I was encouraged to write about this subject from a life-long friend responding to my comment on Facebook about people all over complaining about needing their beach time to "catch some rays."
Really?
Some people must have quarantine fever. At my little piece of paradise all I have to do is walk outside and look up. There is the sun. Genesis 1: 3-5. Then God said, "Let There Be Light." That light was the sun.
I know many folks think the sun will shine at the beaches only, but, the sun hasn't refused to shine over the entire world but once in all of Time. Luke 23:45 tells us, "Then the sun was darkened." Just once did the sun not shine. That historical event was so long ago it sounds like a fairy tale. In my opinion and belief, the sun stopped shining. That fact is in the Bible, I believe it. Nothing here to argue, so let’s move on.
Back to this quarantine thing and the need for sun, many have been cooped up with everyone in the house. The dogs are snarling, the kids are fighting over the last Little Debbie, the mothers are clipping their bangs to the side. The fathers stay in the sheds and barns looking for something to saw or nail.
We open Facebook every morning to see if any others are posting pictures of the beaches or the backroads. Backroads seem to get a collective pass, but if anybody shows their feet in the sand with the emerald waters of the Gulf in the background…
Whoa Nellie, they are in for some nasty comments.
The nasty commenters are the most vocal about needing to get some ‘rays’ and,
"That right there is against the law and I'm really upset."
We want those beaches to open cause we need to lay in the sun and get as much vitamin D as possible because the government told us vitamin D helped with avoiding the come down of Covid-19.
"’Sides the Tanning Bed places are closed and I'm fading bad."
Sigh!
So, let me share some things that seems not to be known by some folks. Old man sun rolls in from the East every single day unless the clouds are swirling between it and us. Beach time isn't worth the drive to the toll booth on cloudy days. Good time for sorting and sharing from those packed out clothing closets. Good time for adjusting to being in quarantine. Read a book.
Now, back to the need for sun.
Sun is shining right up there; vitamin D is all over us. You are the teacher now, so teacher makes the rules. Take the kids out for a day of learning. Call it a field day if you wish. Call it a skip day. At their request, Jessica Rockett Miller, a sweet mother of four in Darlington, Florida broke the rules to take her kids through the car wash just to let them see the flashing lights.
She called it a skip day.
100% American made mother with blessed kids, Jessica is my personal muse. I follow her on Facebook. Here is some ideas for homeschooled children:
Field trip day,
Maybe some of you could start at the overgrown flower beds and have them glove up to pull out those tangled dewberry briars first, then those clumps of volunteer Bahia, thin the root thatched daylily. Okay now let’s move on to picking up those pecan limbs that were blown down in the high winds of the last few storms. Take a break, look at what you all have accomplished in the past hour.
"Dog, it looks nice."
After some hard-earned snacks and being jacked up on Mountain Dew, get back in the sun. Teacher, tell them how great they are, not because they can stand up without having a participation trophy handed out after every chore is done; but because they can actually see what they did that makes the sun worth feeling. The rivulets of sweat are caused from the sun. The same sun that causes rivulets of sweat at the beach on a non-quarantine day.
Really…
The beaches are wonderful places to be, but home is more wonderful if everybody helps to make it so. We all love the sun because we need the sun. The beaches were made to hold the waters back from higher grounds. The sun shines on every beach in every inch of the earth. Let’s just enjoy the sun where we happen to be at this unparalleled moment in time.
This is a moment that never happened before in recorded history. Let's all try to understand this and be careful about complaining about not having access to the beaches. Unless things go very bad because of this virus that has us quarantined away from the beaches, we may be denied beach access by powers that hold us away. The sun is constant. It has been since the beginning and will be until our Creator decides differently. Walk outside, feel the sun…that is it everywhere.
On a positive note, I believe the beaches will soon reopen again. In the words for his song by Haven Gillespie in 1949:
"That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day).”
