Be Content

There is so much sky and so much ocean here that it is hard not to notice how completely new and different each day is.  The view over the ocean is like a big canvas or chalkboard on which a brand-new, interesting picture appears every morning, beautiful in its own way.  Sometimes the clouds even look like chalk being erased by the wind.

This morning the view over the ocean was a tryptych.  To the east, where clouds obscured the sunrise, its light nevertheless shined brightly on the water, fading to dark clouds and fog farther from shore.

Straight in front of me I was looking at a complete different sky, as if someone had swiftly and with a broad brush swirled white clouds against a bright blue background.

And to the west, a single feather of dark blue extended gracefully up and away over a brilliant blue ocean.

On weekends we like to check for yard sales and estate sales in the newspaper, mostly so that we can discover new neighborhoods .  We remember wandering through a place called Kitty Hawk Landings last year at the Outer Banks, where every house had a canal adjoining it that led to the Sound and the ocean, as well as a driveway that led to a road and a highway.  We discovered a similar place in Morehead City yesterday, nice homes backing up to the Newport River.

This morning on the way to church we stopped at an estate sale in Beaufort, but it was a depressing sight - the scattered belongings of a man who had apparently died recently, china and little souvenirs and framed prints that meant something to him, suits and shirts still hanging in the closet - all the material things that a now-gone gentleman had managed to acquire in his lifetime.  It was the perfect introduction to this morning's sermon, preached by Pastor Jason, on Commandments No. 8 and 10, injunctions not to steal or covet, and on the futility of pursuing a material life.  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal," we read responsively.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  This was a good sermon to hear during these greedy, materialistic times in our nation.

"Keep your lives free from the love of money 

and be content with what you have, 

because God has said, 

Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." - Hebrews 12:5

That was the title of the sermon:  "Be Content."  It is a concept and an attitude toward life that we like to call "Peace and Plenty" and that we have reflected on often during this Sabbatical and that we continue to work on in our own lives.

It was a warm afternoon and there were more people on the beach than I have seen since we arrived here in January, strolling arm in arm, collecting shells, even splashing in the surf a little.  They all seemed content to us on this warm Sabbath afternoon.