We were taken to Seaside Heights Amusement Park once a summer, and it was a big deal. Unlike the amusement park closer to home, Seaside Heights was bigger and more exciting. Of all the rides, the roller coaster was the ride that thrilled me most. (Yes, this is the same roller coaster you saw submerged in the ocean after Super Storm Sandy.) I could have ridden it all day long if my stomach and wallet would have allowed.
Located on the farthest corner of the peer, the roller coaster had the ocean on two sides. Once strapped in, we heard the clicking sound as we were lifted to the summit. For a moment, we were on top of the world, able to look out across the sea and down the shoreline. Then, everything changed. With a sudden turn, we plummeted toward the wooden peer, swerving to the left, then right, before being lifted and dropped then turned again. I wasn’t one of those riders who let go and waved my hands in the air. I was a white-knuckler all the way. With eyes closed, I simply sought to survive. The view at the top became a distant memory. All I could think about were the twists and turns in front of me. It wasn’t until we were back on solid ground that I could remember the great view from the top.
The same is so often true of our lives. We’re lifted and given the incredible opportunity to live. Hopefully, along the way we’re given moments of inspiration, times when we see beyond the here and now to something larger. Such moments don’t come often, nor last as long as we might like, but they offer a perspective that can serve us well if we can just remember them. Unfortunately, life often involves sudden descents and twists and turns which make us forget the view from the top.
A job of a lifetime becomes excruciatingly difficult.
A joyful marriage faces challenges which shake its very foundation.
A religious person loses all sense of God when life becomes dark.
The twists and turns are real and make us lose sight of what filled our soul at the start the ride.
Let’s take a world-wide virus, for example. Such a thing can cause us us to cling to the sides of our cars with all our might and close our eyes tight. Mere survival causes us to forget the bigger picture - forget the ocean or shoreline - and think only of the immediate dangers.
But the ocean’s still there whether we see it or not. If we can just open our eyes a little and look beyond the twists and turns, if we can turn off the television and refrain from scrolling through the endless ups and downs of social media, we might catch a glimpse of the bigger world around us.
Looking up, we might see how blessed we are to have homes, food, family, friends and health. Such gifts have always been there. The ride just causes us to forget, sometimes.
