Life's a Beach

We study the scriptures within a small group, four couples who meet on Thursday nights at Ben and Connie's home.  A couple of years ago we attended a men's church retreat that took place at a convention facility on Oak Island, North Carolina. Gene drove his car from the western end of North Carolina all the way to Oak Island. On the second day of the retreat, Chip, Gene, Ben and I took a stroll on the beach, which was just across the road from the retreat facility. Our friend, our pastor, Ben Cox was alive and well during our oceanside stroll here:

Now I have a sister-in-law who lives in that area. Her home is just s two-block distance from that beach. This evening I was walking along on the sea strand at dusk, accompanied by my daughter and my niece, both of them now grownups. In the brilliance of sun this sunset, my niece snapped a picture of my daughter and me.

 She is married to a USAF pilot. Just a few days before her visit here, she had strolled on Pacifica beach in California, on the other side of the continent. Pilot's and pilot's wives have the benefit of flying across continents, across oceans, even around the world. . . because of what the Wright Brothers had initiated, over a century ago. . . just up the coast from here, at Kitty Hawk. At that moment, and just now, after dinner, as I am seated comfortably in a living room, contemplating the loss of my dear friend Ben, who had been with us on that same surf path, not so long ago. And so I turn to the ancient book for some understanding about this tender life on a planet where beach sunsets are so incredibly beautiful, but they do signal the end of something. . . the termination of a day, the conclusion of another day in the life, and in some cases, the meditation on a friend who trod this beach with us, not so long ago. But now Ben has been summoned into that eternal realm, where there is no pain of death, and the scenery far surpasses a beach sunrise or sunset. In the final pages of HIStory, we read a Revelation about these worldly potentialities: "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride for her husband. . . Behold the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people". . . And I will, once again, walk with my friend, Ben, on the beach of Eternity. Glass half-Full