March 18 – “To the moon and back”

Ah, Mondays.  Even Spring Break Mondays.  Especially Spring Break Mondays.  Ain’t they grand?  Monday is my day to get done the weekly, sometimes mundane, mostly necessary tasks related to church operations.  Things like website article updates and FaceBook page updates and sketching out a plan for next Sunday’s teaching.  Add to that the birthday cards I send out for the church and the fire department and any bills that are due.  And then on top of all that, factor in the inevitable Spring Break guests and all that comes with hosting here in our great tourist town.  Yep.  Mondays are great.

I did join our guests yesterday for a few hours of fishing.  It was pretty cold still, so we just went to the Jamaica Beach canal in front of Nathan and April’s house.  I was hoping we could at least catch some catfish so Wyatt (the 8 year old) could actually catch something.  He rode with me out there, and we had a pretty interesting conversation.  He was noticing the water in some of the ditches and some of the sand breaks along the road.  His question was, “Why is there more water in some places and not so much in others?”  Ah, science class.  Where are you when I need you?  I explained a bit about high and low tides and how they constantly change.  He listened intently, then queried, “Well, why do the tides happen?  What makes it high or low?”  Still struggling to remember my basic science classes, I shared all I knew about how the moon is the culprit, using its gravity to tug at the water.  And because the earth is spinning as well, sometimes the water level gets higher and sometimes it goes lower.  Boy, did the wheels ever spin in his head after that one.  He pondered the implications of such a wild and crazy story, and did his best to get it to make sense.  Finally he had the answer, “Oh, I get it.  When there is a full moon it’s bigger, so it pulls the water up to high tide.  Then when you can only see half of the moon the water starts getting lower until finally when you can’t see the moon any more, there is low tide.”  A great theory, I thought, especially for an 8 year old.  Makes a lot of sense.  That’s how it should work.  But sadly I had to answer, “Not exactly.  See, even when you can’t see the moon, it is still up there, pulling and tugging on the water.  Tides change several times every day.”  Frustrated now that his logic wasn’t valid, he returned to questioning mode, “Well, then why does the moon do that?”  And there you have it.  The very question that eventually all scientists get back to … why?  We were rapidly approaching our fishing site, so simplified matters a bit with, “It all happens because that’s how God set it up.”  Surprisingly, that totally satisfied him.  Amazing to me how God always seems to be enough when you are a kid, and then when you grow up you have to try to make things way more complicated.  Keep that up, Waytt.

Oh, I forgot to mention, Wyatt caught the only fish of the afternoon.  In fact Wyatt got the only bite of any kind.  He reeled in a small stingray.  Mom and Dad took the requisite photos and sent them to grandparents and posted them on Facebook.  I was hoping it still had its tail so he could take home a souvenir, but that was not to be.  This guy had been caught a few times before.  He had no souvenir barb, and in fact he had grown three tails.  His Strange but true.  Yet another amazing creation of that God who controls the moon that controls the tides. 

Ecclesiastes 12:1 says, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them.’”

Father, thank you for being so creative in making this fascinating world.  I’m sure in awe of it.  Amen.