Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Last week William (my 18 year-old son) and I headed to the coast for a few days camping on beach.  As every parent knows, the days you have with your children are numbered and the numbers are about to expire for William.  Heading off to college in a few short months, he and I decided we would take a trip--father and son.

I can't report any deep emotional breakthroughs nor any revelatory moments.  If you haven't said or taught or coached all along, four days together at this stage does little good.  What I can say is that we had a great time together.  Doing things together is the best way for fathers, sons--men--to engage and relate.  Stringing tarps, setting up tents, frying freshly caught shrimp on a 50 year old Coleman camp stove are the sorts of things that simply have to be done with someone else.

We climbed lighthouses, snooped around after an aligator, ate real South Carolina bar-b-que (yes, it really is a mustard based sauce!), and walked the beach in the heat of the sun and by the light of the stars.  We played poker every night using M&M's (Will always seemed to win!) and we explored a civil war fort.

And through it all, we talked. The mundane and the sublime met each other like the tide coming in and out.  Laughter and fears, hope and uncertainty swirled around--yet all in the context of the beautiful and the ordinary.  To set in the shade of a tree with an ice-cold IBC root beer and talk about the upcoming Master's tournament and the character of a man whose model is Jesus is a good way to spend an afternoon.

The one thing that matters most in life is the one thing we think so little of.

Taking time with and for others--not to mention for yourself--is the one thing that you will never regret.