Nick and I are on a private weekend getaway and we’re resting up before we go out on the town.
For years I got flack and ridicule because I wanted to see Miami Beach. I had the impression that unless you’re 21 years old and looking for club hopping, music thumping nights, it’s not really the place to be.
But your heart wants what it wants.
And I wanted to see Miami.
Just like that, years of want came to an end. Nick surprised me with an early Valentine’s Day and birthday gift – a long weekend to Miami Beach. While Isaiah frolics with his grandparents, he and I had the opportunity to travel together – alone – for no other purpose than to relax and be together for the first time in YEARS. And, oh, it’s amazing.
A change in geography can save your soul. Even though it’s been one of the warmest winters in Ohio’s history books, it’s still winter and entrapping. Gray. Cabin fever. NO VIBRANT COLOR. No human movement outside. It can take its toll. And here we are, with a simple plane ticket and openness to do “whatever” we find ourselves walking in near 80 degree weather, with small colds from the temperature change, down Espanola Way deciding whether to try the Brazilian tapas restaurant or give the Cuban restaurant a whirl.
A smile as big as the shore is on my face as I write this.
And to add to this gorgeous little nook of a weekend, I’ve begun Paulo Coehlo’s latest book, “Aleph.” To put it mildly, it is PRECISELY where I am right now: in a spiritual struggle for identity and clarity. I had no idea what the book was about, but I had to put the book down after the second page, stare at the front cover and converse with Nick about the possibility that I read the book before because it was describing my life with a frightening accuracy. And it’s fiction. Since it just came out, I came to the reality that it was not de ja vu, and instead something mystical that drove me to pick up this book and take comfort and challenge from the pages fraught with spiritual crisis.
As a minister, it’s difficult to articulate what spiritual struggle looks like. So often I am asked questions about faith that seek ANSWERS when faith itself is about struggle, unknowing, and unlearning. Faith is about leaping, all the time, from mountain top to the next mountain top, until we are comfortable with the air. The problem is our bodies are made for the concrete ground and we never, ever get used to the air beneath our feet when they need ground to feel progress and movement. I struggle not with God, but with all the aspects of human faith, human frailty, and leadership. Decisions on how to move forward in faith are some of the most frustrating and consuming questions one can ask.
Religion matters to me and it’s never been black and white. It is marred with history and sin, wars and oppression. The more I evolve as a mature person of faith, the harder it becomes to understand what I am about since it’s always evolving.
This trip, unexpectedly has become an unexpected but welcome place to sit with that uncertainty. As a minister for others, it’s never about MY faith, or MY questions. I’m fairly transparent and let others know what my journey is, but it’s not really appropriate to centralize my own anything when serving others. A routine of serving others can create distance between me and my own spirituality. I can’t remember the last time I sat with my own self and just let myself listen to what came up. I sit at work and wonder about what I should say or lecture about to and for others, but that’s hardly the same as cultivating my own relationship with God.
Nick and I often talk about God, heaven, and take our best shots at hypothesizing the greatest philosophical question of all time, as ageless as the sky: Why are we here?
And it’s funny that we’re doing it here in Miami Beach, surrounding by loud music, glitzy tank tops, and strong cologne. But beyond those details lays a seagreen ocean of renewal and promise, welcoming me to a place I’ve dreamed about for many years. It has not disappointed.
Bienvenido a Miami.