Tonight, I watched my two favorite baseball teams play in historic Wrigley Field, on a laptop taking wifi from my cellphone.
As I basked in my golden hours, Shelley shouted from the bedroom of the small lake cabin, "Should I just leave?"
I knew I'd better answer carefully. It could determine how the rest of the weekend played out. ;-)
I'm kidding, of course. ... But, her words reflect how much she knows this little place means to me.
"The place" is a fairly rustic cabin located on a small lake that borders the Chippewa National Forest in north-central Minnesota. The cabin is owned by one of my college professors, who for some inexplicable reason took a shine to our class that went through the Mass Communication department. And there were a handful of us in that class, that he took under his wing even further, sort of brining us into his family.
Because of that extremely fortunate relationship, I've had access to his lake cabin a few weekends every summer since we graduated college. And in that time, I've come to love this place, this cabin, this lake, more than any other place in my life.
And this year we've been even luckier as this is the fourth weekend this summer that we've gotten to visit "The Cabin," as its become known in our household. The stars have aligned that Bob's cabin was available more often than in other years, and thanks to the fact that we are recording church services on Tuesday night, I've been able to escape on the weekends with Shelley to The Cabin because we can stay all weekend. ... No one can debate that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world, but one silver lining for us is that it has given us one last summer together before all of my Sundays will be taken up for the foreseeable future.
This summer, this will be the third weekend that Shelley and I have had alone at The Cabin, one of them being the weekend immediately after my oldest brother passed this summer. ... There also was one special weekend we got to spend here with our oldest son, Garrett, and his longtime girlfriend, Anna. Back when I was a pretty devastated single dad, Bob often invited me and the boys here to The Cabin here to get away. So this place means something to Garrett as well. And so it was a special weekend for dad to get to be here with Garrett again.
But it's the weekends here with Shelley that are the most special to me. Having the opportunity to bring her with me to the very one place that I love more than anywhere else in the world is irreplaceable. Our life is crazy: Three busy teenagers still at home. A horse, three cats and two dogs we care for. Each of us has demanding full-time jobs. And then there is the exacting combination of me attending seminary and completing an internship at a small, rural parish. ... Add in the responsibilities to help kids who are going to school in hybrid or totally online situations, and you get two very weary parents by the end of the week. Not to mention the fact that there aren't many minutes during the day for us to see each other.
So, these trips to The Cabin are a balm to our soul. Here we can rest, canoe, fish, read, sit in the sun, nap, and just enjoy each other's company. All things that we could ever do back in our daily routines. ... We are more ourselves here than we are anywhere else in the world. And we are so grateful to Bob for allowing us these sacred weekends.
Tonight, before Shelley went off to bed, exhausted from a tiring work week, I asked her to join me outside. I didn't tell her what I was up too until we got out to the lakeside deck. On the way out the door, I turned off the outside lights, and then when we were facing the lake, I said, "Look up."
This was one of those pristine autumn evenings in Minnesota in which the cloud cover is nonexistent and it feels that you can see to the end of the universe. Thankfully, there are few houses on this lake, as about half of the shoreline is federal or state owned land, and the nearest town is 20 miles away. And so when you stare up into the night's sky, the stars are so prevalent that it looks like an endless black tapestry dotted with pin pricks of light.
As we looked up, I said to Shelley, "I don't know how you look up into that and not see God's handiwork."
"It is ... AMAZING," she concurred.
And then we headed in for the night, her to her bedroom to rest and wind down. Me to my computer to read and write and bask in my happy place.
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