Launch Out Into The Deep

Today is Labor Day.  I get melancholy at the thought of summer’s end.  Here on the shores of Lake Michigan it is like a switch is flipped and fall begins the day after Labor Day.  School starts, cottagers pack up and return to their homesteads, the weather cools and leaves dare begin their fall. Oh, we’ll have some beautiful days yet, even some beach days.  But it is definitely the end of the lazy days of summer.  Do you see the tear-drop stains on the page? 

Sitting on the beach, I reminisced over many of the Labor Days during our fifteen years of living on Lake Michigan.  Some were filled with the company of family and friends.  Others spent in quiet recuperation from the company of family and friends.

The most memorable holiday weekend was the one that my husband Wayne took a couple of our guests for an exhilarating  ride in the speedy little jet boat. Traveling at a thrill-seeking speed…wave hits sideways…capsized…passengers…flung…the boat righted itself…sped off…tread water…gasping…tether…life jackets…Coast Guard…angels…Well, that is a story for another posting.

Right now from my beach chair I watch Wayne board the kayak (a bit slower and safer than a jet boat) and head out over the waters.  The smooth wave action gives just enough lilt to the kayak that I can sense the motion reflected in my own body. 

If Lake Michigan was your playground as a child, the sensation of the waves raising your body up and your feet off the sandy floor of the lake never leaves you.  It can be created in a nighttime dream or in summer repose far from the shores and beaches.  But it has its greatest power when you look out over the vast lake and see the waves roll in, break open on the sand bar and lick the beach with a natural rhythm. 

It doesn’t matter your age; the draw of the Lake is so strong that you leave your umbrella-shaded chaise, the captivating plot of your current novel, and brace your body against those first shockingly cold waves.

I observed four middle-aged women descend the stairs to the beach.  They dropped their towels and without hesitation walked into the water.  It wasn’t long before they were in the water up to their necks, riding the waves together.  They probably acted much like they had as young girls.  I watched them with humor, recognizing how enticing and energizing riding the waves is.  We never out grow it.

My challenge is that the water is never quite warm enough and my body is not willing to endure the chill.  So I often sit and reminisce instead.

One summer day, Wayne announced, “The waves are perfect and the water won’t get any warmer than it is now.”  I determined to get into them.

When I reached the water, it was too cold on my feet to coax any more of my body into it.  So I decided to walk the beach.  Perhaps by the time I returned the water temperature would feel differently to me.  The walk made me sweaty, but I still couldn’t get into the lake. So I settled in my chaise and watched the rolling and then breaking waves.  After a few minutes I couldn’t take it any more and I determinedly walked into the water.  I didn’t stop until I got to a place where I could dunk my whole body, enduring and ending the initial shock.

From that point on it was sheer ecstasy!  Soon I was reveling in Lake Michigan.  Total joy and merriment! I wasn’t satisfied with the current wave, but was looking forward and reaching out to the on-coming one, a little bigger, more powerful than the last.  I started singing,

“Launch out into the deep.  Let the shore line go. Launch out, Launch out in the ocean divine, Out where the full tides flow.[1]”

I was frolicking in the water and it was easy to imagine God frolicking with me. I sensed his delight in my enjoyment. It seemed he created the experience just for me.  I was secure in his playground and pushing my limits.  Like any child in the rapture of such a moment, I didn’t want it to end.  It was a perfect time for Him and me! I don’t know if I will ever experience anything like that again, but it was wonderful to experience it then.  I left the waters thinking that frolicking with God is supposed to be a common experience. Certainly more common than once in 64 years!  The memory makes me smile.

One of the great comforts of living on the bluffs over-looking Lake Michigan is that my summer extends past Labor Day.  While others pack away their beach bags and umbrellas, leaving summer behind, I continue to enjoy the sound of waves, the awe-inspiring sunsets, the moon glistening on the water, the sun-heated sand that warms my feet even after the first Monday in September.

Today I climb the stairs up the bluff.  There are 62 steps. I know, because I count every time I tackle them. This is my last Labor Day living on Lake Michigan.  We’ve sold our home[2].  I’m sad, but I look at it like this:  The wave I’ve been riding is great fun, but there is another wave coming and though it is undefined, I instinctively reach out for it.  It may lift my feet off the sandbar, it may dunk my head under water, but it is irresistible.  It could be the best wave yet and I must launch into it.

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[1] Launch Out Into the Deep

The mercy of God is an ocean divine

A boundless and fathomless flood

Launch out in the deep

Cut away the shore line

And be lost in the fullness of God

But many alas only stand on the shore

And gaze on the ocean so wide

They never have venture

Its depths to explore

Or to launch on the fathomless tide

And others just venture away from the land

And linger so near to the shore

That the surf and the slime

That be over the strand

Dash over them in floods evermore

Oh let us launch out

On this ocean so broad

Where floods of salvation ever flow

Oh let us be lost

In the mercy of God

Til the depths of his fullness we know

Launch out Launch out in the deep

Oh let the shoreline go

Launch out Launch out in the ocean divine

Out where the full tides flow

[2] I’ve learned not to be metaphorical but very concrete and direct in my writing.  I discovered this in my first blog posting “Prognosis.”J