints left in the
sands of Northeast Ohio. I don’t need to
travel to the Holy Land, I just need to remember his promise and believe!
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never
hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
Shalom,
Tina
