Where do You Re-Charge?

     I don’t know where you go to re-charge, where you commune with Creator, Creation, and with your own Soul. We do so on the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Tofino. We had such a soul and spirit-nurturing time there recently, reconnecting with our favourite beaches. Each had a bit of a new story to tell...of the changes they have experienced since we last met together...as well as celebrating with us the faithfulness of our Creator. 

        Comber’s Beach is another favourite. The newer path down to Comber’s Beach is fine, but we know the story of another trail - a road, actually, that is no longer used. Now overgrown, the trail still whispers about the experiences we had when it took us to the beach...how we explored the impact of the winter storms...the new formations of logs that had been heaved up on shore by the mighty waves...sometimes playfully made into makeshift huts...how the winding fresh-water stream continued to find its way to the ocean in yet another new way... and how the stream and ocean, where they meet, and where we played, were more powerful than we had anticipated! How consistent and faithful are the tides and the seasons. Day after day, year after year, they impact and change the outer landscape even as the consistent, faithful, loving movement of the Holy Spirit impacts and changes our inner life...as we allow.

        I also recalled stories of many life-giving walks on the beach to Green Point...to Schooner’s Cove, both places where we had camped on the beach...and loved every minute of it, except maybe sand in our food, and the water-logged supplies and clothing we had to dry out after a rogue-wave filled the canoe that Gerhard rowed into the bay where we eventually set up camp (most of the food was OK but the chocolate-covered shortbread were not salvageable!). The joy of it all is still palpable. 

        It strikes me that this kind of intentional communing, intentional remembering, intentional storytelling and story-receiving feeds our souls in some way like the Sacrament of Communion does, because we really are at God’s Table, guests...recipients of the generosity of the Creator, of this Living Word, and the movement of the Spirit. There is a loving Presence in the moment, in the encounter, that is more than the sum of the parts; there is a mystery that cannot be explained, only received; there is food for the soul that we don’t actually have to leave home to find. It’s as near as our intention and the closest, flower, tree, lake, friend...and the stories we tell and receive.

With Love and Light.  

Rev. Jan