Holy Skipping Flat Rocks

a child's lens of abundance.

Plagued by a number of things, on Sunday gone, I went out to the Neyaashiinigmiing dock, after morning worship in Howdenvale and our community/church annual meeting. “Georgian Bay Therapy” has become a mainstay of my summer survival toolkit, and I felt there were some burdens I needed to wash away in the lake.

This is one of my favourite places to swim - the entry is easy from a rocky shore, the water gets deep quickly and is crystal clear. Jumping is possible from the dock. And, in my first summer on this beautiful Saugeen Peninsula, this is where I would come on Sunday afternoons and my day off, to go swimming and jumping off the dock with whichever children showed up.

Back then, I was afraid to swim in the Georgian Bay alone. So I would pack a lunch, bring a book, and wait at the dock until the children would show up (which they always did). They, fearlessly, would run, screaming, launching themselves with legs pumping off the dock. Scrambling up the ladders, they would do this again and again. I quickly learned they were quite happy to let a scared adult swim with them, and with their help I became unafraid to swim alone.

Fast forward to last Sunday, when I arrived at the shore plagued with a number of burdens. I got in and swam for a while before coming out to just listen to the water and enjoy the sun, which was being moderated by an approaching bank of storm clouds. This first dip washed away many worries, but the burdens still seemed to be clinging to my soul.

Said burdens were duly influenced and substantially comprised of scarcity considerations, in a variety of arenas in and impacting my life. I was having a glass-half-empty kinda couple of weeks.

I lay on the blanket I brought, having rubbed on my coconut-and-essential-oil-concoction to keep the bugs off, and was just trying to focus on the sound of water lapping against the rocky shore, and the feel of the sun on my skin. My therapist tells me being present, fully present within my body is a good cure for the ick of life. Unfortunately, the coconut oil concoction, does not work on the interior insects.

So there I lay, busily trying my best to be fully present, whilst thoughts of scarcity, the murmurs of glass-half-empty zinged around my consciousness like insistent mosquitos, looking for a perch and a good drink of blood.

When I heard a child’s voice exclaim “Holy skipping flat rocks!”

HOLY SKIPPING FLAT ROCKS.

My soul grinned widely at the expression, and my ears opened in anticipation of the next words of wisdom which I somehow knew would come from this child!

“We got all kinds of skipping rocks here, we don’t even have to go looking for them.”

Sometimes, abundance is all around us, but our mosquito-minds take us into places of scarcity, drawing the life-blood of abundance-awareness right out of us. But children have the eyes of abundance, and the fearlessness of innocence. If we listen, and follow their example, we will find all kinds of skipping rocks, and not even have to go looking for them.

My burdens slid off me like melting ice under the sunshine of this child’s wisdom.

“Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19: 14)

For such is the kindom of heaven - indeed.