A lot of my musings about the nature of heaven involve Block Island. Every year when I return for my annual week, I have a moment of trepidation that it will have changed while I was away - and every year I sigh a big sigh of relief and smile a huge smile of happiness that it remains very much the same. As the ferry glides into Old Harbor, the breakfront is still the same, the hotels and shops look exactly as I left them, and the people all look so happy and relaxed and move slowly somehow, and stroll in a very different way than the people we left back on the mainland. Stress drops off my shoulders and I feel like I am returning home. I started going when I was much younger, and visited my parents every year when they stayed at the Surf for two weeks, then brought Brian when the boys were just babies. We would pick wild blackberries for jam, rosehips and bayberries. Brian and Dad would go swimming on Mansion beach and mom and I would give the boys baths and lay them on the beds for a nap while we sat on the porch sipping iced tea and rocking and talking. The shades would slap gently against the screens and they would be out for hours - up at 5:30 to catch the ferry, the sun and salt air would tucker them out. Such a tranquil time. After mom died I stayed with my dad for a week every August, and the boys stayed with him a week as well - a special time for the three of them. I still feel tremendously connected to my mom, and my dad as well,  when I am there. Lots of vivid dreams each year. And now not only do I have a room for a week, but so does Pam and Scott and Peter & Bethany - although they took this year off to accomodate the wedding. What a great - although REALLY HOT - week this one was! At the last minute I felt that there was no way I could justify going with all that I have to do - after all - the wedding is in three weeks! AND I am nowhere near packed for New York - what am I thinking about taking off for a week?!!! But it was fleeting - and I'm so glad I wasn't sensible, because as much as I need the time to work on things at home, my SOUL needed Block Island. The same people return year after year - some are going to be guests at the wedding - that's how family like we all are. Reading, playing scrabble, walking on the beach, shopping, morning prayer at sunrise, evening prayer at sunset, rocking on the porch in those wonderful rocking chairs, and going up to the North Lighthouse were all so relaxing and easy this year. Pam and I gathered smooth beach stones at sunset up at the lighthouse for a project for the wedding, with the changing colors of the sky and no one there but us and the sound of the waves lapping against the shore - there was no where else on earth I wanted to be. It was truly a blessing to have this down time before the explosion of change coming in the next weeks. Thanks be to God!