A Chapel A Day- Day 5 (A View By The Lake)

First UMC Fort Walton Beach.  FL
Photo: ©Drexel Gilbert Enterprises, Inc.

I love sitting in a church, chapel, or cathedral. I love admiring the architecture, whether simple or elaborate. I love the kneeling benches, altars and pipe organs. I love the stained-glass windows, the candles, and all of the traditions and rituals that are a part of that particular building. 

But, I understand that God is not limited to the walls that make up those buildings. 




And, so sometimes my 'chapel' is found in a place like this.

Photo: © Drexel Gilbert Enterprises, Inc.

Day 5 of my 40 day journey into Lent found me opting out of a bricks & sticks chapel, and headed to this open-air chapel of my own making. This is a quiet little lake I happened upon some time ago in a rural area of Northwest Florida. It's become a favorite spot of mine. It is a peaceful, beautiful, and a vivid reminder that "In the beginning, God created..."

Day 5's  hour of time challenged me to examine what it is that I have created.. and am creating... that will have lasting value after my time on Earth is done. For years, I wrote daily news stories for the morning and evening newscasts. I venture to say that only a fraction of those stories are still remembered by anyone today--including me!  (Except for the bloopers. Trust me. They last forever.) The houses I decorated, meals I cooked, errands I ran--while all important at the time-- are by and large part of the past. They came, they went, they are forgotten.

I pray that what will last into the future are the seeds of compassion, love, family, integrity, ethics, responsibility and hard work that I have sown in my beautiful children. I pray that at least some of what God has given me to say in speeches, books, and even this blog will touch a life here and there and cause something to take place in that person that will impact the future--either theirs or someone else's. I pray that I will become more selective in the way I spend my time and will be more desiring to spend that time creating something good--- something lasting---something that will touch others in a positive way, well into the future.

Why don't you join me? We will probably have to go outside the walls we are used to--whether they are walls we've constructed, or those that others have put around us. But, guess what? It could be that-- 'outside the walls' is where the creative process begins.