I drove recently to the earth’s end, paid the toll, and then reluctantly launched off across a great sea.  No one witnessed this exodus but a stray gull or two who paused in flight questioningly squawking to one another “why, why?”  I made no reply and traveled on.

The sea rolled beneath me with little white caps that frowned on my endeavor while a gentle breeze whispered, “hurry.  Hurry back!”

Time seemed almost suspended as I drifted interminably forward and soon my mind began to spin as if I had crossed some foreign time zone into a land of sighs.  I shook off the darkness by repeating the mantra, “soon, soon I will return.”

Before long I was a swirl in a kaleidoscope of turmoil and noise, my heart racing, my knuckles white.  I persevered gulping thin air beneath a greying sky until mercifully some mysterious magnet pointed north, pulling me toward white sand and salty air.

I floated atop the great sea, white caps smiling warmly, past the two gulls, and back beneath blue skies and open fields waving like old friends relieved to see me.

I was home again on the Eastern Shore.
(Pastor’s Point in the Sunday bulletin)