Here in the comfortable West, we tend to think of life as an extravagant beach picnic. Our families are gathered around on red checkered tablecloths, eating fried chicken, those little pickles and chunks of fresh watermelon. We drink our sweet tea while we relax in the sun, and we call to our kids to be careful in the surf. Our beach picnic experience values safety, comfort, fun, and so we put energy into volleyball tournaments and swimming lessons, nice woven picnic baskets and sunscreen with a high spf.
But there’s another reality existing on this same beach. And it’s no picnic.
Instead, it’s Normandy, and it looks like a scene from Saving Private Ryan on D-Day. There are bullets flying and bodies dropping. We dig heels into sand and grip weapons with sweaty palms, and we try to stuff the panic that threatens to undo us. This beach calls for sacrifice and demands action, and so we drag the wounded behind the shields, we fire on the enemy, and we push forward, somehow, anyway.
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And this, this is the dual reality I find myself battling daily from my suburban life in the United States these days. Because it feels like the gravity in our culture centers on this idea of life as a beach picnic. From advertisements to movie stars to the American Dream itself, we are born into this belief that it is our right to pursue happiness, that we should always be advancing our own comfort and that of our children. And so, we purchase and invest accordingly– our time and energies, our admiration and finances.
And, yes, this is human– to want better for our kids, of course. Yes, this is good, to enjoy the advantages of family time on a beach somewhere, fostering pleasant memories, absolutely. But, I wonder if all too often our entire mindset shifts and we end up consistently choosing a life in the Matrix– fine, but not true. Comfortable, but not epic. Safe, but not necessarily good.
Because by God, by God, our lives are more Normandy than beach picnic, aren’t they? Aren’t they?
Isn’t there pain unimaginable in the world? Isn’t there disappointment that haunts most of us, most of the time? Don’t we wake up some days and feel a weight of depression pressing in? Aren’t there orphans and slaves and foster kids and abused women, in numbers too big for our minds to grasp? Isn’t there genocide and starvation and shootings at elementary schools, bringing pain our hearts can’t start to understand?
And did Jesus ever describe life in terms of building an easier, more comfortable experience for ourselves? Didn’t he consistently talk instead about crosses and battles and laying down lives, about service and sacrifice and giving up everything to follow?
Reality and Kingdom scream D-Day more than 4th of July, especially in the spiritual world, and whether we want to see it or not, there are bigger stakes here than if there’s enough fried chicken for seconds. Faith and Hope and Love hang in the balance on this beach, and so does the Kingdom-coming. People around us need us to speak truth and fight for their hearts and demand justice on their behalf-- and this will require sacrifice and stepping off the boat and the expected wound or two or three , or one hundred.
Good and evil are clashing on this sand, both globally and right here in our affluent neighborhoods, and the minute we start assuming all of life is just picnic with comfort the goal, well, I wonder if that’s the moment we begin a journey away from God,
and into a false, sleepy reality that might be pleasant, but is so. much. less.
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Does this resonate with you? How? And how does this mentality (wether beach picnic or Normandy) shape our lives?
This analogy is one which has shaped me in my spiritual life and was given to me by a dear mentor Patty D.
photo credits: Florida State Archives, The National Archives UK {FlickrCreativeCommons)
“Safe, but not good” reference- C.S. Lewis
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