What I did last summer

What a summer I had! And since it’s 90° today it still feels like summer. But back to my summer.

First, it was summer. Since I always try to appreciate each season, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then Ryan came at the end of July. We picked him up from a camp he had attended in western South Carolina. He hit the ground running – we went to Caesars Head on the way home! We played baseball, went kayaking, went to the 2017 UCI BMX World Championships, he went to Carowinds. After 10 days he flew back home. Since Ryan is under 15 he flew as an “Unaccompanied Minor” which meant I was able to go with him to the gate, just like in the old days. Nice visit but I was exhausted!!

The first week of August Drew came down. We met Anne in Johnson City and came back here for his ten days. It is really cool how different they all are. They are both Meesters and of course Drew is 15 and Ryan is 12, still, their personalities shine through. We were not nearly as active as when Ryan was here but we had a nice time. We went to the pool a couple of times and he and Tiernan went to Carowinds. He flew back as well. He had not yet reached his 15th birthday so, like Ryan, he flew back as an “Unaccompanied Minor.” That was funny! Everybody’s first reaction at meeting Drew was, “He’s so big!” So you can imagine the reaction of the folks at the airline when we told them he was under 15! This time Mary and Tiernan joined me as I accompanied him to the gate.

Tiernan lived with us for a couple of months this summer. That was nice, just having him around every day. He was here when both Ryan and Drew were so he went to the pool with us and to Carowinds with Ryan and Drew. Actually, that first trip to Carowinds included Belle and Jack – Mary had her hands full!

Oh yeah, on August 21 we had a solar eclipse. I have only one word for that – AWESOME!!

The first week of September we went down to Edisto Beach for our annual vacation with the Meesters. How nice! Sadly, we got a phone call on Thursday informing us we had to leave by noon the next day, a full day early, because of Hurricane Irma.

Aimee capped off our week at the beach by coming home with us for her week! She stayed two weeks with us last year as well. And of course, she has her unique rhythms, after all she is TheAimeeMeester. We came back from Edisto on Friday and on Sunday Mary took her to Carowinds. After that, we had a much more laid back week. She was only able to stay a week this time because of her job, but it was nice week. Everyone’s first comment on meeting her was, “I love your hair!” Friday I took her to Gaffney so she could spend the day with a writer friend while I checked out the Broad River. She also flew back, but since she is over 15 we couldn’t go with her to the gate. I have it on good authority that she made it home safely.

Then a week later Mary K came up for a visit. We had not seen Mary K for some time, so this was really nice. Of course, Mary had promised to take Lucca to Carowinds so that probably played a part. They arrived on Friday. Saturday Mary, Mary K, Lucca, and DC headed to Carowinds (that’s a lot of Carowinds!) while I spent the day hanging out with Leia. I had to remember that while Lucca is the oldest Coleman, she's only 7. I’d been hanging out with 12, 15, and 17 year olds! These cute Colemans are the youngest set of grandchildren. Sunday night Sarah brought her children over and we had a houseful of energetic grandchildren! Monday afternoon, in a surprising move, the Colemans returned to Augusta but they did not fly. Another nice weekend.

Wow! What a full and exciting summer. And I haven’t really even mentioned time spent with Isabelle and Jack. Oh how I love my family!

The Secret Door

We checked into our house on Saturday. It was a nice house and, like nearly every other house on Edisto Beach, it sat high above the ground, with the front door accessible by a flight of stairs. And when you consider my bedroom was on the second floor, well, that’s a lot of stairs to climb in a week. But that’s a different story . . .

Shortly after we arrived we found another set of stairs. These stairs were narrow and enclosed. They were sort of fun so we often ran up and down them. Sunday I discovered another door, next to the door of this stairway. It was small and inconspicuous so it was easy to overlook.

But I notice everything, so I didn’t miss it. I wondered about this door. It was interesting, mysterious, puzzling, baffling, perplexing, fascinating, even riveting; and I, being a curious fellow, took a deep breath and opened the door

How disappointing. It was just the electric panel. Oh well, we were at the beach and had plenty of things and places to enjoy so the little door was forgotten.

Tuesday morning, as I passed by the door, I felt a pulse of energy, a surge that had a slightly bigger bite than static electricity. That was odd. I thought I detected the slightest fragrance of the beach. I placed my hand gently on the little door and it was warm! My hand was trembling as I slowly opened the little door.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was looking at the beach! Edisto Beach. The beach is two blocks away, but there it was, right in front of me. I stretched out my arm, it went through the door and I could feel the sun on my arm, while the rest of me was standing in the air conditioned house.

I looked around, there was no one else downstairs with me, so I did what anyone would do, I climbed through the door and I was standing on the beach. This is exciting, a secret door to the beach! If there was a downside to this it was that there was no secret door back, I had to walk back to the house. But it is a nice walk, so I didn’t mind.

I didn’t tell anyone else about this, not yet. I probably should have but I didn’t. I went back to the house and when no one was looking, I opened the door. Nothing. Just a panel. This was strange. I know I had passed through it to the beach this morning. Then about four o’clock that afternoon I felt that surge again. I opened the door and there was the beach. Ten in the morning and four in the afternoon. Is this a pattern? Only one way to find out. I tried it at 10 pm and 4 am. Yes, a pattern! I only assume you can climb through the door at 10 and 4 because there were too many people up at 10 and I’m not climbing through a door to the beach at 4 am!

I took the door down to the beach twice on Wednesday. I was having a blast but I still hadn’t told anyone else. I’m not sure why. I wasn’t sure it would work for anyone else. I knew the only way to find out that answer was to test it, but for now this little door was my secret. Tomorrow. I will tell everyone tomorrow.

Thursday morning. Ten o’clock. There was a pulse of energy near the door and it felt warm to the touch. But I was shocked when I opened it this time

This is not Edisto Beach. It is Kahana Bay on Oahu in Hawai’i. How cool is this? I can go to Kahana Bay today! Then I remembered the downside – I can step through the door and immediately be at the beach, but there is no door back. I have to walk back. And there is just no walking back from Kahana Bay. I quickly shut the door. I was scared. I can’t tell them now, these boys might try to go on an adventure and then we couldn’t get them back.

Four o’clock Thursday afternoon and it was Edisto again. Fascinating. I stepped through to the beach. I will tell them tomorrow.

Then we got a phone call informing us we had to leave tomorrow. Hurricane Irma was bearing down on us and they wanted us out. Thursday night we packed and Friday we left. Tomorrow never came. I never told anyone about my secret door. Sometimes I feel guilty about that.

What would you have done?

We sang a hymn but they changed the words

Yesterday we sang a hymn at church. I was excited, because I know it (and I know so few of the songs we sing). O sad discovery – they had changed the words! I determined to look it up when I got home. I did just that and I have to admit, I was surprised. Shocked, really. I got to this site  and discovered eleven versions. Haha! What? Add to that, the author seems to have published three different versions himself. And, his original version has five stanzas instead of the three we sing today.

Now, about the author.  “Robert Robinson was just a small boy when his dad died. In 18th century England, there was little in the way of a social welfare system and this meant that he had to go to work while still very young. Without a father to guide and steady him, Robert fell in with bad companions.
One day his gang of rowdies harassed a drunken gypsy. Pouring liquor into her, they demanded she tell their fortunes for free. Pointing her finger at Robert she told him he would live to see his children and grandchildren. This struck a tender spot in his heart. "If I'm going to live to see my children and grandchildren," he thought, "I'll have to change my way of living. I can't keep on like I'm going now."
Robert Robinson decided to go hear the Methodist preacher George Whitefield. To cover his "weak" urge, he suggested that the boys go with him and heckle the gathering. Whitefield preached on the text: "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Matthew 3:7). Robert left in dread, under a deep sense of sin that lasted for three years.
Finally, at the age of twenty, Robert made peace with God and immediately set out to become a Methodist preacher himself. Two years later, in 1757, he wrote a hymn which expressed his joy in his new faith” (his story)  [Did you notice Whitefield's text? This is how they used to preach]

Here is the version I am familiar with:

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

There are two portions that almost everyone alters: Here I raise my Ebenezer and Interposed His precious blood.
Ebenezer comes from 1 Samuel 7:12, Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. Ebenezer means Stone of Help.
Interpose - place or insert between one thing and another. Robinson has painted a powerful picture with this word!

I’m fully convinced we should sing the original and simply explain the difficult parts. And speaking of the original, here it is:

Come, Thou fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send Thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

This is a good song!! I really don’t understand why people feel the need to change someone’s poetry – if you don’t like what he wrote, write your own song! What are the chances I will ever sing the original in a public service? Probably not real good. Meanwhile, here’s my plea to sing the three stanza version above.

Stay focused, Grandaddy

It is at least three and a half hours from here to Edisto Beach. And when you are in a jeep with no windows you can’t listen to music, so you think a lot. The first half of my trip I was by myself and thought a lot of thoughts.

I’m considering a series of blog posts on words you don’t hear anymore in church. One of them is backslider. On my way down to Orangeburg I was thinking about what it means to backslide. The obvious meaning is to slide back, go backwards, lose the progress you’ve made to that point. Then I had the thought, “It’s not always about going backwards as such, sometimes you go sideways, you go off in a different direction.” Since I was unable to write anything down, my mind jumped to the next thread.

I made it to Orangeburg, where I met up with Mary and Anne and her crew for our traditional lunch at Chick-fil-A. Aimee, Drew, and Scarlett rode down with Anne (Dave and the other boys drove separately). Aimee wanted to ride down to Edisto with me in the jeep, so after lunch we were off!

There are two ways to get to Edisto: you can go on down I-95 to Walterboro or you can get off at Canadys and go through the country. I always get off at Canadys! I mean, you get to go through Round O and Jacksonboro. Very pretty drive with little to no traffic. Basically, the only thing we saw was a couple of men standing in the road with rifles. Ha! Hunters!

Anyway, you take Round O Road until it runs into Jacksonboro Road. Well, hard surface Round O ends here, but across Jacksonboro Rd there is a sandy road that continues. When we got to it I commented, “I wonder where that goes.”

Aimee immediately exhorted me, “Stay focused Grandaddy, stay focused!”

Yes, indeed. I turned right and continued on to Edisto. But my mind immediately returned to my thoughts on backsliding. What a good picture this was! I came close to being distracted, losing my focus and direction, and getting sidetracked. The goal today was Edisto. There was nothing down that road equal to Edisto Beach. “Stay focused, Jeff. Stay on the road to Edisto.”

Is that not how backsliding works sometimes? Paul described the attitude that should be ours:
Brethren, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And why? If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Oftimes we get distracted, we see a little dirt road and wander down that instead of pressing toward the mark - the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Stay focused. Stay on the path. And if you've taken a side road, turn back to the path that leads to glory.

You see? A word rightly timed!

let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,

and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith

Surf’s up!

We arrived in Edisto Beach on Saturday afternoon. As soon as we unloaded the cars we went down to the beach. The beach, as usual, was beautiful and the ocean was extremely calm. But Irma.

Irma is a hurricane in the Atlantic that is heading our way. I knew this would have an impact on the waves by the middle of the week and sure enough, Tuesday’s surf forecast proved it

I was excited (even though I will admit, some of this is downright scary) and went out and bought a new belly board this morning. Then Ryan and I went out to the beach. The surf was probably 1-3 ft with the occasional 4 ft wave thrown in, which is really good for Edisto.  We belly boarded until the waves began to die down. And I gotta give Ryan credit – he’s my 12 year old grandson - he stayed out as long as I did! Then we went in to get something to eat and wait for the afternoon.

We went back to the beach between 3 and 4 and found the waves were still down, so the boys began to fish

Suddenly, the surf picked up. I went back to the house and got my board and Drew and I went out. I’m guessing it was a steady 2-4 ft with maybe an occasional 5 footer. They were coming in bunches! I told Drew at one point, “If you miss one there’s two or three right after it!” And of course, if you caught one there were four or five pounding you as you tried to get back out.

My new board is a lot bigger than the other ones I’ve been using the last few years so I was having to adjust to that. And with the wind blowing so hard it had a tendency to hit me in the head. I told Drew at one point, “I feel like I bought this new board so I could hit myself in the head!” He asked if it was worth it. Yeah!

I enjoyed the afternoon but here is how it went. When I first went out, I tried to go over a wave with the board (normally, I dive under the wave holding on to the leash). I was holding the board with my right hand (the right shoulder has been hurting lately) and the wave caught the board and jerked my shoulder back. My first conscious thought after Ow!!! was, “I won’t do that again!” And as I hoped it wouldn’t continue to hurt (I fully intended to stay out anyway) my next thought was, “I wonder if I can take Meloxicam* three times a day (instead of twice).”

Then after catching a wave I noticed that the leash had cut into the board!! Wow, I have never seen this before. I removed the leash from the board and kept on surfing. Sometime later my leash came completely untied. I have never seen this either. And on the first day! Drew went in and I stayed out a little while longer before heading in to eat supper.

So, with all this, how was my day with the larger surf and my new board? GREAT! And once I get the leash problem fixed I plan to go out tomorrow.

Surf’s up, Dude!


*Meloxicam is a non steroid anti inflammatory that I take when my shoulder hurts