Let's Buzz the Beach!
Friends! Any of you beach fans out there? My soul does somersaults upon first glance of a beac and its breaking waves, coupled with sand sifting thru’ my toes. Few things move me more than a trip to the beach.
I recently received a book recommendation (Oh, you knew I’d get around to a book sooner or later!) by a favorite author of mine who we’ve not heard from in a while. We’re going to have some fun with this discussion plus, we’ll learn a LOT…
The book? I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working by Shauna Niequist.
This book grabs you from the beginning. Shauna’s our most engaging tour guide thru’ some of her rough waters as well as gleeful moments, all the while pouring hope for us all over the pages.
Shauna, her husband, and two boys, picked up and moved to New York after living in the Midwest for years and years. Think about what all’s entailed in going from a house with a yard, to a tiny apartment in Manhattan!
Her husband, Aaron, was enrolled in a seminary in New York City. This is what led them to this move, subsequently downsizing (understatement!!!), finding schools for their boys, Henry and Mac, discovering how to live in a big city, not to mention climbing three flights of stairs to their apartment with each trip.
We learn in the intro’ Shauna has several goals for us readers to grasp. She wants her book to:
“encompass faith and curiosity,
compassion and self-compassion,
learning to let go and
learning to be a beginner again.”
ALL of those attributes are desirable, plus she says what the book is not: it is “not a to-do list,…or a road map to spiritual perfection.”
Then she shares what the book is:
Oh yes, we desperately need this!
There are fifty short vignettes (chapters), ten in each part, parts being:
Gravity of Love,
Unbelonging,
Cold Moon,
Bloom, and
Still Yes.
The titles of the vignettes cause you to try and figure out their meaning, however we readers usually discover it to be in a totally unexpected context which makes the read all the more fun.
My favorite (of many!) chapters is Buzz the Beach. Anytime Shauna and her family were staying near the water, one of them may be heard hollering, “Buzz the beach!” This means they’re going to take an extra few minutes to drive by the water and see the beach, the people, umbrellas, waves, etc.
Shauna teaches us “buzz the beach” is a
Shauna reminds us to praise God, our Creator, when we get the opportunity to witness these moments of wonder ….”After all, He made it all, sustains it all, …and we can practice our gratitude.”
Buzzing the beach can be anything in your joy wheelhouse, intentionally celebrating something. (Today as I type it’s the Summer Solstice and we’re celebrating the extra moments of daylight.)
After I read this chapter, I attempted to explain the concept to John. This was after he said, “Let’s take the convertible to lunch and eat down by the river.” I immediately said, “We’re going to buzz the beach on the Sabbath, no less! Yes!”
Another favorite chapter is A Movable Feast. This chapter is all about hospitality and being creative at it (as some of their family’s meals were with friends during the pandemic).
Hospitality is a huge gift of Shauna’s, harkening me back to another one of her excellent books, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes.
Shauna defines hospitality as “holding space for another person to be seen and heard and loved.” Her friend, Sibyl says hospitality is, “when someone leaves your home feeling better about themselves, not better about you!”
This reminds me of a Lazy Susan we have in our kitchen that says, “May all who enter as guests leave as friends.”
**Notice “food” isn’t in any of these quotes!** Shauna adds, “There’s a connection, a healing, a nourishing that goes beyond the nutrients and calories and vitamins and minerals.” And here’s the best part: “There’s a nourishing of spirit—if we’ve learned anything at all through the pandemic, it’s that we really need that connection.” And if it comes down to creating movable feasts to share with one another, so be it.
As she closes, Shauna confesses she knows there’s still an inordinate amount of things to learn. She says she’s on a mission to:
She closes with, “I trust more deeply in the goodness of our God than I ever have. I’m more aware of the darkness, and more grateful for the light.” (This is from Chapter 44, Greenport.)
Friends, these snippets are just three out of fifty from I Guess I Haven’t Learned that Yet. Run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore to grab this book and see if you don’t immediately learn a little something from each of Shauna’s fifty stories.
While you’re at the bookstore, check out another favorite book of hers several of my friends and I have read: Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living.
‘Til next time!!!
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are “affiliate links.”