The Maine Thing

Earlier this summer, while waiting in line at a favorite ice cream stand in Maine, my eye caught this saying (pictured) the owners had screwed to the wall. All I could think to myself in response was, “Amen to that.” 

Problems have always been real and can make you angry. People have always been mean and some have been evil. Politics, as the people in Jesus’ day knew all too well, have always been known for confusion, hypocrisy and self-serving. But that little sign in the ice cream shop was a reminder that we (points to self) who Believe need to hold onto—check that, live—the truth that “The earth belongs to the LORD, and everything in it; the world and all its inhabitants” (Psalm 24:1-2, Expanded).

It's one reason why I like posting photographs and stories that show the other side of God’s creation. A small counterattack to the craziness. It’s also a preaching to myself sort of thing, because I know how easy it is fall down that rabbit hole of endless ranting along with everyone else, all the while making God to be quite small and inadequate not only in my own eyes but in my witness. It’s too easy to forget what we who Believe were born (again) to carry a different message. Darkness and disgust will be a given and will increase until That Day, but until then, Jesus still shouts down through the ages: “You (yes, you) are the salt of the earth!…You are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:13-16). "So be that!"

There’s another saying in Maine that sums up all that state's wonderfulness:“The way life should be.” It’s also a good slogan for actually living the wonderfulness of “the LORD reigns!,” just as the Word repeatedly declares. Because it acknowledges the world’s woes without either being preoccupied by them or pretending them all away. “The way life should be” is not wishful thinking but what we find as heavenly counterattacks in the Word of Life that have stood the test of time and everything that has ever been rotten and miserable, because God has been its Commander in Chief. Shocking things like:

“Don’t be selfish;

Don’t live to make a good impression on others.

Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.

Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing.”—Philippians 2:3-4, Living

Imagine such a world.

Still not perfect, but maybe not quite as crazy.

Not idealistic, but certainly less mean and angry.

Definitely not easy, but when lived out can become contagious beyond borders.

Because as with a lot of constructive things in life, it always begins with one.

One with a flashlight and a salt shaker.

With Words of hope for a world that can’t seem to find many…

...To help make that ice cream stand sign a reality.

“How often we hear the words, ‘Have a good day.’ Pleasant as the words are, they can fall on the ear without heed because of their frequency. Early today, I was startled into attention at a gas station when the cheerful words that sent me on my were, ‘Give a good day!’ Did I?"

—from “A Book of Hours,” Elizabeth Yates