Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

When I was very young, my grandmother inherited a cabin on Mt. Desert Island from a close friend she had met at college.  It was a summer cabin with a huge stone fireplace, and stood on a cliff looking out over Frenchman Bay.  The sunsets were spectacular.  My bed was right next to a window overlooking the bay, and one of my favorite memories was waking to the sound of a lobster boat passing just beneath the window.
     I don’t remember the first time I had lobster, but it was a favorite of our family through the years when we would get together in Maine or Cape Cod.  I always understood that this was a special treat and I can still picture the whole family gathering around the great table at my parents’ home in Osterville; plates heaped with lobster, corn on the cob, French bread and salad.  Those were great times filled with laughter, barking dogs, and three generations of Taylors.
     With lobster such a prized treat, I was very surprised to discover that that wasn’t always the case.  There was a time when they were so abundant that residents in the Massachusetts Bay Colony would find them washed up on the beach in two-foot-high piles.  They were the poor person’s protein, and Native Americans used them not only for food, but also to fertilize their crops and bait their fishing hooks.
     With lobsters being available in such abundance, the price remained very cheap and they were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children during the colonial era and beyond. What I remember most vividly was discovering that servants would actually stipulate in their contracts that they could only be served lobster a certain number of times per week.  How could anybody get sick of lobster?

     The key, as it turned out, was in the preparation.  For centuries lobsters were cooked dead, and then overcooked at that.  It wasn’t until the 1880's that chefs realized lobsters tasted much better if they were boiled live and then cooked for less time.  That’s when lobster started showing up in fancy restaurants in places like Boston and New York City and the prices began to rise.
     Thirty or forty years ago, two and three pound lobsters were commonplace.  The last time I was in New England, I noticed that now a pound-and-a-quarter or a pound-and-a-half lobsters have become the norm.  When I saw the extraordinary number of lobster pots that fill the waters of Maine, I understood why.  American lobsters, once considered the food of the impoverished, have become a cherished delicacy, and demand is exceeding the supply.
     Getting the preparation right made all the difference.  I think the same can be said of almost anything: a well-written book; a great painting; a carefully constructed home.  When someone gets it “right,” it delights our senses and can nurture our soul.
     How do we get life right?  Jesus shows us the way, and my own experience has borne that out.  Again and again I’ve found that when I’m faithful and obedient, that life comes together in a way that is pleasing and right.  It is then that you and I begin to find deep and abiding peace.    

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.  Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.  It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.” (Proverbs 3:5-8)