Big Two Hearted River

Last week I heard mentioned twice that families were headed up North this summer to visit the Upper Peninsula's Big Two Hearted River.  Seems that it is a popular place for canoes and rafts to make their way to an attractive beach on Lake Superior.  Just head straight up from the Mackinaw Bridge. The name was known to me from the title of one of Earnest Hemingway's series of books on the adventures of his fictional hero, Jack Adams.  I had only read excerpts from that book but I had heard that the actual river and terrain described belonged to another UP river, the Fox I believe.

Thinking about this I am guessing that Hemingway switched names because the idea of two hearted indicated a truth about the wilderness and river that could be applied as well to something about Jack Adams.  In the story Adams arrives at a place that once was a lumber or mining boom town but now was deserted because fire had leveled it and blackened the forest around.  Thirteen taverns were destroyed and even the foundation stones were cracked from the heat.  Here we have the idea that the wilderness gives but it takes as well.  The river also provides both sport and bounty but is fickle.  One needs to learn to live with the rhythms or all this could be quite frustrating.

Most of my life I have resided near the East shore of Lake Michigan.  Prevailing winds come from the West and over time large sand dunes were built up along the shore.  Only later did people start building in and on top of those dunes and if you view things from only the perspective of a decade or so nothing seems to change.  But sand mixed with winds and winds mixed with the cycles of water levels make for a fragile environment.  Just south of us in Saugatuck along the lake shore is the ghost town of Singapore.  In the late 1800's it was a vibrant Lake Michigan port but shifting sands eventually buried it.

I grew up spending many summer Sunday's going to Grandpa's Lot, a forested piece of property high above Lake Michigan with hundreds of wood steps heading down to the sandy beach.  Later my parents bought a cottage about a mile south from there.  This you come to know after 60 years.  When the level of Lake Michigan rises and the late season storms rage the extreme power of nature eats away at the dunes.  Stairs to the beach have to be rebuilt.  Sometimes houses have to be moved back.  Sometimes houses, trees and 20 or 30 feet of dune collapse to the beach below.  Eventually everything looks nice and normal again but the edge of the dune is not where it use to be.  Lake Michigan is doing what it has done for thousands of years.  The new normal is not as grand as it was in the past.  Something has been lost, never to return.

This Pentecost I think about the ebb and flow of Christian influence in our nation.  I'll admit that I get frustrated when I see the ever increasing influence and control of government into every aspect of our lives yet the people that are charged with warning us that we are losing something don't, because they approve of it and like it.  They are totally ignorant of the Christian principles incorporated into the founding documents of this great nation and so those principles and documents are subject to change, improved by the wisdom of a godless, wicked age.  This is the new normal.

I could add to this the degeneration of attitudes we in the Christian church have had for decades in regards to holiness.  The majority watch the same shows, listen to the same music, read the same books and are convinced that sex is something that God hasn't really thought about.  The grand dunes are wasting away and who has the guts to stand in the breach.  It is easy for me to believe that these trends are unchangeable and irreversible.  It is easy for me to think - get me and my family out of here!

But then I think of Pentecost. When Pentecost came 120 anxious souls were filled with the Holy Spirit.  The fisherman, Peter, preached that morning and said;

"Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;  and you will receive the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call for Himself."  And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!"   So then those who had received his word were baptized;  and that day there were added about three thousand souls.  (Acts 2: 38-41)

May this Pentecost be started a revival in this country.  May the Holy Spirit be poured out in our lives, our churches, our commence and our government.  May countless souls be added to the eternal rolls of the Heavenly Kingdom.  May many millions be healed and delivered and encouraged.  And may Jesus be proclaimed  Lord throughout our land.