Secured in the Winds of Life

I tried out the umbrella hat while kayaking on my little lake. At first, even though I was the only one on the lake, I felt a little self conscious. The Blue umbrella hat, that slips on my head but has no tie to secure it, was lifted off with the first gust of wind. So I went to hat #2, the saucy little red number. This one has a nice bolero toggle to secure it to my head. Heavy gusts threatened to remove my head from my neck, but the hat stayed on. It worked wonderfully. My whole upper body was shielded from the sun. In addition, because of the cupped shape of the umbrella around my face, the breeze would be caught and swirled around my head like a fan. It was like having a personal AC unit. I could not wear it in a stiff breeze, like on the ocean, but for most of the days on the lake and rivers we kayak, it will be perfect.

After about an hour, I had forgotten it was something some folks might find "quirky". Some fishermen had arrived and were kayaking to their spot.
"Hello!" I called happily, waving as I kayaked by. I had totally forgotten that I looked a little strange in my umbrella hat.
"That is a great idea," said one of the men, "I was out here yesterday and I got so hot I couldn't stand it."
"Yeh, I know," I said, "It really works well."
I saw them chatting with each other watching me as I glided by. I am certain they were commenting on where they might be able to get one for themselves.

As I kayaked past, I thought about the dangers of being too isolated. It is easy to get caught up in one's weirdness to the degree that you lose sight of how weird you really are. There are good and bad aspects to that. While definitely weird, the umbrella hat was definitely smart for someone who is in the sun a lot and needs to guard against melanoma. If I cared too much what others thought, I would certainly not be wearing a bright red umbrella hat...or even any umbrella hat. My third one, as yet untried, is even a subdued and understated camouflage design, but I suspect no umbrella hat is subtle. On the other hand, some weirdness needs to be exposed to the light of day and stamped out of one's life. Some weirdness can become pathology.

Somehow, that train of thought brought me to that horrific shooting in the movie theater in Colorado. The alleged shooter had been a loner, like many of these crazy psychopaths who do awful things. I heard one report say he had suffered a break up with a girl friend a few months back. Perhaps that was the trigger to this onslaught of evil. It is not good to be too alone, too encapsulated in one's own world without the steadying effect of positive, healthy, Godly influences in one's life. And that need to keep one's perspective with the healthy flow of input from others, and most importantly from God, must be balanced with the courage to do what is right, what is best, and what is good, even when it defies the crowd. In the end, life is not easy, I thought, and without something to hold us firmly in a place of righteousness, we will be carried off by any little breeze of sin and discontent....like my umbrella hat without the bolero tiedown.

1 Samuel 25:29 (NIV)
Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God...

Zechariah 10:12 (NIV)
I will strengthen them in the Lord and in his name they will live securely, ” declares the Lord.

Proverbs 10:9 (NIV)
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.


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