Pictured above is the lovely place we stayed last week while in Florida for the wedding of our Bonus Daughter (one of them). It was right on the beach and was clean, comfortable, kinda campy, and a bit rustic. We originally anticipated needing to do much more than we ended up needing to do so we were able to just spend some down time and hang out on the screened in porch which you can just see in the picture.
Wait. You can’t see it? Well, it’s right there above the deck. Still can’t see it?
Well, are you looking at the correct house? Did you assume that because it looms large in the picture that we stayed in the modern day Goliath-home on the right?
Go back. Look to the left. See the cottage? That’s where we stayed. It was built in the 1950’s and is exactly what you might think of when asked about a beach cottage. It is one story, worn with lots of memories and love, and nothing in it hums much. Not even the air conditioners which are in the windows and actually roar not hum.
It also allows visual access to those behind it and to either side of it. You can still see the beach even if you are not in the cottage. Sadly so much of the Florida Coast is now visually inaccessible unless you are inside one of the massive three-story beach mansions.
How easy it is to build in such a way that we cut off visual access. Not just buildings along the beachfront but in how we build our lives. When we build lives that are focused on bigger and better and more, we can limit visual access of Jesus to ourselves and to others. The “look at me” syndrome replaces focus from a life well lived to a life well supplied, rich in the horizontal and poor in the vertical.
Just Sayin' 