It was a cold day. The snow had a layer of fluffiness over a harder, crunchier, icier bottom. The inlet from Lake Ontario was frozen. Ducks had given up swimming and taken up their less-than-graceful equivalent to skating. The ice was full of greens and blues. White-greyish lines, where the ice had cracked and healed and cracked again, crisscrossed the surface like an alien roadmap.

After watching the comedy of “Ducks on Ice” for a while, I decided to go down to the lakeshore. There I found ice-covered driftwood and huge clusters of breakwater rocks covered with inches of ice as each crashing wave contributed its own thin coat.

At one point I was going to venture out onto the pier that marked the entrance into the inlet, but then I saw ice everywhere and I changed my mind. I didn’t want to slip and fall. I didn’t want to drop my camera. I didn’t want to get wet. OK, I was being a wimp. (I prefer to call it “being wise”, if you don’t mind.)

As I walked further down the shore and looked back I couldn’t help but be impressed by what I saw. The railing of the pier had been completely covered with ice. I’m not just talking about ice around the railing, I am talking about sheets of ice that went down the sides of the railing; connecting the horizontal supports with the handrail above them.

Such a sight was “cool” enough but there was “icing” on this cake–the lake was expressively expressive! As the waves hit the pier with considerable force, they came up against the side of the pier and swelled to what can only be considered Hawaii 5-0 proportions.

As I watched the beautiful form of these waves come, one after another, I took the photo that accompanies this account. Note the top of the head of a small boy that is just tall enough to be seen over the handrail. There he stands, in a place I was too wise to venture. Ah the hubris of youth! How reckless! How irresponsible! Kids!

The only problem with my irresponsible kid theory, though, was that this little guy was standing, hand-in-hand with his grandfather. Grandparents! Granddad must have lost it! Maybe he didn’t like his grandson? Maybe his grandson was a holy terror? Maybe he wanted him to “wave” goodbye—literally? Somehow though, they looked like they were having a great time together, don’t they? Ice all around. Waves so close you could almost touch them. Spray everywhere.

As I look at this photo now, I still hold to my initial assessment of the danger of standing where they were. I was right and they were wrong. I was wise and they were foolhardy. Still there has to be a lesson to be learned somewhere in all this, don’t you think? What do you think the lesson is? The one thing I DO know is that the lesson doesn’t have anything to do with a little kid and an old man being braver than anyone else!

I think the lesson is simply this–it’s not where you are, it’s who you are with. Even a dangerous place can be safe if your hand is in the hand of someone bigger who is able to protect you.

It seems to me that there was once this guy named Peter who got a bit scared because of the waves that surrounded him. He had a good reason to be scared. The waves were high and he was starting to sink! But, just as he started to sink, Jesus reached out his hand and everything changed. Notice though, that the waves weren’t calmed until Peter and Jesus got back into the boat. Peter was still out in the waves. So what kept him above the water wasn’t a safer environment, it was simply that his hand was in the hand of someone bigger who was able to hold him up (Matthew 14:29-32).

It’s not where you are, it’s who you are with. The next time you are afraid, think about who you’re with. Or, more correctly, think about who is with you!

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)

Farmington is as small-town Maine as small-town Maine gets. Actually there are other smaller towns in Maine, but as a snob from Toronto, they just don’t appear on my radar. Farmington is, you guessed it, a farming community. It is one of those towns that you tend to drive through to get somewhere else, even though it is the hometown of Chester Greenwood, the inventor of earmuffs and that’s nothing to sneeze at!

Our family knows of Farmington only because we’ve stayed there a few times coming or going between Toronto and the Maritimes. This time around we noticed fewer motels and less activity. This small-town seems to be getting smaller. At least that was the consensus until we came across a sign that suggested a different trend.

The sign was positioned in the most prominent part of Farmington. Even I couldn’t miss it! Its message was a bold one to say the least–“God still plans to make Farmington His New Jerusalem—soon!” I had to read the sign a few times to make sure I was reading it properly. I mean, I guess I am out of the heavenly loop. I didn’t get the memo that explained, first time around, that Farmington was the place God had chosen for DD (Divine Development) and now I was being told that this was STILL God’s plan. Maybe I should pay closer attention to my email? Still, I should have guessed there was something special about Farmington when such a small town has a WalMart.

At the same time I felt a bit disappointed. I’ve been preaching for years that we could think of the most breathtaking images we have ever seen, multiply them by a billion and still not have any kind of a concept about the majesty of our heavenly condos. Well if Farmington is it, the New Jerusalem is going to be slightly more modest than my imagination led me to believe. Do cutbacks go that high up? Maybe it’s just that God hasn’t started phase one of His ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ yet and I need to reserve my opinion for a later date. Regardless, that sign certainly caught my imagination. I couldn’t get its message out of my head. I wondered about who was behind it.

My first thought was that it was some group lead by a self-proclaimed prophet from the Jimmy Jones School of Evangelism located in Waco, Texas. If you’ve been in Christian circles for any length of time, you have probably met one or two of these people. They tend to worship on their own, having forsaken their Babylon (the established Church), and they tend to have a real good handle on what God wants you to do.

I met someone like this not once, but twice. One meeting was in Charlottetown, PEI. The other occurred after just after moving back to Toronto. What are the chances? Anyway, his deal was that the Apostle Paul was the antichrist and that Armageddon would happen in Quebec and somehow the Hell’s Angels and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney were in on it. He was very adamant that all of this was revealed to him as he studied the Word.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not making fun of this individual. My heart went out to him. He really felt called to proclaim this message sacrificially and he clearly lived a life of single-focussed service that puts most people, including myself, to shame. If he would have allowed me to help him, I would have.

My second thought was a bit more positive: what if the sign is a vision statement? What if, by faith, the Christians in Farmington have this plan that is so outrageously ambitious that those who drive by shake their heads and go, “no way, not here!”? Hey, it’s possible! After all, small towns have a good track record with God. Didn’t Bethlehem win the bid for Jesus’ birth over Jerusalem, so why not Farmington? What if those who paid for this sign are also paying for the vision through prayer and love and sacrifice?

To be honest, my cynical side makes me lean toward the first option, but what if? It makes me curious about what I will see next time we travel through Maine.

When was the last time you and your congregation took such a God-prompted, ginormous step of faith that it made others scratch their heads and laugh? Has that ever happened to you or your congregation? If it hasn’t, why not? Have you even asked God for that kind of a vision? I’d love to be part of a church that was radically determined to do things too big to be accomplished on their own. I’d love to be part of a church that makes people laugh and shake their heads and say, “How did they do that?” I’d rather be part of a church with audacious vision than one with contented dreams. Let’s face it: I blend in better with nuts, if you don’t believe me, just look at my friends!

Most likely you went on holidays this past summer. When did your holidays begin? Was it when you threw the last bag in the car and your wife checked to see if the stove and the iron were off for the third time or was it when you got to where you were going?

I and the family have just recently returned from holidaying in Nova Scotia. We went to visit some dear friends and stayed at their trailer. (Peter and Debbie et al, you guys rock!) For me the holidays started as soon as the car was moving. Actually, if truth be told , it started as soon as I got out of Toronto traffic. It is hard to be in the holiday state of mind when you are thinking thoughts about the guy who just cut you off that will require some heavy repenting!

For my kids, though, as good as they were, and as much as they slept, they really didn’t enjoy the travelling part as much as I. Don’t get me wrong. They are amazing travellers. Never once have they uttered those fateful words: “Are we there yet?” But there was the occasional question about where we were as they moaned and snored and moved in and out of consciousness.

Part of the enjoyment of this trip for me was the fact that we went to Nova Scotia via the States. Having lived in the Maritimes for twelve years , this particular trip through upper New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, not to mention New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is one of my absolute favourite drives. There is so much variety!

This time around, though, it was the first time I took this route as an OAP (Obsessed Amateur Photographer). Thus most of my travel conversation had something to do with all the great shots I was missing along the way. I wonder if that had anything to do with my kids lack of enjoyment? Nah! Still, after a while I sensed that some in the van were getting tired of me pointing and sighing and mumbling, so I consolidated my comments into one word: “click.” Every time I went by something that I’d have loved to have stopped and take a picture of, I would, in wistful tones, say “click”. In some places my click counter was keeping time with the kilometre clicks on my odometer!

This was my way of letting the rest of the people in the car know that I was sacrificing prime artistic opportunities for their travelling sanity. I know, I know, you are impressed. I am just that kind of a sacrificial dad and father. I live to make my family happy. More to the point, Sheila also has keys to the car and I was afraid of being left behind with nothing left but my art and my thumb to keep me company.

To be fair, the rest of the van sacrificed some. There were a few times when I was actually allowed to stop to stretch and click. But, alas, those times were not enough to keep me from longing for all those could have been, but never were shots. Through the eyes of a salivating snap shooter I realized that there were absolutely hundreds of glimpses of beauty and life that I had never seen before. Some were spotted passing an intersecting road or through a clearing in the trees, or off in the distance. Some places could never be photographed, at least in the way I was travelling, because the roads were too busy, or there was nowhere to pull off. Some of these sites are most likely enjoyed by those who live near them, but some of them, I bet, are driven past and never noticed or appreciated by anybody. Oasis unnoticed. Bits of beauty just beyond the road that lies between points “A” and “B”.

This realization made me think about beauty from a different angle. Maybe it is just that I am more self-centred than most but, in the past when I’ve thought about the beauty of creation, I have thought about it in terms of my (and your) enjoyment. God put all this beauty in the world for us to enjoy and explore. It’s all about us! I still believe this to a certain extent. After all, God wants us to experience the beauty of His creation and then glorify His Name, but there is more to this beauty of creation thing that just us.

Beauty is everywhere, even places we can’t see. It’s in galaxies that can’t be seen even with the hubble telescope. It’s in things too small to be seen by the human eye. Beauty can be found on the highest of mountains and the deepest of seas–places none of us will ever visit. What’s the point? The point must be that beauty is in all of these places because God can’t help but create beauty. To put it another way, what God creates is beautiful by the very fact that God created it. Sure beauty is here for us to enjoy, but more than that, beauty is here because God is here.

Questions to ponder:

1. If your life isn’t beautiful right now, why is that? How much attention are you giving to God’s recreation of your life?

2. Could it be that there is more beauty in your life right now than you have noticed? Maybe you need to slow down and look for those intersections and clearings? Maybe you’re not looking to capture it? Everyone has more beauty in their life than they are noticing.

3. Beauty comes in many shapes and sizes. Maybe you can’t focus on it because you are too close to see the whole picture, or maybe you aren’t close enough to see all the beautiful detail. Either way, I am sure that God has created beauty in your life, now go find it, enjoy it and share it with others!