Keeping the Maine Thing the Maine Thing
A couple of weeks back I spent the weekend in Maine, officiating a wedding. Yes: it’s an awful job, but someone has to do it.
Maine has always been on my travel bucket list, so when my friends Drew and Leah asked me to preside over a small family destination wedding, I told them I’d need to pray about it for 2.5 seconds before I ordered my Complete Idiot’s Guide to Maine book off of Amazon and ran onto a plane, throwing elbows at anyone who dared get in my way.
I ended up with about a day and a half in the pine tree state, so of course I needed to see a few things while I was there. My wife will tell you that I have two vacation modes: sit-around-and-do-nothing-except-read-six-books-off-my-shelf, or try-to-cram-in-everything-that-the-travel-guide-tells-me-to-plus-a-few-things-that-I-heard-about-from-a-friend-who-knows-a-guy-who-went-there-once.
Maine was definitely the latter. In 36 hours I bounced from one scenic attraction to another. I stayed up late. I woke up early. I planned and strategized and squeezed every bit of pine sap I could out of the experience: drive by Stephen King’s house! Eat a lobster roll! Look for a moose! Find a lighthouse! Be the first in North America to see the sunrise! Eat in the same ice cream shop where Obama ate! Visit the graveside of Lincoln’s first vice president!
(Oh, and I fit in a wedding somewhere in there as well.)
And for all of the beauty and all of the wonder and all of the experience, it hit me that I was so focused on creation that I forgot to spend much time with the Creator. I took in the sunrise, but only as I was thinking about the blueberry pancakes I was about to wolf down. I walked through a quiet pine forest, but in a hurry, because after all, I needed to grab a picture of the aforementioned lighthouse.
Such is the story of my life. I soak in tiny experiences and fail to experience the one who made it all. I race from one checkbox to the next, never stopping to talk to the God who provides the ability to feel pleasure in the first place.
What would life look like if I – if you – were able to stop frequently throughout our day and give more than just lip service to our Creator? How would that affect not only our vacations, but our vocations? Our family life? Our relationships?
I love creation. I want to love my Creator more.
