If you’re lucky like me, you’ll have an opportunity to travel ‘up north? this summer.
There is really nothing to compare to summer in northern Michigan. Water and pines, cherries and parades, campgrounds and well-worn wooden cottages, rainy day trips to town, and long sunny days on the boat with a campfire at the end of the day, all provide necessary diversion from our daily routine ‘down south?.
A vacation to northern Michigan isn’t like any other kind of vacation. On other vacations, those that involve air travel or are more exotic in their nature’the kind we take when we’re freezing in February’it seems like more of our resources are depleted rather quickly. Money, energy, sleep, and time are gone before we know it, and sometimes it feels like we need to take a vacation from our vacation! But that just isn’t so when you’re up north.
One of our family’s up north diversions is putting together a puzzle. It’s the only time of the year we do this, so we’re not particularly good at it, and that’s part of the fun. It takes us a long time to complete, normally the better part of the week, and a lot of the world’s crises are solved in our conversations around the puzzle.
This year’s puzzle was a 1000-piece picture of Noah’s ark. As my ten year-old niece, Maddison and her dad, Sean, worked on the puzzle with me, Sean asked Maddi if she knew the story of Noah.
‘Well, sort of?, she replied. Sort of? There was my opportunity!
As her godmother, I felt a sense of responsibility to make sure she was biblically educated. I controlled myself, however, and decided that perhaps this wasn’t the best time for a bible lesson. After all, she was much more interested in finding the piece that contained the head of the dolphin. It didn’t stop me from thinking of Noah, though. Now there’s a man that was concerned for the physical and spiritual welfare of his family!
Noah is a story of re-creation. In the story, God sets out to destroy all the living creatures on earth because humankind had turned wicked; in fact, Genesis 6:5 tells us that ‘The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.?
Yikes. Good thing the human race found some redemption in Noah, since Noah ‘found favor with the Lord? and went on to ‘do all that the Lord commanded him.? In the story, God carries out his plan, but not before he provides the necessary direction for Noah to participate in the re-creation of the world. ??
In the end, God makes a promise to Noah and his family, confirming his covenant to never again destroy the earth with a flood.?
The story of Noah is more than a good bedtime story or challenging puzzle. It says a lot about how we should think about ‘re-creation?.
Our English word ‘recreation?, is defined as ‘the act of creating anew?. Of course, it’s no coincidence that vacation is associated with recreation. Vacation is that period of time when we typically suspend our work or study activities for the purpose of rest, recreation, and travel.
It puzzles me (I admit the pun) when I hear of persons or families who have no time to take a summer vacation. How do they re-create their world?
Hopefully none of us will ever find ourselves in the position of being ‘consistently and totally evil?. But, like everything else, evil can and does sprout from a tiny seed. Weeding it out is often successfully accomplished by taking time out to re-create ourselves.
Spending time with your family, pausing to appreciate the beauty of creation, allowing yourself to love and to laugh at any little thing, and perhaps taking a vacation ‘up north? are all ways to commune with the world God so lovingly has provided. Take advantage this summer of God’s promise to never again flood your world!
Cheryl Smith is director of Adult Faith Formation at St. Daniel Catholic Church.